Blog Gawe Ngacir

Joanne Beckham

2012-01-30T00:41:00.000-08:00

NAME: Joanne Beckham

SIBLING: David Beckham

CAREER: Hairdresser / Tweeter / WAG

QUOTE: "Just seen my bros new advert for db HOMME !!! Great advert !!! And I must say I just smelt it and smells amazing ! Reminds me of him !!"

"Does any1 eva dine alone .... I'm in wagamamas all by myself ... But don't feel embarrased lol !!!"

"Well impressed wit my new flip flops..."

Actress, Style Maven and New Momma Selma Blair's Hollywood House Up For Grabs

2012-01-29T12:10:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Selma Blair
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,780,000
SIZE: 2,918 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Anyone who knows any thing at all about real estate knows there are four main reasons a person—specifically a person of substantial financial means—sells a house and/or buys a new one: death, divorce, debt and diapers, otherwise known in the property bidness as The Four Ds.

Given that actress and celebrity style icon Selma Blair (Kath & Kim, Hellboy, Legally Blonde) had a baby last summer—an out of wedlock boy-child with her much-tatted and adventuresome fashion designer man-beau Jason Bleick—it's not much of a surprise then that this week she hoisted her house in a leafy section of Hollywood on the (open) market with an asking price of $1,780,000.

Property records show Miss Blair paid $1,315,000 for the fully modernized 1922 bungalow in November 2004, shortly after she hitched her marriage wagon to now ex-husband Ahmet Zappa, the actor/writer son of iconic artist/musician Frank Zappa.

Anyhoo, listing information for Miz Blair's fully-fenced and high-hedged house, tucked in to a leafy, upscale pocket of Hollywood where the foothills turn to the flats, shows there are 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in 2,918 square feet of almost entirely white interior space with matte, milky white walls, lustrous milky white painted wood floors and scad of cabinets, entertainment units and bookshelves all painted—you got—milky white.

The west-facing, courtyard-like front garden—turned out more like a back yard, perhaps, than a conventional front yard—has a wee patch of grass dotted with a random assortment of concrete stepping stones that link the front walk gate to the deep and wide covered front porch perfect for whittling away shaded afternoons. An impossibly narrow gated driveway hidden by a towering hedge runs up along the opposite side of the property and in between there's a dining terrace and a small, elevated concrete spa (or fountain) with cantilevered wood bench.

From what Your Mama can surmise, Miz Blair's Hollywood digs lacks a proper front door opting instead for two sets of wood-framed glass doors that open from the front porch directly into the main L-shaped living space divided into a sparely furnished foyer/lounge area with fireplace (and Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Couch) and a homier family room/den with a full wall of built-in cabinets with flat-screen tee-vee.

A separate office/library has built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with actual books, some sort of antler chandelier, and lots of windows that include wood-framed glass doors that make classic California indoor-outdoor living easy with direct access to the covered front porch and front yard.

Frosted glass panels divide the foyer/lounge area from the dining room where a built-in buffet offers both closed storage and open shelves for art, objet and book display, and a wide wall of wood-framed glass doors open to the backyard. The adjacent sky lit (and all-white) kitchen has snow white cabinets and counter tops, a huge center island with veggie sink, under-counter wine fridge and snack bar, cute little cookbook cubby, a pantry/storage wall with integrated flat-screen tee-vee, and a full complement of commercial style stainless steel appliances.
The master suite, privately situated at the extreme rear of the residence, has a second fireplace, chunky built-in cabinet at the foot of the bed from which a flat screen tee-vee rises at the touch of a button, a small but cozy sitting area with built-in window seat and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves—filled, again, with actual books—and a pair wood-framed glass doors that open to the backyard. A crisp all-white bathroom is anchored by a black floor and kitted out like a five-star hotel with high double sinks, separate make-up vanity, soaking tub and separate stall shower.

Rooms at the back of the house connect to a graphically-minded backyard where a tree-shaded concrete dining and lounging terrace steps down to the grass and gravel lower level where a cushioned, built-in concrete sofa bench makes a sharp right angle around a built-in concrete fire pit.

As for Baby Daddy Bleick, property record show at just about the exact same time in April 2006 he sold a ho-hum house in his hometown of Huntington Beach (CA) for $750,000 he dropped a $1,275,000 wad on an 1,873 square foot, city view mid-century modern residence on quiet cul-de-sac in the star-studded Oaks neighborhood where high profile residents/property owners include Brad Pitt, Christina Ricci, Justin Long, Kevin Spacey, and Mitch Glazer and Kelly Lynch who own a spectacular John Lautner-designed house

In a 2009 interview in Coast magazine Mister Bleick revealed he had leased his house and was then living in a teepee somewhere—we're not sure exactly where—five minutes from the beach. However, we suspect now that's he's got a youngin in diapers and a stylish celebrity baby momma—and, no doubt, a thousand dollar Bugaboo—he's given up teepee living for the time being.

No word on where Miz Blair and Mister Bleick plan to decamp but iffin we were the betting type, and we're not, we'd wager they'll stick to the artsy-fartsier east side areas of Los Angeles but eventually settle into a larger, more kid-friendly residence with a big(ger) backyard.

listing photos: The Agency

Penelope Cruz Biography,Wallpapers And Movies

2012-01-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

Penelope Cruz Sanchez height 5'6" known as Madonna of Madrid born April 28,1974 is a Spanish actress.Born in Madrid to Eduardo(retailer) and Encarna(hairdresser). She is the oldest of the three siblings , her younger brother Eduardo is a singer and her younger sister Monica is an actress.At the age of 15 Cruz made her acting debut in a Spanish pop song video.After studying ballet and jazz for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she jumped into acting in year 1992.At the age of 18, she made her first film debut in a comedy drama film Jamon,jamon and in the same year she appeared in another academy award winning movie Belle Époque .In the movie Jamon, jamon she played the role of a poor daughter of a village prostitute while in the latter she appeared as one of the four lusty daughters of a wealthy man. In the movie Jamon,jamon she appeared nude and had to do erotic scenes.Belle Epoque proved to be a big success as it received large number of awards and an Oscar for best foreign film and this gave Penelope international recognition.From year 1993 to 1996 Cruz appeared in several Spanish and Italian movies and made her first appearence in English movie 'The Hi-Lo Country' in year 1998. Suddenly her career began to rise with her roles in 'All the Pretty Horses' in year 2000 and Blow in year 2001.Thus she became a prominent face in Hollywood industry and appeared in her first biggest Hollywood movie the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film:''Pirates of the Caribbean:On Stranger Tides" in the year 2011.
Regarding Cruz personal life ,she had three year relationship with Tom Cruise which ended in January 2004 then she dated actor Matthew McConaughey from February 2005 to June 2006.Cruz dated co-star Javier Bardem in 2007 and married him in early July 2010 at a friend's home in Bahamas.Cruz gave birth to her first child Leo on 22,January 2011.
Movie/Year/Character:

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides/2011/Angelica

Sex and the City 2/ 2010 /Carmen Garcia Carrion

Nine /2009/ Carla

G-Force /2009 /Juarez

Broken Embraces/ 2009/ Lena

Vicky Cristina Barcelona /2008 /Maria Elena

Elegy/2008 /Consuela Castillo

The Good Night/2007 /Anna / Melodia

The Passion Within /2007/ Lupe Sino

Volver /2006/ Raimunda

Bandidas /2006 /Maria Alvarez

Chromophobia /2005 /Gloria

Sahara /2005/ Eva Rojas

Noel /2004/ Nina Vasquez

Head in the Clouds /2004/ Mia

Non ti muovere /2004/ Italia

Gothika /2003/ Chloe Sava

Fanfan la tulipe /2003/ Adeline La Franchise

Masked and Anonymous /2003/ Pagan Lace

Waking Up in Reno /2002/ Brenda – Spanish Woman

Vanilla Sky /2001/ Sofia Serrano

Sin noticias de Dios /2001/ Carmen Ramos

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin /2001/ Pelagia

Blow /2001/ Mirtha Jung

All the Pretty Horses /2000/ Alejandra

Woman on Top /2000/ Isabella Oliveira

Volavérunt /1999/ Pepita Tudó

All About My Mother /1999/ Hermana Rosa

The Hi-Lo Country /1998/ Josepha O’Neil

The Girl of Your Dreams /1998/ Macarena Granada

Talk of Angels /1998/ Pilar (as Penelope Cruz)

If Only… /1998/Louise

Don Juan /1998/ Mathurine

Abre los ojos /1997 /Sofía

Carne trémula /1997/Isabel Plaza Caballero

A Scent of Paradise /1997/ Doña Helena

Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health/ 1996/ Diana Balaguer

Not Love, Just Frenzy /1996/ Laura

La Celestina /1996/ Melibea

Brujas /1996/ Patricia

El efecto mariposa /1995 /Party guest

Entre rojas /1995/ Lucía

Todo es mentira /1994/ Lucía

Alegre ma non troppo /1994 /Salomé

La ribelle /1993/ Enza

The Greek Labyrinth /1993/Elisa

Per amore, solo per amore/ 1993 /Mary

Belle epoque /1992/ Luz

Jamón, jamón /1992 /Silvia

Denise Rich Lists Epic Fifth Avenue Penthouse

2012-01-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Denise Rich
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $65,000,000
SIZE: 12,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 9 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Perhaps emboldened by the recent record breaking (and bone chilling) $88,000,000 sale of Sandy Weill's Mica Ertugun-decorated penthouse at 15 Central Park West to a twenty-something year old heiress to a Russian fertilizer fortune, or maybe, as stated in the New York Post this morning, with a desire to downsize, songwriter/socialite/philanthropist and big-shit political fundraiser Denise Rich has hoisted her legendary, super-sized Fifth Avenue penthouse on the market with a $65,000,000 asking price.

The price makes it the most expensive co-operative apartment currently on the open market in New York City, edging out the monumentally scaled (if somewhat awkwardly configured) duplex at 740 Park Avenue that Time Warner widow and philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross officially put on the block late last year with a sixty million dollar price tag.

Miz Rich, for those who don't know, was married for thirty years to disgraced (but still filthy rich) financier Marc Rich who famously fled to Switzerland in the mid-1980s after then U.S. Federal Prosecutor—and eventual mayor of New York and pie-in-the-sky presidential candidate—Rudy Guiliani filed charges against him for tax evasion and illegal oil trading with Iran or some such other nefarious money-minting nonsense. Mister Rich, the more politically conscious children may recall, was very controversially pardoned by Bill Clinton in the dying hours of his presidency in 2001.

Miz Rich remained wedded to Mister Rich until 1996, long after he became a fugitive living a relatively quiet, heavily-secured and extremely deluxe life in some of Switzerland's swankier locales. Although divorced five years earlier, Miz Rich is rumored to have been an overnight guest at the White House the night before her ex-husband was pardoned in 2001 and she not surprisingly invoked the 5th Amendment when she was later questioned at a congressional hearing convened to determine if her ex-husband's pardon might have been brought about as a result of her considerable contributions to the Democratic Party in general and the Clinton Library in particular.

Despite her billionaire ex-husband's vast wealth—and her rumored $1-200,000,000 divorce settlement—Miz Rich earns plenty of her own moolah penning pop songs for radio-friendly stars like Natalie Cole, Celine Dion, Jessica Simpson, Marc Anthony, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige. She has thrice been nominated for a Grammy but, sadly for her, always a bridesmaid at the Grammys but never a bride....

Anyhoo, Your Mama isn't sure exactly when Miz Rich purchased her suburban mcmansion-sized penthouse atop the the all but architecturally featureless post-war Park V building. That's pronounced in the French, natch, as Park Sahnk. The limestone-based building sits heavy on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 60th Street across from Central Park and shares a fah-fah-froo-froo block with the much more swellegant, architecturally articulated, uni-towered (and plainly phallic) Sherry Netherland Hotel. The building offers residents white glove services (all the door men, concierges, and etc. a songwriting chatelaine could require) as well as a access to a private garage and an in-building fitness room. Of course, Miz Rich has no need to embarrass herself in front of her neighbors with visible sweat stains since she's got a small gym of her own located on the lower level of her penthouse with panoramic Central Park and city views, a steam shower, sauna, and bidet-equipped bathroom.

Floor plans included with current listing information (above) show not just one but two elevators open directly into the penthouse. The two entry areas converge in a vast, sky-lit 1,200-plus square foot so-called "grand salon" outfitted with lattice patterned striated marble floors, and over-sized sliding windows that allow access to a narrow wrap-around terrace. We find the plethora of champagne and beige furnishings and dated-looking day-core utterly lackluster (although, we imagine, heinously expensive) but there's some very serious blue chip artwork hanging on the walls that along with the juicy park and city views sort of makes everything else irrelevant.

The comparatively puny formal dining room seats 22—as per listing information—and opens to a slim planted terrace with head on Central Park views. The main service areas of the penthouse, as expected pushed back behind the dining room, encompass an industrially-minded stainless steel and granite kitchen, separate walk-in pantry, spacious laundry room with two washers and two dryers, and 1 full and 1 half bathroom. Just off the kitchen a tucked away staircase winds down to the penthouse's lower level staff and service wing that includes an office, second eat-in kitchen and, squirreled away behind the service elevator, a prison cell-sized staff bedroom and compact, windowless bathroom

Back upstairs on the other side of the penthouse, a library lined with lustrous, custom-milled Fiddleback mahogany offers Miz Rich cozier quarters with a wood-burning fireplace, slim private terrace, hooch-hound lovers wet bar, and a slew of built-in shelves villed with dozens of framed photographs.

The colossal master suite consumes the entire southwest end of the gigantic penthouse's upper floor and includes a living room-sized sitting room, big bedroom with gas fireplace and private terrace, a couple of walk-in closets, a pair of fitted dressing rooms, and two bathrooms, the larger with private cubicle for the terlit and bidey, more counter space than most Manhattan kitchens, and a separate jetted tub and over-sized, double-headed, glass enclosed shower stall.

A 30-foot long media room and adjoining billiards/dining room at the extreme rear of the lower level both have easy access to a small(ish) third kitchen and three family/guest bedroom suites, each with ample closet space, private bathroom and access to a planted terrace, line up along the north side of the apartment. Besides the family quarters and service areas, the lower level of the penthouse also includes the aforementioned park view gym, a room marked "bedroom" on the floor plan but more likely—we imagine—to be used for massages and yoga, and a separate (elevator) entrance that connects to Miz Rich's own million dollar (and we hope fully sound-proofed) recording studio.

The third level roof terrace measures, by our rudimentary count, nearly 4,000 square feet and is only accessible, apparently, by traipsing through the apartment's service area and climbing one of the building's two interior service stairs. While access to the roof terrace lacks a je ne se qua one might logically expect in a $65,000,000 penthouse, it does offers the exact sort of city and park views of which many New York City real estate dreams are made.

Miz Rich is a well-known party thrower, both for fun and to support her various philanthropic involvements. She's an impressively Rolodexed, globe-trotting gal with her bejeweled finger in lots of social pots who can pull in a lot of high profile power players from the media, entertainment, social and political worlds. It is at one of Miz Rich's dinner parties where conversation companions might include the likes of Patti Labelle, the Dalai Lama, Donna Karan, Nancy Pelosi and Guy Laliberté.**

**Use yer noggins nuggets, we have no idea if any of those people have ever, actually set a foot in Miz Rich's penthouse. We're just illustrating the genre and tenor of the guests one could easily expect to find wolfing down canapé, sucking down white wine and marveling vapidly about the view during one of Miz Rich's notoriously lavish dinner parties or fundraisers.

So the story goes, one winter Miz Rich hosted a party at her penthouse for which she—no doubt at great expense—transformed her roof terrace into an outdoor ice skating rink. While guests nattered on about the weather and the G8 Summit—or whatever fancy people talk about at winter-time parties held in 12,000 square foot Fifth Avenue penthouses, professional ice skaters dressed in little more than gold body paint swooped and salchowed across the ice. We're not sure whether to be amused, flabbergasted or depressed by such an (alleged) occurrence.

A 2001 article in Vanity Fair, which succinctly and accurately described Miz Rich's penthouse as a "mammoth two-story creamy-beige marbled apartment," revealed the jet setter rolls with small army of staff that at that time included, "six maids, two butlers, a cook, and a secretary, as well as two drivers, two masseuses, a hairdresser, a trainer, a yoga instructor, and a personal photographer on call." She also, at that time, maintained staffs at her luxury homes in both Southampton (NY) and Aspen (CO). A later report from 2007 in the New York Observer stated Miz Rich "reportedly has a staff of 20 (personal healer and yoga guru included)," that includes "something named a 'wardrobe calibrator,'" whatever the holy crap that is.

In July 2007 one of Missus Rich's daughters, stand up comic Daniella and her money manager man-mate Richard Kilstock, dropped $3,900,000 for a lower floor crib with a mirrored entrance hall, formal living and dining rooms, 2 bedrooms, 3.5 marble bathrooms, and a staff room/office with Murphy bed.

The Park V is the same building, New York City real estate watchers will recall, where Los Angeles-based billionaire businessman David Geffen dropped $14,170,000 in early 2010 on a full floor, two unit combination spread he purchased from entertainment industry executive Robert A. Daly and his extraordinarily accomplished Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer/songwriter wife Carole Bayer Sager. Your Mama hears from someone in the position to know that Mister Geffen's newly remodeled spread—all worked over by Rose Tarlow, we're told—includes a major park view master bedroom where an entire panel of glass in the bathroom can, at the flip of a switch, go from fully opaque to completely clear so that Mister Geffen (and his shower sharing friends) can have a view of the park through the bedroom windows.

We're a bit muddled on the exact holdings currently in Miz Rich's real estate property portfolio. She once owned (and may still own) a ski house in Aspen—but, of course, dahling—and property records show in the late 1990s she paid $3,200,000 for a near 3-acre estate a block from the beach on the expensive shore of Coopers Neck Pond in Southampton (NY) with a 7 bedroom and 9 bathroom main mansion. At some point, we're not sure exactly when, records show Miz Rich sold her Hamptons house for an undisclosed price to New York City-based investor and property developer Steve Witkoff. We'd be somewhat shocked if Miz Rich doesn't own another high-maintenance mansion in the Hamptons where she spends but a few summer weekends each year but our not particularly thorough or unscientific crawl through the internets didn't turn up any direct evidence of such a thing.

Since 2007 Miz Rich has owned a 150-plus foot long yacht she dubbed Lady Joy (above). She says she bought the boat after decades and millions spent on yacht charters with male captains who sometimes balked and/or copped a 'tude when she—as ought to have been her privilege as the lessee—requested the boat be moved here or there. The four-deck Lady Joy—equipped with an elevator and helmed by a female captain, dontcha know—has a crew of 11, accommodates 12 guests in 6-en suite staterooms, and includes an armada of water toys plus two Vespa scooters for land explorations, Big spenders can, should they be inclined, charter Lady Joy for about a quarter million clams a week, not counting fuel costs or dockage fees.

Miz Rich told the New York Post she planned to downsize into a smaller apartment—one that will no doubt be three or four times the size of the average American home—and split her time between New York City and Europe where her both of her surviving three daughters—and ex-husband—live.

listing photos and floor plans: Corcoran
boat photo: Charter World

N.Y. State of Mind Two: Thierry Mugler

2012-01-26T14:27:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Thierry Mugler
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $7,995,000
SIZE: 4,100 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In 2003, amid crushing financial losses and with much boo-hooing by the stiletto-clad fashion elite, gleefully unconventional French couturier Thierry Mugler closed his eponymous label and all but disappeared from the public eye. More accurately, the Clarins company, who owned the brand since 1994, shuttered the operation. Anyhoo, the French phoenix not only emerged four or five years later with a long list of new fashion world ventures but utterly and disarmingly transformed into 240 titanic pounds of pierced, tatted, plastic surgified and muscle bound (senior citizen) beefcake.

Despite the loss of control of his professional baby and his essential evaporation from the dernier cri fashion scene, Paris-based Monsieur Mugler had the inclination and dough-re-mi to acquire and maintain a penthouse pied-a-terre in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood that property records reveal he bought in July 2004 for $4,500,000. Monsieur Mugler recently if not very quietly listed his luxurious and sparely dressed Big Apple crash pad with an haute asking price of $7,995,000.

An April 2010 article in The Old Grey Lady revealed the vexatiously vainglorious Monsieur Mugler only makes use of the spacious, high maintenance New York City duplex penthouse about two months of the year. That's a colossally costly two months when one considers whatever mortgage payments Monsieur may (or may not) be responsible for and the $7,555 per month—$90,660 annual—in property taxes and common charges not to mention the must-be-considerable expense of maintaining the fully decked and landscaped roof terrace partially shaded, the children will note, by an impressively mature pine tree.

Listing information shows the duplex penthouse, "perched atop a prime Chelsea prewar building," was originally designed as two separate (but now fully integrated) apartments that together span around 4,100 square feet with two bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and open city views to the south and west.

An intimate vestibule—with well-placed if windowless powder pooper—acts as a welcomedbuffer between the front door that opens into the building's public hall and the lofty apartment'sentrance gallery done up in de rigueur impress-the-guests glam with a gold-leafed ceiling and a couple of rather forbidding sculptures of humpback javelinas, hoofed hyenas or some other phantasmagorical creature Your Mama decidedly does not much fancy coming across in the woozy dark of a boozy late night.

The 500-plus square foot corner living/dining room, minimally done up in grey, black, red and white, has espresso stained hardwood floors underfoot that anchor the ethereal space. Two long walls of over-sized windows do not appear to have any window treatments whatsoever and wide expanses of crisp white walls work well for artwork display and/or movie projection. Vintage red glass decanters and a floating staircase, fashioned Donald Judd-like with a rhythmic (if precarious looking) procession of cantilevered treads, breaks up the otherwise linear room with a few feminine forms and one electrifying diagonal. That's right, puppies, love it or hate it, we're talking contemporary architecture that mimics modern art.

The pearwood and limestone galley kitchen isn't very big by suburban mcmansion standards, but it's absolutely well equipped with fully integrated Euro-style appliances, is plenty sizable enough to cook a proper meal and un-pack the moo goo gai pan, and bends unapologetically towards the architecturally (melo)dramatic with a soaring ceiling topped by a gigantic shed-roof sky light. The sky light pokes up through the planted roof terrace which may have allowed Monsieur Mugler to peer down from the roof terrace and make sure his willow wisp thin house boy (or whomever) salted his lunchtime greens (or whatever) in just the right manner.

Cozier quarters can be found in the moody and manly mahogany-paneled library with wood-burning fireplace, glass-enclosed display and book shelves, and humongous windows fitted with a intricately geometric grid of black shutters. Mister Mugler—and/or his nice-gay or lady decorator—balanced the electrifying coral red sofa with a pair of earthy milk chocolate leather arm chairs, gleaming waterfall glass coffee tables, and a few cow skins tossed out on the rich wood floors.

Each of the two, 28-foot long master bedrooms has substantial closet space and plenty of room to maneuver. One bedroom offers a custom-fitted dressing room (with window) and a hotel-type bathroom with glass-enclosed, party-sized shower while the other claims an uncomfortably compact crapper, a 17-plus foot long separate office space with three windows on two walls and—conveniently—a separate entrance to the building's public hall, a set up perfect for secreting late night trysts in and out without having to reveal the true magnitude of the penthouse and, hence, the real depth of one's bank accounts.

The vulnerable-looking but no doubt powerfully engineered cantilevered stairs, which Your Mama could and would never attempt to negotiate without a nerve pill and at least two good sized gin & tonics, ascends with high impact minimalist style into a glass-roofed and glass-walled green house and adjoining conservatory/sitting room space that spills out through multiple steel-framed glass doors to an 800 square foot fully planted terrace made totally private with high hedges and tall fences.

The bi-level terrace features a trellised dining area, built-in barbecue area and, it may surprise some to learn, a hot tub. A properly private hot tub on the roof in the middle of Manhattan does offer intriguing and lascivious possibilities, to be sure, but what neither the terrace nor the greenhouse/conservatory do have, alas, is a facility. That means Your Mama, Monsieur Mugler and any one else up on the roof with an bulging bladder will have to make a Sophie's Choice, to navigate the theatrical staircase down to the penthouse's privately situated powder room off the entry vestibule or to more simply but far less privately scootch behind the pine tree for a quick whiz.

It should surprise no one that Your Mama doesn't run in the same gym-toned high fashion circles as Monsieur Mugler so we haven't any idea why he's opted to sell his Chelsea penthouse aerie. It could be the significant potential profit or maybe he's just decided it's much simpler (and so much less headache) to dump the high maintenance penthouse and book himself into a swank suite of rooms at any of the many high-priced boo-teek hotels that have popped up at an alarming rate all over downtown New York in the last 5 or 10 years.

listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty

N.Y. State of Mind One: Naomi Watts and Liev Schriber Buy

2012-01-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Naomi Watts and Liev Schrieber
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $3,950,000
SIZE: 4,315 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After several years kicking the real estate tires of a scads of six-and-a-half and fifteen million dollar downtown townhouses, much in demand Oscar-nominated actress Naomi Watts (21 Grams, J. Edgar, King Kong, I ♥ Huckabees) and always working movie actor/Tony Award winning thespian Liev Schreiber (Glengarry Glen Ross) are reported to have finally, at long last settled on a multi-million dollar parking lot-sized loft on a cobble stoned street in the celeb-friendly and trés trendy TriBeCa neighborhood.

The two-unit, semi-combined spread sprawls across an entire, low floor of a relatively unadorned 8-story, solid steel and concrete building put up in the 1920s. The pair of co-operative cribs were last listed at $4,500,000 but online documentation reveals the no-board-approval-necessary units were previously listed in late 2009 and early 2010 at just $4,000,000. The New York-based Hollywood hot shots are said to have paid $3,950,000 for the essentially raw units that together measure 4,315 square feet and feature key-lock elevator access, airy 14 foot ceilings, old school (and down market) painted linoleum tile floors, 13 windows of varying sizes on three walls, and "onlx 6 structural columns for optimal flexibility."

The current configuration (as seen on the floor plan included with listing information, above) shows the two units combined include three small but proper bedrooms—one marked as an office, all with windows, and none with built-in closet space, two basic (and/but window-free) bathrooms, and two kitchens tucked deep in to the (possibly darkish) rear of the loft(s). Each of the two units currently have vast, prairie-like living/dining/working spaces and one of them claims limited but protected Hudson River views from the southwestern corner or the building.

From the looks of things, the Watts-Schreibers will need a smart architect and nice-gay or lady decorator to smoothy combine the two adjoining but fully independent condos into one cohesive living space suitable for a high-profile but low key family of four. Or not.

These long time lovers and happily unmarried procreators both come from wildly eccentric and not entirely stable mothers who hauled them around to various hippy-dippy ashrams and cultish compounds so it's not such a stretch for Your Mama to imagine they might seek a more Old School sort of living situation in a massive downtown loft that retains more than just a whiff of the neighborhood's roots as a warehouse district where artists and other space seekers leased leviathan lofts for pennies on the dollar because, once upon a time, nobody even vaguely Uptown or Wall Streety wanted to live in TriBeCa. Today, of course, the neighborhood is beyond upscale, known for is well-regarded public school, upscale shopping and dining options, baby buggy choked sidewalks, and spacious "loft" residences affordable, generally speaking, only to financially fortunate folks like Wall Streeters and Uptown types.

So, despite the four million clam cost of their new TriBeCa crib(s), maybe Miz Watts and Mister Schreiber will go boho and simply add a few walls for bedrooms in one of the units and use the other for work and Showbiz things like, say, a state-of-the-art hair and make-up station and a willy nilly mess of rollings racks draped in Thom Browne suits and bedazzled red carpet gowns. Or not.

Anyhoo, we're not entirely sure where the comely couple and their two kids currently reside in New York City although we used to see them on a regular basis in the Cooper Square area in the East Village. What we do know is the artsy-fartsy and deep-pocketed couple maintain at least two additional residences, one in Los Angeles and the other in the Hamptons.

In October 2010 Miz Watts and Mister Schreiber very briefly listed their house of unwed bliss in the leafy Brentwood area of Los Angeles with an asking price of $5,995,000. The vine-covered house, long owned and sold to Miz Watts in June 2004 by sublime Tinseltown royal Sally Field, was purchased by the British-born actress just after she and now deceased actor Heath Ledger split up and at least a year before she hooked up with her handsome and articulate Baby Daddy.

In September 2007 the couple did what so many wealthy New Yorkers do, they snatched up a swanky house in the Hamptons that's a five (or so) minute stroll from the beach and and even shorter amble in to miniscule downtown Amagansett (NY). Property records reveal the high-hedged and shingled house, on nearly three-quarters of an acre with a swimming pool and separate guest cottage/pool house, cost the comely couple $4,300,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Grant Stott

2012-01-26T03:34:00.000-08:00

NAME: Grant Stott

SIBLING: John Leslie

CAREER: In-store DJ (Top Man in Edinburgh) / Police officer / TV presenter (Wemyss Bay 902101 / Fully Booked / Scotsport) / Panto actor (Snow White / Cinderella / Robinson Crusoe & The Caribbean Pirates / Babes In The Wood, with John Leslie) / Newspaper columnist (Edinburgh Evening News) / Radio presenter (Forth One 97.3) / After-dinner speaker

QUOTES: "It was hugely unfair what happened, and I saw what it was like to be in the eye of the storm... I think John would love to get back into TV, but he would have certain reservations. He's not going to grab the first thing he's offered."

"John did not get off lightly, but he is doing well in the property business. He has inner strength and he just gets on with his life."

Jorge Posada Retires and Shakes Up Real Estate Portfolio

2012-01-25T15:28:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Jorge Posada
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $11,500,000
SIZE: 5,400 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Much to our own chagrin, Your Mama woke up much later than usual this morning, hung over like a wet blanket from all the gin, candy and late night Australian Open watching. When we finally managed to pour ourselves a cup of coffee and check out the incoming emails and news feeds we quickly found all the international property gossips squawking like wild hogs about how lauded and applauded New York Yankee Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez has done sold a New York City condo he snatched up in March (2011) for $5,500,000 then brazenly flipped back on the market a few months later with an audacious but apparently not unrealistic eight million dollar price tag. No word on the agreed upon sale price but it was sufficiently high enough for Mister A-Rod to "lock in a significant profit" New York City real estate sources "familiar with the sale" told The Wall Street Journal.

Fascinating as Mister A-Rod's professional accomplishments, eternal parade of usually blond, typically hard-bodied and often high-profile gal pals, and fickle-seeming real estate doings may be, he ain't the only Yankee with an itch to unload a high-priced and art-filled New York City condo crib. Rather than talk trash about Mister A-Rod's almost entirely white, Warhol print filled full-floor bachelor pad on the 35 floor of the Rushmore, a towering Upper West Side condo complex that looms over the Westside Highway with sweeping Hudson River views, we've opted instead to head over to the Upper East Side where Mister A-Rod's long-time teammate Jorge Posada and his va-va-voom wife Laura have had their full floor condominium residence listed since early December 2011with a major league asking price of $11,500,000.

It was only yesterday, we learned on the interweb just this afternoon, that Mister Posada officially announced his retirement from professional baseball, a turn of events that may or may not have something to do with him and the missus listing their deluxe and decidedly contemporary Manhattan homestead.

Believe it or not puppies, Your Mama had never even heard of Mister Posada before this morning so we did what we always do when it comes time to discuss a professional athlete: We picked up our bedraggled Princess phone and warily dialed our moody, boozy, sleep deprived and ball-obsessed b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau who when asked what she knew of Mister Posada moaned feverishly with an obvious lust in her loins and described the six-foot-two slugger in her typically lewd manner as a "Hot, uncut Cuban by way of Puerto Rico with big ears!"When we warily queried how she knew such inappropriately personal things, Fiona haughtily replied, "I just know. I can see it in his eyes." Ugh. Anyoo, Miss Trambeau eventually went on elucidate that during his 17 year career catching and batting for the Yankees Mister Posada was a god damn superstar, a five-time All-Star player who possesses a handful of chunky, diamond-encrusted World Series championship rings.

Property records suggest Mister and Missus Posada purchased and subsequently combined two adjacent mid-floor condo residences in to one mansion-sized sprawler at The Seville, a 31-story, full-service white glove condo tower that lords over a busy but fairly ordinary corner of East 77th Street and 2nd Avenue. The glassy tower offers residents round-the-clock door people, direct access to a private garage, and a state of the art fitness center complete with the requisite body torture devices, an outdoor terrace, swimming pool, spa, and sauna. We're not entirely sure when they snatched up the first piece of their hoity-toity New York City real estate puzzle but we do find clear evidence Mister and Missus Posada paid $3,600,000—or $3,500,000 depending on where one peeps—for the nearly 2,300 square foot condo next door in August 2007.

Listing information and marketing materials for the Posada's now- and rather smartly-combined 10-plus room urban oasis show it spans approximately 5,600 square feet of interior space—and 0 square feet of exterior space, offers four highly desirable exposures—those would be north, south, east and west, of course—and is currently configured with 4 bedrooms and 5 full and 2 half bathrooms.

A pre-war sized foyer serves as the gateway to the amply proportioned living and dining rooms hat anchor the outside central corner of the residence. The dining room seats 10 or more at a very glossy wood table and the rather casual "formal" living room, sheathed in a shimmering silver wall covering, has a built in entertainment center along the back wall that contains a giant flat screen tee-vee surrounded by open shelves with various multi-colored objet on display. The cluster of ancient looking statuettes on the side table next to that kooky but comfortable-looking leather Euro-recliner would have to go since we'd probably make a panicked call to the security people and/or wake up our violent tendencied (and occasionally armed) housekeeper Svetlana every time we passed by that room in the hoochy haze of a dark early morning and imagined we saw an intruder out of the corner of our eye.

The apartment makes an unusually long and powerful 80-plus sweep from the dining room in the northwestern corner of the condo clear past the suburbs-scaled kitchen, beyond the breakfast area—used by Mister and Missus Posada as a sitting room—and clear through the home office/den area tucked cozily in to the condo's sunny southwest corner. Whatever one may think of this apartment and it's lackluster location too far east to be really posh, that 80-foot long stretch is a rare and jaw-dropping thing to behold in a city where a $4,000-a-month two-bedroom apartment with 900 square feet is considered spacious.

A sybaritic, Poggenpohl kitchen has, as per listing information, a Chevy-sized center work island with long snack counter, miles of teak cabinetry, several over-sized windows with city views, and a boat load of high-grade and high-cost appliances that include twin Sub-Zero fridge-freezers. A service hall with laundry room and two separate powder poopers runs behind the kitchen and connects the front foyer to the service entrance and breakfast room that includes a wet bar (with full-height wine fridge) and opens into a convertible bedroom space used by Mister and Missus Posada as a casual home office/den built out with full wall of custom-designed open and closed shelving perfect for bong stashing and displaying knickknacks, photographs and various other paddy whacks.

Three family/guest bedrooms, each with generous closet space, huge windows and an attached private bathroom, along with a half dozen additional closets make up the eastern flank of the multi-winged apartment and the celebrity-style and clothes horse-accommodating master bedroom stretches back to form the west wing behind the family quarters and encompasses a private entry vestibule with closet and over-sized bedroom with additional closet space plus a built-in entertainment center with wall-mounted flat screen boob-toob. There are custom-fitted his and her dressing rooms—his dark and manly with frost glass fronted wardrobes and hers gleaming white lacquer with a glammy crystal chandelier—as well as his and her bathrooms, hers all in white with decked out hair and make-up center and his outfitted with a steam shower, wall-mounted tee-vee and walls sheathed in over-scaled chocolate brown crocodile that is more likely embossed leather than actual crocodile hide. Either way it's a hidebound pooper that could easily give an animal activist involuntary and uncontrollable fits of hysteria and peristaltic paroxysms.

With Mister Posada now retired, the Florida-based pair, who have three children, including one who grapples with craniosynotosis, no longer have a professional need to be in New York City for long periods of time. Of course we don't know a Snookie from a snooker table but we can imagine Mister and Missus Posasda no longer feel the need to pay for and maintain a substantial apartment in the Big Apple that listing information shows carries common charges and taxes that total $10,545 per month. Your Mama's bejeweled abacus calculates that comes to a pocketbook draining $126,540 per year not counting the costly repairs that always creep up, unnecessary but much desired improvements and, if there is one to maintain, mortgage payments, not to mention the thousands spent each year on tipping the building staff during the holidays.

That may be entirely financially manageable for man like Mister Posada who in his last years as a Yankee earned well upwards of $13,000,000 a year (as well as some wordy jeers from articulate places) but as a retiree whose income will likely drop precipitiously—but no doubt remain substantial compared Average Joe and Middle Class Mindy—the downsizing of his real estate load is a prudent and savvy maneuver.

Like many Yankees, Mister and Missus Posada have long maintained a mansion in Florida, in Tampa where the Yankees do their pre-season spring training. Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter both have been to Flah-rih-duh gajillions of times but have never set a toe in Tampa. In fact the only factoids we know about Tampa is that it embraces the Gulf of Mexico with a giant and busy harbor, that actress Butterfly McQueen was born there, and it has long been the home base of the Home Shopping Network.

Records indicate the couple acquired two acres in the upscale guard-gated enclave that winds through and around the Avila Golf and Country Club in Tampa, FL over the summer of 2001. It's not clear if Mister and Missus Posada custom-built their huge house in Tampa but the Hillsborough County Tax Man shows the existing residence wasn't built until 2003.

Mister and Missus Posada put their electronically gated Tampa estate on the market in early 2010 with an asking price of $7,250,000. Listing information we managed to cajole up out of the interweb shows the 2-story mock-Med mansion (shown above) measures 9,788 square feet and includes a total of 6 bedrooms, and 6 full and 2 half bathrooms.

The interior spaces include one of those ubiquitous impress-the-guests type foyers so often found in suburban mcmansions all across America, all the usual high ceiling formal entertaining spaces one expects in a near 10,000 square foot house plus vast informal family quarters that include a "state-of-the-art gourmet kitchen." The sprawling house also includes, as per listing information, a library, home theater, paneled game room with custom bar and wine cellar, a separate playroom for the kiddies and, natch, a fitness room attached to the expansive master suite.

The estate looks over the golf course—an maniacally manicured vista that does nothing for Your Mama but is quite desirable for many—and include a gated motor court, garage space for five cars, and a resort-style swimming pool and spa complex with deep sunbathing and dining terraces, a lagoon-style pool with shallow shelf entry, a pair of water slides and a Playboy-like grotto with with water fall and secluded spa designed, we imagine, with—ahem—privacy in mind.

The price for Mister and Missus Posada's Tampa digs eventually plummeted to $5,950,000 and property records show they finally unloaded their white elephant in early November (2011), after more than 600 days on the market, with a drastically lower sale price of $4,500,000.

Long before the Posadas sold their Tampa mansion property records reveal they'd already shelled out $6,250,000 to buy a significantly larger waterfront mansion on a much smaller .51 acre lot almost 300 miles away behind the guarded gates of the Old Cutler Bay community in the Miami bedroom community of Coral Gables. The recently completed mock-Med pile was once listed as high as $10,450,000 and measures, according to information we found on the interweb, more than 13,000 square feet with 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and includes a water side negative edge swimming pool and private 70-foot dock for parking the family watercraft.

exterior photo (New York City): Property Shark
interior listing photos (New York City): The Modlin Group
listing photos (Tampa): Smith & Associates Real Estate via Trulia and Dream Realty

Jennifer Aniston Buys Big Digs in Bel Air

2012-01-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Jennifer Aniston
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: we hear around $22,000,000
SIZE: 8,500 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It seems sit com queen and rom com royal Jennifer Aniston is moving on up to a twenty-some million dollar mid-century modern in the hoity toity Los Angeles, CA community of Bel Air. Before we address the newest real estate rumors swirling around Miz Aniston's latest (and alleged) acquisition let's quickly recap some of the notoriously real estate fickle celeb's most recent real estate activities.

In 2006 Miz Aniston dropped $13,500,000 for a Hal Leavitt-designed mansion in Beverly Hills then spent five years and many more millions on an extensive overhaul spearheaded by talented star-friendly architect and designer Stephen Shadley. Just as soon as the paint was dry Miz Aniston had a real estate change of heart and flipped the house on the market in early 2011with an oh-no-she-di'int asking price of $42,000,000.

Earlier in the year she'd told the people at People that she'd been on the hunt for a little place in New York so she could spend more time on the east coast. She also explained to the People peeps that she'd woke up in a London hotel room one night in the not so distant past and just at that moment came to the realization her life "felt really cluttered" and decided she needed to "simplify" her life, a process that included selling her big house in Beverly Hills which was "just too much" for the then single actress.

Of course, celebrities sometimes have a funny way of simplifying their lives.

The Bev Hills house quickly sold the house to an Orange County-based mutual fund magnate in June (2011) for $35,000,000 but not before Miz Aniston had already dropped more than seven million clams on two apartments in a low key but swankety-swank pre-war building in the West Village, one a puny 1-bedroom penthouse wrapped in planted terraces she bought from hairstyling honcho Sally Hershberger and the other a 1-bedroom apartment directly below. If the work has not already been done (or begun) the two adjacent but unconnected apartments will require extensive work to cohesively combine. That doesn't really sound very simple but then again who are we to know from simple?

Anyoo, it looked then like the long-time L.A. resident did indeed plan to high tail it back to New York City where she grew up and lived until she landed her defining (and exceedingly lucrative) role on Friends. But, not so fast said the little green man in the purple pants. It wasn't long after Miz Aniston sold her house in Beverly Hills that she and her new New York-based man-beau Justin Theroux—who left his live-in gal pal of 14 years to get with Miz Aniston—settled into unmarried (and leased) bliss in a high-priced love nest in the Bird Street neighborhood high above Los Angeles' Sunset Strip and it wasn't long after that bit of bizness hit the property gossip blogs Your Mama began to get wind of Miz Aniston house hunting in the Platinum Triangle, interested primarily we were told in architecturally significant homes with lots of privacy and seven figure asking prices.

Next up came all the hoo-ha and hullabaloo about Miz Aniston ditching her plans to combine her newly acquired West Village apartments in favor of a much morecontemporary condo crib listed at $8,700,000 and located in same high-brow boo-teek building in Gramercy Park where Chanel's exceptionally prolific German-born fashion goddess Karl Lagerfeld owns a pied a terre he's had on and off the market in the last year. Miz Aniston quickly shot down the rumor, admitting she did tour the place but had not made an effort to purchase.

Back on the west coast the rumors of Miz Aniston's desire for a permanent residence began to heat up and about two weeks ago we heard from Hermione Hightower, a trusted informant who sometimes has very accurate intel on Miz Aniston's real estate doings, who passed along the scuttlebutt that Miz Aniston was in the process of acquiring a clean-lined A. Quincey Jones contemporary in Bel Air on and off the market since 2008 an last listed with an asking price of $24,900,000.

We (stoopidly) sat on the tip. Naturally we asked around and received some "I hear that too" responses but nothing concrete enough we felt we wanted to move forward with the information. Alas. We snoozed and we losed. Today gossip juggernaut TMZ reported Miz Aniston has indeed snatched up the very same A. Quincey Jones-designed mansion in Bel Air that Hermione Hightower told us the superstar was buying weeks ago.

Another valued source told us earlier today that word on the Platinum Triangle real estate street is that Miz Aniston will pay around $22,000,000 for the approximately 8,500 square foot residence perched on a 3.25(ish) acre promontory high above the Bel Air Country Club.

A uniform grid of trees shade the gated, plaza-like gravel motor court and directly reference the rigorous geometry A. Quincey Jones applied to the architectural elements of the property that include a U-shaped main house with 4 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms plus a separate guest house tucked into a quiet corner of the estate and a brightly colored poolside pavilion with outdoor dining and lounging area with fireplace.

Interior spaces have gleaming honey-colored hardwood floors, vast planes of gallery white walls, long banks of full-height windows and sliding doors, and purposeful pops of bright colors that include a cobalt blue wall that surrounds a courtyard outside the formal dining room, lipstick red fireplace column that separates the front entry from the formal living room, and cobalt blue chimney breast in the master bedroom.

The back of the house opens up balconies and terraces with canyon and city views. A wide lawn stretches back the swimming pool (with spa and poolside pavilion) that sits on a lower terrace between the house and the small hillside vineyard that undulates along the lowest slope of the terraces estate. Certainly she'll pay someone to grow her grapes, mow the lawns, trim the trees, and skim the pool, but employing a small army of horticulturalists and botanists, a shirtless pool man, and a part tile viticulturist doesn't sound like the simple life to Your Mama but then again....

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Westside Estate Agency

Brigitte Nielsen Buys Hollywood Hills Fixer Upper

2012-01-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Brigitte Nielsen
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $600,000
SIZE: 1,539 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Several months ago we received an unexpected communique from long-time informant Babbling Babette who tattled to Your Mama that platinum-haired model/hacktress/reality star Brigitte Nielsen and her much younger fifth husband Mattia Dessi were house hunting in Sherman Oaks, CA, the spiritual if not geographical heart of Los Angeles' ur-suburban San Fernando Valley.

We promptly forgot about the matter until a couple weeks ago when Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter went to visit a couple of effervescent (and hard partying) spinsters with whom we're acquainted. Out of the blue, over multiple shots of Russian vodka at noon, one of our always entertaining hostesses let it slip the six foot tall Danish-born d-list celebrity had recently completed the purchase of a very modest ranch style fixer upper in a little known and not particularly glittery pocket of the Hollywood Hills known as the Hollywood Manor.

Your Mama well realizes many of the children under the age of 35 may not have a clue who Miz Nielsen is but, once upon a time, back in the mid-1980s, she was a punishingly stunning and somewhat androgynous Amazonian model turned budding action flick bad ass (Red Sonja, Rocky IV) who briefly hitched her marriage wagon to Sylvester Stallone (with whom she had dinner at the White House in 1985), had a much-publicized romance with hairy-chested New York Jet Mark Gastineau (which resulted in the production of the second of her four children), and who several times bared her taut and bulbous naughty bits in the glossy pages of Playboy. She was, for a hot minute, the shit. Alas, Miz Nielsen's showbiz career hit the skids almost as quickly as it began but not before she managed to eek out a sporadic if not entirely unsuccessful music career, mostly in Germany, Austria and Spain.

Alas, the the fickle interests of Hollywood turn on a dime and the intoxicating glamor of fame subsequently evaporates. Like so many washed up entertainment industry types the last 5 or 10 years Miz Nielsen eventually turned to reality television. She's appeared in a frightfully long list of tawdry reality programs in both the U.S. and Europe, most notably on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (2008) and The Surreal Life (2004) where she met and embarked on a bizarre (and, one hopes, faux) romance with insanely annoying rapper Flavor Flav. In 2008 she had a slew of plastic surgeries taped for and aired on German television and she currently stars on sixth season of Ich bin ein Star—Hold mich hier raus!, the German version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! It all seems a little depressing to Your Mama but, let's get real, who are we to judge? We spend out days writing about celebrity real estate for Christ damn sakes.

Anyhoo, after we sobered up from our mid-day hooch-fest with the spinsters we had a poke around the property records which do indeed reveal Miz Nielsen paid an even-steven $600,000 for a rather motley looking two-story house in the Hollywood Hills not so far from Universal Studios. Listing information we dug up off the internets shows the 1,539 square foot house was originally built in 1939 and has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and peek-a-boo mountain views.

A fenced and tree-shaded courtyard with fountain on the street side of the house ensures Miz Nielsen's neighbors can't peep in her front windows and leads to wood-floored interiors spaces that include a small "formal" living room with green marble fireplace surround, dining room, sun porch, and a green and white-tiled galley-style kitchen that listing information energetically and generously describes as a "COOKS KITCHEN!"

Many of the house's rooms open through French doors to the various courtyards, terraces and patios that surround the house. The various and multitudinous outdoor spaces include a narrow, awning-shaded strips of lawn with small pond, tended to but still somewhat unruly looking shrubbery clumps, a wide deck with lattice-screened pergola-shaded lounge area, and terraces beds planted with apple, pear, avocado and peach trees.

Additional amenities (and "amenities') include an attached 2-car garage with direct access to the house, sky lights and stained glass windows, two fireplaces, central heat and air, and solar panels on the roof that listing information surprisingly specifically indicates will save Miz Nielson "APPROX 25% OFF" her utility bill.

Your Mama has it on very good authority that Miz Nielsen, who reportedly maintains a house in her husband's native Italy and is sometimes reported to live in Palm Springs, has long leased a house in the Hollywood Manor 'hood that happens to be all but across the street from the one she just purchased.

Other resident celebrities—or "celebrities" depending on your point of view—of the Hollywood Manor enclave include inestimable helmet haired actress Morgan Fairchild, bespectacled tee-vee carpenter Paul DiMeo (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) who owns a Spanish casa once owned by Tinseltown cowboy Tom Mix, and pretty brunette actress Erin Daniels from The L Word who is not, as it turns out, a lesbian.

listing photos: Realty Source

Georg Ratzinger

2012-01-24T02:21:00.000-08:00

NAME: Georg Ratzinger

SIBLING: Pope Benedict XVI

CAREER: Wehrmacht soldier / Priest / Choirmaster / Author (Mein Bruder Der Papst)

QUOTES: "We are all conditioned by the period in which we live; we share with the people of our period the difficulties of our time, the concerns of our time, but also the joys."

"Pupils told me on concert trips what went on. But it didn't dawn on me from their stories that I should do something."

"At the start I also slapped people in the face, but I always had a bad conscience."

Brandon Boyd Double Whammy: Two

2012-01-23T15:03:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Brandon Boyd
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: $2,750,000
SIZE: 2,909 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier today Your Mama discussed the somewhat unconventional Venice, CA residence that Brandon Boyd, much-inked visual artist and comely lead singer of the radio-friendly rock bank Incubus, currently has up for sale with an asking price of $3,195,000. Mister Boyd listed his long-time abode back in August 2011 at a notably higher price ($3,495,000) and although the situation was much covered by many of our celebrity property gossip compatriots Your Mama did not, for reasons we don't recall, delve in to the matter at that point and time.

Mister Boyd may have yet to sell his quirky (and deluxely done) crib near the beach but it was recently tattled to Your Mala by an informant we'll call A. Nonny-Mouse that the slim-hipped (and apparently long-haired) singer-artist has already purchased another property, also in Venice.

Making use of very specific information provided by Missus Nonny-Mouse Your Mama was able to confirm the same trust and trustee Mister Boyd used to acquire his house in Venice—purchased from actress Maria Bello in November 2005—now shows up as the new owner of a fully fenced, gated and secured property just a momentary stroll off busy Abbot Kinney Boulevard, the primary arty-farty/hippy-dipy and increasingly upscale commercial heart of the still rough around the edges, left leaning Los Angeles beach community of Venice, a geographical and historic magnet for (among others) political radicals, hippies and hipsters, successful creative types, assorted freaks and geeks, arty-farty showbizzers, and a sizable and very visible homeless population. Resources and documentation available online indicate the lofty-residence in question, somewhat smaller that Mister Boyd's commercial conversion just over a mile to the north and west, went for $2,750,000.

Listing information Your Mama teased up out of the interweb shows the 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom residence measures 2,909 square feet, a figure that may or may not include an office space above the detached 2-car garage. The house was custom designed and built in 2007 "by a prominent interior designer." Said designer turns out to also be the seller who property records reveal as Amy (Devault) Acuna and her fashion designer/wardrobe stylist huzband René Acuna who acquired the property in the final days of 2002 for $573,000.

A gated walkway shoots up the side of the property and house to a brick-lined inset entryway where a black steel-framed commercial-style glass door swings open to a proper and intimately-scaled entrance hall with radiant heated polished concrete floor and full wall bathed in a high-glam, white silhouetted silvery wallpaper that we like because it's shiny and we like shiny things but also worry its well past its Warholian 15 minutes. The cozy-compact foyer explodes into the voluminous main living space with staggering 30-foot high exposed wood bow truss ceiling, bleached wide-plank wood floors (unnecessarily) laid at a 45-degree angle, a wood-burning fireplace, vast expanses of white walls for bouncing light and displaying artwork, and a pair of french doors with custom hand-forged hardware that open to a decked, fenced and high-hedged courtyard where a cushioned built-in bench hugs a tire-shaped concrete fire pit.

The kitchen, tucked under the stairs and open to the dining area of the main living space, seems a wee bit wee maybe for a 3,000 square foot loft-style residence but is generously equipped with a chunky white marble-topped center work island with snack counter, ebony flat-fronted cabinets with thickly veined black marble counter top, high-grade stainless steel appliances, and an awkward built-in buffet with plenty of space for cook books as if anyone actually uses cook books anymore. We tease. A butler's pantry with under-counter wine fridge connects the kitchen to the foyer and a bathroom facility that may be uncomfortably close to where food is prepared and served for Your Mama's preference but does offer dinner and drinks guests a relatively private place to do their dirty business.

An open stair leads up to a loft/den with grey-brown hardwood floors underfoot—notably different that the bleached stuff on the floor in the living room below—a built-in entertainment/storage cabinet at one end and a built-in desk and book shelves on the other.

A double-wide wood door in the loft/den slides back on sleek barn-inspired hardware to a wide corridor and master suite. A bedroom-sized walk-in closet with custom built ins and spa-like earth tone bathroom with separate soaking tub and over-sized shower flank the broad corridor that connects to the wide (if somewhat narrow looking) bedroom outfitted with wood beamed ceiling, gigantic concrete wood burning fireplace, and an extra wide sliding glass door that join to a small private balcony.

A grassy patch runs up the side of the house to a professionally landscaped postage stamp-scaled courtyard that separates the main house from the aforementioned alley-facing detached 2-car garage with office space above. A small deck between the two buildings marks the outdoor shower area that is, as best as we can surmise, totally open to the rest of the small but usable backyard area. Now listen, hunties, no one loves an outdoor shower in the cool evening of summer time more than Your Mama but, have mercy puppies, there does not seem to be a shred of privacy for the showeree here, just a too visible corner of the yard where people can just stand and around gape and guffaw while you inelegantly try to wash beach sand out the crack of yer damn ass.

Anyhoo, in addition to the 2-car garage there are four more off-street parking spaces (one of which doubles as a fenced dog run). Now children, we realize some of y'all are gonna gripe about the gangs in Venice and how it's little more than an expensive and glorified ghetto but regardless of what one may think of the admittedly sometimes less than savory shenanigans that go on in Venice it's impossible not to take not of the rare and valuable luxury six off-street parking spaces is in a tightly packed and parking challenged community where some of the otherwise often liberally-minded homeowners and residents literally fight with the essentially homeless (and not always respectfully hygienic) occupants of the scads of campers and RVs that sometimes dot and line the narrow streets of Venice.

Your Mama, who does not know a balloon from an artificial hip about Mister Boyd's actual plans as regards to his new digs, would bet both our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly the office space above the garage will wind up converted into a music/art studio where thirty-something year old Mister Boyd can brandish his paint brushes, blow his didgeridoo and sing his pretty heart out.

Whatever Mister Boyd does to customize his new house and whatever real estate and home day-core traditionalists might think of his idiosyncratic (but hardly avant garde) decorative ways, Your Mama fully expects the end result will be thoroughly infused with his well-honed personal style that exudes an authentic-seeming (if inescapably curated) modern day bohemian point of view.

listing photos: Abbot Kinney Real Estate

Brandon Boyd Double Whammy: One

2012-01-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Brandon Boyd
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: $3,195,000
SIZE: 3,500 square feet (approx.), 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Brandon Boyd—writer, artist and plaintively-voiced front man for mainstream rock band Incubus—may hail from the archetypal-suburban streets of Calabasas, CA but he's long made his home in the nitty gritty beach community of Venice (CA) where in August 2011 he put his arty-farty if prohibitively pricey for most artists residence on the market with an optimistic $3,495,000 price tag. In early December, a few months after he dropped almost three million bucks to snatch up another house in Venice—more on that later—the rather becoming, sinewy slender and fearlessly tattooed Mister Boyd dropped the asking price of his boho beach side bedsit to it's current figure of $3,195,000.

Listing information indicates the once-commercial two-story structure was built in 1905 and used as a hotel "sometime in the 1940s." Your Mama was told or read somewhere—we can't recall which—the building once operated as a bordello but we aren't able to verify the veracity of such so we don't recommend the children spread that bit about without a caveat. Anyhoo, property records and previous reports on the matter reveal Mister Boyd's abode—situated a short block from the beach and, by Your Mama's assessment, desirably unconventional—was briefly owned by two-time Golden Globe nominated actress Maria Bello (Prime Suspect, ER, A History of Violence, The Cooler) who owned the unorthodox domicile for only 13 months (or so) and sold it in November 2005 at a near quarter-million dollar profit to Mister Boyd for $2,715,000.

The exterior of the mint green structure belies little of the bohemian luxury inside the fully-renovated and upgraded concrete- and cork-floored crib that feature 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, airy 12-foot high pressed tin ceilings with articulated moldings, earthquake-retrofitted exposed brick walls and low-key but high-brow kitchen and bathrooms that resonate of a quasi-industrial upscale Parisian garret, if there is such a thing as a quasi-industrial upscale Parisian garret.

The residence sits hard up on the street with nary an inch of buffer between the sidewalk and the front door opens that directly into the spacious main living space. Mister Boyd (or his nice, gay or lady decorator) wisely installed some sort of curved screen between the front door and the base of the staircase. Not only does the ancient art of Feng Shui require such an interjection to keep the money from flowing right down the stairs and out the front door, it adds a much needed smidgen of visual concealment from anyone who may be walking along the street when the front door is opened.

The "formal" living room, not surprising littered with musical instruments and chock-a-block with art and other objects that ooze with Mister Boyd's personal interests and fascinations, may suffer from a lack of clear glass windows—glass block was used on the exterior wall to maintain privacy but still bring natural light in to the room—but does benefits from a full wall of built in bookshelves filled with actual books and other ephemera that may or may not include some avian taxidermy. A clean-lined, custom-built floating steel staircase with chunky wood treads provides the necessary tension between the vintage nature of the original architecture and the kick-up your feet casual (if costly) and animal skin-draped day-core.

A towering pair of solid wood raised panel doors connect the living room to the ample, open plan combination dining room and kitchen kitted out in High Urban Loft style with simple, white Shaker-style cabinetry and commercial stainless steel appliances that include a restaurant-grade sink, super-size range with separate griddle, and a $10,000 glass-fronted Sub-Zero fridge/freezer that makes Your Mama sweat and swoon with unrequited appliance lust. Several sets of French doors connect to a narrow ground level courtyard tiled with Mexican pavers, hung with a myriad of cheap capiz shell chandeliers and furnished with a variety of wired things that include a vibrant, sunshine yellow cafe table and chairs.

Reclaimed warehouse-type windows line portions the upper level landing where the cork floors extend into the street-facing master suite complete with oddly off-center fireplace, exposed brick walls and pressed tin ceiling. Mister Boyd's boo-dwar offers the style maven a boo-teek sized and naturally-lit closet/dressing room and a beauteous bathroom designed by "a famous local architect" according to listing information and finished with well-worn antique herringbone wood floors—like one might find in a quasi-industrial upscale Parisian garret—white subway tiles smartly grouted in a contrasting grey, twin sinks atop a Jean Prouvé-inspired base, and a fireplace with tile surround adjacent to a free-standing soaking tub set into a greenhouse-like nook with steel-framed frosted glass wall and ceiling.

Listing photographs show Mister Boyd used a large, sky-lit space at the upper rear of the residence as a den/office area and a separate detached addition at the back of the property encompasses a two-car garage that opens to an alleyway and a 640 square foot sound-proofed music studio/guest quarters wrapped in theatrical red curtains and conveniently equipped with a kitchenette.

An unadorned exterior staircase, the sort of thing one might expect to find tucked into an unseen section of an office building or civic structure, climbs up to a wood-decked roof top terrace with an elevated, pergola-shaded shelter perfect for lounging, napping and—for those so inclined—getting frisky outdoors. Tall corrugated metal fencing along the sides may look a bit harsh to those who prefer more traditionally residential materials—we happen to l.o.v.e. the utilitarian nature of the humble and undulating material—but does ensure privacy for anyone who might like to soak up the sun and/or have an open air lunch snack and beverage in their birthday suits. Listing information indicates the roof deck is plumbed for a spa—a feature that pleases our mate The Dr. Cooter to no end—and there's a peek-a-boo view of the glimmering Pacific Ocean over the urban chaos of the surrounding roof tops and telephone wires.

We're not sure why Mister Boyd would want to vacate this obviously much-treasured residence in Venice for another, slightly smaller (and much more polished) loft-like residence in Venice located just over a mile away, significantly farther from the beach and much closer to the busy Abbot Kinney shopping and dining district. But, if we've said it once we've said it 78 times too many, such are the sometimes inexplicable and frequently capricious real estate ways of the rich and famous.

listing photos: Abbot Kinney Real Estate

Kobe Bryant Loses Three Mansions in Divorce

2012-01-20T15:58:00.000-08:00

In 2003 L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant was accused of assaulting a 19-year old woman in a Colorado hotel room. Mister Bryant denied the charges and claimed the sexual relations were consensual. The salacious charges were dropped a year later after the woman declined to move forward with a trial but not before the professional dribbler apologized to his wife for his sexual indiscretion with a $4,000,000 eight-carat purple diamond ring. His impending divorce, however, will cost the well-compensated shooting forward and 5-time NBA champion far more than a four million dollar finger sparkler.

All the celebrity-based blogs and sports-oriented websites are abuzz today with the news that Bryant's soon-to-be ex-wife Vanessa will receive all three of the couple's luxurious Orange County cribs as part of her reported (and alleged) $75,000,000 divorce settlement.

Your Mama, as we are sometimes want to do, did a little digging around in the property records and determined that Mister and soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant together owned a total three mansions of varying values, all within 5 minute drive of each other, nestled into upscale Newport Coast area in the mountains above the Pacific Ocean just below the hoity-toity beach community of Newport Beach.

The self-dubbed Black Mamba and his then teenage bride bought his first house near Newport Beach (shown above) in October 2001, according to property records, for $1,700,000. The Orange County Tax Man shows the gated, U-shaped two-story mansion, tucked into the tail end of a tiny cul-de-sac in a gated Pelican Ridge development. Records show the house was completed in 1997, sits a .47 acre hillside parcel with roof top and mountain views, measures around 6,500 square feet, and contains a total of 6 bedrooms. The palm tree-dotted back yard wraps around two sides of the house and includes various entertainment terraces, built-in barbecue center, small but lush lawns, and free-form swimming pool and spa.

Documents Your Mama had a long look at online show the property was transferred from Mister Bryant into soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant's name in early January 2012.

In July 2003, the couple spent $2,650,000 to purchase another, smaller but still large home two short blocks away in the same upscale gated enclave of Pelican Ridge. Records indicate the house is slammed on to a tight .29 acre plot and a recent report in the New York Post indicates it's occupied by soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant's momma.

Documents available online show this house was also transferred into soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant's sole ownership on the very same day in early January (2012) as the above mentioned abode.

In June 2008, Mister and Missus Bryant purchased, through a trust, a not-yet completed mansion just 1.5 miles away in the much ritzier (and, natch, guard-gated) Pelican Crest planned development. Records show the house, listed at $10,900,000, was snatched up for $9,540,000.

Listing information from the the time of the sale that Your Mama managed to tease up out of the interweb shows the then (and still) under construction 4-floor ocean view mansion was designed with more than 14,000 square feet of "Santa Barbara style living" that includes and elevator, 6 bedrooms, 9 full and 3 half bathrooms, subterranean parking for six luxury whips, a basement level with media, game, wine and music rooms plus and office and staff suite, and a sub-basement level with exercise room, sauna and steam facilities, and a game court.

It's not clear to Your Mama if Mister and soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant made any alterations to the plans for the Richard Krantz-designed domicile but a February 2011 article in the Orange County Register revealed that the home was then still under construction with a myriad of permits filed for various revisions.

Once again, online documents we perused show soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant became the sole owner of this property on the same day in early January (2012) as did the other to previously mention properties.

What soon-to-be ex-Missus Bryant would want her trio of large and high-maintenance mansions and what she plans to do with them is, at this point, a mystery. However it certainly wotld not surprise Your Mama in the slightest if she eventually sold all three and moved her, her momma and kids into another pricey and posh pad in the area because, well, that's how the rich and famous often roll.

aerial photos (top and middle): Google
aerial and exterior photos (bottom): Orange County Register

Vanna White's Ex Lists Palatial Beverly Park Pad

2012-01-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

SELLER: George Santo Pietro
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: Make Him An Offer
SIZE: 14,554 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little birdie came chirp chirp chirpin' along the other day and tittered in Your Mama's ear that restaurateur and property developer George Santo Pietro—better known, perhaps, as the ex-husband of be-gowned Wheel of Fortune letter turner Vanna White—appears to have quietly floated his behemoth mansion in Beverly Hills' Beverly Park community on the market with an undisclosed price tag.

We quickly queried a few of our better contacts in the Platinum Triangle—the pricey pocket of Los Angeles comprised of the Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Bel Air communities—who often know the what's-what up in Beverly Park. We quickly heard back from an exceedingly well connected (and much valued) informant—let's call him Ned Knowshisstuff—who told Your Mama that word on the Bev Hills real estate street is that Mister Santo Pietro hasn't put an official asking price on the property, asking instead that interested parties "make him an offer he can't refuse." With all due respect, bitch pleeze. Come on now Mister Santo Pietro. You and Your Mama both know that ain't no way to sell a damn house, even a gigantic one like yours. It's just a way to ensure you feel indignant with insult when some bargain hunting billionaire offers half the amount you really want for the house.

Property records we peeped reveal Mister Santo Pietro first acquired the land in 1995 with his then-wife Vanna White. The erstwhile pair, who made a couple of kiddies together before the divorced in 2002, paid a member of the Saudi royal family $2,050,000 for the 5.076 acre spread near the northern gates of the guard-gated community of steroidal (mega-)mansions.

Deeds and documents we perused aren't entirely clear about if ex-Missus Santo Pietro—that would be Vanna White—still maintains a financial stake in the Beverly Park property but we do know Miz White now lives in the nearby, guard-gated and star-stocked Mulholland Estates enclave in a significantly smaller but still undeniably gigantic 8,988 square foot Mediterranean mansion just a couple doors down from a similarly-sized and styled mansion long owned by troubled Tinseltown scion and sometimes volatile actor Charlie Sheen. Mister Sheen, celebrity real estate watcher surely recall, bought a larger house in the Mulholland Estates 'hood last year and briefly had his old house—the one a couple doors down from Vanna White—on the market last year with a $7,200,000 asking price.

Anyhoo, the Los Angeles County Tax Man indicates Mister Santo Pietro's crab-shaped mansion, a titanic Tuscan-style structure, was custom-built in 1997 with 14,554 square feet and 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. Since there's almost no information available on the listing agent Mauricio Umansky's website and the property is not currently listed on the MLS, it's impossible for Your Mama to know if those numbers are entirely accurate the the home's current configuration. Suffice to say the crib is colossal and there are plenty enough bedrooms and bathrooms to comfortably house 2 families and require a part-time minimum wage girl whose only responsibilities are scrubbing terlits and making beds.

Photos of the property on the listing agent's website—the beau-hunky reigning real estate agent king of Beverly Park who stars on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with his wife Kyle Richards and who listed three of the most recent properties to sell in the community of bulky and bloated private residences—show a cavernous entrance hall with double staircase, spacious formal living and dining rooms done up with Old World oil paintings, dozens of gilded Louis the Something chairs, and at least two fringe-trimmed velvet upholstered tie-back sofas. Beyond the formal living room, in the much cozier, men's clubby library the walls and ceiling are paneled in dark wood (that may or may not be mahogany or some other more exotic wood) with built-in lighted book cases and the herringbone patterned wood floors are covered in antique rugs and animal skins.

Less formal and family quarters comprise an open plan eat-in kitchen and family room festooned with red silk and fringed onion-shaped Chinese lanterns. The ceiling gives off an air of architectural authenticity with antique rough-hewn beams while a wood-burning fireplace with regal, carved stone chimney piece anchors the cluttered family room area at one end of the roomy room and a long row of industrial ranges runs along the entire back wall of the kitchen. A massive, u-shaped center island has a stool-height snack counter and double dishwashers. A jumbo (and truly terrifying) pot rack over the sink area would require Your Mama take out an extra life insurance policy just to run the dog's water bowl under the tap. We'll say nothing more of the two, cheap-looking plastic garbage bins inexplicably placed at the two ends of the center island.

A basement level wine cellar and lounge concrete floors, arched and vaulted brick ceiling, lots of tufted furniture and what appears to be and must be a knock off painting of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the original of which, as we all know, hangs permanently in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. It was here in this very wine cellar in early 2011 where hard partying Hollywood hot shot Charlie Sheen, just about to embark on a 36-hour bender, reportedly offered to rent Mister Santo Pietro's big ol' Beverly Park mansion at a rate of a quarter million clams a month so he could house the so-called "porn family" he wanted to create. Mister Sheen's minders quickly put the kibosh on that deal according to the folks at gossip juggernaut TMZ.

Photographs of Mister Santo Pietro's house on real estate agent Mauricio Umansky's website shows a vast master suite, probably in itself larger than the average American home, that encompasses a ballroom-sized bedroom with fireplace, sitting area, access to a deep covered balcony with over the tree top canyon view, and a separate office furnished with a gilded desk that looks like it could might have once been owned by a gold-loving Russian czar. There's also a small fitness chamber and a large Asian-themed massage room, a garage-sized closet lined with custom-built cabinetry, and at least one oval-shaped bathroom with inlaid marble floor, gorgeous glass chandelier, celebrity-style make-up vanity, and a separate soaking tub and steam shower. Although we can't fathom why, the open center area of the unnecessarily roomy master bathroom is furnished like a damn living room with a sofa covered in a champagne-colored silk slipcover and a pair of lyre-back Chippendale-style chairs (that may or may not be actual Chippendales). Now children, we can certainly understand the need for a stool or even a cushioned chair in which to plop down and trim one's toe nails in the bathroom but why is it that someone might want enough seating in the bathroom to host a handful of people? Seriously? Do the wealthy enjoy an audience when they brush their teeth or pluck the hair from their nostrils? Why? But we digress into our own ignorance.

The back of Mister Santo Pietro's palatial mansion opens to a series of arched colonnades that frame views over of negative edge swimming pool and spa and over the trees to the rugged ridge lines of the surrounding mountains. Lawn areas on either side of the swimming pool provide plenty of space for trampolines and impromptu matches of strip croquet. A steep slope on the front side of the mansion is planted vineyard-style with maturing grape vines, a horticultural folly that probably costs Mister Santo Pietro more to maintain each year than Your Mama earns in an entire year.

In July 1998 Mister Santa Pietro (and then wife Vanna White) paid a few million dollars to acquire the 2.11 acre parcel next door. Records suggest Mister Santo Pietro bought out his now ex-wife Vanna White in the summer of 2004 and by 2007 he'd erected an approximately 27,000 square foot with 9 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.

In December 2010, after first listing the house at a now-obviously optimistic $50,000,000 and after leasing for a few month it to His Purple Majesty Prince at a reported rate of $200,000 per month, Mister Santo Pietro finally sold the opulent spec-built mansion next door to his own for $22,620,000 to a married couple whose fortune derives primarily from hawking mid-priced ladies handbags on QVC.

Although the high-end real estate market in Los Angeles (and elsewhere) suffered bitterly as a result of the mortgage crisis and global economic downturn in 2007-2009 there appears to be some serious life in the old girl the last couple of years with a healthy number of transactions in Beverly Park.

In September 2011 Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Todd (of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) sold their opulent faux-French pile for $18,800,000 and just a month later a two-house compound of 26,116 square feet once owned by Saudi Royal family member Abdul Aziz bin Adbullah went for $16,875,000.

In mid-November 2010 porn peddler Zorm Zada sold his geometric contemporary for $16,500,000 to a wildly wealthy Saudi businessman who, we were told by a Beverly Hills real estate maven, may or may not be member of the royal family and who quickly caught a severe case of The Real Estate Fickle and flipped the 11 bedroom and 18 pooper property back on the market a few months after buying with an asking price of $25,000,000. The 20,000-plus square foot compound was taken off the (open) market seven months later.

L.A.-based billionaire Tom Gores dropped $21,000,000 in late November 2010 on a 15 bathroom mansion with 20,013 square foot mansion, dubbed by the seller as The Great 78. Of course, Mister Gores already owned a slew of mansions in and around the Platinum Triangle so why he bought this one isn't known to Your Mama but such are the wacky real estate ways of the ridiculously rich.

The MLS currently shows just one Beverly Park behemoth listed on the open market, an origami-esque concrete, wood and glass contemporary on 2.83 acres, designed by California architect Rob Wellington Quigley, and currently listed at $25,000,000. The multi-winged modern manse and its various outbuildings measure in at around 16,000 square feet with a grandly scaled entertaining spaces, a de rigueur home theater, 1,000 square foot fitness/spa facility, a dozen bathrooms, 4 bedroom suites in the main house, another two in the detached two-story guest house and an additional 1 bedroom guest apartment in what listing information calls a "secluded pool house."

Undoubtedly there are several to many other estates in Beverly Park available for tour and purchase by Richie Rich types who can curry favor with the right well-connected real estate agent(s) able to gain access to any of the mega-mansions being shopped around as pocket listings.

As for Mister Santo Pietro's real estate plans, we have no idea. We might guess he's looking to downsize but then again he doens't really seem the type to downsize, does he?

listing photos: Luxury Style Photography for The Agency

Vera Wang's Glass House in the 90210

2012-01-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

Undoubtedly any number of property snobs and surely some of the more mouthy children are gonna gripe and snipe til the cows come home about being subjected first this morning to ice queen Oksana Bauil's glitzy two bedroom condominium just outside of New York City in the suburban New Jersey community of Cliffside Park. For those folks (and everyone else) Your Mama has an afternoon peace offering.

In the late days of last summer word began to slip slide down the celebrity gossip grapevine that wedding dress designer turned lifestyle guru Vera Wang spent nearly ten million smackers on a very glassy, minimalist-minded pied-a-terre in the oh-so-trendy (if exceptionally pricey) Trousdale Estates area on the eastern edge of Beverly Hills, CA.

Listing information we scared up from the time of the sale shows the low-slung single-story residence was originally built in 1967, exhaustively re-worked over the last three years by high-end house flipper/designer/real estate agent (and seller) Steven Hermann, and purchased by Miz Wang in August (2011) for $9,200,000.

The 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom pavilion, defined by high-gloss surfaces, voluminous spaces, and steel-framed walls of full height glass panels that suck up the sweeping views across the vast glittering sprawl Tinseltown and spill effortlessly out to the backyard entertainment spaces that include dining and sunbathing terraces, an elevated spa, in-ground swimming pool and a thin strip of well-watered lawn.

It only took a few short months for Miz Wang to roust her army of style and design mavens to whip her west coast landing pad into pristine, publication-ready shape. A recent piece in Harpers Bazaar penned by fashion writer Derek Blasberg—available online here—featured scrumptious pictures of Miz Wang's very spare Bev Hills getaway snapped by the devastatingly handsome, liberally mustachioed and generously talented photographer Douglas Friedman who maintains a image-driven blog called The Fascinator Your Mama has been rather smitten with the last few months.

While Mister Friedman's photos present a slightly more pared-down day-core than the already very spare day-core seen in the 2010 listing photographs, it appears to Your Mama's boozy and sometimes unreliable eyeballs that Miz Wang (may have) acquired and kept much of the furniture installed by Mister Hermann when the home was completed and prepped for it's unveiling in March 2011 when it was listed with a $10,900,000 price tag.

Anyhoo, in addition to her minimalist manse in Los Angeles, Miz Wang maintains a number of other properly pedigreed and exceptionally tailored residences including but not limited to a suburban mansion-sized duplex apartment at the insanely posh, unreasonably expensive and much ballyhooed building at 740 Park Avenue in New York City. Miz Wang dropped an astounding $23,100,000 on the massive apartment in late 2007 when she acquired it from the estate of her then recently deceased businessman father Cheng Ching Wang who himself owned and occupied the apartment with his wife Florence since 1983 when he paid canned soup heiress Elinor Dorrance $350,000 for the gargantuan co-op.

In case any of y'all missed the earlier link, nearly a dozen lush but brutally austere photographs of Miz Wang and her west coast abode can be seen here.

photograph: Douglas Friedman for Harper's Bazaar

Ice Queen Oksana Baiul Unloads New Jersey Condo

2012-01-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Oksana Baiul
LOCATION: Cliffside Park, NJ
PRICE: $799,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: One day last week, while holed up in our city view hotel room in New York City we unexpectedly received a covert communique from a nice gal in New Jesery—let's just call her Suhbeenuh Snitcharoohoo—who claimed intimate knowledge of a certain high-rise apartment tower in Cliffside Park (NJ) where Ukranian-born and -bred Olympic Gold medal winning figure skater Oksana Baiul has long lived in a high-floor apartment that she recently triple salchowed onto the open market a week or so ago with an asking price of $799,000.

Miss Baiul, who moved to the United States after the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway to pursue a somewhat short-lived professional career in the Ice Follies (or whatever the professional ice skating circuit is called), is perhaps best known for the dramatic and dizzying velocity of her flying camel into a donut spin maneuver (seen here at the minute mark), a modified catch-foot camel in which Miss Baiul effortlessly hiked one of her straw thin but clearly quite powerful legs up from behind her by the skate blade to form an "O" shape parallel to the ice, all while spinning like a goddam dervish on crack. Have mercy, puppies. Forget about how it makes Your Mama need a muscle relaxer just to watch ice gliding contortionists like Miss Baiul, we just can't fathom how she can can spin like that without barfing up her breakfast.

Iffin we were bein' honest—and we always are—we'd confess that despite living in New York City for nearly 15 years, prior to Missus Snitcharoohoo's digital missive we had neither visited nor even heard of Cliffside Park, NJ and we certainly hadn't an iota the self-described "small suburban community" atop the The Palisades ridge line on the west side of the mighty Hudson River directly across from the Morningside Heights neighborhood near the northern reaches of Manhattan.

Property records show Miss Baiul acquired her New Jersey nest in April 1998 when she paid $465,000 for her 1,646 square foot condo crib at at The Carlyle Towers, a massive, architecturally suspicious residential complex—not surprisingly designed by the architects at Kostas Kondylis Associates—with sensational panoramic views that extend up to the George Washington Bridge, across to the Manhattan skyline and down to Statue of Liberty. The lobby of the building, fronted by a High '80s-style glass-enclosed porte cochere and staffed 24-7 with attentive doorman and careful valet parking attendants, features glistening marble floors, scads of brass accents, a 40-foot water feature, and a couple of glammy (and gaudy) curved glass elevators. The colossal, two-tower, 370-unit condo complex affords residents access to a full-service fitness facility with indoor pool and restaurant, a second outdoor swimming pool and expansive landscaped terrace atop the multi-level parking structure, a putting green and, somewhat idiosyncratically, a croquet court.

According to Missus Snitcharoohoo, since the gold medalist moved her ice skates and bedazzled leotards to The Carlyle Towers, Cliffside Park in general and the relatively upscale complex in particular has become thick with "rich Russians and Asians" looking to soak up a smidgen of Miss Baiul's international celebrity through property proximity. Natch, we have no idea if that's true or not but we also have no reason to doubt Missus Snitcharoohoo who, as we said, claims intimate knowledge of The Carlyle Towers complex.

Listing information and marketing materials available online show Miss Baiul's high floor aerie has glossy chestnut-colored hardwood floors, miles of custom paneling and built-in mill work, custom floor-to-ceiling closets, long walls of windows that reach almost down to the floor and up to the ceiling, marble-sheathed bathrooms, 10 foot ceilings and solid wood 7-foot doors, and an in-unit washer and dryer. A fairly narrow, glass-railed 20-foot long balcony, accessible from both the living and dining rooms, would certainly be a thrilling spot to take in the twinkling Manhattan skyline were in not for the simple fact that even many non-acrophobics would be induced into involuntary hissy fits of anxiety at the mere thought of standing on that-there vertiginous balcony.

Missus Snitcharoohoohoo tattled that the listing photos depict Miss Baiul's apartment all but emptied of most of the ice skater's best artworks and furnishings and that before the decorative thinning the apartment reflected Miss Baiul's "over the top but stunning taste." She says toe-may-toe and we say toe-mah-toe, right? One and maybe even two brilliantly gilded baroque or neoclassical something or others in a mostly architecturally featureless and spacious but far from huge 2 bedroom condo could be fab if handled in just the right way but a condo full? Even a sparely dressed condo full? Well, that sort of thing just makes Your Mama feel fidgety and sweaty, regardless of the quality of the furnishings or the sublime brilliance of the nice, gay or lady decorator.

We know absolutely nada zilch kapooey about real estate in that particularly neck of New Jersey but gabby Missus Snitcharoohoo assured Your Mama Miss Baiul's south tower two bedroom in Cliffside Park is absolutely worth more than a million bucks and the $799,000 asking price decidedly aggressive.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with her, just few days after first contacted by Missus Snitcharoohoo we received a follow-up note in which she passed along the budding building gossip about how a bidding war broke had out between "a bunch of Russians and Koreans" and that the (alleged) offer accepted by Miss Baiul was an all-cash one at more than a million bucks. Bada-bing! Use yer noggins now children, Your Mama has zero direct knowledge about any details of any alleged sale of Miss Baiul's apartment. We're just passing along a little of the scuttlebutt that our Missus Snitcharoohoo told us has been floating around both towers of the twin-towered complex.

Missus Snitcheroo also passed along the additional gossip going 'round that Miss Baiul also quietly sold her house in the Hamptons for around $5,000,000 and that she and "her man" have purchased a heavily fortified and "massive mansion." Your Mama has no idea who Miss Baiul's man is and we were not able to verify whether Miss Baiul recently acquired a massive new mansion or if she owns (or ever owned) property in the Hamptons. Property records do suggest—but aren't entirely clear—that Miss Baiul may have once owned a house in an upscale enclave nestled into the Talcott Mountain State Park outside of Hartford, CT.

listing photos: Ridgeco Realty via Coldwell Banker

Brooke Shields and Chris Henchy Dump SoHo Digs

2012-01-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

SELLERS: Brooke Shields and Chris Henchy
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,950,000
SIZE: 2,600 square feet (approximately), 2-3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As first reported earlier today in the New York Observer's always delectable Manhattan Transfers column, six-foot tall model, movie star and mommy of two Brooke Shields and her enviably accomplished writer/producer hubby Chris Henchy recently unloaded their loft-like co-operative apartment in New York City's SoHo 'hood to a fashion industry financier for $2,950,000. The loft was first listed on the (open) market in August (2011) with an asking price of $3,200,000.

Property records aren't entirely clear as to when Mister and Missus Shields-Henchy bought their SoHo spread or how much they paid for the approximately 2,600 square foot loft ringed with 27 windows and located on the fourth floor of a boo-teek building with direct frontage on busy busy busy lower Broadway just above Canal Street where, we've been told, a person can still buy a fairly good knock off Louis Vuitton Monogram Keepall for under a hundred-fifty bucks if you know who and how to ask.

Anyhoodles, the full-floor loft includes a key-lock, direct elevator entrance, a lavishly long living/dining room with adjacent 1,500 bottle wine cellar, and an open kitchen with custom wood cabinets and a massive pot rack that looms dangerously over a center island. The loft's current configuration allows for up to three bedrooms including a sizable master bedroom suite with custom fitted walk-in closet and a vintage style bathroom complete with claw-footed soaking tub, separate glass-enclosed shower and a custom double sink vanity. Other notable amenities include a separate laundry room, central air conditioning, and additional private storage space in the building's basement. Monthly fees for the loft, according to StreetEasy, run $2,800.

A piss-ant perusal of the property records show other residents of the pet friendly and fairly narrow nine-floor building include (but are not limited to) a broadcast news executive, an internationally renown photographer, an interior designer/glass artist, and a former vice president of JPMorgan Chase who paid $2,700,000 in April 2007 for the building's 7th floor unit, purchased from the estate of then (and still) deceased novelist Olivia Goldsmith (First Wives Club). As it turns out the JPMC VP has the newly and completely renovated (and never lived in) 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom loft back on the market with an asking price of $3,875,000.

Mister and Missus Henchy-Shields and their two tots have relocated to the 4-story Greek Revival-style townhouse in the West Village records indicate they bought in April 2008 for $5,500,000. The townhouse was gut-renovated and expanded by Brooklyn-based architects at MADE, the same folks who rather sublimely worked over Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore's West Village townhouse located a just 5 or 6 blocks away and listed in summer 2009 and into 2010 at $11,995,000 and very briefly again in the spring of 2011 with a higher $12,500,000 price tag.

On the west coast Mister and Missus Henchy-Shields shack up in a 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom house in the ritzy Riviera section of Pacific Palisades (CA)—located just a few driveways down the impressive spread formerly owned by super producer Brian Grazer and now owned by the Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner family—that Miz Shields acquired in the months after her 1999 divorce from tennis titan Andre Agassi.

exterior photo (top left): Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
listing photos and floor plan: Stribling & Associates

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg Lists Bev Hills House

2012-01-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Jeffrey Katzenberg
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $9,400,000
SIZE: 9,173 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms (plus separate guest house)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Real estate watchers and property gossips around the world went ape shit in October 2009 when super-producer and entertainment industry honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg—once the assistant of Barry Diller now the co-founder and current CEO of DreamWorks Animation—somewhat surprisingly spent a staggering (and reported) $35,000,000 on a 6.34 acre estate perched on a private promontory in a particularly prime part of Beverly Hills, CA. The much-coveted, estate sized parcel sits just above the famed and historic Greystone Mansion and was sold to Mister and Missus Katzenberg by Simon "Si" Ramo, the 90-something year old physicist/engineer frequently described as the mack-daddy of the Intercontinental ballistic missile.

Mister Katzenberg quickly razed the existing 8,704 square foot mid-century modern residence (shown below), ripped out the tennis court, filled in the city view swimming pool, and hired all the necessary people to design and erect a marginally larger, U-shaped mansion that lightly hugs a massive courtyard and/or motor court at the front of the house.

Someone with whom we have the good fortune to be acquainted—let's call him Dale Trooze—espied the architectural renderings for Mister and Missus Katzneberg's planned mansion some time ago at a Beverly Hills City Council meeting during which Mister and Missus K. requested and granted a variance to raise the roof height of their planned residential monument to Tinseltown wealth and success to 18 feet from the much lower 14-foot high limit normally applied to the swanky and trendy Trousdale Estates neighborhood where the unusually wide and winding hillside streets are lined with sleek and sprawling low rise mid-century modern mansions, a few of which remain architectural and decorative time capsules and many of which have either been drastically renovated or replaced completely with a more new-fangled kind of contemporary residence formed of gleaming, prairie-like interior spaces, endless walls of full height (and high-maintenance) glass with cutting edge UV protection, and all the remote controlled high-tech/smart home mumbo-jumbo money can buy. Anyhoo, Dale Trooz snitched that the architectural renderings he peeped showed a fairly rectilinear pavilion of more than 11,000 square feet with a "monolithic" roof line.

That all said (and at unnecessary length), it's not Mister and Missus Katzenberg's new, soon to be finished residence in Trousdale Estates that really concerns Your Mama today but rather the couple's most recent residence in Beverly Hills they heave ho-ed on to the (open) market this week with an asking price of $9,400,000.

Property records indicate Mister and Missus Katzenberg have owned their huge home in the Beverly Hills flats just below Sunset Boulevard since March 1985 when they paid $2,685,000 for the architecturally undefinable residence—listing information somewhat generously calls it a "Contemporary Mediterranean"—built in 1985 on a flat .54 acre parcel and designed with scads of decorative Frenchy (faux)quoining and a sober (and unfortunately sobering) rusticated base on the ground floor.

The two-story main house measures 9,173 square feet, according to current listing information available online, and includes a total of 5 bedrooms and 6 full bathrooms. A sizable second, fully detached two-story structure at the rear of the property adjacent to the swimming pool contains a poolside cabana plus 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms suitable for use as a home office and/or as guest/staff quarters.

The voluminous main entry, which oozes with a showy 1980s kind of success, seeks to impress guests and the impoverished Chinese food delivery man alike with polished marble floors and floating bridge that spans the double-height space and connects the bedroom wings on the upper level. A wide opening and a short set of steps descends into into the formal living room with buff-color wall-to-wall carpeting underfoot, a wood-burning fireplace to anchor and warm the pale and airy space, and a series of nearly floor-to-ceiling arched windows that listing information mis-labels as "Palladian." (Palladian windows by definition, children, are divided into three parts with a central arched opening that's always wider than the flanking openings that are always rectangular and enclosed at the top by an architrave.)

Anyhoo, a monumental opening with imposing entablature in the living room gives way to a more intimately scaled library entirely encircled by (completely empty) floor to ceiling book cases, a marble-topped wet bar, and towering French doors that open to a small and lushly landscaped pocket of the back yard. On the opposite side of the entrance hall a formal dining room has buff color walls that perfectly match the buff color wall-to-wall carpeting that exactly matches the buff color wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room.

Like much of the house seen in listing photographs, the dining room feels torpid and utterly lifeless. However, Your Mama suspects (but can not say for sure) that the Katzenberg crib was all but stripped bare of almost every decorative detail and artwork in preparation for the sale. At some point in the not so distant past, we imagine, the entire mansion was much better dressed by a nice, gay or lady decorator, perhaps in the trademark style of dee-voon California decorator Michael Taylor who could actually make magic with all those acres buff color carpeting and truckloads of winter white roll-armed furniture seen in listing photographs.

The floors turn to blond hardwood in the colossal eat-in kitchen at the back of the house where there's a separate breakfast area and a titanic, butcher block-topped center island with snack counter. There are long runs of raised panel cabinetry that look to Your Mama like they could be exact same buff color as the carpeting in the living and dining rooms, an extra wide window over the primary sink, and a slew of commercial quality stainless steel appliances that include side-by-side fridge and freezers and an industrial stove and hood larger (and probably more expensive) than Your Mama's big ol' BMW.

Listing information shows the Katzenberg residence also includes a home gym—listing photos make it appear to Your Mama like the gym space might be carpeted with the same buff color wall-to-wall found elsewhere, which would be totally gross and unacceptable—and a bi-level family room/screening room with two (almost identically arranged) seating areas, a glitzy mirror-backed wet bar, and a wide-format movie screen that scrolls down from the ceiling at the touch of a button in front of a pair of full-height French doors that open the room to the fully fenced and high-hedged backyard entertainment areas.

Upstairs, each of the four family/guest bedrooms have a private bathroom and the expansive master suite, according to listing information, includes a sitting are with fireplace, a second and separate sitting room/office with built-in book and display shelves, a private terrace that overlooks the backyard and what listing information described as "spacious bathrooms."

A spacious but hardly vast Spanish tile terrace fits snugly into a corner of the back of the house off the kitchen and screening room. A broad, well-watered and tree-dotted lawn extends back to the rear of the property where a dark-bottomed swimming pool is surrounded by a wide, Spanish tile sunbathing terrace that is in turn girdled by precisely pruned trees and shrubbery and towering, fastidiously clipped privacy hedges. At one end of the swimming pool a deep trellis shades a row of French doors that open to spacious two-story poolside cabana with kitchenette and, as mentioned earlier, two guest or staff bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

This section of Beverly Hills, near it's eastern border with the—ahem—musical community of West Hollywood, happens to be chock full of Showbiz sorts who include Larry King and his 7th wife (or 8th, depending on how one counts) who live directly across the street in a mansion they bought in February 2007 for $11,750,000. Also nearby are pricey properties owned by Golden Globed (and bizarrely British accented) superstar Madonna, music and television mogul Simon Cowell (who is actually British), American actress Lori Loughlin and Italian clothing magnate Mossimo Giannulli who bought their palatial pad in October 2010 for $7,500,000, and, until recently, Terry Semel, the former CEO of Yahoo! who unloaded his 8,804 square foot manse, originally listed for $12,275,000, in late December (2011) for $9,100,000.

In addition to his homes in Beverly Hills, property records and other online data bases show Mister and Missus Katzenberg also maintain an extraordinary Gwathmey Siegel-designed ocean front compound in Malibu, CA as well as a couple of sizable slope-side condominium residences in the guard-gated Bald Eagle Club community located in the rugged Wasatch Mountains in the swank ski resort community of Deer Valley, UT. Property records suggest the two units have been combined into one roomy residence with more than 10,000 square feet, 5 fireplaces, and 10 terlits in 7 full and 3 half bathrooms.

listing photos: Nourmand and Associates
aerial photo: Bing

James Middleton

2012-01-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

NAME: James Middleton

SIBLINGS: Kate Middleton, Pippa Middleton

CAREER: Baker (Cake Kit Company) / Entrepreneur (Nice Cakes Ltd., Nice Group London)

QUOTE: "It's awkward going back up to Edinburgh to see my old friends, because I'm not on the same wavelength."

Imprisoned O.J. Simpson Faces Foreclosure

2012-01-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

It may or may not come as a surprise to any of the children who might care that the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine is all abuzz and atwitter today over the news that once beloved but now (almost universally) despised and currently incarcerated former professional football player O.J. Simpson may soon lose his South Florida home to the unforgiving maw of foreclosure.

Mister Simpson, controversially acquitted of the brutal murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and man-pal Ron Goldman back in 1995, is currently holed up in the hoosegow in Lovelock, NV where he's about 5 years into a 9-33 year sentence handed down for his pivotal role in a 2007 incident during which he and a few thugs burst into a Las Vegas hotel room and at gun point stole hundreds of items of sports memorabilia, some of which Mister Simpson claimed belonged to him had been previously (and illegally) been removed from his possession.

Earlier reports and other documentation available online reveal Mister Simpson, who still has an income from his NFL pension and at least one other retirement account protected from creditors, failed to make mortgage payments on his South Florida home, located in the nondescript suburban community of Kendall about 30 minutes by car southwest of the sugary sands and twinkling neon lights of South Beach. Last September (2011) JPMorgan Chase, it seems, got tired of calling and sending letters demanding payment and filed the paperwork to initiate foreclosure. Mister Simpson's attorney quickly filed a motion for dismissal and so far as we can tell the bank has taken no additional action.

Property records reveal Mister Simpson acquired the fully hedged but surprisingly un-gated property in September 2000 when he paid $575,000 for the 1.65 acre spread that includes a 4,233 square foot single story residence with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.

We don't have any specific information on the interior spaces but online mapping systems allow Your Mama to determine the property includes a long palm tree-lined driveway and circular motor court; a half-court basketball court; broad, pancake flat lawns; a rear motor court shaded by a massive tree; a sparkling swimming pool that extends off the back corner of an expansive entertainment terrace nestled into the crook formed by the L-shaped residence.

In 2007, as reported by the AP on NPR, Mister Simpson used $350,000 of the $750,000 he was paid for the ghostwritten pseudo-confessional If I Did It (2007) to pay down the original mortgage. Alas, when the three-quarter million dollar payment became known the Goldman family's attorney—in response to a still unpaid $33,500,000 civil judgement against Mister Simpson—filed suit and eventually the $750,000 was declared as ill-gotten gains. As such the $350,000 Mister Simpson used to pay down his mortgage was returned and his mortgage raised (with interest, we're sure) to off-set the amount returned by the bank to Mister Goldman's estate. The Goldman family was also granted the rights to the then unpublished If I Did It, which was eventually published by the Goldman family under the more cumbersome but intentionally condemning title If I Did It: Confessional of the Killer.

Listen puppies, impolite and inflammatory as it may be to state out loud, we might feel sorry for poor ol' O.J. Simpson if he didn't come off as such a pompous ass and entitled douche bag who, prior to being locked up, cleaved publicly and desperately to an ancient super stardom that had for all intents and purposes evaporated bitterly into a particularly pathetic and foul form of infamy. There were tax issues, domestic violence allegations, and various run ins with the law that included a $25,000 judgement against him in 2007 for pirating his goddam cable television. Pirating his cable television? Seriously Juice? Bitch, pleeze.

Anyhoodles poodles, as reported by NPR, the Miami-Dade County Tax Man shows the property is currently assessed at $478,401 and that in early December (2011) Mister Simpson's mortgage holder Chase Home Finance paid the 2011 property taxes in the amount of $8,732.36.

We do not, of course, have a single shred of inside intel on Mister Simpson's real estate and/or financial matters so you did not hear this from Your Mama but our inner cynic can't help but wonder if a foreclosure could be a calculated financial maneuver designed to rid the imprisoned 64-year old of the not inconsiderable expense of the mortgage(s), taxes and upkeep on a property he may not ever see again depending on when the powers that be release him from the pokey.

How hard the once mighty sometimes fall. Are you listening Lindsay Lohan?

aerial photo: Bing

George S. Blumenthal Lists Manhattan Pre-War Palace

2012-01-17T11:23:00.000-08:00

SELLER: George S. Blumenthal
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $35,000,000
SIZE: 6,000-ish square feet, 5-6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms (plus staff room and bath)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although we're now back in sunny California, warmly ensconced in our colorful cottage in the Hollywood Hills, Your Mama still has The Big Apple on the brain. After all, it was only yesterday Your Mama and The Chicken ate eggs with avocados at Coffee Shop on Union Square, hashed out Sanja Iveković's soo-blime Sweet Violence show at MOMA, and cruised the naughty knock-off vendors on Canal Street. So, rather than yammer on today about a bloated mock-Med (mc)mansion in Calabasas owned by a b-grade television star we've never heard of we thought we'd toss up a little uptown floor plan porn in the form of a natty and nabobish full-floor co-operative residence on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue recently hoisted on the (open) market with an asking price of $35,000,000.

An admittedly incomplete and unscientific review of available property records and various other documentation accessible on the interweb (i.e. voting records) indicates the monumental mansion-sized apartment is currently owned by George S. Blumenthal, a globally-engaged businessman and filthy rich pioneer in the mobile/cellular communications industry.

We weren't able to suss out when Mister (and Missus) Blumenthal acquired the colossal co-operative apartment or how much moolah they paid for the place, but listing information (and etc.) reveals the grandly scaled residence sits on the 9th floor of a dignified-looking limestone-sheathed, neo-Italian Renaissance style structure on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 84th Street. The building, with a four story rusticated limestone base, was built in 1925 and designed by much lauded and applauded N.Y.C. luxury apartment house architect J.E.R. Carpenter.

The 13-story building has but 16 (or so) large and lavish apartments—some of them duplexes—and, natch, offers residents white glove services that include full time doormen, an elevator operator—the very rich prefer not to have to push buttons on their own, it seems—a fitness room, communal laundry facility, and multi-million dollar city and park views over the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For the prime location and pampering services Mister (and Missus) Blumenthal pay, as per listing information, a pocketbook punishing $16,689 per month in maintenance and co-operative fees. A few quick flicks of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that amounts to an ungodly $200,268 per year, not counting holiday tips for the staff, housekeeping services, and any applicable mortgage payments. Yes puppies, unlike many of the most expensive and exclusive buildings on the Upper East Side, 1030 Fifth does permit up to 30% financing. Also unlike some of the "better" and/or more—ahem—restrictive buildings on Fifth Avenue, 1030 Fifth allows Showbiz types and those whose vast fortunes were only recently acquired to take up residence in the building. More on that later.

Listing information does not indicate the square footage—we guesstimate it weighs in at around 6,000 square feet—and shows the palatial pad has 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. A quick parse of the floor plan included with marketing materials shows the apartment's current configuration, by our count, includes 6 bedrooms—one labeled as a bedroom/office and another accessible only by passing awkwardly through the home gym space—and just 4.5 bathrooms plus an addition staff bedroom and (windowed) bathroom tucked discreetly behind the kitchen off the service entrance. A second 9x12-foot staff bedroom on the building's second floor is included with the sale. It's not clear if the second floor staff room includes a private pooper but it certainly should since it's downright sadistic to make a live-in domestic ride the service elevator every time s/he needs to shower, shave and/or use the damn terlit.

The day-core is undoubtedly of the highest caliber and quality if a bit fussy-frou-frou for our own far less traditional taste in furniture and artwork. However, the apartment itself, with its sumptuously scaled rooms, high (if not exactly soaring) 10-foot ceilings, paneled walls, and over-sized sash windows is an exquisite example of exactly the kind of somewhat rare and prodigiously pricey New York City apartment much coveted by the sorts of super rich folks with the desire, chutzpah, and financial resources to pay more than thirty million clams for an austerity-free apartment with direct Central Park views but without a single square foot of outdoor space.

A private vestibule connects the elevator entrance to an ample but far from grandiose foyer off of which radiatespacious living and entertaining spaces that positively reek of charity luncheons, dividend income statements, matronly Ferragamo pumps with 2.5-inch heels, and dog-earred annual reports from multi-national corporations. A bowling alley-length hallway extends back from the foyer to the bedroom wing and the guest bathroom. We appreciate the discreet location of the powder room—certainly rich and poor alike dislike being subjected to the noise and olfactory assault of their guests' after dinner dirty business—but also lament it's a wee bit unfortunate dinner and/or drinks guests must intrude on the more private family areas in order to access the (windowless) facility.

The apartment provides a desirable 55-foot wide run along Fifth Avenue and Central Park. The baronial, 550-plus square foot corner living room, wrapped in paneling that may or may not be mahogany, stretches 31-feet long with hardwood floors, offers the first of four fireplaces and features four over-sized windows with long views down Fifth Avenue and over the very busy and tourist-flooded plaza in front of The Met. A banquet hall-sized formal dining room with fireplace, wood floors and painted paneling anchors the northwestern corner of the residence and in between there is a room labeled "library" on the floor plan, an un-paneled room with thick crown moldings, fireplace, three park facing windows and the sort of patterned wall-to-wall carpeting one might safely expect to find in a swank suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Perhaps they are just out of the photograph's frame, but the single listing image of the "library" curiously does not show a single book or bookshelf.

As in many ambitiously-scaled New York City apartments designed with frequent entertaining in mind, the formal dining room links to the kitchen through a large (windowed) butler's pantry for prepping food, storing linens and hand-washing Baccarat water goblets. There's a surprisingly sizable laundry room to one side of the butler's pantry and a narrow but quite long, double-windowed eat-in kitchen on the other that provides a private chef with a large center work island and—as per the listing—a full complement of top grade appliances.

Depending on how one counts and/or utilizes the bedrooms that open off the 60-plus foot long L-shaped corridor that runs spine-like through the center of the apartment, there are six possible bedrooms: two that share a Jack and Jill bathroom; one guest suite with private bathroom; two more large bedrooms that share a hall bath with the home gym; the master suite with extensive built-in cabinetry and closets, a closet-lined dressing hall and two-whndow bathroom with twin sinks and separate cubby for the toidy.

As Your Mama mentioned earlier in our diatribe, 1030 Fifth Avenue encompasses only 16 (or so) regal residence, many owned by high-powered Wall Street wizards, newly minted hedge fund gajillionaires, and even a few titans from the Big Bizness of Show.

Christine Wassterstein, the one-time wife of big time boo-teek banker Bruce Wasserstein, sold her full floor spread on the 11th floor in early December 2008 after just a week or so on the market with an asking price of $34,000,000. Property records and online data bases show the buyer, Prakash Melwani, an upper level executive at Wall Street's asset management and financial services juggernaut Blackstone Group, forked over $27,500,000 for the 5 bedroom and 6.5 bathroom apartment that came with elephantine monthly co-operative fees of $13,441.
About a week prior to Mister Melwani's 11th floor acquisition, the full-floor spread on the 10th floor was sold by Canadian investment banker Richard "Dick" Schmeelk for $32,270,000 to sick rich hedge hog John Griffon and his wife Amy, the progeny of a Texas businessman whose wealth derives from low brow but necessary businesses such as convenience stores, car washes, and lube and oil stations.

In July 2008 lady hedge hog Karen Fleiss and her orthopedic surgeon hubby David pushed their titanic duplex at 1030 Fifth Avenue on the market with a staggering $47,500,000 price tag. Miz Fleiss told the New York Observer back than the apartment has been purchased "for 'around $2million' in the '80s." The Fleiss's 20-plus room duplex didn't attract a buyer at the opening price—or perhaps no one who could pass muster with the co-op's board—and by early 2009 the posh pad's price had plummeted to $34,500,000. Eventually each of the two floors of was offered separately at $15,000,000 and $19,900,000 apiece and in early 2010 Mister and Missus Fleiss finally sold the lower portion of their titanic two floor apartment for $8,898,000 to money man Richard Duke Buchan III and his wife Hannah.

Way back in September 2007 Academy Award winning super-producer Wendy Finerman and her second husband David Peterson dropped $10,362,500 for a 12-room duplex with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms and the penthouse pad, once owned by Robert Redford, is now owned by long-time broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer and her 4-times married Oscar-winning husband director Mike Nichols (The Graduate, The Birdcage, Silkwood, and our personal favorite movie of all time Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf). The high-powered couple reportedly paid around $10,000,000 for their penthouse digs back in 2001.

Apropos of nothing relevant to Mister (and Misssus) Blumenthal's apartment at 1030 Fifth Avenue, in 1976, Mister Nichols, then married to his third wife, writer Annabel Davis-Goff, sold a 6,500 square foot four-floor apartment with 2,500 square feet of terraces at the venerable Beresford building on Central Park West. The quadruplex is now owned by Cosmopolitan magazine's long ago ousted but none-the-less iconic mother hen and grande dame Helen Gurley Brown.

interior listing photos: Warburg Realty
exterior photo (top left): Christopher Bride for Property Shark

Mike McCartney

2012-01-16T10:46:00.000-08:00

NAME: Mike McCartney

SIBLING: Paul McCartney

CAREER: Tailor / Apprentice hairdresser / Musician (Do Nothing All Day, I Juz Want What You Got - Money!, No Lar Di Dar (Is Lady Di), Gin Gan Goolie, Rockin' Duck) / Photographer (Mike McCartney's Liverpool Life, Our Kid Through Mum's Net Curtains)

QUOTE: "Paul knows that I'm a genius and he can't compete. It's very simple."

Joan Rivers Gets Back on the Manhattan Real Estate Merry-Go-Round

2012-01-16T05:59:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Joan Rivers
LOCATION: East 62nd Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $29,500,000
SIZE: 5,190 square feet, 3-4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in May 2009 trash-talking octogenarian comedienne Joan Rivers heaved her mansion-sized New York City triplex penthouse apartment on the market with a hefty hefty hefty asking price of $25,000,000.

At some point, we're not sure exactly when, Miz Rivers took her posh penthouse pad off the (open) market. Howevuh, the sassy senior recently pushed the terraced 5,190 square foot spread, perched grandly atop a limestone-clad 42-foot wide Horace Trumbauer-designed townhouse building in East 62nd Street, back on the market with an notably higher asking price of $29,500,000 and this time, hunties, the listing includes a floor plan (above) for all us floor plan addicts to drool over.

By Your Mama's count, which may or may not be an accurate assessment, the three floor penthouse has 3-4 bedrooms (the top floor office is serviceable as a fourth bedroom), 4.5 bathrooms, 2 staircases, 2 mezzanine balconies, more than 20 closets including a cedar walk-in and another just for the china, 5 fireplaces, 2 itty-bitty but windowed kitchens, a couple of planted terraces with oblique Central Park views, a voluminous double height entrance hall far larger than most Manhattan studio apartments, an 800-plus square foot formal living room with soaring 23-foot ceiling, and a comparatively tiny—let's call it intimately scaled—formal dining room.

Since this is our last day in New York City before we wing our way back west and we're starting to run short on time, we're going to refrain from commentary abnut the unquestionably wonky and awkward spatial moments—i.e. access to the lowest level is via a narrow stairway in the laundry room off the mid-level kitchen—and instead let the children duke it out over the layout, decadent day-core and (higher) price.

Because the penthouse is a condominium as opposed to a co-operative, the buyer need not court a persnickety co-op board and the building rather surprisingly, as per listing information, allows a minimum 10% down payment. Maintenance, common charges and taxes add up to a considerable $20,100 per month which means it takes a quarter million a year for Miz Rivers just to pay the monthlies. Beehawtcha may still be working her much nipped and tucked tail off in the Business of Show, but with those sorts of expenses, no wonder she wants to sell this place.

Current online listings includes only a couple juicy photos of the decidedly opulent and heavily gilded penthouse but marketing materials from 2009 included a few more that can be seen here.

floor plan: Prudential Douglas Elliman

Anderson Cooper Expands Hamptons Compound

2012-01-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

BUYER: Anderson Cooper
LOCATION: Quiogue, NY
PRICE: $1,700,000
SIZE: 3,654 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It seems that smart, savvy and sometimes giggly CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper is on a bit of a real estate tear in the last few years with pricey property procurements in both New York City and the Hamptons where he's just completed the purchase of a multi-acre compound next door to the summer/vacation home he's long owned in the tiny, pin drop quiet (and somewhat obscure) community of Quiogue.

Property records Your Mama peeped show Mister Cooper snatched up his first house in Quiogue way back in April 1998 when he and another unmarried male named Steven Elzy dropped $700,000 on a thickly treed two-parcel spread that totals 3.14 acres and fronts a slim finger of the multi-pronged Quantuck Bay. In March of 2003 property records we accessed indicate Mister Cooper bought out Mister Elzy's interest in both parcels that comprise the property for $1,150,000.

According to the Suffolk County Tax Man Mister Cooper's clapboard-sided crib in Quiogue, situated at the tail end of a long, private driveway, was built in 1974, measures 3,749 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and a detached garage.

A couple of videos of button pushing comedienne Kathy Griffin visiting Mister Cooper in Quiogue last summer reveals that not only is Mister Cooper built like a brick shit house—as is, it should be noted, 50-plus year old Miss Griffin—he's as hairless as a baby's backside, doesn't keep much food around besides a lot of hot doggy things, and has a spaniel named Molly. The videos also reveal his hideaway in the Quiogue, an area many snooty Hamptonites are adamant isn't really The Hamptons, includes an extensive gym where he pumps weekend iron and a black bottom swimming pool surrounded by an unsightly black chain link fence. It appears to Your Mama the swimming pool is set far from the house, enough of a distance perhaps that unless there's a pool house—and there does not appear to be a pool house—Mister Cooper and his friends, especially the more crass ones like the Miss Griffin, might be inclined to take a wee behind a tree rather than make the long traipse across the broad tree-shaded lawn to use the facilities in the house.

Anyhoo, at some point the 2.4 acre property next door to Mister Cooper's low key house in the Hamptons became available. The property was last listed, according to listing information we dug up on the interweb, for $2,250,000. Since the transaction has yet to be digitally recorded we weren't able to confirm the purchase price through property records but Mister Cooper is reported by The Post to have snatched up the property for somewhere around $1,700,000. The Post also reported that Mister Cooper's plans to maintain the property as is—although we imagine he'll do some upgrading—and that his interest may (or may not) have had something to do with preserving his privacy and ensuring a buyer didn't knock down the existing house and erect some sort of heinous mcmansion.

The seller of the waterfront property was the widow of Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg who wrote the iconic 1954 film On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando and went to meet The Great Director in the Sky in 2009.

Listing information shows the shingled cottage was built in the 1940s, measures 3,654 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and 2 fireplaces in the main house. There's additional living/office space above the garage as well as a pool house adjacent to the in-ground gunite swimming pool and spa.

In addition to his budding compound in Quiogue, the not quite out of the closet silver fox owns a couple of New York City properties including a very contemporary penthouse just south of Midtown Manhattan he acquired in April 2005 for $2,480,000. Previously to the penthouse, the globe trotting cable news anchor owned another apartment in the building on a lower floor with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 11.5-foot ceilings, Carrara marble counter tops in the suped-up kitchen, deluxe slate and blue stone bathrooms, a stereophonic surround sound system, and custom closet organizers. Records show he sold the apartment in January 2006 for $1,580,000.

In September 2009 Mister Cooper scooped up an approximately 9,000 square foot decommissioned firehouse near Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Property records show he paid $4,300,000 for the four-floor structure and recently reports indicate the beau-hunky newsman recently moved in after an extensive renovation and restoration headed up by New York-based architect Cary Tamarkin that included the installation of an elevator and the restoration the 1906 red-brick and terra cotta quoined façade as well as various original spiral staircases and brass fire poles.

listing photos (Quiogue): Prudential Douglas Elliman
exterior photos of firehouse: Curbed

Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly On the Move Again

2012-01-14T06:10:00.000-08:00

SELLERS: Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $8,495,000
SIZE: 4,096 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only about 3.5 years ago that English-born movie actor Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, A Knight's Tale) and Brooklyn-bred Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem For A Dream, Blood Diamond) paid $6,920,000 for a full floor loft-type penthouse apartment on the edge of New York City's star-stocked TriBeCa neighborhood.

At that time multi-lingual Miz Connelly was rearing one child from a previous relationship, a boy then about 10 and now about 15, as well as a second child she produced with Mister Bettany, another boy then a toddler now about five. In May last year the couple sired a second child together—the third for her—this time a baby girl now not even a year old.

Perhaps (or perhaps not) due to their slow growing family, blond Mister Bettany and brunette Miz Connelly have recently, as first discussed by the kids at Curbed, put their expansive TriBeCa penthouse pad back on the market with an asking price of $8,495,000. Although the penthouse measures in, as per listing information, at a roomy 4,096 square feet, its current configuration only encompasses three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, a count that requires the couple to double up two of their three children in a single bedroom. And who, let's be honest chickens, wants to pay seven million bucks to have their children share a damn bedroom?

Anyhoo, current listing information shows a key-locked elevator slides open to a private vestibule that in turn gives way to a 20-foot long foyer that connects the 45-foot long Hudson River view living room to the 34-foot long open plan kitchen/dining room area that features a sizable center work island, white subway tile back splashes, a black marble farm sink, a full coterie of stainless steel appliances, and two pantry closets.

In between the living room, which has a massive sky light plus a total of 9 windows on three sides, and the kitchen/dining room there are a huge walk-in coat closet, an unusually generous laundry room, and a windowless powder pooper.

Beyond the kitchen/dining room, at the extreme ass end of the apartment, a nearly square 400-ish square foot library/family room has a full wall of custom built maple bookshelves, a vintage wood burning stove that balances the crisp modernity of the loft's imposed architecture, and a spiral staircase that winds tightly up to a small, glass-enclosed sun room and 1,380 square foot roof terrace.

Two of the loft's three bedrooms share a bedroom-sized walk-in closet—a somewhat unusual clothing storage set up to be sure—and window-free, L-shaped bathroom with an awkward column smack in the middle. The master suite, accessible from the living room or from the bedroom corridor, offers a surprisingly petite bedroom with one north facing window, a commodious closet/dressing room, and a surprisingly spacious windowed bathroom with poured concrete floors and double sinks, a free-standing soaking tub, and separate open shower.

The 8-story red brick building, built in 1980 and converted to a co-op in 1984, fronts the very busy, extremely loud, and sometimes wind whipped West Side Highway which will certainly turn off any number of the children, particularly those who don't have an affinity for (often noisy) New York City living. However, the panoramic views up and down the Hudson River and across to Jersey City are most certainly the stuff from which downtown New York City real estate dreams are made.

Before settling in TriBeCa, the Bettany-Connelly clan owned and occupied a spectacular 18-room single family limestone mansion in Brooklyn's baby buggy filled Park Slope neighborhood (above). Property records and previous reports indicate they bought the 5,243 square foot house—or 5,276 or 7,054 square feet depending on which online resource one peeps—in August 2003 for $3,700,000. They listed their former Prospect Park-fronting mansion with its 9 bedrooms, 6 fireplaces and 3.5 bathrooms in the spring of 2008 with an $8,500,000 price tag. It quickly sold it to a computer genius in late 2008 for $8,450,000.

Your Mama, like the industrious kids at Curbed, can't help but wonder if Mister Bettany and Miz Connelly wish they'd never sold their big ol' mansion in Park Slope and will head back over the Brooklyn Bridge or if they're simply seeking larger quarters in Manhattan that will more suitably fit their family of five.

listing photos and floor plan (TriBeCa): Prudential Douglas Elliman
listing photo (Park Slope): Sotheby's International Realty via StreetEasy

Your Mama Hears...

2012-01-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

...from a well-informed informant, let's call her Candy Dancer, that the massive Beverly Hills, CA crib owned by French-born denim tycoon turned L.A. real estate mogul turned Canadian hotelier Georges Marciano is about to hit the market with an asking price of around $32,000,0000.

Mister Marciano, for any of y'all who may not know, is a colorful character to be sure, one who lives unapologetically large. He and his three brothers founded the Guess? jeans empire that launched into the retail stratosphere in the 1990s with its long and lucrative association with bodacious, deeply troubled and now deceased model Anna Nicole Smith. he sold his 40 percent stake in the wildly successful clothing empire to his brothers Paul, Armand and Maurice for nearly a quarter billion dollars. He took his mountain of money and branched out into real estate development, amassed a fleet of Ferraris, spent $16,189,769 to purchase an 84.37-carat white diamond, made strange run for the governorship of California and opened the LHotel boo-teek hotel in Old Montreal–that's Canada kids–filled to the gills with prime pieces of his massive post-war art collection.

In 2007 Mister Marciano accused five former employees of conspiring to embezzle nearly half a billion bucks worth of his assets including a plethora of blue chip contemporary artworks by artists like Ed Ruscha, Jim Dine and Roy Lichtenstein. The case was tossed out but the five former employees counter-sued for defamation and in mid-2009 won a titanic $370,000,000 judgment against Mister Marciano for his wrongful allegations and accusations.

Property records show Mister Marciano acquired the stately estate in October 1988 for an unknown amount of money and Your Mama discussed the supremely located, 2-plus acre estate back in January 2007 when Mister Marciano unsuccessfully attempted to unload his humongous Italianate pile just up the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel with a much lower asking price of $28,000,000. We'll let the more savvy real estate children decide if the current marketplace for extremely swank high-maintenance estates in Los Angeles can bear the four million dollar bump to the price tag.

Since the house is not officially on the market–and since, technically, its just real estate rumor and gossip that it will be listed at all–no online listing is currently available. However, we managed to scare up some marketing materials from when it was on the open market in 2007. (Redfin shows the deluxe estate was also listed in 2005 but we don't know at what number.)

The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the double-gated mansion was built in 1927 and measures 14,055 square feet with 9 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms while 2007 listing information shows and approximate square footage of 23,306 with a total of 10 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. We're not sure why the wild discrepancies in stats but it may (or may not) have something to do with the u-shaped mini-mansion sized detached guest house with separate gated driveway and motor court tucked into eastern corner of the property between the swimming pool complex and lighted tennis court.

The house was once owned by Showbiz pioneer and pasha Harry Cohn and later, in the early to mid-1980s, we're told, by television talk show host Mike Douglas. Current nearby neighbors include real estate showboaters Stewart and Lynda Resnick, Tom Cruise, and Christina Aguilera and former residents of the hoity-toity 'hood include recently passed über-agent blue-eyed crooner Frank Sinatra, Sue Mengers, entertainment industry legend Lew Wasserman, cigar smoker Groucho Marx, diminutive superstar Tom Cruise, chat show host Phil McGraw, and airplane mogul Lou Gonda.

aerial photo: Google

Soap Star Victoria Rowell Lists Los Angeles Home

2012-01-11T06:56:00.000-08:00

SELLER: Victoria Rowell
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,599,000
SIZE: 4,354 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week before we winged our way east we received a covert communique from regular tipster Tommy Talksalot who informed us that former professional dancer and model turned Emmy-nominated actress Victoria Rowell has put her Los Angeles residence on the market with an asking price of $2,599,000.

A quick perusal of Miz Rowell's resumé on the Internet Movie Data Base shows her big break cam in the late 1980s with two-episode arc on The Cosby Show, a turn of entertainment industry good fortune that launched into her showbiz salad days, the 1990s and early Aughts when she simultaneously appeared on the soap story Young and the Restless (1990-2007) and the medical crime dram Diagnosis Murder (1993-2002).

Along the way she appeared in a number of other tee-vee shows (Noah's Arc) and mostly bad movies (The Distinguished Gentleman) and pushed out a couple of children, one of them with jazz genius Wynton Marsalis. Since her time at Y&R came to an end in 2007–there are unconfirmed rumors she may reprise her role this year–she's written a couple of books: a memoir about her experiences in the foster care system (The Women Who Raised Me) and a possibly thinly veiled novel (Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva) about a black actress who appears on the soap story The Rich and the Ruthless.

Anyhoo, property records show Miz Rowell acquired her Los Angeles home way back in the first days of 1997 when she paid $825,000 for the 1923 red tile-roofed Mediterranean perched on a sloping .29 acre city view lot in the quintessentially Los Angeles 'hood that cleaves to the steep slopes around Beachwood Canyon.

Listing information shows the two-story house measures 4,354 square feet with a total of 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms that include, as per listing information, a celebrity-style master suite comprised of window-wrapped bedroom with city views, "dramatic" bathroom, "spacious" walk-in closet with custom built-ins and a separate private sitting room, which may or may not be that rather useless-looking room furnished with a circular hotel lobby sofa and crystal chandelier.

The main living and entertaining spaces have dark, espresso-colored hardwood floors include a long living room lined on two opposite walls with French doors, a over-sized formal dining room with various access points to the outdoors, and a kitchen fitted with long and narrow center island, antique white raised panel cabinetry, brown and beige flecked granite counter tops, and all the to-be-expected from a multi-million dollar house high-grade, commercial style stainless steel appliances. Additional interiors spaces mentioned but not but now shown in online listing information include a den, library, family room, media/music room, and a breakfast room adjacent to the kitchen.

Various city and canyon view terraces, balconies and what listing information calls "Italian gardens" extend the indoor living spaces to the outdoors and include a swimming pool tightly tucked into a courtyard ringed by vine-draped walls and tree-shaded lawns below the house look pretty and serene but due to their steep slope are relatively impractical for anything but viewing and lop-sided strolling.

Miz Rowell's low-key but celebrity-filled neighborhood includes homes owned by Grant Show, Colin Hanks (that's Tom's actor son), Gina Hecht, Jeremy Sisto, Danny Masterson and Bijou Phillips, and a bit farther away the ever-expanding compound of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Sandra Oh, and several homes owned by sassy OCD reality tee-vee star and house flipper Jeff Lewis

An incomplete and entirely unscientific spin through property records suggest (but does not prove) that Miz Rowell does not currently own any other property in Los Angeles, or anywhere else for that matter. Howevuh, given that she married Atlanta-based artist Radcliffe Bailey a couple of years ago it's not such a stretch they might own a home in or around Atlanta.

listing photos: Prudential California Realty

Big Boss Season 5 Winner :Juhi Parmar

2012-01-10T07:39:00.000-08:00

Juhi Parmar the famous T.V star, age 31 was declared winner of the Big Boss season 5, while Mahek Chahal was the first runner up. Juhi defeating actors Sky,Sid, Amar Upadhyay and dancer Mahek won the season 5 crown and one crore prize. Juhi said the main reason of her winning the Big Boss show was the honesty which she showed in the show, she didn't played any politics in the game. The grand finale of Big Boss season 5 saw some stunning performances from Sunny Leone , Rakhi Sawant and Malika Arora Khan. Juhi became the second woman to win the Big Boss show and was from day one in the house and remained there in the house for 98 days .Juhi made great friends in the house like Sunny and Pooja Bedi ,while Sky became her brother. Thus her friendship with Sky and Pooja Bedi helped her to win this show. Sid and Sky were the most entertaining of the show because of their fights which drived people to see the show and give their comments , while Mahek wild card entry also appreciated by many people. After seeing many sites and seeing comments on them , I can say that Sid and Mahek were the favorite choice of the people but my favorite was Sky.

Dannii Minogue

2012-01-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

NAME: Dannii Minogue

SIBLING: Kylie Minogue

CAREER: Singer (Jump To The Beat, Coconut, Touch Me Like That) / Screen actress (Skyways, The Sullivans, Home & Away, Secrets) / Stage actress (Macbeth, Notre-Dame de Paris, The Vagina Monologues) / Fashion designer (Dannii range for K-Mart, Australia) / Reality TV judge (The X-Factor, Australia's Got Talent) / Radio presenter (Dannii Minogue's Neon Nights) / Academic (Honorary Doctor of Media, Southampton Solent University)

QUOTES: "All those years of articles, of reading, 'She's in her sister's shadow' or whatever – of course, I see that stuff, but it was never how things really were. My sister and I are really close, and we always have been."

Mimi McPherson

2011-12-23T03:15:00.000-08:00

NAME: Mimi Macpherson

SIBLING: Elle Macpherson

CAREER: Entrepreneur (Mimi McPherson Whale Watch Expeditions) / Property developer / Bikini designer / Reality TV Contestant (It Takes Two)

QUOTES: "I've always been in business myself, that's what I've always done. I would really like to make a difference... Elle is really supportive that I should start designing again. But for three years [after bankruptcy] you can't run a company, and then it's another four years where you can't get any credit. It's terrible."

"I'm quite happy with my boobs. They're real, they're a decent size... They could be perkier, but gravity's starting to take effect."

Clint Howard

2011-12-22T02:59:00.000-08:00

NAME: Clint Howard

SIBLING: Ron Howard

CAREER: Actor (Gentle Ben / Evilspeak / Splash / Cocoon / Parenthood / Backdraft / Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker / Body Chemistry 2: Voice Of A Stranger / Carnosaur / Infested / Leprechaun 2 / Humanoids From The Deep / Santa With Muscles / The Dentist 2 / The Cat In The Hat / Bloodrayne: The Third Reich / Blubberella)

QUOTES: "There's really no friction between Ron and I. Solace, yes, definitely. He's a director who loves me, who trusts me, and who hires me! It's better to be Ron Howard's brother than Charles Manson's brother."

"Ron is, you know, actually a really cool shadow to be in. And you know, the thing about shadows is that they're just that. What you make them. Cool."

Danielle Brown

2011-12-21T01:55:00.000-08:00

NAME: Danielle Brown

SIBLING: Scary Spice

CAREER: Model / Dancer / Actress (Emmerdale) / Children's TV presenter / Entrepreneur (The Shed Café)

QUOTES: "We've got loads of celebrities coming already. I've never seen so many celebrities in one coffee shop!"

"I never would sell a story or get paid to talk about her. I don't need to make a drama about my sister to get publicity."

"I don't think she even knew I was pregnant. I don't even know if she's aware I had a baby... I don't have her number, I don't know where she lives - I wouldn't know how to get in touch with her. I follow her on Twitter to make sure she's okay."

"@OfficialMelB I have to tweet you as its all about public image for you. For me it was always about family, that's a wrap. Love you x"

Aaron Norris

2011-12-20T01:41:00.000-08:00

NAME: Aaron Norris

SIBLING: Chuck Norris

CAREER: Actor (Deadly Force / A Force Of One / Lone Wolf McQuade / A Rose For Emily) / Director (Delta Force 2 / Missing In Action 3 / Sidekicks, with Beau Bridges) / Stunt double (Good Guys Wear Black) / Martial artist (9th dan, Chun Kuk Do) / Regional manager (Chuck Norris Studios) / Executive Producer (Walker: Texas Ranger) / Texas ranger (honorary)

QUOTES: "When Chuck came back from overseas after serving in the air force, he didn't have anyone to beat on, so he picked on his little brother."

"I was a pretty notorious streetfighter back in my younger days, but when I came out of the army, a lot of people doubted I could fight. They'd say, 'Well, you're not as tough as your brother.' They'd compare me to Chuck and wonder if I could fight as well as he did."

Solange Knowles

2011-12-19T05:21:00.000-08:00

NAME: Solange Knowles

SIBLING: Beyoncé Knowles

CAREER: Singer (Solo Star, Would've Been The One, F**k The Industry) / Actor (Johnson Family Vacation, Bring It On 3: All Or Nothing)

QUOTES: "Sometimes I say she's not my sister. Other times I say I've stuffed her in my suitcase and sent it to Dubai. I have to have fun with it or I'll turn into Britney - shave my head and go totally crazy."

"Back home they're scared of me for some reason and think I'm a little nutty."

"I really am in a place where I don't give a shit - it is what it is, take it or leave it."

Kim Jong-nam

2011-12-19T02:12:00.000-08:00

NAME: Kim Jong-nam

SIBLING: Kim Jong-un

CAREER: Screenwriter / Administrator / Tourist

QUOTES: "I have no plans on moving to Europe. Why would I? I could go there for a vacation."

"They report recently I think I defected from North Korea, what. I hear about this news recently, and I can say with totally fake story. I never defected from North Korea, now I am still living in North Korea I am just that I am in travelling."

"I told many time what the appointment of a successor is totally my father's decision, so he make his decision so he doesn't need to talk to me or talk to another person."

Peter Hitchens

2011-12-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

NAME: Peter Hitchens

SIBLING: Christopher Hitchens

CAREER: Author / Polemicist / Daily Mail columnist

QUOTES: "If we weren't brothers we wouldn't know each other."

"I have been accused of sounding like Princess Di"

"I don't like being called 'bonkers' and I think to some extent it demeans people who use phrases like that. But I take comfort from the fact that most totalitarian regimes tend to classify their opponents as mentally disordered."

Wayne Lineker

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

NAME: Wayne Lineker

SIBLING: Gary Lineker

CAREER: Market trader / Entrepreneur (Lineker's Bars, Gary Lineker's Sportsman's Bar, shufflin.com) / TV guest (Piers Morgan On Marbella) / Fraudster

QUOTE: "I was working on the markets, but they were going downhill, and at the time Gary was getting very famous and had just won the Golden Boot in Mexico, so I decided to take advantage of my now very famous second name."

"Where there's muck, there's money."

"My closest celeb friend would probably be Calum Best, as we spent a whole summer together four years ago. It was the craziest of my life."

Jeb Bush

2011-12-14T02:31:00.000-08:00

NAME: Jeb Bush

SIBLING: George W. Bush

CAREER: Commerce / Real estate / Politics (Governor Of Florida, 1999-2007)

QUOTES: "Who among us has never looked up into the heavens on a starlit night, lost in wonder at the vastness of space and the beauty of the stars?"

"In a world of unbelievable, exacting science, you can't figure hurricanes out. They wobble. They wiggle. They waggle... A hurricane teaches you to be humble before God."

"I remain convinced that the electric chair is an appropriate way to carry out death sentences in Florida."

Mia Tyler

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

NAME: Mia Tyler

SIBLING: Liv Tyler

CAREER: Plus-size model / Actress (Rush Hour 3, Inheridance, A Little Bit Of Lipstick, The Gruesome Death Of Tommy Pistol) / Reality TV contestant (Celebrity Fit Club, with Daniel Baldwin) / Reality TV guest (Really Rich Real Estate) / Reality TV judge (Pretty Wicked)

QUOTES: "We're a family of big eaters, and if you look at my older sister Liv, you'll see that she's not super-skinny either."

"Reality TV is probably one of the greatest inventions that ever happened."

Joe Estevez

2011-12-13T05:10:00.000-08:00

NAME: Joe Estevez

SIBLING: Martin Sheen

CAREER: Actor (Beach Babes From Beyond, with Joey Travolta and Don Swayze / Legend Of The Roller Blade Seven, with Frank Stallone / Toad Warrior / Quiet Days In Hollywood / Not Another B-Movie).

QUOTE: "I had a talk with myself and a lot of praying and meditating about making movies that make a difference. I asked God, 'Can you send me movies that do this that I can also make money at?' And God does listen."

Daniel Baldwin

2011-12-12T04:10:00.000-08:00

NAME: Daniel Baldwin

SIBLINGS: Alec Baldwin / Billy Baldwin / Stephen Baldwin

CAREER: Actor (Attack Of The 50ft Woman, Anonymous Rex, Beach Party At The Threshold Of Hell, The Devil's Dominoes) / Reality TV contestant (I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, Celebrity Rehab, Celebrity Fit Club, with Mia Tyler).

QUOTES: "I'm a straight-up cocaine addict. I don't really drink very much, although I have abused alcohol in the past. And I don't use any other drugs. I don't take pills, I don't do anything. I'm a die-hard cokehead."

"I think most people would say, when they know Hollywood, He's probably the best actor."

"I have an uphill struggle on my hands, and boy am I getting tired of that climb, man."

Jim Belushi

2011-12-09T03:40:00.000-08:00

NAME: James Belushi

SIBLING: John Belushi

CAREER: Actor (About Last Night, K-9, Curly Sue, Canadian Bacon, Jingle All The Way, K-9: PI, Scooby-Doo & The Goblin King) / Singer (Have Love, Will Travel) / Author (Real Men - According To Jim) / Voiceover artist (The Blues Brothers Animated Series - with Peter Aykroyd)

QUOTES: "When I got gout, it was no joke... When I went onstage one night with excruciating pain in my big toe, it was one painful performance. That was it. I was done with gout getting in the way of my life. I went to a rheumatologist and I got it under control."

Antonia Kidman

2011-12-08T01:39:00.000-08:00

NAME: Antonia Kidman

SIBLING: Nicole Kidman

CAREER: TV presenter (Premiere, Cleo Bachelor of the Year 2002, The Little Things, From Here To Maternity) / Yoga instructor (Antonia Kidman Yoga)

QUOTES: "I'll be honest - sibling rivalry and competition is a big part of our lives. It's very normal but can be tiring all the same."

"I was never one to win awards or trophies at school. I can do a number of things competently rather than anything exceptionally!"

Michael Stone

2011-12-07T03:10:00.000-08:00

NAME: Michael Stone

SIBLING: Sharon Stone

CAREER: Actor (One Tough Bastard, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation) / Screenwriter / Poet / Drug dealer

QUOTES: "I write spoken word, which is kind of like, for want of a better word, white boy rap. I write about war, religion, politics, the homeless, kinda a very cynical look at, you know, the world today. I try to slap people around with the darkness to look at the light. A lot of my pieces are very political."

"In my own way I'm trying to address the problems of the world, and hopefully get people to unite and at least champion good causes."

Graeme Rooney

2011-12-06T05:36:00.000-08:00

NAME: Graeme Rooney

SIBLING: Wayne Rooney

CAREER: Boxer (English Schools) / Footballer (Everton Schoolboys, Sky One Premier League All-Stars, East Villa FC, Oyster Martyrs Sunday League) / Drum & bass DJ (Glastonbury 2011).

QUOTES: "There's only one Harold Shipman / There's only one Harold Shipman / All the Scousers say thanks / 'cos he only killed Mancs / Walking in a Shipman wonderland."

"Get bk 2 curry mile in manny wer u belong u smelly bastard."

Stella Parton

2011-12-05T01:33:00.000-08:00

NAME: Stella Parton

SIBLING: Dolly Parton

CAREER: Singer (Love Ya, A Woman's Touch, Testimony) / Actress (The Dukes Of Hazzard, Best Little Whorehouse In Texas) / Social worker / Author (Tell It, Sister, Tell It: Memories, Music & Miracles / Stella Parton's Country Cookin': From Slum Gullion To Blushing Tuna Pie)

QUOTE: "I've never wanted to capitalize on the fact that I'm Dolly's sister, but I've never hid from it either. I'm not indifferent or bitter because she made it first, and I don't want to take anything from her. And I don't think I could. I want people to accept me for me. People might come to see me because I'm Dolly's sister, to see what I look like. But I don't look anything like her, and I don't act anything like her."

Beth Winslet

2011-12-02T01:42:00.000-08:00

NAME: Beth Winslet

SIBLING: Kate Winslet

CAREER: Actress (Bodywork, Stiletto) / Awards: Best Actress (PollyGrind Festival, 2010)

QUOTES: "People will obviously sit up and think, 'Ah, a Winslet'... but hopefully they will see we are very different."

"I don't have a technique as such. I didn't go to drama school. I think I'm a bit like a piece of dough."

Jim Hanks

2011-11-30T09:07:00.000-08:00

NAME: Jim Hanks

SIBLING: Tom Hanks

CAREER: Actor (Buford's Beach Bunnies) / Stunt double (Forrest Gump) / Voice actor (Conductor in The Polar Express video game, Woody in Toy Story TV series and video games).

QUOTE: "I was approached about doing a television remake of Splash and some studios wanted to do a series inspired by Big. I said no."

"At this point, a job's a job."

Chris Jagger

2011-11-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

NAME: Chris Jagger

SIBLING: Mick Jagger

CAREER: Singer (You Know The Name But Not The Face / Atcha / From Lhasa To Lewisham) / Actor (The Stud, The Bitch, Shoestring) / Painter & decorator / Taxi driver

QUOTES: "When I was 16 to 18 years old, it was obviously quite a big thing, but once I reached 40, I didn't care anymore. The one thing in my favour is that I will always be younger than him."

"The Rolling Stones are a brand and they are stuck with it. I have always had more freedom and I could do whatever I liked."

"I do find it annoying that the superstar groups have taken so much of the pie while so many other people cannot even make a living. It all depends on the throw of the dice."

Joey Travolta

2011-11-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

NAME: Joey Travolta

SIBLING: John Travolta

CAREER: Actor (Dumb Luck In Vegas, Hollywood Vice Squad, 3 Ninjas Kick Back, Beach Babes From Beyond - with Don Swayze, Joe Estevez and Jackie Stallone) / Director (Hard Vice) / Singer

QUOTES: "I have my own thing going, I've been waiting, I've just been laying back, I've been writing my music, I feel like Muhammad Ali, I've been doing this and doing that, and now I'm ready."

'Dreams just don't come true / Just the way I planned them / Looking back in time / I still don't understand' - from 'I Don't Want To Go' (Casablanca Records)

Christopher Ciccone

2011-11-30T07:03:00.000-08:00

NAME: Chris Ciccone

SIBLING: Madonna

CAREER: Artist / Stylist / Interior Designer / Dancer / Director (Madonna: The Girlie Tour) / Author (Life With My Sister Madonna)

QUOTES: "Our father taught us a lot of things, and one of them is to be honorable. I think I've maintained that."

"Godammit, I'm going to write a book. Fuck her."

"She probably thinks of it as a desperate attempt for attention and money. And, ultimately, a betrayal. I think of it as a thesaurus."

Paul Ross

2011-11-30T04:03:00.000-08:00

NAME: Paul Ross

SIBLING: Jonathan Ross

CAREER: Journalist / TV personality (50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments, Ad Of The Decade, Best Ever Worst Dance Moments, TV's 50 Hardest Men, Greatest Movie Love Scenes, Celebrity Fit Club, Best Ever Family Films, I Love The 1990s, The 100 Greatest TV Characters, 100 Greatest TV Moments From Hell, The Crazy World Of Joe Pasquale, This Morning)

QUOTE: "What is particularly dispiriting about television at the moment is the way that even stuff that ought to be part of the magical five percent has gone crappy."

Maureen Jackson

2011-11-30T02:31:00.000-08:00

NAME: Maureen 'Rebbie' Jackson

SIBLINGS: Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, The Jackson 5

CAREER: Singer ('Forever Young' on the Free Willy 2 soundtrack) / Actress (Wonder Woman) / Dancer

QUOTE: "I'm blessed to be surrounded by such talent - I have a lovely family, a great husband, and I'm very happy. A little success on my own terms would make my life complete."