SELL BUY PROPERTY

BUYERS: Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Brentwood)
PRICE: $10,450,000 (asking)
SIZE: (approx.) 8,000 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Today is a travel day—we don't dare tell you where we're going it's just so unconventional and hot and awful—so we need to be uncharacteristically brief about the celebrity real estate scuttlebutt reported by gossip juggernaut TMZ about Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin fixin' to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million (American) clams to acquire a recently (re)built mansion in the bucolic, horse-friendly and very expensive Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles.

Mandeville Canyon, for those not familiar, sits between the quiet community of Brentwood and the equally as quiet community of Pacific Palisades.

The Goop gal's newly built digs, according to listing information we scared up out of the interweb, sits on a tree-shaded .66 acre lot and was imagined—and presumably staged—by high-fallutin' and self-described "lifestyle architect" Windsor Smith who wedged 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms in to the approximately 8,000 square foot, H-shaped single story stunner described as "Reminiscent of a home in the horse country of Kentucky" with "gentrified rooms" suitable for  and "inspiring and[d] easy, relaxed, unpretentious lifestyle."

At one point the house was listed for $11,960,000 but was last listed at $10,450,000 and, so the rumor goes, the Paltrow-Martins are in escrow for somewhere close to the asking price.

There are muted black and white checkerboard floors in the entrance hall that stretches gracefully from the front clean through to the back of the house and antique herringbone wood floors in the formal living room that also stretches clear through from the front to the back of the mansion. There are more fireplaces with vintage mantels than we can count, and multi-paned windows and French doors that seamlessly connect the interiors to the courtyard around which the back of the house wraps. Despite the menacing looking pot rack over the super-sized center island, the eat-in kitchen is an absolute marvel of sophistication and craftsmanship. Your Mama can assure the children the Toyota-sized range cost more than an average Toyota.

At the front, drive gates open in to a genteel gravel motor court that passes through a narrow porte-cochere to a small rear motor court and second set of electronic driveway gates. At the rear, according to listing description, there are "Rolling grounds with shady sycamores and venerable oaks contribute to the pastoral setting.

Outdoor living spaces include a sitting area with outdoor fireplace, a built-in barbecue station with adjacent built-in dining banquette and the cutest little stable a person ever saw with an itty-bitty cupola on top.

Miz Paltrow and Mister Martin also maintain a penthouse pad in New York City (plus a second apartment on a lower floor, presumably for family or staff), a shingled mansion in Amagansett, NY—that's the Hamptons, puppies—and a triple-wide townhouse compound in London's natty, celeb-stocked Belsize Park area.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International

TENANTS: Giuliana and Bill Rancic
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Brentwood)
PRICE: $2,395,000
SIZE: 2,272 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: If inclined, the children can thank a friendly informant we'll call Brenda Wood for alerting Your Mama to an East Coast-y Cape Cod crib in the leafy and affluent Brentwood area of Los Angeles, CA currently on the market with an asking price of $2,395,000.

Property records we peeped show the rather charming residence has been owned since 2003 not by a celeb but a prominent West Side real estate agent. This is where eagle-eyed Brenda Wood comes in: She recognized the modestly-scaled but decidedly-upscale and certainly pricey property as the (rented) home of reality television stars Giuliana and Bill Rancic.

Easy-going property developer and motivational speaker Mister Rancic—who has some of the whitest teeth we've ever laid eyes on—won the first season of The Apprentice back in 2004 and exceedingly slender Missus Rancic (née DePandi) has long been an on-camera celebrity news correspondent who currently, along with her numerous other gigs, co-hosts the sassy and snarky Fashion Police program with perennially funny (and nasty) Joan Rivers, rock-n-roll scion Kelly Osbourne, and celebrity stylist George Kotsiopoulos.

For the last several Mister and Missus Rancic have laid bare their lives for the world to see on their eponymous reality tee-vee program Giuliani & Bill. Anyone who tuned in watched the couple—no doubt with both genuine sympathy and utter mortification—navigate the perils of a new(ish) marriage, grapple with infertility and cope with breast cancer and a double mastectomy. The icing on their cake is that Mister and Missus Rancic don't work in the same city. He's Chicago-based and she's L.A.-based. Imagine the frequent flyer miles. Last week it was announced—it seems almost every detail and drama of their bumpy lives is either disclosed or announced—the couple is with-child via a gestational surrogate and are expecting a bouncing baby boy. Mavel tov!

Back in May 2011 Missus Rancic told FrontDoor.com that when in Los Angeles she often stays somewhere down in Marina del Rey so it could be the couple only "occupy" this house in Brentwood for filming their reality program and actually bunk somewhere else. Believe it or not, puppies, this actually sometimes happens in the make-believe world of reality television. However, there are pap snaps floating around that show the two of them in front of said house in Brentwood—it's identified only as "a friend's house") and there are scads of videos online that show them sitting in the living room (and in the dining room) of said house giving budget party planning tips and marriage advice. There's also a framed photo of the two of them next to the flat-screen tee-vee over the fireplace in the living room of said house in Brentwood and, more circumstantially, a giant letter R standing on a dresser of the master bedroom. Make of all that what you will.

Current listing information shows the white picket fenced residence was originally built in 1941, sits on quarter-plus acre lot and has 2,272 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.

It takes but few steps on a brick path to get from a compact driveway at the end of a short cul-de-sace to a puny (but properly-scaled) portico entry. A glass and wood Dutch door—and who does not love a Dutch door?—opens in to a spacious center hall entry where a petite den/office to the left of the entry has built-in book shelves on either side of a bay window. The living roomt runs along the back of the house and features a red brick fireplace, a full wall of built-in cabinets and book shelves, and chocolate-colored hardwood floors that run throughout both floors. A row of multi-paned windows and French doors lead out to a cozy covered porch that spans the full width of the back of the house.

A galley-style eat-in kitchen between the dining room and the attached two car garage has gleaming white cabinets, marble counter tops, the usual complement of high-grade stainless steel appliances and a breakfast nook tucked into yet another, deep bay window.

Two guest/family bedrooms tucked in to the eaves with dormer windows on the second floor share a hall bath while the master suite has a sitting area, second red brick fireplace and an attached bathroom with double sinks, and marble-lined shower somewhat awkwardly set into the steep slant of the roof. It appears from listing photos that at least one of the second floor family/guest bedrooms was pressed in to use as a spacious if not particularly aspirational walk-in closet/dressing room.

Just a sliver of green lawn lies between the brick-floored covered porch that runs the width of the back of the house and the classically aqua-colored swimming pool ringed by a frame of red brick that widens on the far side to comfortably accommodate a outdoor dining table for eight. The house and yard sit on a short bluff that falls off beyond the swimming pool and allows for an expansive, over-the-tree-tops view of the (north)eastern sky.

Mister and Missus Rancic—punishingly-paced peripatetics if there ever were such a thing—are hardly strangers to the real estate game or celebrity property gossip columns. In July of 2007 they shelled out $1,500,000 for a single family townhouse on Chicago's Gold Coast. The 1908 residence was given the ol' Rancic re-do and flipped back on the market and sold at a substantial profit in March of 2009 for $3,595,000. Listing information from the time of the sale shows the 5,460 square foot townhouse has (or had) 3 bedrooms 3.5 poopers, a complete movie theater, exterior security cameras, radiant heated floors, a heated 1.5 car garage, and 10 flat screen televisions.

In May of 2009, after more than a year on the market, Missus Rancic sold her Thom Filicia-decorated bachelorette pad in Los Angeles, on the 20th floor of a Wilshire Boulevard high-rise, for $725,000. Prop records reveal Missus Rancic picked the place up in January of 2003–when she was still Miss DePandi–for $465,000.

In June of 2009 the vagabonds shelled out $1,185,000 for a foreclosed, high-floor condo in a luxury high rise on Chicago's Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue). Less than a year later the Rancic re-did 2 bedroom and 2.5 pooper aerie was back on the market at $1,650,000. It sold in January 2011 for $1,425,000.

In May 2010 they spent $1,560,000 to buy an extended family accommodating, 8,000 square foot mansion—or 12,000 square feet, depending on which online resource you consult—in the upscale Chicago suburb of Hinsdale. When purchased a gut renovation was underway, which Mister and Missus Rancic completed in short order with (according to reports we read) African mahogany front doors, Brazilian cherry wood floors, a basement gym, home theater and cigar and scotch room. They itchy footed reality stars occupied the mansion for just three months before they flipped the red brick Federal-style pile in February 2011 year for $4,600,000.

We're not exactly sure whether the always to-ing and fro-ing couple plan to settle down with their new baby in Chicago or Los Angeles. It seems almost inconceivable to Your Mama—who does not know a pine nut from a pint of ice cream— they won't always require a real estate toe hold in Los Angeles where Missus Rancic maintains a full-time professional calendar but she's on record as saying she'd rather raise up youngins in Chicago than Los Angeles.

To that end, they were shown in March 2012 on their reality program house hunting in Chicago where they've recently (and sort of randomly) opened up a mid-priced restaurant called RPM Italian. Anyone want to take bets on how long before these hard-charging entrepreneurs start opening up RPM Italians in Los Angeles and Las Vegas? Stranger things have happened.

listing photos: Partners Trust

...who isn't foaming uncontrollably at the mouth to see the soon-to-be-released Lauren Greenfield-directed documentary The Queen of Versailles about time-share tycoon David Greenfield and his conspicuously consumptive wife's epic (and unsuccessful) journey to build a garishly opulent 90,000 square foot super mega-mansion outside of Orlando, FL?

If you don't know already about it, the newly released trailer will both horrify and whet your appetite but good. We suggest you pair the trailer with a stiff gin & tonic or some other mood stabilizing substance of your preference. Enjoy.

As first reported by the celebrity gossip juggernaut TMZ yesterday—and as Your Mama has been telling the children for weeks and weeks—Meg Ryan has finally, at long last sold her Bel Air estate.

The buyer Adam Bernhard—he sold his flash-sale website HauteLook to Nordstrom last year for around $270 million—coughed up $11,125,000 for the 6,877 square foot house that include 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms plus a detached guest house out back by the swimming pool.

Miz Ryan had the city-view property on and off the open market for years. Your Mama first discussed it in late 2008 when it was heaved on the open market with an in-hind-sight optimistic asking price of $19,500,000 and then again in October 2009 when it was listed at $14,200,000. House hopping house flipper Diane Keaton leased the place in 2010/2011 after it was put out for rent at $40,000 per month.

Miz Keaton recently snatched up a $5.6 million dollar mansion in Pacific Palisades and Miz Ryan seems to be spending most of her time on the East Coast where she cats around with rock star man-friend John (Cougar) Mellencamp, house hunts in New York City and owns a secluded retreat on Martha's Vineyard.

aerial photo: Pacific Coast News

OMG, butter beans, buckle your real estate safety belts children, because this one will knock your damn bobby socks off.

Fresh reports out of the Pacific say that Oracle multi-billionaire Larry Ellison has come to terms regarding the acquisition of nearly 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai. That's right, nearly 98% of the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai, all 141 square miles of

The deal involves 88,000 acres of land plus two very swank resorts, a couple of top-grade golf courses, an equestrian facility and various residential and commercial buildings.

The agreed upon sale price hasn't been released—at least not that we foound—but the rumored asking price for the island was between $500 and $600 million dollars. That's plenty of dough to keep a small country afloat for years but still just a fraction of Mister Ellison's reported net worth of (around) $36 billion. At least one report say Mister Ellison is expected to pay cash.

Mister Ellison hasn't publicly commented on the (alleged) purchase but apparently Hawaii's Governor Neil Abercrombie spilled the real estate beans on the deal. "We look forward to welcoming Mr. Ellison in the near future," Abercrombie said (via Bloomberg Businessweek). "His passion for nature, particularly the ocean, is well known specifically in the realm of America's Cup sailing."


 The seller, 89-year old self-made billionaire David Murdock, has owned the almost 98% stake in the island since the mid 1985 and was reported to lose between $18 and $25 million dollars a year running the hotels and golf courses.

The agreement would allow him to keep his home plus the rights to build a (a controversial and no doubt exceedingly lucrative) wind farm that would provide power to the island of Oahu via and underwater cable.

Mister Ellison is a frequent buyer (and rare seller) of high-priced and high-maintenance properties. He owns more than $180-plus million worth of property in Malibu, a San Francisco mansion, a Japanese themed compound in Woodside, CA, a Gilded Age mansion in Newport, RI, a vast estate in Rancho Mirage with a private 18-hole golf course and 8 guest houses and on and on and on and on.

As duly and briefly noted earlier today by the always on top of things kids at Curbed, the purchase price for the nearly three acre Beverly Hills, CA estate Ellen and Portia DeGeneres recently sold to Ryan Seacrest has been recorded and revealed.

Despite the $49,000,000 asking price, the squeaky clean American Idol host drove a hard bargain and paid the reigning daytime chat show queen bee $37,500,000—or $36,500,000, depending on where you look—for the secluded, A-list celebrity-style compound tucked discreetly above Coldwater Canyon.

The biggest chunk of the dee-luxe estate (shown above), bought from Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick in September 2007 for almost thirty million clams, includes a (roughly) 8,600 square foot, single-story main house once inhabited by jet-setting actress Joan Collins plus a fully-detached two-bedroom guest house and additional living space (somewhat preposterously) positioned directly underneath the radically and expensively engineered, negative-edge swimming pool and adjacent cabana.

Mister Seacrest's purchase also includes, as per the prop records we peeped, an adjacent parcel picked up by the Missus DeGeneres in December 2007. At the time of the $8,500,000 purchase the property had an undistinguished (and arguably ass-ugly) 1980s contemporary on it that, in short order, the ladies razed and replaced with an extended motor court and meandering, hilltop garden with private pond and city view.

Property records also show Mister Seacrest is also the new owner of a third, adjacent parcel with a 2,785 square foot residence the Missus DeGeneres scooped up in June 2008 for $5,000,000. The hillside house, just outside the compound's main driveway gates, makes for a perfect arrangement for a family member, over-nighting security staff and/or other live-in domestic personnel.

Our rudimentary mathematical calculations indicate the Missus DeGeneres paid (approximately) $43,500,000 for the various pieces of her property puzzle that she sold to Mister Seacrest. That means she absorbed a spine-straightening $5-6,000,000 loss, not counting carrying costs and improvements, such as razing one house and replacing it with a high-maintenance garden.

The Missus DeGeneres have another $5,500,000 tied up with yet another adjacent property picked up in July 2008 but did not, curiously and according to property records we peeped, sell to Mister Seacrest. So the celebrity real estate scuttlebutt that reached Your Mama goes, the Missus DeGeneres bought the house because it has oblique sight lines to some portion of her estate she did not want sighted. We're have no idea whether the Missus DeGeneres would like to sell and/or if Mister Seacrest might like to purchase said property.

Mister Seacrest still owns a gated Nichols Canyon estate bought from Kevin Costner in April 2006 for $11,500,000—and currently on the market for $11,985,000—and the Missus DeGeneres recently shelled out $17,400,000 to acquire a swinging, single story pad originally designed by Hal Levitt in the trendy Trousdale Estates section of Beverly Hills.

aerial photo: Pacific Coast News

SELLER: Erin Daniels
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $925,000
SIZE: 1,795 square feet, 2-3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: She may have played a scissor sister on the long-ago canceled lesbianic drama The L Word but in real life actress Erin Daniels is a married heterosexual mother of one who, a little birdie told Your Mama, listed her renovated 1940s ranch-bungalow in the Hollywood Hills with an asking price of $925,000.

Since The L Word was axed in 2007 Miz Daniels has had a handful of small parts and recurring roles on a couple handfuls of television programs such as Zach and Miri Make a Porno, CSI: NY, Saving Grace and Swingtown. More recently she was briefly seen (among other places) in A Single Man, Rizzoli & Isles and Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean and her resume on the Internet Movie Data Base shows Miz Daniels has a number of film and television projects planned and/or in the hopper including the upcoming Sofia Coppola film The Bling Ring about all those naughty-naughty, well-to-do suburban kids who made a nasty habit of burglarizing the Los Angeles area homes of celebs like Paris Hilton, Megan Fox, Rachel Bilson, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom.

Long before she married her indie flick producer/post production executive (and baby daddy) Chris Uettwiller in 2008, property records show Miz Daniels purchased her house in the Hollywood Manor 'hood in July 2000 for $575,000. Current listing information puts the renovated residence at a modest 1,795 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms while The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows a slightly smaller 1,662 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Make of those small (but important) discrepancies what you will.

A high, modern-minded fence fashioned from thin, horizontal wood slats surrounds the front yard and forms a private entry courtyard. A long and narrow entrance corridor connects the glass front door to a compact, L-shaped "formal" living and dining room with fireplace, oak floors, and one big window with a view of the front courtyard.

Miz Daniels and Mister Uettwiller clearly never met a piece of mid-century modern furniture they didn't like (or buy) and, in addition to the baby grand piano covered with enough framed photographs to make even the most hardworking housekeeper groan with dusting fury, the room is chock full of iconic MCM pieces that include a cow hide covered LC4 chaise lounge by Le Corbusier, $3,855 new at Design Within Reach (DWR); a white leather and walnut Eames lounge and ottoman, $5,000+ at DWR; and a George Nelson saucer pendant light ($435 at DWR) hung over a round, marble-topped Eero Saarinen table ($3,200+ at DWR) ringed by a quartet of swoopy (and possibly vintage) Cherner armchairs chairs ($1,199 apiece new at DWR).

The oak floors continue in to the adjoining kitchen, outfitted with white, raised-paned cabinetry and frosted glass fronted uppers, white appliances, jet black granite counter tops. The kitchen has direct access to the attached 2-car garage as well as an adjacent office/study (convertible to third bedroom) with second, corner fireplace and attached pooper.

A wide opening in the living/dining room, a breakfast bar pass through in the kitchen and a standard doorway in the den/office all open to the primary living space, a decent-sized but hardly-huge family room with more oak floors, slightly pitched ceiling and long wall of floor-to-ceiling glass with access to an ipe wood dining deck and over-the-tree-tops view of the surrounding canyon towards Cahuenga Peak.

The two principal bedrooms flank a single hall bathroom with a lot of perfectly ordinary white tile and a separate soaking tub and stall shower. One bedroom has two walls of built-in book cases and drawers—in lieu, it seems, of a traditional closet and used to store the toys and clothes of Miz Daniels toddler—and the other, larger bedroom has windows on three walls for easy cross ventilation. An extra-wide set of pane-free French doors open to the aforementioned ipe wood deck at the back of the house.

A conveniently lighted stairway descends from the deck to a small grassy patch perfect for pooch piddling and a second set of (gated) steps connects to the lowest level of the back yard where there's a long, rectangular swimming pool and a small, terraced vegetable garden. The Dr. Cooter notes there does not appear to be a spa on the property and Your Mama notes the glute-busting haul up from the pool to the house for anyone with a full bladder. We suspect Miz Daniels, Mister Uettwiller and/or at least a couple of their pool party pals have once or twice copped a squat in the bushes rather than hiked all the way up to the house to use the facility. Or maybe that we think such a thing says more about Your Mama's booze-fueled laziness and the (un)couthiness of our social circle than anything else.

Whatever the case, other (low-wattage) celebrities who reside in the Hollywood Manor 'hood include still blond 80s icon Morgan Fairchild, still platinum-haired 80s icon Brigitte Nielsen, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition carpenter Paul DiMeo who—as it turns out—currently has his 1927 Mediterranean two-family house in the Manor on the market for $1,135,000. 

listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Beverly Hills South

BUYER: Diane Keaton
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE $5,600,000
SIZE: 7,800 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We've occasionally wondered what often in the property gossip columns house hopper Diane Keaton had up her next real estate sleeve.

Over the years the Oscar-winning architecture and design junkie has owned scads and scores of architecturally notable residences all over Los Angeles, including the Alfred Newman estate in Pacific Palisades and the 1928, Lloyd Wright-designed Samuel-Novarro House in Los Feliz, later owned briefly by Christina Ricci. After selling her newly overhauled, Ralph Flewelling-designed hacienda-style mansion in the flats of Beverly Hills in September 2010 to Glee and Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy for $10,000,000, the preservation-oriented high-end house flipper leased former rom-com queen Meg Ryan's gated, almost-perfect Spanish-style mansion in Bel Air, right next door to fashion world royal Tom Ford's louche and ravishing Richard Neutra-designed compound.

Your Mama heard some time ago from someone we know who tends to know these things that Miz Keaton had moved out of Meg's mansion and today, much to our celebrity real estate surprise (and chagrin), we heard from the long-legged blond at Trulia Luxe Living that Miz Keaton just plunked down $5,600,000 to acquire a bulky and luxurious but hardly historic quasi-Cape Cod-style mansion in the upscale seaside community of Pacific Palisades, CA.

Miz Keaton's newly acquired crib in Pac Pal, built only in 2009, sits tightly on a 10,018 square foot corner lot near the grass-free, ocean-view bluffs of Asilomar Park, measures (around) 7,800 square feet spread out over three floors, according to listing information, and includes a total of 6 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms.

Formal living and dining rooms with pane-free French doors flank the grand, double-height center hall entry outfitted with a Tara-esque staircase, inky black floors and monumental upside down wedding cake-shaped chandelier. A short corridor connects the foyer at the front of the house to the less-formal, open-plan family quarters that extend along the back of the house and include a family room lounge with fireplace, built-in wet bar, and colossal, U-shaped kitchen with gleaming white Shaker-style cabinets, top-quality commercial-style appliances and Subaru-sized center island with snack counter and burnt caramel-colored butcher block counter tops.

The basement level is—to put it nicely—an entertainment extravaganza that includes a temperature-controlled wine cellar and adjoining tasting room/lounge; a bedroom-sized fitness room (convertible to a 7-th bedroom, as per listing details); an eggplant, purple and lavender hued movie theater with stepped seating; and a game room with built-in wet bar, built-in tufted banquette and glass doors that open to a basement level outdoor terrace with spiral staircase for easy (if dizzying) access up to the backyard.

The master suite—with private deck, fireplace, lots of built-in bookshelves, bedroom-sized walk-in closet, and attached facility—sits up on the second floor along with three more family guest suites. A fifth bedroom with en suite pooper on the main floor perfect for the lazy or the infirm and a sixth bedroom with en suite is located down in the basement may (or may not) have been intended for permanent habitation by a live-in domestic or part-time by a less-favored family member or house guest.

A blue stone terrace (or slate or some such upper end stone material) tucked into the inside crook of the mansion has a stacked stone fireplace and built-in barbecue station. The terrace gives way to a (mostly) flat expanse of lawn and blue stone terrace (or slate or some such upper end stone material) that surrounds the plunge-sized swimming pool and inset four-person spa. In addition to the fenced and hedge-ringed backyard, outdoor living spaces also include a wide covered front porch, a couple second level balconies, the aforementioned basement level terrace and a meandering roof deck that allows for over-the-roof-top views of the Santa Monica Mountains.

It's hard for Your Mama to imagine that after owning a couple handfuls of architecturally significant homes that quirky Miz Keaton would see this big, fancy and new if stylistically unremarkable mansion as her $5.6 million real estate destiny. Then again, maybe she's tired for fixing and selling. Maybe she plans to fix and sell this place. Who knows? If we've said it once we've said it dozens of times (too many): It's a futile game to attempt to unravel the mysteries behind the sometimes capricious-seeming real estate behaviors of the rich and/or famous.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

BUYER: Jack Dorsey
LOCATION: San Francisco, CA
PRICE: $9,900,000
SIZE: 3,734 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Bay Area real estate gossips are all atwitter today over the (as yet unconfirmed) scuttlebutt about Twitter (and Square) co-creator Jack Dorsey dropping nearly ten million clams on an mid-century modern-minded residence alarmingly cantilevered over a nearly sheer and rocky bluff in San Francisco's quietly swanky (and often socked in with fog) Seacliff neighborhood.

The redwood-sided residence in question first appeared on the open market way back in June 2008 with an in-hind-sight painfully rose-tinted asking price of $18,000,000. Almost four years and dozen whacks with the pricing scythe brought the final asking price down to $9,900,000, the exact amount property records show the house was most recently purchased by a corporate entity in early February 2012 that may (or may not) be linked to Mister Dorsey.

The relatively reserved Digital Age visionary, 35 years old and worth close to three-quarters of a billion dollars, (allegedly) upgraded to his living circumstances, trading in his comparatively humble penthouse-level downtown loft for this sophisticated, grown-up and almost histrionically-sited house, an architectural cousin, perhaps, to the earthy, utterly sublime and exceedingly expensive Post Ranch Inn in Bug Sur (CA). Listing information (and other online resources) show the house measures in at 3,734 square feet with just 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms plus a separate, windowed office nook located off the main living area and probably convertible in a pinch to a somewhat compact bedroom.

Shortly after the property was first listed to a fair amount of fawning and fanfare, the ever-industrious kids at Curbed related a few fascinating historical tidbits about the property (via the original listing) which Your Mama will, in turn, relate to the children who haven't already read all about it. So the story goes, in 1948 Frank Lloyd Wright may (or may not) have designed a rather dramatic, ice-cream cone-shaped house on the site for a man named V.C. Morris who owned an eponymous downtown gift shop housed in a ground-breaking building designed—also in 1948—by the forward-thinking (and autocratic) Mister Wright. Back in late 1998 Christie's auctioned a colored exterior rendering of the proposed residence with an estimate of $12,000-$18,000. It sold for $32,200.

While Mister Wright's soaring residential vision was not realized what was eventually designed and built in 1965 is most certainly, no matter what you think of the boxy modern architecture and stale day-core, an outright thrilling, panty-dropping work of engineering genius. We can't imagine the powerful California Coastal Commission would allow such an startlingly situated house to be built today but then again situated not so far from Mister Dorsey's (alleged) new digs there's a bluff top mansion between China and Baker beaches with a swimming pool nestled in to the craggy cliff half way down to the ocean from the house. Imagine what it cost, children, to engineer and construct that cement pond and then sit down and ponder the amount of money required to keep that particular pool heated for comfortable use in the biting cold and thick fog of a typical San Francisco summer. It boggles and betwixts the brain, don't it?

Anyhoo, the existing, low-slung and flat-roofed single-story house, hidden down a curved and sloped driveway behind an old-growth redwood drive gate set into an old-growth redwood fence, looks well-tended with expensively updated kitchen and bathrooms. The day-core as seen in listing photographs, on the other hand, is tired and uninspired but that's really no matter at all because Mister Dorsey, with the expensive assistance of a talented nice-gay or lady decorator, can easily swap out the awful wall-to-wall carpeting and all the oddly anachronistic (but probably museum-quality antique) light fixtures.

What Mister Dorsey did (allegedly) buy is a large living/dining room over which looms a retractable, 20-foot square sky light (above, top). That's right kids, that pyramid-shaped sky light slides open at the mere touch of a button to theatrically expose the interior of the house to the salty sea air and sparkling stars.

An over-sized, center island eat-in kitchen off the dining room area (above, lower left) has, according to listing information we peeped, beveled Beauharnais limestone floors, custom-built Brazilian blood-wood cabinetry, Volga-blue granite counter tops, top-grade appliances and fixtures, and jaw-dropping head-on views of the the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands across the wind-torn mouth of the San Francisco Bay.

The spacious family room, (melo)dramatically set the farthest out over the all-but-vertical bluff than any other part of the house, has two full walls of floor-to-ceiling windows with heart-stopping ocean, bay and bridge views, a massive river rock fireplace wall, and a ring of celestory-style windows. The glass wall at the end of the room slides open to a small but for-the-brave-only deck girdled for maximum visual impact (and vertigo) with a waist high glass panel railing. The bottoms of Your Mama feet sweat uncontrollably at the mere thought of stepping out on to that balcony in a stiff wind.

The lone guest/family bedroom has direct access to an en suite facility and a second, pyramid-shaped sky light for in-bed star gazing. As far as we know, which ain't a thing, the sky light in the guest/family bedroom is not retractable. The master suite, just off the main living/dining area (above), floor-to-ceiling corner windows with through tree top views of the bay and bridge and a dressing area custom-fitted with cabinets and vanity of an unknown kind but exotic looking burled wood. The attached, updated private bathroom has a lot of cream colored stone, double sinks flanked by full-height toiletry and linen cabinets (that look like the same burled wood as in the dressing area), a soaking tub set into a bay of frosted windows and a separate shower with a mossy-green tinted frosted glass panel.

While outdoor space looks limited on the water/bluff side of the house, and at least some of the outdoor space at the front of the house is directly visible from the neighboring mansion, there is a small, knock-your-socks off deck up on the roof. We're not sure how exactly one accesses the roof deck—and Your Mama would most assuredly need a gin & tonic (or two) and a fat Xanax to muster the courage to go up there—but whatever it takes to get up there is well worth the effort (and hangover) because, children, that is the exact sort of view Northern California real estate dreams are made of. Sure, the nearly omnipresent fog that enshrouds Seacliff (and much of San Francisco) probably hinders one's ability to actually see that view a significant amount of the time, but when the fog clears, BAM!

Listing information indicates there are plans (if not approvals) to add an additional 3,000 square feet of living space above the existing house and, of course, we haven't any idea if Mister Dorsey plans to make such a radical alteration to the existing structure.

Until March of this year low-key and low-profile Mister Dorsey owned (and presumably occupied) what Vanity Fair magazine described as an "austere" apartment on Mint Plaza, a new(ish) public space tucked behind the old mint building in the heart of San Fran's homelessville. Don't any of you San Franciscans get all uppity with Your Mama for saying that. We heart us some San Francisco like a newborn loves its momma's nipple. Your Mama lived there, once upon a time in our long-ago youth, in a splendid if mildly shabby Art Deco building known as the Allen Arms and we visit regularly so we (sort of) know of what we speak; The immediate area around Fifth and Sixth Streets just south of Market were Mint Plaza is located may not be the skin-crawling and nose-hair curling skid row it once was but it can still be a pretty unsavory pocket of the downtown area despite the Abercrombie and Fitch store, the growing plethora of pricey locavore eateries, and the fancy-pants Blue Bottle coffee shop. Is there anything more uncomfortable (or quintessentially San Francisco) than sipping on a certified organic, $77 single-origin thimbleful of coffee and being panhandled by a one-shoed woman wearing a house dress rendered cardboard stiff with street filth? Hush up! Y'all know it's true.

Anyhoo, property records and other online documentation show Mister Dorsey paid $925,000 for a 1,199 square foot loft-type conversion in March 2009. In January of this year (2012) the 10th floor 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom aerie was listed for $1,100,000 and sold in early March for an even-steven $1,000,000.

Listing photos we enticed up out of the internets show the loft has exposed concrete and plaster walls, high-gloss acid-stained concrete floors, high ceilings, big double-hung windows, open kitchen with center work island and glass-topped snack counter, a bedroom with walk-in closet, laundry closet, one bathroom and wood and metal spiral staircase that twists up to a private roof terrace with city and peek-a-boo bay views.

listing photos (Mint Plaza): Decker Bullock Sotheby's
listing photos (Seacliff): Decker Bullock Sotheby's

...from a well-connected New York City snitch—let's call her Anna F. Laxis—that recently retired chat show queen turned struggling television network owner Oprah Winfrey has been peeping posh apartments and pricey penthouses on the Upper West Side for possible purchase as a pied-a-terre.

Miss Fabrique, who has many times provided Your Mama with dead-on accurate celebrity real estate scuttlebutt, wasn't specific as to Miz Winfrey's price range or list of desirable features but did whisper that the self-made multi-media billionairess went for a look-see at at least one expensive apartment at the storied Apthorp building on West End Avenue.

Anyone who cares an eeny-weeny whit about New York City real estate knows the Apthorp is a hulking and imposing, Renaissance Revival-style pre-war pile that occupies an entire city block and has a long history of celebrity residents including Al Pacino, Conan O'Brien, Cyndi Lauper, Rosie O'Donnell, 60 Minutes journalist Steve Kroft and Nora Ephron who wrote a long, bleating paean to her real estate love affair with the building published in The New Yorker.

The full-service building, built around a massive, landscaped courtyard/motor court with a stately, three-floor high rusticated limestone base, was a luxurious but somewhat bedraggled rental property until 2008 when—much to the angry tirades of many–the building went condo, super high-end condo where current asking prices for the largest apartments hovers around $2,400 per square foot.

A couple weeks ago Your Mama discussed some of Miz Winfrey's most recent real estate activities that include (re-)listing a co-operative in a dignified Beaux-Arts building in Chicago—it's now in escrow or contract or whatever they do in Chicago—and continuing to spend tens of millions buying up of property around her secluded and sprawling, multi-residence ranch-compound on the Hawaiian island of Maui. We've also heard she might like a place to rest her head in Los Angeles where her OWN offices are located but we don't have any current intel on that situation.