Tuesday, January 3, 2012

New Year's Mish Mash Catch Up: Brangelina

Before any of you people get your under panties in a wad about Your Mama using the tie-erd term Brangelina to refer to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie know deep in your snarky souls that we use it very reluctantly and only in the service of keeping the headline to just one line, okaaay? Moving along...

Over the weekend came the surprising celebrity real estate news that Oscar-winning actress/director and global do-gooder Angelina Jolie bought her man-mate Brad Pitt a piece of land with a waterfall outside of Los Angeles, CA where he can realize his real estate and architectural dream of designing and erecting a cantilevered Falling Water-like residence. Miz Jolie, ever the thoughtful (and deep pocketed) Life Partner and co-parent, allegedly purchased the waterfall and surrounding acreage as a combination holiday and 48th birthday present for Mister Pitt.

An unidentified source, "a friend" of the generally pretty private pair told the the UK's dishy tab The Daily Mail that Mister Pitt, a surprisingly knowledgeable architecture and design fanatic, "has dreamed of a home with the sound of a waterfall cascading under the house." The source went on to explain Mister Pitt "wants to pull all aspects of nature, light, glass and varying levels into the concept. No further details were given as to the topography or whereabouts of the waterfall endowed spread other than it being "near LA."

Hmm. Unfortunately Your Mama has no specific knowledge or inside intel on this one but does anyone else smell an unsubstantiated celebrity real estate rat?

The Jolie-Pitts, as far as Your Mama knows, already own and maintain a fair (but shrinking number) of homes around the globe that include a just about self-contained 1,000-ish acre spread in the South of France, a remote Cambodian retreat, a townhouse mansion in New Orleans, LA, a (spectacular) ocean front compound near Santa Barbara, CA, and a multi-parcel compound in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, CA. Mister Pitt sold his bluff-top Malibu modern last month (December 2011) to the voracious and seemingly insatiable property collector Ellen Degeneres and her lady-wife Portia De Rossi who themselves have their superstar-style compound in Beverly Hills, CA on the market with a blistering $49,000,000 price tag.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excuse this New Orleanian, but I always thought Los Angeles was a desert. What waterfall? Is it at the end of the "Los Angeles River"? This is a hard one to swallow.

Anonymous said...

This property will be spectacular and will fulfill Brad's wish to outdo his ex wife hottie Jennifer Aniston's Ohana in the Architectural Digest Spread. AD January 2014 anyone for Brad's masterpiece?

Doug said...

(Brad Pitt) has dreamed of a home with the sound of a waterfall cascading under the house.

I think dressing "little people" as cherubs and having them dance around the bedroom whilst* singing softly would add dramatically to to the waterfall effect.

*The word "whilst" was used simply for dramatic purposes and the author neither encourages or endorses its use in day-to-day conversations. The use of said word might lead to odd stares, rude comments or, in a worst case scenario, a bloody nose. It is highly recommended that local customs be reviewed prior to any utterance of the word "whilst". The effects of using "whilst" can, and often have been, compared with telling individuals that you wish to live over a waterfall with a tattoo-covered skank and unfathomable numbers of screaming children.

Anonymous said...

i always loved the house he shared with jenn in bev hills. would like to get an update on that house.

Anonymous said...

Let us hope he is better at construction than FLWright whose Falling Water house developed cracks and other bad things and needed a lot of repairs. (They say FLWright's office space designed for Johnson Wax also developed leaks in the glass roof so water dribbled down on the workers below; I presume this too has been repaired at quite some cost, In other words, a spectacular design doesn't always work very well).

Anonymous said...

Wow, Anon 2:00...NEVER heard that one before? Frank Lloyd Wright = leaky roofs? you don't say? Just HOW OLD is that record you're playing?

Anonymous said...

The ceiling and roof are supported by these large "lily pad" columns that start at a slender 9" at the bottom, and reach 18 feet in diameter at the top. There are 77 of them that hold the building up. The famous story about them was that the original building committee wouldn't grant Wright a permit to build the structure because they didn't think the columns could support the weight. They determined that each column must support 12 tons in order to safely support the building. Wright was disgusted by their lack of confidence and foresight and decided that a public demonstration was called for. He constructed one of the columns and then invited the entire building committee along with the press to witness the demonstration of strength. He even hired an orchestra to play while the demonstration went on. His plan was to pile at least 12 tons of weight on the column and continue adding weight until the column collapsed. His little demonstration payed off. The column was able to support more than 60 tons of sand before it finally collapsed.... more than 5 times the weight that it was required to. Needless to say he got the building permit.

The visible evidence of this support is in the way the walls are constructed. There is a large gap between the top of the brick walls and the lower edge of the roof/ceiling. This gap is filled with clear pyrex tubes that allow natural light in. Much of the roof, in fact, is made of these clear tubes that are sealed together. Though the lighting affect was beautiful, the ceiling tended to leak and the building got a bit too bright in the summer... necessitating use of better sealants and some shades to protect from the sunlight. The visual effect is though you're standing in a forest. It is beautiful.
++++++++++++++++
"the ceiling tended to leak........"

Anonymous said...

3:pm Further re Wright....he had an admirer as well as critic in Philip Johnson. Johnson, you may know, built an iconic "glass house" with flat roofs in the countryside outside NYC, causing Wright to sneer that "poor little Johnson has left his toys out where they will get wet in the rain." Nonetheless Johnson said that Wright's building for Johnson Wax was perhaps the most beautiful architectural concept he had ever seen. (You might watch Johnson's interview with Dick Cavett in toto for all this.)

midTN said...

***

"Falling Water is falling down, falling down, falling down"......

....FLW is so overrated.

Anonymous said...

6:05, you're talking about the Johnson Wax Building, which has nothing to do with FallingWater, for starters. The point is, we've heard these stories over and over and over before -- it's not an insightful comment. The fact that a roof may leak at times does not take away from the iconic design importance not its inspiration to others who might aspire to it today. Who presumably could afford newer engineering and better sealant.

Anonymous said...

There are tons of FLW homes in my area and they still look great and sell very well when they go up for sale. For their age they still outshine most of any the new homes for sale today in my opinion.
Truly special homes.

Anonymous said...

The Fallingwater renovation/restoration was completed in 2002. It is an amazing home; if you've never been, go.

Anonymous said...

7:03 You appeared to disbelieve my statement that the Johnson Wax building roof leaked, so I put up info to support my claim. I certainly never said that it is not a beautiful building. Since when are all comments here "insightful"? Most are simply personal opinion. If Mama decided all comments had to be "insightful" (by her judgment) there would be far fewer than there are.

StPaulSnowman said...

Now that is the power of genius. Whilst dead lo these many years, FLW still gets the chillns' spitballs flying.

Splenderosa said...

OMG, let that pair have all the fun they want. Who know how many people they support with employment and giant real estate commissions. If Brad wants a water-fall...wonderful!
Whatever he creates will be beautiful, like it always has been.

Anonymous said...

I thought the South France pad was a lease, not really owned by them?

Anonymous said...

I remember reading about their "Cambodian retreat".
I mean honestly, how often do they go there.
Here's an idea...how about just getting a nice mansion in LA and a spacious penthouse in Manhattan. And just "hotel-it" whenever they are jet-setting around the world. It's cheaper and less stressful because you dont have to think about maintaining all those properties.
Even there townhouse in New Orleans.
I remember seeing them hanging out in the balcony in like 2007 during Mrdi Gras, but that it...

Darius Khan said...
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