Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Lady Gaga Gets Down in the 90077

Listen chickens, Your Mama was away on our vacay a day or two longer than planned because, perhaps not surprisingly, we got stranded in the wilds of northern Arizona after our recently rehabbed friend Fiona Trambeau fell off the wagon and ran off with some socks with sandals wearing German tourist in a rented RV. She also, much to our horror and dismay, took off with the keys to her Lezbaru tucked deep into her tube top. Eventually ol' Fiona came back, worse for the wear and reeking of Pilsner, dripping in chunky turqwahze jewelery and shouting out things like, "Auf dem wasser su zingen!" After giving Fiona a verbal dressing down that would wither even the most bitter drag queen and an arduous 11 hour trek across 4 states, 2 time zones and temperatures reaching upwards of 110 degrees, Your Mama has finally returned home to our hideway in the Hollywood Hills.

Anyhoo, vacation dramatics aside, Your Mama is back in the saddle at the celebrity real estate rodeo and ready to go. Let's get our post vacation feet wet with some recent real estate doings of a gal named Stefani Germanotta, better known to the young people as the provocative pop star Lady Gaga. Besides taking up the button pushing mantle of the middle aged music icon Madonna–a story line the Kabbalah Kween might take umbrage with–Miss Gaga recently made became the darling of the tabs and gossip glossies after the beer swilling high priestess of wannabe shocking brazenly flipped off photographers at a Mets game at Shea Stadium and then showed up a couple weeks later at a Yankees game in little more than a bra and panties where she proceeded to get sauced, sweet talk her way into the team's clubhouse, and cause a ruckus with some word slurring and (alleged) breast fondling.

As tantalizing as Miss Gaga's wacky ways may be, it's her real estate bidness that concerns Your Mama. While away on vacation, not so patiently awaiting the return of our trampy pal Fiona Trambeau, Your Mama received an unexpected covert communique from one of our better connected informants–let's call her Rhonda Ratsemout–who whispered in our big ear that New York City based Lady Gaga maintains a super swank nest in Los Angeles.

That's right bunnies, Lady Gaga is going Hollywood, or rather she's going Bel Air. According to Rhonda, last October Miss Gaga leased a 6 bedroom and 8 pooper residence in the hills above Bel Air at around $25,000 per month.
Property records and previous reports reveal Lady Gaga's leased residence is owned by Canadian real estate developer Lorne Leibel whose car fanatic son Cody is the bidness partner of restaurateur, nightclub owner and hotelier Sam Nazarian who owns celeb friendly Hollywood hot spots such as Hyde Lounge, Katsuya, The Abbey and the SLS Hotel. Property records reveal Mister Leibel paid a hefty $3,150,000 for the property in January of 2004 and last had the property on the open market in 2009 for $4,750,000.

According to listing information the high-walled and gated residence sits at the tail end of a quiet cul-de-sac and measures 6,143 square feet. Interior amenities include an impress the guest style double height entry with marble floors and a curving staircase that would make Norma Desmond swoon with melodrama, a two-story living room wrapped in French doors and warmed by a fireplace with an intricately carved stone mantel piece and a family room with another fireplace and another intricately carved stone mantel piece and brown and cream colored vertical striped wall treatment. There is also an office/library with built-in shelving and French doors that open to the pool terrace and a gigantic gore-may kitchen with separate breakfast area and an adjacent outdoor eating area.

The hillside property has a resort-style swimming pool and spa that practically hangs over the canyon with unobstructed and panoramic views of the Los Angeles. With a pair of binoculars, Miss Gaga can probably look across the canyon and up at Heidi Klum's former house that Nick Lachey currently owns has listed with an asking price of $6,800,000 although we don't imagine Miss Gaga has much use for someone as musically vanilla as Mister Lachey who, Your Mama thinks, beehawtcha could chew up in about 12 seconds flat.

Your Mama freely admits that we don't know where Miss Gaga currently resides in New York City although we do know that she used to live not so far from the Lower East Side tenement where Your Mama lived for about 1,000 years. However, since first hearing from Rhonda Ratsemout, we've heard that Miss Gaga actually tried to by Mister Leibel's other house in the Hidden Valley enclave of Beverly Hills (Post Office) that was last listed at $16,500,000. In the end she decided to lease the less expensive house in Bel Air, all of which makes Your Mama wonder if Miss Gaga is planning on relocating to Los Angeles sometime in the near future. Only time will tell chickadoodles, only time will tell.

NOTE: This posting has been amended for its original form. Your Mama got our wires crossed as to the exact house Miss Gaga leased. We've got out ducks in a row now. We apologize for the gross error.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Outward Bound

Your Mama has popped an early morning nerve pill so that we can psychologically prepare our self to hop in a car with the usually sauced but recently rehabbed Fiona Trambeau's lezbaru in order to scream across the Mojave Desert to meet Chow Lee, his Lovely Laundress, and their Trio of Bandits who may or may not make Your Mama want to rip their sassy, pre-teen throats out before this journey into the wilderness is through.

What this means is that we're taking a bit of a vacay kids. By the end of the day Your Mama will be deep in the boondocks without telephone or wireless services and won't be back until next week iffin we decide to come back at all. Now butter beans, try to control yourselves in Your Mama's absence. We don't want to have to take the time to give y'all a smack down when we return.

Bye now.

P.S. Here's a few tidbits and morsels to keep your mouth wet while were gone.

Tommy Mottola lists Aspen ranch for $27,500,000.

Some New York hockey honcho lists his Upper West Side bachelor pad.

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw finally sell their Beverly Park spread, the one with the super gay bathroom, for way less than the $14,800,000 they wanted.

Frederick C. Wehba lists Le Palais du Couchant, his newly built and never occupied Beverly Hills mega-mansion he decided is too damn big to live in.

Country king Alan Jackson just sold Sweetbriar, his massive mansion in Nashville for a heart stopping and record breaking twenty eight million and some change and now he's looking to unload a waterfront house in Tequesta, FL for $1,270,000 because he's got a new place in Jupiter Island, the very same Jupiter Island where Tiger Woods is completing a colossal contemporary mansion and where Celine Dion built a private water park in her front yard.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Patrick Dempsey Does It Up in the Bu

BUYER: Patrick Dempsey
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $7,000,000
SIZE: 5,547 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The children regularly question Your Mama about the real estate doings of a lot different famous people as if we are the damn Oracle of Delphi and know everything about everyone's bizness. Much as we'd love to promote that illusion, it simply isn't true. Our powers, we're not eager to confess, are far less potent than many of the children seem to believe.

Over the last year one of the persons we've been queried about more than anyone else is the much lusted after actor Patrick Dempsey who plays Dr. Derek Shepherd on the enormously popular hospital drama Gray's Anatomy. Not being a fan of the hospital drama genre of boob-toob fare–we do not even want to think about our aged internist schtupping his nubile nurse at work–we can't say that we know all too much about this Mister Dempsey or his Doctor character other than the poor man is saddled with the rather embarrassing nickname McDreamy by a lot of horny and under-sexed, middle-aged ladees whose huzbands probably stopped humping them 45 pounds ago.

Anyhoo, for the 6 months or so the real estate whereabouts of Mister Dempsey were a mystery to Your Mama, a real god damn sixty four thousand dollar question. Yes, we'd heard the rumors about him living in Malee-boo and we'd heard through the real estate grapevine that he was shacking up in the Sunset Strip area, but until recently we had no real intelligence about where the faux-doctor was hanging his scrubs.

In July of 2006 Mister and Missus Dempsey forked over $3,100,000 for a 3,841 square foot New England-y style domicile on Chantilly Road in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. In early 2009 they listed the property with an asking price of $3,595,000 and decamped for a rented residence on N. Bundy Drive in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. After several prodigious price chops, the Chantilly Road property finally sold in late 2009 for $2,571,500, a stunning $529,000 loss not counting the fat real estate fees that the Dempseys surely paid to their real estate people. The last we knew about the Dempsey's was in early 2010 when we heard from a reliable informant that they'd done left from their leased crib in Brentwood with their trio of youngins and headed to parts unknown.

Fast forward to this very week when we received a clandestine dispatch from Franny Francophile who directed Your Mama's limited attentions to some hard evidence as to the real estate transactions of Patty Dempsey and, as it turns, out he and the family are indeed making a nest in hills above Zuma Beach in Malibu, CA.

A little peep and poke around the property records revealed to Your Mama that back in June of 2009 Mister and Missus Dempsey dumped $7,000,000 on a 3.24 acre property that includes multi-level contemporary residence originally designed in 1972 by maverick architect Frank Gehry as the home and studio for abstract artist Ron Davis. Mister Davis sold the property in the early 1990s and it eventually landed in the hands of architecturally minded and suggestively named investor Alex Glasscock and his wife Sue who, property records reveal, paid $1,900,000 for the property in March of 2003.

Listing information provided to Your Mama by Franny Francophile shows the vaguely wedge shaped, barn-like residence measures 5,547 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers including the master suite that contains dual poopers and closets, a fireplace, plasma screen tee-vee and a wide, wood framed sliding glass door that provides access to a private relaxation garden.

What's inneresting to Your Mama is that unless some sort of expansion is planned, Mister and Missus Dempsey spent seven million clams to buy a house in which two of their three shorties will need to double up in one of the secondary bedrooms. About that situation Your Mama can only tell the children that iffin we were one of Mister Dempsey's off-spring, we would most certainly grow up to be deeply resentful of having to share a damn bedroom with a sibling given that, clearly, there's plenty of dough-ray-me for all of the Dempsey children to be provided with their own private bedroom if not their own private pooper too, you know?

Anyoo, a long, gated cobblestone drive leads up to the main house where a wall of glass tucked into the chunky structure marks the front entry, a small lofted area that overlooks the voluminous, airy and maze like interior spaces that are unified by a gigantic, 20-foot by 20-foot central sky light that pierces ceiling. A staircase winds down from the entry to the "formal" living area that has reclaimed wide plank wood floors, a double height ceiling with behemoth beams, and a fireplace flanked by shelving set into the crisp, white plaster walls. The living area spills into the "formal" dining area where a wall of windows looks out onto the drought tolerant gardens all did up and done over by soo-blime landscape architect Scott Shrader who specializes in merging the vibe of a home's interior spaces with its exterior environment resulting in a seamless integration of classic California style indoor and outdoor living.

Although there really aren't any "formal" areas of the house, the more casual, family areas consist of a v-shaped galley style kitchen with thick, polished concrete counter tops and the usual coterie of high grade stainless steel appliances–including a built in Miele brand cappuccino maker–usually found in multi-million dollar dwellings. The kitchen opens into a large breakfast area and a large, elevated den that hovers over the breakfast area has built in shelving, a long wall of pane free windows, and a wall-mounted flat screen tee-vee. There are, in addition to the 3 bedrooms, two offices.

Mister Gehry clad the exterior of the house with corrugated metal and exposed wood, a combination that allows the house to both set apart and comingle with the quasi-natural landscaped environment that surrounds the house. The south side of the house opens to a colossal cobblestone terrace that meanders though the shaded and rustic landscape and a sun-bleached wooden deck that surrounds the massive swimming pool inserts a rigid order into an otherwise tangled landscape. There are tree-shaded banquettes around the swimming pool and an outdoor rain shower.

The sprawling property also includes an existing barn with three stalls, tack room and wash racks, a riding ring, two irrigated pastures, a chicken coop, and established raised bed vegetable and herb gardens accented with rose bushes and flowering vines that wrap around a long pergola. Listing information indicates the previous owners, the unfortunately named Glasscocks, submitted plans to the city of Malibu for a 3,343 square foot Laura Burkhalter designed barn with a 2nd story loft.

At the time the Mister and Missus Dempsey bought their new house in the Bu the interior day-core have been exquisitely done up and worked over by accomplished Malibu, CA and Sag Harbor, NY based decorator Michael Lee who, Your Mama thinks, owes a debt of decorative gratitude to another Michael, the late, great Michael Taylor. For those not edgumuhcated in the history of interior day-core Mister Taylor is widely and frequently credited as the creator of the "California Look," a glam meets rustic style characterized by a neutral but intricately and interestingly textured palette, huge, white upholstered pieces, stone and rough hewn wood accents, indoor trees, and sleek, sexy and clean lined elements in all the right places such as the kitchen and pooper.

Now children, before y'all start praising or dissin' on Mister Dempsey's day-core please keep in mind that the listing photos show the interior spaces as they looked when the pornographically named Mister and Missus Glasscock occupied the premises. Presumably Mister and Missus Dempsey have put their own decorative stamp on the day-core. We don't know what decorative plans the Dempsey's have (or have instituted) for their new house but Your Mama can only hope they had the good sense to hire someone with a similarly deft hand as Mister Lee. What we do know is that the Dempseys are committed to an organic Malibu lifestyle and that they employed Scott Shrader to re-work some of his original landscape design to incorporate outdoor cooking facilities and a number of sustainable elements for food-production.

Another celebrity real estate mystery solved.

photographer: Nick Springett

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Blythe Danner Lists Ocean View Condo in Santa Monica

SELLER: Blythe Danner
LOCATION: Santa Monica, CA
PRICE: $1,860,000
SIZE: 1,396 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After some confusion and a bit of back and forth with Jimi J. Cocoapuff, it has come to Your Mama's attention that award winning actress and celebrity mom Blythe Danner recently listed her Santa Monica, CA condo with an asking price of $1,860,000.

Miz Danner, the widow of writer/producer/director Bruce Paltrow (The White Shadow, St. Elsewhere) and mother of sometime director Jake Paltrow (NYPD Blue), is the famous maw-maw of the much more famous Oscar winning ack-tress Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man franchise, Running With Scissors, Proof, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Shakespeare in Love and et. al). Now poodles, much as we like to dish about Gwynnie and her superstar real estate ways, we're not actually here to discuss her, her tumescent Goop blog, or even her porcine portfolio of high-priced properties in London and New York. It's Blythe Danner's fast paced real estate ways that are of interest today.

While she's known in households around the world for her roles on both the small and silver screens (Will & Grace, Huff, the Fockers film franchise) and has earned an impressive 5 Emmy nominations that resulted in two wins, Miz Danner is actually, arguably and perhaps, a more accomplished stage actress. At the dewy age of 25, she appeared to great acclaim in the Lincoln Center Rep's production of The Miser and in 1970, she received a Tony award for her role in Butterflies Are Free. Miz Danner went on to receive three more Tony nominations for treading the boards in Streetcar Named Desire, Betrayal, and Follies.

Property records reveal Miz Danner's ocean view condo was purchased in March of 2007 for $1,860,000, an amount the eagle eyed children will note is identical to the current listing price. That means even if Miz Danner's real estate people manage the unlikely real estate mitzvah of turning up a a buyer willing to cough up full price, she'll be out at least $75,000 in fees and expenses. Listing information and property records show the single story unit measures a modest 1,386 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 2 poopers.

Before we begin in earnest Your Mama would like to offer the caveat that although we are a fan of Miz Danner's professional abilities, we are not down with the day-core we find her nearly two million clam condo in Santa Monica. That said, we will allow that that condo is indeed done over in a manner that allows Your Mama to imagine this is actually some one's home–albeit a part time home of uninspired day-core–rather than one of those sterile, frou-frou furniture showroom like places far too many famous folk live. Okaaaay?

The smallish, but open plan main living space is a somewhat surprising and totally disappointing decorative goulash of 1980s let's-do-it-all-in-neutral day-core meets a 1995 issue of Country Living magazine meets the beach meets an uncoordinated soupçon of faux Louis. Altogether and with all due respect to the dee-voon Miz Danner, this melange gives Your Mama an awful case of the gas. We've got mixy-matchy pine pieces mixed with a glossy white Parson's table paired with an horrific fully mirrored wall on which are hung a kooky collection of clocks that mingle wearily with a duo of bergere style chairs covered in lime green fabric that coexist uncomfortably with a banal painting/print of a snow covered barn that's arguing vociferously with a director's chair that's positively punished with a puzzling floral print seat back all of which is adulterated with an elephant sized and intricately carved chestnut colored armoire. Phew! The floors, covered with oatmeal colored wall to wall carpeting except for the trapezoidal shaped wood floored entry area, and the walls that are painted an aggressive and angry shade of egg shell or ecru or some other boring beige color are not only the excruciating back drop for this condo, but also the nail in its decorative coffin.

What is nice are the giant, floor to ceiling windows that divide the interior spaces from a perfectly lovely if small ocean view terrace where Miz Danner might have sat quietly with a generous glass of a big and oaky California chardonnay and watched the waves crash and the fog retreat and/or roll in.

The kitchen appears to have been expensively renovated...in the 1990s...and includes, not surprisingly, beige raised panel cabinetry, sand and slate colored flecked granite counter tops, gray veined marble tile floors, a huge integrated Sub-Zero fridge and freezer, and one of these electric cook tops that look like they're made of shiny linoleum. It's certainly an adequately sized and set up kitchen for a relatively small high end condo, but it's just so damn dull it makes Your Mama want to prick our skin with a sharp object just so we can feel something besides beige.

The master bedroom has an entire, blood curdling wall behind the bed done up in floor to ceiling mirrors, a behemoth bed with a lot of unnecessary decorative pillows and beige linens, and a small garden view terrace. The attached bathroom is awash in gray veined marble tiles that climb the walls in the glass enclosed shower, sit atop the two-sink counter top, and wrap around the ginormous soaking tub. Although it's arguably more appropriate in the bathroom than in the living room or the bedroom, the walls above the marble tile work that surround the tub are completely covered in mirror giving the master pooper a disturbing carnival house effect that makes Your Mama's eyes cross and knees turn to jelly.

Miz Danner's digs are located within one of the better and better known high-rise condo buildings in Santa Monica where Your Mama hears through the celebrity real estate grapevine that singer Stevie Nicks shacks up even though she owns a huge house in nearby Pacific Palisades. The contemporary complex, which practically hangs over the Pacific Coast Highway and offers unobstructed and dramatic panoramic views up and down the undeniably spectacular California coastline, was built in 1963 and extensively remodeled in the mid-1990s. Some of the amenities of the full-service building include 24-hour doormen, valet parking, swimming pool, spa and a state-of-the-art fitness center. The complex also includes secured garaging and Miz Danner's condo comes complete with two deeded and covered parking spaces.

The listing of her Santa Monica pied a terre is only a small slice of the barrage of real estate activity in which Miz Danner has been involved the last few years. In the spring of 2005, Miz Danner unloaded the 29-acre lake front spread she and her now deceased huzband owned in the sleepy Westchester County community of Waccabuc, NY. The bucolic estate, comprised of two separate parcels, sold for a combined $6,000,000.

In August of 2006, Miz Danner sold an apartment in a fancy pre-war apartment tower on Manhattan's lower Fifth Avenue for $1,800,000. It was previously reported that daughter Gwynnie and former man-friend Brad Pitt–now Angelina Jolie's baby daddy/live-in beehawtcha–lived in the apartment back in the olden days when they were America's most famous and attractive Hollywood couple. A couple months later, in November of 2006, Miz Danner sold the ol' Paltrow/Danner homestead in Santa Monica for a whopping $8,600,000. Miz Danner and Mister Paltrow bought the 5,290 square foot house way back in 1976 and raised their entertainment bidness progeny there. The property next door, bought in 1999, was sold about the same time and brought in another $2,100,000.

A few, quick flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that in under two years time Miz Danner pocketed an astounding $18,500,000–less mortgages and real estate fees–into her now bulging bank accounts. If she wasn't a rich woman before, she certainly was one by the end of 2006.

In the spring of 2007, about the same time she was laying out $1,860,000 for her now for sale condo in Santa Monica, the still blond and beautiful senior citizen turned around and dropped $3,125,000 on a 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom 17th floor unit in the very same pre-war dowager on lower Fifth Avenue in which she had only months before sold an apartment. Based on previous reports it is here in this apartment on lower Fifth Avenue where Your Mama believes Miz Danner lives most of the time, or at least when she's not catting about with her pampered daughter Gwynnie and her brood of oddly named children.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Penelope Cruz Claims New Crib In the Post Office

Yesterday Your Mama discussed the soon to be former home of sophisticated ladee Candice Bergen located in a guarded and star studded enclave in Beverly Hills. One of Candy B's many soon to be former celebrity neighbors that we mentioned in the course of our discussion is lezbionic actress (and Yale graduate) Sara Gilbert (Roseanne, The Big Bang Theory, ER, Twins) and her ladee-mate writer/producer Allison Adler (Chuck, Still Standing, Family Guy).

Well, chickens, buckle your safety belts because deep in the dark of the night Your Mama received yet another furtive missive from Leonard Leaksthenews informing us that the Sapphic spouses sold their 2,538 square feet house two weeks ago for $3,300,000 to none other than the Madonna of Madrid herself, Penelope Cruz. Your Mama was able to confirm the sale via property records but as best as we can suss out, the 4 bedroom and 3 pooper property was never on the open market.

Records reveal that Miss Gilbert and her luhbeezhun ladee-mate Miss Adler picked up the property in March of 2005 for $2,481,000 buying it from model maker Heinz Holba. Herr Holba may not be a household name for anyone outside the bizness of fashion, but he's a certainly a force to be reckoned with in the cut throat world of modeling. Herr Holba, for any of the butter beans who might care, owns both L.A. Models and New York Model Management and between the the two companies Herr Holba represents a bevy of bean pole thin beauties including fresh faced catwalk queens Melissa Tammerijn, Patricia van der Vliet, Sigrid Agren, and Amanda Booth.

The children will recall that in late April of 2010 Your Mama discussed the trying to be Balinese residence in the Hollywood Hills that Miss Cruz currently owns and has on the market with an asking price of $3,450,000, reduced from its original price of $3,695,000.

Candice Bergen Quietly Sells Compound in Beverly Hills

SELLER: Candice Bergen
LOCATION: Beverly Hills (Post Office), CA
PRICE: $10,250,000
SIZE: 5,000 square feet (approx.), 3 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday, while sitting on our back deck, picking our toenails and minding our own damn beeswax, Your Mama received a covert communique from a gentleman we'll call Leonard Leaksthenews who directed us towards an off-market listing for a sprawling compound in the Beverly Hills Post Office owned by actress/comedian/all around classy ladee Candice Bergen. Information Your Mama squeezed out of the interweb shows that the pretty property was quietly shopped around for $10,250,000. Although property records do not yet reveal a transaction or sale price, Your Mama hears from a second well connected informant we'll call Whispering Winnie, that Miz Bergen's Bev Hills Post Office compound is already done been sold.

Miz Bergen, the daughter of famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and actress Frances Bergen, was born of privilege and raised with a silver spoon in her mouth in the rarefied clime of Beverly Hills, CA where she was from the get-go swept up into the world of the famous and rich. As a wee, well groomed lassie of 9, and despite her famous father having a word with Walt Disney himself, little Candy Bergen was turned down for a spot on The Mickey Mouse Club. However, her showbiz career has only been uphill since that initial rejection from the mouse man. Her early films included two with lesbian story lines (The Group and The Adventurers) as well as a role in Mike Nichols' sexed up film Carnal Knowledge. In 1975 Miz Bergen became the first female to host Saturday Night Live and in 1979 she was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role in Starting Over.

The sophisticated and obviously intelligent Miz Bergen is perhaps–for better or worse–best known for her 10 year long run from 1988 to 1998 as the sassy journalist Murphy Brown on the Murphy Brown sitcom, a role that earned her 5 Emmy awards and the ire of that ridiculous Dan Quayle who criticized Miz Bergen's character for having a baby out of wedlock. After a long, cool streak with small roles in films and tee-vee programs Miss Congeniality, Sweet Home Alabama, Sex and the City, and The Women, Miz Bergen eventually landed on the now canceled comedy-drama hybrid Boston Legal on which she played tough talking attorney Shirley Schmidt to weird and wacky William Shatner's buffoonish Denny Crane.

From 1980 until his death in 1995, Miz Bergen was married to the iconic and enormously respected 3-time Oscar nominated film director Louis Malle (Vanya on 42nd Street, Au revoir les enfants, Atlantic City, My Dinner with Andre, Murmur of the Heart). Miz Bergen and Mister Malle made one baby together, a girl by the name of Chloë Malle who happens to be the New York Observer's current (celebrity) real estate gossip queen who also pens the occasional smart art review for The Daily Beast.

Property records and previous reports show that Miz Bergen bought her Beverly Hills Post Office property in May of 1996 for $3,100,000. Listing information for the perfectly private compound, located in a private community with a guard who sits in his cruiser and relies mostly on the stink eye to keep non-residents out of the 'hood, shows the gated (approximately) 3-acre estate has a hacienda style main casa that contains approximately 5,000 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers plus a fully detached guest casa that encompasses an additional 2,000 square feet with another 3 bedrooms and 2 poopers.

The tile-roofed and vine laden residence includes various rooms with hardwood, tile and brick floors, vaulted ceilings with hand-painted beams, lots of books and landscape paintings, and a boat load of upholstered furniture with rolled arms with cushioned backs and a bevy of decorative needlepoint cushions. Altogether is has the distinct aura of being the country house of a sophisticated and cultured individual largely uninterested in hollow shine of glamour or current trends in interior day-core, which is–rightly or wrongly–exactly how Your Mama thinks of the urbane and accomplished Miz Bergen.

The expansive, park-like grounds contain a black-bottom, free form swimming pool and spa, brick dining terraces, vine shrouded patios, rolling lawns, lush gardens, mature shade trees, a gazebo, and a north/south situated tennis court.

Miz Bergen's soon to be former compound is located in the same celebrity packed private community as music mogul Guy Oseary, frozen faced ack-tress Nicole Kidman and her country crooning huzband Keith Urban, bling queen Kimora Lee Simmons Hansou and her real estate mistake, down on her professional luck singer Jessica Simpson, reggae scion Ziggy Marley, actor turned pro poker player Gabe Kaplan (Welcome Back, Kotter), lezbionic actress Sara Gilbert (Roseanne) and her ladee-mate writer/producer Allison Adler (Still Standing, Family Guy), and Craig Ellwood's Case Study House #17 now owned by by a Beverly Hills surgeon.

Above and beyond her Bev Hills Post Office compound, Miz Bergen has an interesting real estate history and a rather porcine real estate portfolio full of pricey properties. In the late 1960s Miz Bergen, then Miss Bergen, lived in sin with legendary record producer Terry Melcher. Together they lived at 10500 Cielo Drive. After deciding to decamp to the then bohemian beach enclave of Malee-boo, the Ceilo Drive property was leased to film director Roman Polanski and his wife, up and coming actress Sharon Tate (The Beverly Hillbillies, Rosemary's Baby, Valley of the Dolls). The rest, thanks to Charlie Manson, Tex Watson, and their band of batty babes, is the famous and tragic story of a demented cult personality run totally amuck.

Property records and previous reports reveal that Miz Bergen and her second huzband, wildly rich real estate developer/arts supporter Marshall Rose, also own a 4 bedroom and 3 pooper property in Montecito, CA as well as a hideaway on a particularly posh lane in East Hampton, NY. When in New York City, the cosmopolitan couple make their home at the ludicrously la-di-da cooperative apartment house at 1040 Fifth Avenue.

The children will recall that 1040 Fifth is the very same building to where former first ladee Jackie Kennady Onassis moved shortly after her husband the President was gunned down in Dallas. The children may also remember or be interested in knowing that 1040 Fifth is where zinc king William "Bill" Flaherty and his sassy, soon to be ex-wife Clementina "Tina" have their palatial penthouse on the market with an asking price of $32,000,000–reduced from $43,000,000–and where Edgar Bronfman, Jr. spent $19,500,000 on a 10th floor spread in January of 2008 and without ever moving a stick of furniture into it, flipped it in September of 2008 for $21,000,000 to financier Thomas Lehrman.

Ten-forty Fifth is also the same building where very young hedge hog Scott Bommer sold his 14th floor crib in late 2007 to real estate executive Jeff Blau so that he and his wife Donya could move into the titanic doo-plex penthouse digs they'd bought a few doors up, at the equally insanely expensive 1060 Fifth Avenue in January of 2008 for a skin melting $46,000,000. But alas, before the ink on the deed even had a chance to dry, those crazy Bommers caught a classic case of The Real Estate Fickle and flipped the behawtcha in July 2008 for $48,836,000.

As usual we digress and we have exhausted ourselves so, as Belma Buttons and Tovah McQueen so eloquently say, "We. Are. Through."

Monday, June 21, 2010

Is Oprah Moving to Los Angeles?

Rumors are beginning to swirl that soon to be retired chat show queen bee and multi-billionaire Oprah Winfrey may be in need of a new house in LaLa Land. Oh lo-ward have mercy, did the children hear all the Mercedes S-Class driving high end real estate agents in the Platinum Triangle hoot and holler with joy and then order their long suffering assistants to, "Get Oprah's people on the phone! Now!"

The buzz began in earnest last fall when it was announced that Miss Winfrey's new and eponymous television station–that would be The Oprah Winfrey Network, natch, otherwise known as OWN, natch–would be based in Los Angeles' historic Miracle Mile District. Was there ever a question in anyone's mind that La Oprah, a gal prone to bellowing and grandiose statements, was going to name that tee-vee channel after herself? No, there really wasn't, was there?

Anyhoo, the beat of the scuttlebutt drum has only gotten louder with the more recent news that the self-made media maven hired Los Angeles-based money manager Peter Adamson to set up and run a so-called "family office" to handle her personal investments and fat fortune. La Oprah's Mister Adamson happens to be the very same Peter Adamson who serves as the chief investment officer for the private wealth of real estate billionaire and art collecting king Eli Broad. Birds of a feather and all that.... It stands to reason that if La Oprah's new bizness venture is located in Los Angeles and her money man is in Los Angeles–or more specifically in Santa Monica–then the impressively driven diva will also want a place to hang her Louboutins in Los Angeles too.

Of course, Miss Winfrey already owns a conspicuously flatulent 42-acre compound with a lavish 23,000 square foot manor house in Montecito, CA that she's rather preciously dubbed The Promised Land, but unless she commutes daily by private helicopter–and who would put it past the ladee if she were to do just that?–it seems likely that Miss Winfrey will want and require a pied a terre in Tinseltown.

Certainly it would not surprise celebrity real estate watchers or any of her army of done drank the Kool-Aid Oprahites iffin the big livin' billionairess splashed out twenty or thirty million clams for a grand estate like, say, mortgage making mogul Mark Cohen's recently overhauled 7 bedroom and 11 pooper Paul Williams designed digs in the Holmby Hills listed at $28,500,000, or maybe even airplane leasing pooh-bah Lou Gonda's 24,000 square foot, 12 bedroom and 21 pooper Peter Choate designed spread, also listed at $28,500,000, located up behind the Beverly Hills Hotel in the 90210.

However, iffin Your Mama were the betting type–and we are most definitely not–we would probably put money on the majorly moneyed media maven scooping up a posh penthouse apartment in one of the better and more expensive but boring full-service buildings along the Wilshire Corridor that will provide a modicum of privacy from the pack of paps likely to follow her around town like white on rice. Besides, it's not like La Oprah hasn't owned about a million and one condos over the course of her rich life–on Florida's Fishers Island and in Atlanta, and Chicago–and, at the risk of looking like a total ass, Your Mama assumes that the full figured tycoon's primary west coast fiefdom will remain her $40,000,000 promised land in Montecito.

UPDATE: Madonna

Juicy details about the overhaul of pop superstar Madonna's new townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan are starting to slip down the real estate gossip grapevine and into the tabloids. The children who haven't completely ruined their memories with the dope will recall that The Kabbalah Kween (heretofore known as K.K.) splashed out a bone chilling $32,500,000 for the hulking house on East 81st Street.

The first to let it rip with the nitty-gritty of K.K. re-do was the New York Post who reported that building permits filed with the city of New York show the cost of planned renovations at a costly but not unheard of $1,700,000, pocket change for the massively moneyed Madge.

Just what is the K.K. got planned for her new pad the butter beans want to know? To begin with, she's adding another floor to her already 5 story high, triple wide Georgian style townhouse that will add 1,614 square feet to the existing 12,233 square feet. A few flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that K.K. will soon have a total of 13,847 square feet of living space, plus an approximately 3,000 square foot garden, elevator, a private, attached 2-car garage for pap thwarting entrances and exits, and a sitting room with wet bar for security personnel, hers and those of her guests. At least part of the basement will get a wine cellar and a playroom for K.K. cabal of kiddies.

K.K.s' plans reportedly entail converting the entire third floor over to her private quarters that will include a boo-dwar flanked by a huge, celebrity-sized walk-in closet and a prodigious and well-equipped pooper. Also on the third floor, according to plans, will be a hair salon, a separate closet for luggage storage (nice!), and a second master suite, presumably for whatever young man K.K. woos into her web. All told, according to the New York Post article, there will be 10 bedrooms and and unlucky 13 poopers, which means, thank heavens, that no amount of money K.K. could possibly offer will entice our intensely suspicious house gurl Svetlana to jump ship because ol' Sveta won't even look at a house with 13 of anything let along go inside and scrub terlits.

Your Mama has heard rumors that K.K. is having her current crib in New York, a multi-unit combination spread on the Upper West Side, quietly shopped around for an insane amount of money, but honestly buttons, Your Mama's sources on this one just aren't that reliable so we don't recommend any of y'all run around gossiping about that because the truth is Your Mama don't know nuthin' about a turnip from K.K.'s plans for her Art Deco-fied current digs.

Lori Loughlin Lists Lavish Bel Air Spread

SELLER: Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Bel Air)
PRICE: $19,500,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Every now and then, along comes a Los Angeles, CA listing that lives up to its toe curling and awe inspiring asking price. In this case, it's a perfectly polished, newly renovated Georgian style mansion sitting on 1.5 flat acres in a particularly posh part of Bel Air with a not inconsequential asking price of $19,500,000. The owners, as it turns out are actress Lori Loughlin and her habiliment honcho husband Mossimo Giannulli.

Miz Loughlin–that's pronounced Lock-lin bunnies–has been catting around Hollywood for a very long time. The blond mommy of two, who reportedly turned down the lead role in Blue Lagoon that went to Brooke Shields, didn't rise to the top of the Tinseltown heap until the mid 1980s when she began a long, 153 episode run as sexy John Stamos' gal pal cum wifey on Full House. Once that show was canceled, she appeared on the short lived situation comedy Hudson Street. Next came a long dry spell until the mid-naughts when she popped up for a season or two on boob-toob drama Summerland and then a single season on some Your Mama ain't never heard of show called In Case of Emergency. For the last few years Miz Loughlin has been cashing paychecks from her gig on 90210, the silly but popular redux of the 1990s cult boob-toob hit Beverly Hills 90210.

Signore Mossimo Giannulli is, of course, the creator of the wildly successful mid-range clothing line Mossimo, mostly available at big box discount retailers like Target. High fashion the Mossimo brand is not, but that's clearly of no matter to our Signore Giannulli who is probably laughing hysterically at the high fallutin' but cash strapped couturiers all the way to the bank and then back home again to his twenty million dollar estate in Bel Air.

Property records show that Signore Giannulli and Miz Loughlin purchased their Bel Air property in March of 2002 for $8,010,580. At that time, according to the Los Angeles county tax man, the 1.43 acre estate, all flat as a damn pancake and ringed by massive and mature trees, included a much more modest, 4,928 square foot mini-mansion built in 1942. The couple proceeded to hire noted classically minded Ferguson & Shamamian Architects to work over and expand the main house and add a few this and thats including a guest house and pool pavilion.

Once the building and banging was complete, Signore Giannulli and Miz Loughlin had renowned nice, gay decorator Michael Smith come in and do up the interiors in a very dignified, genteel, and traditional manner. Although the day-core is rigorously conceived, meticulously executed and unquestionably correct, Your Mama finds it all a little decoratively turgid, fussy, and even predictable. But then, East Coast Grandmother-chic really isn't our decorative cup of tea. Some of the children surely already know that Michael Smith–who is called Granny Smith by more than a few sharp tongued tarts in the interior day-core industry–is the very man hired by President and Missus Obama to do over the interiors of the White House's private quarters. So, you know, he's a big deal and despite our affinity for something less faux aristocratic, Miss Smith knows what she's doing when it comes to high end and purdy if somewhat bland day-core that strains to be anything but edgy or modern.

Let's digress for just a moment, shall we? After an extensive renovation that included moving the swimming pool and adding a lot of chintz things, Smith sold his recently completed and somewhat feminine house in Brentwood area of Los Angeles in February of 2010 for, according to property records, $10,000,000. That house, a one-time 1950s ranch, was also reconceived by Ferguson & Shamamian Architects. Mister Smith, who may or may not have bought a new crib in LaLa Land, decamped for a doo-plex penthouse pied a terre in New York City that once belonged to Inge and Osbourn "Oz" Elliott, he being the former editor of Newsweek, she being the founder of fabric emporium China Seas, and they being the inspiration for the cosmopolitan couple Flan and Ouisa Kittredge in the play (and later film) Six Degrees of Separation.

The Loughlin/Giannulli home is approached via one of two electronically controlled drive gates connected by a wide gravel driveway that arches up to the mostly symmetrical front facade, all white brick, cornflower blue shutters, chunky quoins, multi-paned sash windows, and slim columns that direct traffic through the slim portico to the off-center front door that is topped with a traditional scrolled pediment.

The entrance gallery, which runs from the front to the back of the house, has black and white marble on the floor in a checkerboard pattern, a gently curving staircase, and slate and a gray vertically striped wall covering. Nestled into the curve of the stairway a round table is covered with a fringed tablecloth and holds a spray of what appear to be orchids–ugh–and a small collection of antique globes. This might be a good place for Miz Loughlin and Signore Giannulli to set their car keys when coming into the house iffin Mister Smith had left any room for the homeowners to actually set their keys on the over-stuffed table.

To one side of the entry is the ballroom sized formal living room with hardwood floors, double height vaulted ceiling, fireplace and a lot of fussy furniture. At the center of the formal dining room is a very shiny, round dining room table surrounded by 8 chairs with dark rose colored cushions that may or may not be silk. The intricate pattern of the rug is paired with the intricate pattern of the wallpaper that are both set against the intricate pattern in the plaster ceilings. All together and despite all the patterns, it's a well balanced room that could just as easily be in a the sprawling Park Avenue apartment of a socialite or in the Connecticut country house of an aged industrialist and his third, much younger and bored wife who has little more to do with her time than shop, have her hair and toes did, and redecorate.

The "country kitchen," which Your Mama finds surprisingly small for a house of this magnitude, has white cabinetry, marble counter tops, a long breakfast bar, and a complete coterie of high grade stainless steel appliances that combined cost more than Your Mama's big BMW. The kitchen is open to the breakfast room where a blond table and a few French looking chairs with elaborately scrolled backs sit below a chinoiserie style pendant lamp. The adjacent family room has built in bookshelves, and wood burning fireplace, more of Mister Smith's signature mixy-matchy upholstered furniture and French doors that open to the rear terrace.

According to listing information, the main house has 5 bedrooms and 5 poopers, including what information calls a "master wing" and a "separate outside" guest bedroom and pooper. There are two more bedrooms (and an unknown number of terliting and bathing facilities) in a guest house that Your Mama is guessing is located in the detached building on the far side of the back motor court where there is garaging for at least 4 dee-luxe and lavishly expensive automobiles and SUVs.

The manicured and well-watered grounds encompass vast expanses of lush and unnaturally green lawns large enough to have several competitive games of pre-dinner croquet going at once, a number of terraces at the back of the house that overlook the gigantic swimming pool and pool pavilion that is fronted by a vine shaded pergola and contains a double height ceiling, fireplace, built in wet bar, pool table and a couple of over-stuffed sofas covered in a very Palm Beach leaf print pattern. Beyond the pool and pavilion is a lighted north/south aligned tennis court and around one side of the house sits a silly, circus tent like folly where, Your Mama hears through the well-heeled Bel Air real estate grapevine, Miz Loughlin keeps all her body torture equipment that enable her to maintain her, Hollywood slim and hard bodied girlish figure even as she begins the downward side of her forties.

In addition to a lot of big bizness bigwigs and entertainment executives most people have never heard of, Mister Giannulli and Miz Loughlin's nearby neighbors include Emmy winning Will & Grace alum Debra Messing, Rick and Kathy Hilton (that would be Paris the heiress' lucky lucky lucky parents), former Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel, ousted Disney CEO Michel Eisner, Bob Newhart, and financially beleaguered actor Nic Cage, who no longer lives in the 'hood because he lost his nearby estate to foreclosure in the spring of 2010.

Your Mama really has no clue or inside information about why Miz Loughlin and Signore Giannulli would opt to sell their Bel Air estate so soon after completing what was clearly an expensive and time consuming endeavor. Conventional real estate wisdom dictates that this sort sort of scenario indicates money or marriage troubles, but Your Mama would not bet that's the case here. We're far more inclined to go with the classic, often perplexing and all too frequent explanation of rich and famous folks having a real estate change of heart. We shall see.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Your Mama Hears...

...through the Beverly Hills celebrity real estate grapevine that the reason entertainment mogul/real estate size queen Tyler Perry, who made much of his many millions working it on the silver screen as a sassy and saggy boobed old woman named Madea, wants to sell his über modern mansion at the tippy top of the bird streets above Sunset Strip is because he's building and even bigger house on a 22-acre spread in Beverly Hills.

Mister Perry purchased the 22-acre property behind the guarded gates of the swank and showy Beverly Ridge community in April of 2004 for an undisclosed amount of money. He began building his multi-winged dream mansion but soon after the foundation was poured, some steel framing erected, and the tennis court pad graded Mister Tyler caught a case of The Real Estate Fickle and hoisted the property and the unfinished mansion on the market with an asking price of $15,000,000. Listing information from the time stated that plans were for a boo-teek hotel sized 22,000 square foot Tuscan style home. Although the property was featured on the first season of Bravo's Million Dollar Listing it was not identified as belonging to Mister Tyler and in October of 2007 Your Mama heard through the gossip grapevine that Mister Tyler showed his big Bev Hills spread to Puff Diddle (or Diddy Diddle or Fiddle Puff or whatever his name is) but no deal was consummated.

At some point, around the middle of 2008 as best as we can surmise, Mister Perry caught another case of The Real Estate Fickle because the 22-acre property was taken off the market and construction resumed with the idea, we hear, that this will be Mister Perry's rarely used west coast crib. But Your Mama ain't holding our breath because if history is any predictor of the future we'd not be least bit surprised if mercurial Mister Perry changed his damn mind and decided to flip this beehawtcha back on the market and buy a new damn house in Malee-boo–where he did once own a ocean front getaway that he sold in the spring of 2007. Phew!

The relatively new and totally nouveau riche Beverly Ridge community is home to a number of other hoity toity big name sorts including Alexis Carson–that would be Johnny's insanely rich widow, and former professional pigskinner turned interior decorator Keyshawn Johnson. It's also the same community where Paris Latsis, heir to a great Greek shipping, banking, and oil fortune, once bought a mansion for he and then fiancée Paris Hilton to live. However, like all of Miss Hilton's high profile romances with far less famous men, her short lived relationship with Boy Paris swirled down the terlit of love.

In early 2009, Atlanta-based Mister Perry heaved his Fairburn, GA home–all 17,252 square feet it–on the market with an asking price of $3,695,000 so that he could move to an even bigger, (approximately) 30,000 square foot monument to his wealth and success on 17 suburban Atlanta acres overlooking the Chatahootchie River. Mister Perry's Fairburn mansion no longer appears to be on the open market, but property records show it's still taking up space in his bulging real estate portfolio.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Nick Lachey Lists Brown and Beige Bel Air Bachelor Pad

SELLER: Nick Lachey
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: $6,800,000
SIZE: 5,214 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Exactly one month ago today, word secretly slipped down the celebrity real estate grapevine and into Your Mama's inbox that former boy bander turned reality tee-vee star turned reality tee-vee presenter/producer Nick Lachey might be fixin' to list his Los Angeles, CA house located high in the hills above Bel Air.

Sho enuf cockadoodles, he has, and with a celebrity style asking price of $6,800,000.

Mister Lachey, once a member of the popular, successful, and depressingly cheesy boy bad 98 Degrees hasn't had much professional success since busting out of boy-bandhood and getting a dee-vorce in 2006 from the also down on her professional luck singer Jessica Simpson. The beefy balladeer has released a couple of albums to little acclaim but he seems to be far better known for his brief flings with a bevy of high maintenance beehawtchas including Dancing with the Stars' Cheryl Burke and big booty pin up gurl/amateur porn star Kim Kardashian. Eventually Mister Lachey settled into a volatile on again/off again relationship with Vanessa Mannillo, a former beauty queen who currently hosts the downright distressing True Beauty reality program. Over the years, Mister Lachey and Miss Minnillo busted up more times than Your Mama has fingers and toes and they may or may not currently be couple. We don't know and, frankly, we don't care.

Property records show that in February of 2006, just before his highly publicized dee-vorce from Jessica Simpson was finalized, Mister Lachey laid out an even-steven $5,000,000 for a sexy bachelor pad on at the tail of a gated, private, and dead end drive in Bel Air. He purchased the property from brar and panty model/media mogul/baby factory Heidi Klum and her soul singing man-mate Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel. The salt and pepper pair subsequently moved to very privately situated and gated estate with a 6 bedroom and 9 pooper Mediterranean style mansion.

Listing information indicates Mister Lachey's ridge top residence measures 5,214 square feet and includes 4 bedroom and 4.5 poopers. According to listing information, the interior spaces–all white walls, soaring expanses of floor to ceiling glass, and dark stained hardwood floors finished with an almost mirror like gloss–were recently remodeled and then all done up and did over by some sort of decorator with a confounding aversion to color that borders on obsession in every shade of beige, tan, brown, khaki and mushroom known to mankind.

A generously wide entrance gallery leads to the sunken formal living room that features a wall of floor to ceiling corner windows that give out to a gorgeous view, fireplace, white sectional sofa that wraps around an animal skin rug, a number of house plants, some artwork that barely qualifies as art as far as Your Mama is concerned, and one of those ubiquitous Buddha statues that can be found in far too many celebrity homes. What is it with famous folks and their damn Buddha statues? Buddha statues and Buddha imagery seem to be more common in celebrity owned homes–particularly in Los Angeles–than those god-awful paintings of pears and other assorted fruit frequently spotted in the homes of stars. We just don't get it. Then again, Your Mama is not a Buddhist nor do we go for that body contorting yoga crap so popular with celebrities so having a Buddha in our house makes about as much sense as asking that box of hair Jessica Simpson to figure out whether tuna is fish or chicken.

There are several more pieces of "art" in the formal dining room that look like the sort of thing one buys at IKEA. The contemporary is well equipped if a bit dull and has black marble tile flooring, dark, dark, dark flat fronted cabinetry, white–or maybe it's egg shell colored–counter tops that may or may not be Caesar Stone, and the usual compliment of high grade stainless steel appliances. There are both family and media rooms, both not surprisingly filled with velvety beige and brown things and built-in cabinetry designed to hold the over-sized boob-toobs. Mister Lachey, a well-known sports freak who owns a portion of a minor league professional baseball team in Tacoma, WA, displays some of his sports memorabilia collection on the wall behind the built-in wet bar in the family room and keeps a high tech drum set and some sort of video game machine in the media room. Why does it depress Your Mama so much to find a Pac-man machine–or whatever the hell that is–in the home of a fully grown, child-free man?

Anyhoo, as should be expected, the color-free decorative motif continues into the master bedroom where we find plush chocolate brown carpeting on the floor, putty colored grass cloth on the walls, and a whole mess of rust colored candles on the dresser, which no doubt are for when Mister Lachey wants to set a romantic mood for whatever ladee he's currently wooing. A flat screen tee-vee is set into the wall near the ceiling, a location that would surely give Your Mama a crick in the neck were we to lay on the bet and try to watch that thing for longer than 42 seconds.

There are several patios and terraces that surround the house, off of which offer long views over the city, the canyons and towards the Pacific Ocean in the not too far off distance. The swimming pool, spa and main outdoor entertainment area is located in what is, for all intents and purposes, the front yard. The "L" shaped swimming pool has a raised spa on one side, a couple of freestanding covered bed nooks on another, chaise lounges on the third and a massive sunken bar tucked into the crook of the "L." The sunken situation allows for swimmer to sidle up to the bar and snatch up a cocktail without ever leaving the swimming pool.

Your Mama hasn't any idea why Mister Lachey might want to unload his beige and brown bachelor pad but we do think that iffin there are any celebs out there in the market for a six and some million dollar contemporary residence that offers wonderful seclusion and a perfect kind of privacy, we suggest they get up there quick to check this place out.

In addition to his hilltop bachelor pad in Los Angeles, Mister Lachey is said to maintain an apartment at the Atelier building in Midtown Manhattan–rumored to have been "lent" to Mister Lachey in exchange for publicity–and we've read on a couple of occasions that he also owns home in Tacoma, WA but we don't know nuthin' about that and a cursory peep and poke around the property records turned up nada. Property records also show Mister Lachey co-owns a 4,374 square foot home in Cincinnati, OH with his father.

The Bouwerie Lane Building Ballyhoo

Buckle your safety belts butter beans and grab a bit of sustenance because Your Mama plans on taking a somewhat circuitous route through this one.

Today, just like everybody else, Your Mama's going to jump on the Bouwerie Lane Theatre building real estate bandwagon that the New York Post's resident celebrity real estate gossip Jennifer Keil has been yakking about all week.

Before we dive into that bit of celebrity real estate bizness, let's get side tracked a for a few moments, shall we? Many moons ago, when the Dr. Cooter and Your Mama first began the discussions and negotiations about hitching our wagons and moving in together, we looked at and seriously considered leasing a 5th floor apartment in the Bouwerie Lane Theatre building on the corner of Bowery and Bond Street. At that time, while not exactly skid row anymore, the Bowery had yet to become The Bowery where well to do hipsters and glammy gals in $600 stilettos slum it in multi-million dollar condos. As we recall–and poodles, it's not easy for Your Mama to remember these things after all the water under the bridge and booze down the gullet in the intervening years–we considered leasing a half floor, corner unit with two vast, light filled rooms, a squalid kitchen and a pooper that would have taken our tough talking house gurl Svetlana the better part of a week to scrub clean. The asking price was $5,000 per month, a small fortune but, children, it's New York City. Can't stomach the insanely high prices? Don't. Live. There.

In the end, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter passed on loft living and opted for a far less bohemian 3 bedroom doo-plex in a West Chelsea doorman building where a fair number of famous folks also lived. At the time, the resident celebs included Nicole Kidman, Tim Gunn (who wears clogs!), Lorraine Bracco, Susan Sontag (until she passed on to the great feminist in the sky), fashion dee-ziner John Bartlett and his three legged dog Tiny Tim, Blondie's Debbie Harry, and the dee-voon ginger haired actress Katherine Helmond.

Anyhoo, getting back to the matter at hand, the landmarked, cast iron Bouwerie Lane Theatre building was bought for $15,000,000 in 2007 by well-known New York property developer Adam Gordon and renamed with the minimalist and unimaginative moniker 54 Bond. Like he has with several previous projects, Mister Gordon had the good sense to hire soo-blime (st)architect Steven Harris who performed a serious hocus pocus on the property converting what was once an iconic and beautiful but ratty building on the Bowery into an iconic and gleaming machine for modern living that manages to maintain much of the look, feel, panache, and patina of the historic structure.
The Bouwerie Lane...er 54 Bond building, according to marketing materials, has long been attractive to famous folks and former occupants include musical genious Eubie Blake, deep voiced singer Pearl Bailey, artists Lynda Benglis and Brice Marden, chesty siren Jane Russell, Oscar nominated actor Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), and the wacky gap-toothed goddess Lauren Hutton.

The post-renovation condo conversion continues to attract the attention of a number of celebs who have kicked the tires of the sexy, triplex penthouse (above) that carries a hefty asking price $15,400,000. First there was debonair British actor Hugh Grant (the Bridget Jones series, Love Actually, Notting Hill), then came well formed Scottish actor Gerard Butler (RocknRolla, 300, Beowulf & Grendel, The Phantom of the Opera), who Your Mama regrets to inform is reported to be hooking it up and doing the dirty bizness–again–with SCRAM bracelet wearing tabloid train wreck Lindsay Lohan. Really Mister Gerard? Really? All that fame and fortune and you want to go there?

Anyhoo, today Miz Keil reveals that curly coiffured actress Sarah Jessica Parker, she-ra of the Sex and the City franchise and producer of Bravo's new reality program Work of Art: The Next Great Artist and her two time Tony winning Broadway baby huzband Matthew Broderick have together and separately toured the $15,400,000 penthouse no fewer than four times.

According to marketing materials, the posh penthouse pad that picayune Miss Parker has been circling measures 4,863 square feet on the inside and another 1,277 square feet outside. The penthouse has several dozen windows with restoration glass, reclaimed Belgian Oak chevron pattern wood flooring imported from France, lofty 10'4' ceilings, pocket doors, a fireplace in the living room, 2 full eat-in kitchens with hideously expensive La Cornue and Aga brand appliances, and two roof top terraces, one with an approximately $3,000 Fuego brand barbecue and a the other with custom built in Ipe planters and seating.

Amenities in the building, which contains 3 residential units plus two retail spaces and a basement–listed at $1,900,000–where someone could install a swimming pool, include video surveillance, key-card elevator access, high-speed wiring, a virtual doorman (whatever that is), and optional valet parking.

According to Miz Keil, pocket-sized Miss Parker is interested not only in the triplex penthouse but also the 2,274 square foot full floor unit on the fourth floor, currently priced at $4,950,000. Fortunately for Miss Parker, the fourth floor and the triplex penthouse are being offered by the developer for the somewhat discounted but still blood curdling price of $19,900,000, an expensive option petite Miz Parker and Mister Broderick are said to be interested. The combined quadruplex would measure an elephantine 7,137 square feet and depending on how it's configured include 5-7 bedrooms and, easily, 7 poopers including the two glammy terliting, bathing, and dressing facilities in the 6th floor master suite.

However, according to Miz Keil, toy poodle sized Miz Parker and Mister Broderick are only interested in that particular option if the fourth floor (below) is provided to them by the developer free of charge, like some sort of real estate bonus for coughing up fifteen and some million for the triplex penthouse. Your Mama has no idea if that particular real estate rumor has any veracity, but iffin it do, it probably goes without saying that Miss Parker clearly has some bad-ass real estate cajones.
Some developers would surely jump at the chance to unload two high priced condo units at one time, particularly in a lackluster market but Your Mama sort of doubts Mister Gordon will grab at Miss Parker's (alleged) offer. Let's just call it a hunch. Miz Parker must also think Mister Gordon is having none of her free 4th floor bizness because the actress was seen last week touring a West 12th Street townhouse last on the sales market in 2008 with an asking price of $24,900,000 and on the rental market in early 2010 with a $42,000 per month price tag.

One has to wonder why Miss Parker and Mister Broderick even need a new house considering they already own a lovely Greenwich Village townhouse where they've lived since the dawn of time.

As a digression of little import or value, back when Your Mama first moved to New York City, all wide-eyed and dewy skinned, we developed a bit of a fascination with the S.J.P. The first year Your Mama lived in New York we shared a teeny-tiny triplex penthouse apartment on far West 49th Street with a beautiful and mercurial lunatic we knew from our university days. In an effort to steer clear of the whirling dervish that was our roommate, we spent a lot of time out and about and, hand to God, it seemed like everywhere we went we ran into Miss Sarah Jessica Parker. There she was at Bar Pitti having a bite and there she is sitting next to Your Mama at Shakespeare in the Park. There we are nearly spilling our gin & tonic on her at a film premiere party at some photo studio in the Meatpacking District and there she is stepping into a cab on Lower Fifth Avenue. And there she is again at Barney's, unsuccessfully attempting to look discreet in a floppy hat and woman with a past sunglasses. We were–in our boozy haze–convinced we were destined to befriend the pint sized Miss Parker. But alas, it never happened and we're quite certain that Miss Parker, who was quite cordial when we apologized for bumping into her, never even gave Your Mama a second glance let alone recognized that we were seeing each other around town on a regular basis.

After that first year or so, as quickly as she entered our orbit–or we hers–Your Mama never again laid our real eyes on the pee-wee Miss Parker. However, it seems somehow fitting, a full real estate circle sort of thing, natch, that Miss Parker is now flirting with living up in the very same building that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter once considered living. Okay, it's a stretch, but it's early and Your Mama is off the booze this week, so hush up.