SELL BUY PROPERTY

If the children will put on their thinking caps they might recall that early this year Your Mama passed along some Platinum Triangle real estate scuttlebutt about pioneer celebrity journalist Mary Hart and television and movie producer Burt Sugarman floating their Trousdale Estates mansion as an off-market pocket listing with an asking price in the $37-39 million dollar range.

Two weeks ago, we heard from a couple of well-connected tattletales– Charlie Chitchatter and Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air—who both snitched that the unconfirmed word around town was that the Sugarman-Hart home went for a bit more than $30 million to an sick-rich Saudi.

Well, puppies, property records now show the property actually traded for $27,000,000 and a hardcore real estate yenta we know—that would be Yolanda Yakketyyak—swears on her teased and lacquered helmet hair that the buyer is indeed a wealthy and well-connected Saudi sheikh. According to Yolanda, the buyer is a former Special Secretary to the late Crown Price Sultan of Saudi Arabia whose $50,000 per month rental residence above L.A.'s Sunset Strip was burglarized last April and who recently shelled out $28 million dollars for the long-delayed James Hotel site at the western tail the Sunset Strip.

Your Mama has not idea what the new owner's plans for the 11,000+ square foot mansion that property records show has six bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, three fireplaces and a gated motor court with covered parking for five cars but we'd bet both our long-bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, that a very expensive and comprehensive security system will be installed toot de suite.

*As it turns out, the Luca Colombo-designed residence that was leased by the sheikh in question and burglarized last year has just popped back up on the open market with an asking price of $10,900,000.

aerial photo: Bing

The long-legged blond at Trulia Luxe Living let the cat out of the bag about veteran musician and virtuoso guitarist John Fogerty quietly floating his big ol' mansion in Beverly Hills (CA) as an off-market listing with a big ol' asking price of $23.5 million.

Digital marketing materials shows the "masterfully executed Tuscan estate" sits behind imposing gates on three landscaped acres in a small gated enclave near the famously steroidal guard-gated Beverly Park community.

Mister Fogerty's hulking, 16,000 square foot mansion has, according to listing information, a double height foyer with circular staircase, a double barrel vaulted gallery, grand entertaining spaces including a home theater, double height family room and a walk-in wine room.

Listing details show a total of 9 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms including a massive master suite with dual closets and bathrooms, a junior master suite with private den, four more family/guest suites and a staff suite off the kitchen plus a separate guesthouse with an additional bedroom and bathroom.

The canyon view property also features an circular driveway with a tiered fountain in the center, an internal motor court, numerous loggias, patios and terraces, outdoor cooking and dining spaces, broad, flat lawns with play house and play structure, and a mosaic tiled swimming pool and spa.

listing photos: The Agency

Did y'all hear that new parents Kanye West and Kim Kardashian plan to install a Swarovski crystal encrusted refrigerator, four gold plated toilets—at a cost of more than $750,000, and more than a million dollars worth of custom-crafted mattresses in the 9,000 square foot mock-Med Bel Air macmansion they bought earlier this year for $9 million?

Holy smokes! Gold plated crappers? Is there anything, children, more decoratively douchey than a gold plated toilet? Yep. Four gold plated toilets. Puh-leeze.

listing photo: Nelson Shelton & Associates

Comedienne Rosie O'Donnell hardly qualifies for food stamps. The lady is most assuredly rich by an any standard. However, the entrepreneurial entertainer and outspoken social commentator certainly brings home less bacon than she did in her Showbiz salad days of yore and this may (or may not) have something to do with her mad rush to shrink her once bulging real estate portfolio.

In June (2013) she sold her water front estate on Miami Beach's illustrious Star Island for $16.5 to real estate investors David and Linda Frankel, the latter, Your Mama learned from a socially connected acquaintance, being broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer's older sister. Anyhoo...

A few weeks ago, much to the surprise of this jaded property gossip, the opinionated blogger who often writes in a poetry format flipped a deluxe duplex penthouse in New York City's Greenwich Village on the market for $10,950,000 only a year after she bought it for $8,095,000. (So the stories go, American fashion icon Michael Kors recently had a wee look-see at the 3,200 square foot spread even though he already owns a West Village penthouse with a huge terrace.)

Now comes word down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine via the fine folk at Zillow that Miz O'Donnell has hoisted her Midtown Manhattan pied-a-terre at The Platinum for $2.25 million. Miz O'Donnell acquired the 22nd floor two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom corner crib, as per property records, back in 2008 for $2,005,000.

Miz O'Donnell still owns a five-residence compound set right on the Hudson River in Nyack, NY that she acquired between 2001 and 2008 for a total of $8,605,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

BUYER: Eric Schmidt
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $11,500,000
SIZE: 6,009 square feet,

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday, the industrious peeps who pen the Page Six column at The New York Post printed and posted a juicy ditty about the apparently quite active romantic life of Eric Schmidt, the middle-aged and technically still married multi-billionaire executive chairman of Google.

Mister Schmidt's long-time wife, Wendy, was interviewed for an August 2012 profile in The New York Times and she pretty much confirmed the eons-old Silicon Valley scuttlebutt about her and Mister Schmidt living separate lives. She lives primarily on Nantucket (MA) and he, when not gallivanting the globe, more than 3,000 miles away in the affluent Bay Area community of Atherton (CA). They meet up, apparently, when their busy schedules allow. He, she told the Times, flies in for brief visits and she typically spends some time at the family compound in Atherton in during the winter.

Of course, the rules and regulations of Mister and Missus Schmidt's long-distance marriage ain't nobody's bizness but for years now gossip columns have run occasional tidbits about Mister Schmidt's dalliances with various women who are not his wife. He's most recently been spotted around town with Vietnamese concert pianist Cho-San Nguyen who was formerly affianced to television and film producer Brian Grazer. In September 2012 Page Six reported that Mister Schmidt had a "complicated" relationship with "New Yorker Lisa Shields, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations" who, so the stories go, he dated for a couple of years, and in July 2011 the naughty gossips at Gawker named two other former lady friends of the high-tech Lothario.

Adding dish to the dirt about Mister Schmidt's extra-marital lady-chasing ways, yesterday's article in The Post went on to tittle-tattle that earlier this summer Mister Schmidt (allegedly) "asked his aides to find alluring female companions to 'decorate his yacht,'" a sleek 195-footer with a gym that converts to a disco that he snatched up in 2009 for $72.3 million and makes available for charter at a rate of $399,000 per week.

Anyhoodles, poodles, fascinating as Mister Schmidt's romantic life may be to the hoi polloi it's his real estate that really interest Your Mama and yesterday's Post article happened to mentioned that Mister Schmidt owns a "sprawling $15 million penthouse" in New York City's Flatiron District that "was featured as the glamorous crash pad for Shia La Beouf's character in Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." Well, you coulda knocked this property gossip out cold with a dead fish. We certainly recall when that apartment was on the market but we had no idea it had been bought by Mister Schmidt. It took Your Mama about 7.2 seconds to call up property records (and other online resources) that show in July 2011 an ambiguously named corporate concern coughed up $14.6 million to acquire the duplex penthouse identified in The Post as Mister Schmidt's "sprawling $15 million penthouse."

Listing details from the time of Mister Schmidt's purchase show the penthouse spans just over 6,000 square feet of interior space with about 3,300 square feet of outdoor space. Those may be normal numbers in upscale, macmansion-lined suburbs across the country but in the middle of Manhattan they add up to unusually gigantic.

We don't know if Mister Schmidt has reconfigured or otherwise altered the penthouse since his purchase two years ago but The Post says he's "spent millions" having the place soundproofed because, according to the paper's source, "he 'doesn't sleep well.'" What we do know is that at the time of the purchase the lower level of the duplex had a vast, open-plan main living/dining/kitchen space anchored by a gigantic fireplace with imposing carved stone mantel and behind the main living areas were three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Listing photos show a floating staircase ascended to an upper level lounge area with another half bathroom and a—glory be!—a walk-in wet bar. Sliding glass windows and French doors on three walls open the lounge area to an unusually roomy and fully planted/landscaped wrap around roof terrace with and unobstructed, head on view of the Empire State Building. Also upstairs at the time of Mister Schmidt's purchase was the master suite, complete with a fireplace, good-sized walk-in closet/dressing room, and a compartmentalized bathroom slathered in limestone.

Other notable features in place at the time of Mister Schmidt's purchase include a private elevator—a must have feature according to The Post's source—a small media room just off the main living/dining/kitchen area, a stacked washer and dryer in a tiny closet next to the powder pooper, and a fully integrated indoor/outdoor sound system. Common charges were shown on the 2011 listing at $2,300 per month, a remarkably minimal amount for an apartment of this size. The low monthly charges probably have something to do with the fact that the building does not have a doorman, another feature—or lack thereof—that The Post's source claimed was important to Mister Schmidt.

Mister Schmidt purchased the property, according to property records from Richard M. Weissman, an obviously wealthy fella identified by Vanity Fair as a financier who's Dartmouth College's all time 16th leading rusher, whatever that means. Since the listing photos are from the time Mister Schmidt acquired the penthouse from Mister Weissman, and the decor—if it can be called that—reflects the taste—if it can be called that—of the seller and not the buyer. We don't know canned corn from chaise lounge, of course, but doesn't it seem fairly safe to assume Mister Schmidt engaged the expensive services of a nice-gay or lady decorator to do up his Flatiron penthouse in a manner befitting a Digital Age baron with a net worth estimated by Forbes to be in excess of $8 billion?

In addition to his New York penthouse Mister Schmidt maintains a small but impressive portfolio of private residences that include a stunning George Washington Smith-designed casa on more than four acres in Montecito, CA that he bought for $20 million in September 2007 from house hopping comedienne/chat show hostess Ellen Degeneres and her horse lovin' lady-mate Portia de Rossi.

Mister and Missus Schmidt's primary family compound in Atherton (CA) currently comprises three gated and secured parcels that add up to just about 3.5 mostly manicured acres. The first parcel was purchased in mid-1990  for $2,000,000 and has, according to the San Mateo County Tax Man, a 4,800+ square foot house with 5 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. A second, adjacent parcel (with a smaller 3,170 residence) was acquired in March 2000 for $2,150,000 and the third parcel was picked up in May 2007 for $3,870,000.

In the late 1990s Mister and Missus Schmidt bought a big house on the scenic island of Nantucket. The imposing residence, set behind 10-foot privacy hedges, is where Missus Schmidt lives most of the time and sits on the same swanky stretch of road as a number of other notable folk including Arie Kopelman—the former CEO of Chanel and Drew Barrymore's father-in-law, venture capitalist Julius Jensen III, luxury mail order catalog mogul turned Tony-winning Broadway producer Roger Horchow, and Frank Avellino, a financier heavily invovled in feeding funds to Wall Street scoundrel Bernie Madoff.

listing photos and floor plan: Aligned Real Estate

Investigation, shmestigation! Indictment? Bah!
Notoriously secretive hedge fund fat cat Steve Cohen refuses to let a pesky little investigation by The Feds—or a $616 million settlement—drag him down or put the brakes on a monumental spending spree. Last year the multi-billionaire allegedly spent around $120 million on a quartet of bronze sculptures by Henri Matisse and in March (2013) the conspicuous consumer shelled out more than $150 million to acquire a storied Picasso painting from casino tycoon Steve Wynn.

Ludicrously expensive art is hardly, however, the only thing Mister Cohen likes to acquire; Property gossips like Your Mama also know him to be a seasoned real estate baller. In December (2012) Mister Cohen shelled out $38.8 million for a 10,000 square foot townhouse-type condo in New York City's far West Village and, just this month, he forked over another $24.3 million for a 9,600 square foot triplex maisonette just four short blocks to the north and two blocks east. Presumably Mister Cohen et famille will use the triplex as a pied-a-terre until renovations are complete on the townhouse.

Looming criminal charges for securities and wire fraud faced by Mister Cohen sensationally successful SAC Capital* also didn't stop the famously profligate financier from spending big on a prime, ocean front estate on East Hampton's fashionable and freakishly pricey Further Lane.

In late March, citing a source with insider information, the Old Gray Lady herself reported that Mister Cohen had reached an agreement to pay $60 million for a 6.5 acre ocean front estate with tennis court, swimming pool, detached two-car garage, and a 10,000 square foot three-story residence fitted and kitted with, according to listing details (via The New York Times), "High ceilings, antique oak and limestone floors, barn-style double-height family room, media room, large oceanview master suite plus six additional bedrooms."

Well, butter beans, dontcha know that we've received a covert communique from our own insider—let's call her Debbie Doesthehamptons—who snitched to Your Mama that word on the swanky real estate street in the hoity-toity Hamptons is that there were at least two parties who bid on the clearly coveted estate and, as a result, the property actually sold—as in the sale price recorded with the Suffolk County land records—for $62,500,000, $2.5 million more than asking. Bam!

The deluxe digs were reported in The New York Times to have previously been owned by investment banker Robert B. McKeon who killed himself last September (2012) in his home in Darien, CT, and property records reveal Mister Cohen's new Further Lane estate is flanked by a pair of equally substantial estates. To the west is an ocean front estate owned by Johnson & Johnson heir James "Jimmie" Johnson, the father of two-time Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and social commentator Jamie Johnson, and to the east there's the multi-winged sprawler on about 18 acres that's now owned by landscape architect Andrew Gordon who, after a contentious legal battle, inherited it from his hard drinking but very rich man-friend, deceased financier Christopher H. Browne.

Clearly Mister Cohen and, by extension, his second wife, Alexandra, are serious real estate ballers and as such their property portfolio overflows with half a dozen (or more) high-cost and high-maintenance residences including a 2.1 acre, land-locked estate on Further Lane estate that they picked up in the spring of 2007 for just over $18 million. That's right, Mister Cohen now owns two Further Lane estates. Listing details from the time of the purchase indicate the shingled, multi-gambreled cottage has 9 bedrooms and 9 full and 2 half bathrooms in about 9,000 square feet. While it's not ocean front—it sits behind the much more grand ocean front estate of another hedge funder, James Chanos—it does have access to the beach by way of a semi-private path. We have no inside intel on what the Cohen couple plan to do with this property.

In New York City, in addition to their two recently acquired West Village residences, Mister and Missus Cohen own a 9,000-ish square foot high floor duplex at the One Beacon Court complex in Midtown that they snatched up in 2005 for about $24,000,000 and pushed on the open market a few months ago with an astronomical $115 million price tag. And let's not forget, puppies, their 35,000-ish square foot mega-mansion on 14 manicured acres in Greenwich, CT that was bought in June 1998 for $14,800,000 (above) or the 4.5 acre estate next door they scooped up in June 2006 for $5,000,000.

Told y'all he's a baller. And make no mistake, children, even if the U.S. government shuts down Mister Cohen's money minting hedge fund, he and the missus prolly ain't gonna be clippin' coupons or skimping on swanky vacations. Your Mama imagines that, quite to the contrary, no matter what happens to Mister Cohen and his fund he'll manage to retain a substantial private fortune that will most certainly allow him to own and maintain his current portfolio in perpetuity. But then again what do we know?

*The United States filed the expected and hotly anticipated 41-page indictment against SAC Capital earlier today that, when all is said and done, Time magazine speculated could effectively end Mister Cohen's illustrious and lucrative career. Mister Cohen has denied any charges of wrongdoing, natch, and most reports indicate the multi-billionaire will not likely be personally charged. Even if he was to be charged his lawyers let the government know that if he is charged he would plead The Fifth, so...

BUYERS: Terry and Heather Dubrow
LOCATION: Newport Coast, CA
PRICE: $4,180,000 (for the lot)
SIZE: TBD

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In early February (2013) Your Mama let the cat out of the bag about how Real Housewives of Orange County (RHOOC) season 7 addition Heather Paige Kent Dubrow and top Orange County plastic surgeon Terry Dubrow quietly sold their Newport Coast, CA mansion in an off-market deal for $16,450,000. So the story goes, Dr. and Missus Dubrow weren't actively looking to sell but one day "someone basically knocked on the door" with an unexpected offer they simply couldn't refuse.*

Your Mama didn't than have an inkling of what their future real estate plans might be but on one of the recent episodes of RHOOC Dr. Dubrow took his smoky voiced missus—and a film crew, natch—to a bare, pancake flat lot high above Newport Coast where they dreamily discussed their plans to build a bigger and better mansion than the 15,000 square foot one they just sold in the posh Pelican Crest community.

Property records and other resources Your Mama dug up on the internets show the couple paid $4,1800,000 for the .98 acre parcel and our research indicates the lot, located at the tail end of a cul-de-sac in a gated enclave in the guard-gated Crystal Cove community, was bought in the couples' own names. According to the Dubrows—who reveal the following on camera and in interviews—the lot can accommodate a 17,000 square foot house with a roof height of 35 feet, and has a better bird's eye view over Newport Harbor than their current house so, as Dr. Missus Dubrow told All About the Real Housewives, they'll "get more twinkly lights at night."

A couple days ago Dr. Missus Dubrow uploaded an image of a scale model of the Italianate villa they're building on the property but at this point we don't have any details except that it will likely have five or more bedrooms on the second floor since one of the—ahem—issues they had with their Pelican Crest mansion was that there are only four bedrooms up stairs and with four kids they need at least five.

Lest there be any question of what Dr. and Missus Dubrow's new pile might be worth when it's finished: Just a couple doors down, a recently completed 10,850 square foot mansion with 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 3 half bathrooms, and an 8 car garage—listing details described it as a "French influenced estate," whatever that means—sold in mid-May (2013) for $12,000,000. A couple of rudimentary calculations on our bejeweled abacus shows that works out to a cost of $1,106 for each and very square foot. If Dr. and Missus Dubrow built a 17,000 square foot house of equal quality, the $1,106 per square foot figure would bring the comparative value of their new digs up to $18,802,000.

While Dr. and Missus Dubrow build the next incarnation of their dream house in Crystal Cove they've rented a smaller house in a beach community with a private beach.

*Gawd. We should all be so damn lucky, right? If some fool wants to walk up on Your Mama's front door and make us an offer we can't refuse for our abode we say, "Bring it on, Beeotchuh. And hurry!" Anyhoo...
photo: Heather Dubrow (via Instagram)

Several weeks ago Your Mama passed along some juicy Platinum Triangle real estate gossip about Lola Karimova-Tillaeva—the 30-something old daughter of Uzbekistan's dictatorial president, Islam Karimov—being the mysterious buyer of Le Palais, a massive mansion set behind high walls and higher hedges directly across the street from the perennially chic Beverly Hills Hotel. The existing residence was spec-built from the ground up by mega-mansion developer Mohamed Hadid who listed the ersatz palace on the open market last year with an asking price of $58 million.

Our snitchy source Peter Propertypurveyor told Your Mama that the rumored purchase price then circulating around the upper echelons of the Bev Hills real estate world was about $47 million. Well, children, the actual, recorded purchase price for the ostentatiously palatial 48,000 (or so) square foot behemoth was nowhere near the $58 million dollar asking price or the rumored $47 (or so) million purchase price. Of course, it's entirely possible there were other monies or assets exchanged between buyer and seller that increased to overall purchase price but the amount on which the new owner will be taxed is the recorded price of—drum roll, please—$32,750,000.

There the curious have it. Moving along now...

SELLER: L.A. Reid
LOCATION: Sagaponack, NY
PRICE: $18,995,000
SIZE: 7,000 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 9.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It may not have the publicity ensuring $65 million asking price of Richard Gere's postcard perfect 6.3 acre water front compound in the low-key Hamptons enclave of North Haven, near Sag Harbor, but veteran music industry mover and shaker L.A. Reid's landlocked 3.27 acre estate in sleepy but supuh-swank Sagaponack ain't exactly real estate child's play with its $18,995,000 asking price either.

Property records show the song writing record producer and his former school teacher second wife, Erica,* scooped up the gated estate in February of 2006 for exactly $10,000,000.

The gray-shingled, multi-winged mansion, set privately at the tail end of an unusually long (shared) driveway that cuts across active farm fields, measures in at about 7,000 square feet, as per current listing details, with 8 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms, including five en suite guest/family bedrooms and a two-level master suite. (Is that the master bedroom, children, the room with the extra-deep tray ceiling and a gigantic boob-toob on the goddamn floor, smack in front of the wood-framed glass sliders that otherwise provide access to the outdoors? Seriously? Well, that's just plain silly. Master bedroom or not, a person can't even watch the thing proper if they're laying down on the bed. The angle is just too severe. Anyways...)

There's a partially paneled formal living room that's just about perfect for late afternoon/early evening cocktail parties. Triangular clerestory windows surely fill the room with the exact sort of ambient late-summer light for which the Hamptons are beloved by Hamptonites. Listing photos show a baby grand piano where, just maybe, one of Mister Reid's many famous entertainer friends have tinkled the ivories while sophisticated ladies and gents in linen pants sip champers in front of the strikingly minimalist fireplace. Opposite the fireplace there are lighted cubbies for the display of objet d'art (or whatever) and a trio of wood-framed glass doors allow for an easy transition to a large deck with backyard vista. Any of the children who might be invited to a cocktail thing at Mister and Missus Reid's house this summer would be wise to take note of the two dangerous looking sprays of twisted twigs in identical clear glass vases set on the identical coffee tables.

The dining room has a long table with 10 Vladimir Kagan chairs, some sort of upside-down, pagoda-shaped fabric chandelier of the likes we've never seen before, and (vexing) large scale contemporary paintings. One painting depicts a giant letter Q and the other is a rather disturbing portrait of a man who looks like he's violently shaking his head side to side. We know art is a very personal thing and we're 100% positive some of y'all would poo-poo at least some of the art Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter have in our house but that is not, no siree Bob, a painting Your Mama would not want to look at throughout an entire Thanksgiving Day turkey meal.

Less formal family quarters include a den with fireplace and a cook-friendly center island kitchen fitted and kitted with two-toned Shaker-style cabinetry, sleek stainless steel hardware, and high-quality stainless steel appliances that include at least two dishwashers and a built-in microwave oven.

The wood ceiling in the family room has a dramatic, steeply pitched vault spanned by heavy duty, A-shaped beams and trusses. The track lights affixed to the trusses don't make us feel great in our decorative soul but we swoon for the way the architect has floated the beams away from the ceiling. A (slightly off-center) fireplace anchors the far end of the room that's furnished with a lot of low, lounge-y semi-chaise sofas and slipper chairs. There's a flat screen television mounted on a long wall sheathed with a stacked stone treatment and, on the opposite wall, a series of over-sized wood-framed sliders open to a big deck with expansive view over the back yard and adjacent farm field.

Listing photos show a spa space on the mini-mansion's upper floor that may or may not be part of or directly accessible from the master suite. The spa room is complete with a giant terry cloth sofa, a massage table placed in the center of the room, an inversion contraption back in the corner, and, on the back wall, a semi-portable-looking free-standing dry sauna that gives Your Mama a screaming case of claustrophobia just to look at. We do, of course, adore a sauna as much as the next Norwegian but that one looks like the sort of thing in which panicked young girl with a dying cell phone battery would try to hide in a straight to DVD horror movie. Next thing you know, the heat goes up and up and up, the door won't open, and the murderer steams her like a soup dumpling at Joe's Shanghai. But we digress.

Other luxuries at the Reid's Sagaponack summer home include a meditation room, finished basement level that contains a gym, a temperature controlled wine cellar lined floor-to-ceiling with built-in bottle racks, and—according to this article in Hamptons magazine—a drum studio.

The fully manicured estate has high hedges on three sides but is open on the south flank so it can take advantage of the preserved views over the fields and an oblique view of Sagaponack Pond. Besides the spacious porches and decks along the many sides of the back of the house, outdoor recreational amenities include a Har-Tru tennis court almost completely obscured by trees, a pergola shaded viewing platform, a small pond, and a heated saltwater swimming pool and spa nestled into a man-made tumble of boulders.

Other Sagaponack home owners with recognizable names include—but are far from limited to—paper mogul Peter Brant and his supermodel wife Stephanie Seymour and Real Housewives of New York's resident minor European royal by marriage, LuAnn de Lesseps, whose house is right next door to writer/director/producer/actor Bob Balaban's summer spread. Billy Joel and his third ex-wife, Katie, used to own a couple of ocean front cottages at the bottom of Gibson Lane and esteemed writer Kurt Vonnegut owned a house on Sagg Main Street for more than 30 years. Sagaponack's largest estate, as every one who knows anything about real estate in the Hamptons knows, is owned by billionaire industrialist Ira Rennert who recently requested permission from the city to add a 633 square foot Pilates studio to one of his two pool houses at Fair Field, his still quite controversial 63 acre ocean front mega-compound that already encompasses more more than 110,000 square feet of seaside opulence.

Mister and Missus Reid seems very much in the mood to lighten or at least shake up his portfolio of residential properties. In addition to his spread in the Hamptons, the couple also own a modest townhouse type condo in Atlanta, GA as well as a 5,000+ square foot apartment on Park Avenue in New York City that—some of the children may recall—they listed on the open market in early May (2013) with an asking price of $18,900,000.

With both his New York area residences up for sale, Your Mama wonders where Mister and Missus Reid plan to set down their next real estate roots. Will they return to Atlanta or will they decamp for the west coast? Or are they simply selling out and upgrading or downsizing? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

*Mister Reid's first wife was Pebbles from TLC.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

BUYER: John McEnroe and Patty Smyth
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $3,345,000
SIZE: 2,800 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to tireless real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and a second-on-the-motion from our eerily well-informed confrère Lucy Spillerguts, Your Mama has learned that even though famously volatile tennis great John McEnroe and his part-time musician wife Patty Smyth (of the 1980s New Wave band Scandal) already own an ocean front house in Malibu's guard-gated, much coveted, and star-studded Colony community, the couple quietly snatched up a second home six miles to the west.

Information Your Mama turned up on the internets reveals the non-celebrity sellers first put the 1.52 acre property in the scenic and coveted Paradise Cove area on the market way back in October 2009 with a wildly unrealistic and arguably quite greedy $8,800,000 price tag. The asking price was dropped no fewer than a dozen times until, in October 2012, it reached its nadir of $3,650,000. It wasn't too long before along came Mister and Missus Johnny Mac who somewhat surreptitiously acquired the property by way of a vaguely named trust in March (2013) for $3,345,000.

As best as Your Mama's booze soaked brain can surmise from a careful reading of listing details from the time of the sale, the low-slung single story residence of about 2,800 square feet—a classic example of a quintessential California ranch house—has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. There's also a detached, and entirely self-contained one bedroom and one bathroom guest house that's absolute perfection for anyone with flatulent over nighting family members who snore and/or weekend house guest friends like our famously ill-behaved b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau who has an tendency to show up with an unruly looking man-friend she meets God only knows where when she comes to visit. Anyhoodles, poodles...

Semi-glossy wood floors, a pleasantly vaulted exposed wood ceiling, and numerous over-sized windows and wood-framed glass doors tie the main house's open concept main living spaces together. At one end a living room/t.v. lounge area has clerestory windows, a red brick accent wall that we're oddly fond of, and, believe it or not butter beans, there's a fireplace hidden behind the seller's big ol' tufted black leather sectional sofa. As much as we abhor the behemoth, bachelor pad-ish black leather sectional sofa we're smitten like a kitten with the rustic picnic table-style dining table. We know they're a little decoratively passé nowadays but we none-the-less think a picnic is perfect for a casual, care free, and bare-footed house at the beach like this.

The main living/dining area flows right on into the roomy and well-outfitted kitchen where a thick slab of lightly veined marble water falls over one end of the super-sized center island. One one side of the island there's a full wall of Shaker-style blond wood cabinetry—maybe it's maple?— and on the other a row of counter-to-ceiling windows provide the dishwasher an all-but-unobstructed view into the red brick courtyard nestled between the main house and the guest house.

Listing details show the master suite "feels like a spa" and includes a spacious, glass-walled bathroom finished with slate tile floors (and walls). There's a long, floating double sink vanity with wall-mounted taps, a free-standing tub that looks like it might be crafted of polished poured concrete, and both indoor and outdoor showers.

Instead of wood, the guest house has travertine or limestone floors or some other material that probably cost a small fortune. Otherwise the guest house has a very similar vibe to the main house with over-sized windows, a vaulted (and sky-lit) exposed wood ceiling, and an open-plan main living area with a full-sized kitchen. Maybe it's just the obsessive-compulsive in us, but Your Mama would prefer the kitchen in the guest house have the exact same finishes as in the main house. What do the children think?

In addition to the cozy courtyard between the main and guest houses where there's a convenient built-in barbecue/outdoor kitchen, the private property's expansive grounds include several more patios and terraces, an inconveniently located circular fire pit, and a broad sloping lawn dotted with mature shade trees and various fruit trees. Best of all—and perhaps most valuable of all—is that the McEnroe-Smyth's newest addition to their impressive residential property portfolio comes with private, deeded access to a dazzling stretch of sand along purdy Paradise Cove. The long, crescent-shaped beach at Paradise Cove isn't easily accessible to the public but the hoi polloi can spread their sheet on the sand if they cough up forty bucks to park their car in the parking lot that surrounds the funky—if kinda pricey—Paradise Beach Cafe where a hamburger runs $17 and a two-plus pound of steamed clams go for about thirty bucks.

The McEnroe-Smyth's new digs in Da Bu are located in the same discreet, gated enclave where some of the other homes are owned by retired pro hockey player Chris Chelios, photographer (and Hollywood scion) Tina Broccoli—her daddy is the late James Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, powerful but semi-mysterious venture capitalist Aviv "Vivi" Nevo, and country music royals Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood/
Property records reveal Mister McEnroe purchased his aforementioned Colony crib for an unknown amount in 1984, the very height of his illustrious professional career that includes seven Grand Slam titles. Sadly, at this point and time Your Mama doesn't have any inside intel about the fate the prime property. Could be they'll sell for many times what Mister McEnroe paid for it. Maybe be they'll keep it and rent it out in the summer for many tens of thousands of dollars per month to rich people with money to burn. Or, maybe, since they have half a dozen children between them—he has three adult children with chronically troubled Tinseltown scion Tatum O'Neal, she has one adult daughter with punk pioneer Richard Hell and they have two teen-aged daughters together, they'll opt to hang on to it so they can comfortably accommodate their Brady Bunch brood when they all come to down for a family clam bake (or whatever).

Our research indicates (but does not prove) that Mister McEnroe and Miz Smyth live primarily in New York City where they're known to own one of the multi-floor tower units at the venerable, tri-towered Beresford building on Central Park West. (As far as Your Mama knows, the other two quirky quadruplex penthouses continue to be owned by retiring Coach CEO Lew Frankfort and the estate of legendary Cosmopolitan editrix Helen Gurley Brown.)

Like many New Yorkers with the necessary financial resources Mister and Missus Johnny Mac also keep a high-hedged spread in the Hamptons that they picked up in May 1999 for $4,200,000. The Southampton estate, a stone's throw from the beach and just up the lane from Howard Stern's super-sized ocean front summer house, includes a 7,000 square foot main residence fronted by massive motor court, extensive lawns and gardens, an in-ground swimming pool, and—natch—a tree-ringed tennis court.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

Like David Spade, after a long slog on the real estate merry-go-round Hollywood royals Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn have finally unloaded their Balinese contemporary beach front house in Malibu (CA) for many millions less than they originally wanted.

After years of putting the mini-compound up as a summer rental at $80-95,000 per month, the couple listed their house on rapidly disappearing Broad Beach in July 2011 on the open market with an asking price of $14,749,000. By May 2012 the price had plummeted to $11,200,000 and by September (2012) the priced had tumbled even further to $9,950,000.

Property records now show the couple sold the gated, Gus Duffy re-designed residence—with 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms plus a two-room guest house above the two-car garage—in mid-July (2013) for $9,500,000.

source: Redfin
listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International

After six long years on and off the market and millions in price drops actor/comedian David Spade has finally managed to unload his ocean front home on Malibu's La Costa beach to an executive at Netflix for $10,225,000.

Mister Spade purchased the 4 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom beach house in May 2005 for $9.3 million and hoisted it back on the market in 2007 with a sensationally rose tinted $16 million price tag. At least once Mister Spade has put the house up for lease. In 2009 it was listed as a summer rental at $65,000 per month.

Mister Spade continues to own a gated estate in the Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills that he bought in late 2001 for $4,000,000 and had previously been owned by both Eddie Murphy and Warren Beatty.

source: Trulia Luxe Living
listing photo: Trulia

Like so many shockingly spendthrift Housewives before her, Karent Sierra—a glitzy Coral Gables dentist and a former cast member of The Real Housewives of Miami—has lost (at least) one of the four homes she owns in Miami (FL) to the gaping maw of foreclosure.

South Florida scuttlebutt José Lambiet revealed that a 1,200 square foot, canal-front home in the Westwood Lake area of Miami (above) that Miz Sierra co-owns with her mother, Lucero, is all set to be auctioned to the highest bidder on August 27 (2013). Your Mama found evidence online that Miz Sierra unsuccessfully attempted to sell the property back in November (2012) when it was listed for $250,000. The price was lowered twice down to $232,900 before it was taken off the market in late April (2013).

Real Housewives aficionados may (or may not) find it interesting that the chomper fixer's primary residence in Miami—the mock-Med macmansion featured on The Real Housewives of Miami—also had a judgement of foreclosure filed and recorded against it in late April 2013 although it's not clear—at least not to Your Mama—if this house is scheduled to be auctioned.

Property records show Miz Sierra also owns the house next door to her primary residence, which does not, as per our brief and unscientific research, appear to be under threat of foreclosure, as well as another canal front home in Miramar, FL that records show is co-owned by Miz Sierra and her parents and also does not appear to be threatened by foreclosure.

So far, Miz Sierra has not commented on her foreclosure issues. Maybe she's just too busy putting some bright white veneers on some really tan lady's teeth so she can save her house from the auction block.

source: Gossip Extra
photo: Active Realty via Zillow

In other New York City celebrity related real estate news, comedian Chris Rock has put a limestone and brick townhouse he owns in Brooklyn's historic Clinton Hill nabe up for least at $7,950 per month. The three story structure has a loft-like, open concept main living area, two proper bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, two outdoor spaces, and—its pièce de résistance—a private two-car garage with direct entry


As far as Your Mama knows, Mister Rock and his missus, Malaak, remain in residence at the 13,177 square foot mansion on two acres in fancy-schmacy Alpine, NJ that they scooped up in late 2001 for $3,000,000.

source: Celebuzz via Trulia Luxe Living
listing photos and floor plan: Douglas Elliman Real Estate

It seems that French banker Olivier Sarkozy—he would be former French president Nicolas's half brother and the quite-a-bit-older man-friend of the probably much richer pint- mogulette Mary-Kate Olsen—has put an elegant if time worn 1850s Anglo-Italianate row house in New York City's East Village on the market for $6,995,000. It's not clear if Mister Sarkozy and/or Miss Olson ever actually occupied the superannuated 4,200 square foot house that he scooped up last August (2012) for $6,250,000.

source: EV Grieve via Curbed
listing photos and floor plan: Douglas Elliman Real Estate

SELLER: Vince and Louise Camuto
LOCATION: Southampton, NY'
PRICE: $48,000,000
SIZE: 9,611 square feet, 10 bedrooms, 10.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a brief missive from our unofficial aide de camp Hot Chocolate it's come to Your Mama's attention that shoe tycoon Vince Camuto and his former beauty queen wife, Louise,* have slapped a fat $48 million price tag on Wooldon Manor, their historic ocean front estate in Southampton, NY.**

Settle down sisters, Your Mama knows Mister Camuto may not a household name in the vein of a Tinseltown celebrity but in the dog-eat-pony world of mid-prices ladies' shoes he is a power player of the highest order. He co-founded the Nine West footwear brand in 1978, which was sold to Jones Apparel Group in the late 1990s for nearly $900 million, and since 2001 his eponymous Camuto Group has provided design, development, marketing, and distribution for a variety of licensed shoe brands including (but not limited to) those of Jessica Simpson, Tory Burch, and BCBG Maz Azria. He also has a handful of his own footwear, handbag, accessories and apparel brands, among them VC Signature, Louise Et Cie, and Two by Vince Camuto.

The house that's nowadays known as Wooldon Manor was built in the early 1930s by five-and-dime heiress Jessie Woolworth Donahue and husband James Donahue as the pool house to a gigantic Tudor style residence designed by the noted architecture firm Barney & Chapman and built in 1900 for a wealthy physician turned stock broker named Peter B. Wyckoff. (Interior shots of the demolished Wyckoff manse can be seen here on the always delectably informative Old Long Island blog). So the scuttlebutt goes, Missus Woolworth Donahue hired high society architects William Treanor and Maurice Fatio to design her deluxe pool and pool house after she was rejected for membership in the notoriously snooty Southampton Bathing Corporation for not being waspy enough. Quel scandale! Anyways...

Sometime in the 1930s Wooldon Manor was acquired by financier Edmund Lynch—he was the Lynch in Merrill Lynch—who died in 1938. The sprawling oceanfront estate fell into a state of disrepair and in 1941 the massive main house was demolished and a number of the estate's numerous outbuildings, including Missus Woolworth Donahue's pool house, converted to private residences.

Property records Your Mama peeped and perused are, at best, vague so we' not entirely sure when or for how much Mister and Missus Camuto paid for the the various pieces of multi-parcel estate. Even though Your Mama's online investigation and rudimentary calculations indicate Mister and Missus Camuto actually own six separate but contiguous parcels that total 14.29 acres, listing details point out that the $48 million price tag includes only about 5.5 acres. Unspecified additional acreage is also available for an unknown price.

The existing residence, renovated and expanded over the years to become a proper main house with a separate pool house of it's own, was did over by Mister and Missus Camuto and measures about 10,000 square feet, according to current listing details, with 10 bedrooms and 10.5 bathrooms. Interior details include five fireplaces, origami-like vaulted ceilings with carved wood accents, limestone floors, and custom bronze and glass doors. In addition to the cavernous formal living and dining rooms, the Camuto's seaside summer house also includes a paneled library, a spacious center island kitchen with adjacent breakfast room, a finished basement and a home theater.

The day-core shown in listing photos is certainly correct and we'd bet both our long bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, the furnishings cost the Camuto's more money than most people will ever see in their lifetimes. However, iffin we're being honest—and we always are—we'd tell the children that we find it all to be rather predictable and a boring. Much of the original architectural details, however, are fab and we admit that some of the more new-fangle-y interjections, such as the interior glass and bronze windows that separate the sky-lit upper landing and the master suite, are thrillingly unexpected.

As should they should in a beach front summer residence, many rooms at Wooldon Manor provide direct access to the vast outdoor living and entertainment areas that include an ocean view loggia that links to a (mostly) glass-enclosed terrace designed, we presume, to be used when the afternoon winds whip up off the surf. Recreational amenities includes broad flat lawns for croquet and lawn darts (or whatever sorts of lawn games rich people play), a sizable ocean-side swimming pool and pool house, a chain link fenced tennis court, small chunks of formal gardens, and a glass-roofed greenhouse folly that's flanked by a pair of classical columned open air pavilions.

Some of Mister and Missus Camuto's nearest Gin Lane neighbors include octogenarian businessman Carl Spielvogel, the former ambassador to Slovakia, and his wife, Dr. Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, whose 12,000 square foot Lake Agawam-fronting mansion has been on and off the market for at least six years and is currently listed at $24,995,000.

Other Gin Lane homeowners of note (and/or noteriety) include shopping mall magnate A. Alfred Taubman; hedge fund fat cat Mark Rachesky; entrepreneur George Kraus—he and his wife own auto heiress Anne Ford's former beach front house; petroleum and gas baron Robert Belfer; music industry mogul Martin Bandier; influential businessman billionaire Herbert Allen Jr.; movie producer (and co-founder of Planet Hollywood) Keith Barish,; blue-chip artist Roy Lichtenstein's widow Dorothy; private equity poo-bah Jonathan Sokoloff; and Citigroup honcho James C. Cowles. Retired hedge funder/investor Chris Shumway is the much rumored but unconfirmed $60 million buyer of a six acre ocean front estate that once belonged to flamboyant Broadway producer Marty Richards.

Vera Wang's late, sick-rich father owned a Gin Lane estate that's now owned by J. Michael Cline, a healthcare industry investor and the co-founder of ticket service behemoth Fandango, who bought the 2.2 acre estate in 2007 for $11.5 million and unsuccessfully attempted to unload it last year for $17.5 million. Next door the Wang/Cline crib, the estate of the late New York Times owner/publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger was listed last fall (2012) for 13.9 million. While at least one online listing indicates the property was sold for $10,200,000, property records Your Mama perused shows the estate is still owned by Mister Sulzberger's estate. Make of that what you will. Anyways and finally, in 2011 a corporate concern connected to hedge funder Scott Bommer paid $14,500,000 for a storied tear down cottage on 1.6 prime ocean front acres and it is retired hedge funder/investor Chris Shumway who is most often named as the mysterious 2008 buyer who paid $60 million for a six acre ocean front estate that had long been owned flamboyant Broadway producer Marty Richards and was briefly (and erroneously) believed by property gossips around the globe to have been acquired by philandering professional golfer Tiger Woods.

It could be that Mister and Missus Camuto want to sell Wooldon Manor—or at least a portion of it—since it's not the only historic and brutally high maintenance Hamptons estate they currently own. In 2005 they shelled out $35,000,000 to buy Villa Maria, a grand (but decrepit) 21,000 square foot mansion on 15 acres in the heart of Water Mill with 1,100 feet of frontage on Mill Creek and Mecox Bay. The original house had been built in the late 1880s and had a series of owners before it was acquired by a group of Catholic nuns in the early 1930s. The sisters first used the massive house as a training facility for novitiates and later as a retirement home for nuns. At some point it because a sort of non-denominational spiritual center.

Anyways, by the time the Camutos came along the massive house was in sad shambles. Many of the vast rooms had been divided into dormitory style accommodations, there was a substantial breach in the roof above the entrance hall and an entire wing had been all but destroyed by water damage. With the help of New York architect Andre Tchelistcheff, the Camutos spent four years and God only knows how many millions re-building the titanic, 11 bedroom house and transforming it into a period fantasia injected with a kind of low-key/high-brow Shabby Chic elegance. The imposing mansion includes a double height entry with sweeping staircase and faux-limestone walls; a 60-foot long living room with a long of white slip-covered furniture; a paneled gallery that looks long enough in pictures to accommodate a bowling alley; a double height atrium with gilded dome ceiling; and a formal dining room wrapped in Venetian plaster. Less formal family quarters include a colossal country kitchen with Carrara marble counter tops and a media room tucked up into the eaves on the upper level. A post renovation Villa Maria was featured and fawned over in the July (2013) issue of Architectural Digest.

In addition to their impressive and high maintenance residential real estate holdings in the Hamptons, Mister and Missus Camuto also maintain an imposing, early 20th century French Normandy style chateau on 30-plus secluded acres in Greenwich, CT.

*Missus Camuto, a high level executive at The Camuto Group, was crowned Miss Sweden in 1989 and later went on to be the runner up in the Miss Universe pageant.

**The kids at Curbed Hamptons already discussed the matter but we figured we'd go ahead and dive in anyways...

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

SELLER: Jeff Lewis
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,195,000
SIZE: 3,730 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It should come as no surprise to the children—at least not to any of them who give a hoot about the frivolities of celebrity real estate—that famously fickle house flipping designer/decorator and veteran Bravolebrity Jeff Lewis has put his own, freshly rehabbed residence in the artsy and affluent Los Feliz area of Los Angeles on the market with an asking price of $3,195,000. What is a bit of a surprise, at least to this jaded property gossip, is that the perennially itchy footed Mister Lewis owned the house two whole years before he shoved it back on the market for almost twice what he paid.

Armchair psychiatrists who have seen any or all of the six seasons of his reality program Flipping Out* can plainly see that Mister Lewis has a tetch of the OCD. This might—or it might not—explain how it came to be that this is actually the second time Mister Lewis has owned this particular house. The peripatetic property flipper turned decorator purchased the hillside house the first time in March 2004 for $1,265,000. He spent an unknown but, no doubt, substantial amount on a full-scale renovation and sold it just over two years later, in June 2006, for $2,795,000 to a couple of fellas who by the fall of 2010 had lost the house down the ugly abyss of foreclosure.

Without—so it appeared on Flipping Out, anyways—giving his live-in man-friend, Gauge Edwards, a hunty-how-do-you-do Mister Lewis seized the opportunity to acquire the property for a second time in July 2011 when he snatched it out of foreclosure for $1,625,000. Much ado is made on the sixth season of Flipping Out about how much money Mister Lewis blew through on the remodel. It was supposed to be a spit and polish job but once the ball started rolling, he his mister went hog wild and the planned light renovation became an extensive and expensive overhaul that included the painstaking and pricey installation in the circular formal dining room of a downright decadent, hand-cut black and white marble floor laid in a geometrically glam, match booked herringbone pattern.

The two-story 1937 Tudor was originally designed and built in 1937 by esteemed architect Wallace Neff on a .36 acre hillside graced with what listing information describes as "commanding breathtaking city views." In its current configuration, according to online marketing materials, the house has three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and three fireplaces in 3,731 square feet.

The house co-mingles original architectural features, such as diamond paned and leaded glass windows, with much more modern-minded features and conveniences, such as the open concept kitchen and family room that Mister Lewis created in the course of his first renovation in the mid-2000s. The well-equipped galley style kitchen connects to the family room over a large center work island and the most recent redo by Misters Lewis and Edwards added a separate and fully outfitted, booze hound friendly four-stool wet bar.

A quick comparison of current and previous listing photos suggest Misters Lewis and Edwards are also responsible for, among many other things, the high gloss ebony finish on the hardwood floors in all three of the bedrooms—a murderous finish for anyone, like Misters Lewis and Edwards, with pets—as well as the solid wood panelling hedonistically applied to the walls of a long corridor and a narrow staircase.

The master suite occupies its own wing on the upper level with a sitting area, fireplace and a spacious spa-style bathroom with free standing soaking tub and steam shower for two plus and an "Immense" walk-in closet "reminiscent of the finest retail stores."The exposed brick wall behind the bed seems out of context and is a decorative convention Your Mama thinks is really better left to industrial-edged loft apartments.

In addition to the trellised, red brick lounging terrace set atop the street-level two car garage, several more (herringbone pattern) red brick dining and lounging terraces surround the house and step up the planted slope at the rear of the property. There's a small swimming pool and inset spa, a lounge area with fire pit, a sunbathing shelf, a small patch of grass for the pooches, and what listing information calls a "state-of-the-art outdoor kitchen."

*In addition to his starring duties on Flipping Out, Mister Lewis produces and co-stars with his long-time assistant (and verbal sparring partner) Jeni Pulos Nassos on the eponymous Interior Therapy with Jeff Lewis and he's the sassiest of the permanent panelists on Property Envy, Bravo's newest addition to their growing line up of real estate related reality programs.

listing photos: Partners Trust

BUYER: Ronnie and Janine Dunn
LOCATION: Nashville, TN
PRICE: $2,000,000
SIZE: 5,751 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since Your Mama was, so to speak, down in Nashville yesterday dissin' and discussin' the real estate doings of country music's reigning king and queen Tim McGraw and Faith Hill we figured we'd stay camped out in the Music City environs where—we learned from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial—a dignified Neoclassical villa in an affluent, semi-rural suburb about 10 miles south of downtown Nashville (TN) was quietly scooped up in May (2013) by another couple of country music royals: Ronnie Dunn and his wife of 20+ years, Janine.

For nearly 25 years Mister Dunn was the Dunn half country music's esteemed and accoladed Brooks & Dunn duo who have earned a trophy shop's worth of industry awards including 17 CMAs, 26 ACMs, 3 AMAs, and 2 Grammys. For better and worse, the duo may still be best known for their twangy, 1992 single Boot Scootin' Boogie that, along with catchy ditties like Miley's daddy Billy Ray Cyrus's Achy Breaky Heart, reignited the line dancing craze that swept honky tonks from coast to coast in the 1990s. Misters Dunn and (Kix) Brooks parted professional ways a couple of years ago and Mister Dunn now pursues a solo career. His first solo single, Bleed Red, went to #10 on the Top 10 in 2011.

Readily accessible online resources reveal the stately estate was first listed in October 2011 with an aggressive asking price of $4,400,000. By early 2013 the official price tag had plummeted to $2.8 million before Mister and Missus Dunn came along and drove the final sale price down to $2,000,000.

Fun Fact: The 6.41 acre spread is surrounded on three sides, according to property records Your Mama peeped, by the sprawling, 130+ acre, multi-residence compound-estate of Philip Bredesen, a former healthcare/insurance industry tycoon who served as the mayor of Nashville throughout most of the 1990s and, from 2003-2011, as the governor of Tennessee.

The noble Neoclassical villa, an elegant red brick central pavilion symmetrically flanked by smaller, identical wings—sits 500 feet off the road down a picturesque tree-lined driveway and was designed, as per listing details, by noted Palm Beach (FL) architect John L. Volk. Listing information Your Mama perused goes on to indicate the house was built in 1948 for a well to do fella named Philip Kerrigan, a local master metalworker who owned an eponymous iron works that provided the ornamental iron detailing seen throughout the villa and gardens. The Kerrigan family sold the property to its current owners in June 1995 for $1.5 million, making Mister and Missus Dunn only the third owners of the property.

The 1.5 story, 11-room residence measures in at 5,751 square feet, as per listing details, with five bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 2 fireplaces, and well-proportioned public rooms meticulously embellished with elaborate moldings, pilasters, and pediments that Your Mama imagines were probably crafted on site by the hands of skilled tradesman and not, say, purchased at one of the big box mass retailers of home improvement goods.

Other rigorously executed architectural details include elliptical transoms, concealed pocket doors, jib windows, groin vaulted ceilings, florid iron work—natch, and walls sheathed with scenic, handcrafted woodblock printed wall coverings from the profoundly pricey French wallpaper manufacturer Zuber & Cie.


The garden areas are linked by herringbone pattern red brick pathways and include unusually large boxwoods and slightly unkempt parterre. Oodles of mature shade trees dot expansive sweeps of lawn, and next to the side motor court there's an absolutely lovely, if down on her heels, iron and glass greenhouse with louvered ceiling.

In the far back corner of the estate, past a charming(ly bedraggled) barn/stable, there's a second, self-contained residence described in listing details as a "Caretaker's cottage" but, honestly chickens, cottage is really pushing it as a description of that particular abode. No T, no shade, but that looks to Your Mama like it might actually be a slightly glorified double-wide. At best, it's a prefab situation dressed in some very tired looking wood siding. Whatever the materials and construction method, it's really fine from a functional point of view but it's also—for the more persnickety amongst us—a bit of a wart on an otherwise pleasantly genteel spread. Anyways...

Your Mama's brief and unscientific research shows the venerated country music veteran and his long-time missus own a number of other residential properties including at least one condo in the hip and stylish Nashville nabe known as 12 South. Since 1996, when they bought it for $900,000, the Dunn's primary homestead in Nashville has been a 10,000+ square foot mansion with extensive equestrian facilities on 16 (mostly landscaped) acres about 10 miles south of downtown and in 2007, according to property records, Mister and Missus Dunn spent an unknown amount of money for a large, southwestern-contemporary residence in Santa Fe, NM.

listing photos: Pilkerton Realtors (via Zillow)