SELL BUY PROPERTY

...the media-dubbed "homeless billionaire" Nicolas Berggruen isn't homeless anymore.

Mister Berggruen wasn't exactly homeless homeless, of course. However, he did not—as far as anyone in the media knew or knows—own or maintain a private residence. At one time he did own an island estate in Florida and an apartment in New York but for the last decade or so the extraordinarily well-connected, Paris-born investor, philanthropist and—until now—essentially un-rooted citizen of the world, with dual American and German citizenship, had no fixed residential address and has long preferred to live a profoundly peripatetic life in high-priced hotels.

Unless the wacky real estate ways of billionaires is dinner table fodder in your home Mister Berggruen won't probably be a recognizable name but he's a most certainly a jet-setting if somewhat low-profile power player with deep and powerful connections in high finance, Tinseltown, the art world and geo-global politics.

He founded the Nicolas Berggruen Institute, a non-partisan think tank, according to its website, "dedicated to exploring new ideas of good governance" and the dashing bachelor throws an annual Oscar Party at the Chateau Marmont. He owns a monumental artwork by Chris Burden called Metropolis II, currently on a 10-year loan to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and as of March 2012 the billionaire—who, oddly enough, turns 51 today—did not own a car but he does reportedly own a Gulfstream IV that he uses to scoot around the world.

Here's how this juicy, high-end real estate nugget dropped in Your Mama prodigious lap: We received a covert communique this morning from a trusted informant—let's call her Florinda Fillyouin—who snitched to Your Mama word on the real estate street in Los Angeles is that famously itchy-footed Mister Berggruen has dropped close to $7.5 million on a trio of contiguous units above the 20th floor at the star-studded Sierra Towers building on the border between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, CA.

We quickly checked with a second source who we though might know a thing or two about the scuttlebutt—let's call her Tina Hasalltheinfo—and, lo and behold, she told us none of the three units were listed on the open market, altogether they stretch from corner to corner on the more desirable city side of building with about 5,000 square feet of interior space, and all three have unobstructed, knee-knocking views that sweep, on a clear day, from downtown to the Pacific Ocean. Each of the three units has a deep terrace that when opened up to one another will make a staggering run almost the entire length of the building.

Miss Hasalltheinfo and Miz Fillyouin both told Your Mama Mister Berggruen will likely spend several to many millions more to combine and convert the three units into one, world-class apartment. Mister Berggruen's own bio states he's "collaborated" on projects with high-toned architects like Richard Meier, Shigeru Ban and David Adjaye so Your Mama expects the overhaul will be handled by an architect of that caliber.

Property records we peeped show two of the units (allegedly) purchased by Mister B. were sold by a (possibly married) non-celebrity couple and the third was owned by a music industry scion turned wildly successful real estate agent. We heard the deal went down quietly and very quickly but since property records do not yet reflect a transfer, this is all just rumor and gossip.

Other high-profile peeps who currently reside (full or part time) at Sierra Towers include Joan Collins, Elton John and David Furnish (whose combined pair of condos, we were a rumor, are in escrow for somewhere in the fours), the late clothier Bijan Pakzad, sit-com star Courtney Cox, uni-named entertainer Cher, septuagenarian actress/singer Diahann Carroll, and diet guru/social world fixture Nikki Haskell. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne—who just put their Hidden Hills estate up for lease at $50,000 per month according to the long-legged gal at Trulia Luxe Living—currently lease a low-floor apartment they had worked over but good by Million Dollar Decorator Martyn Lawrence-Bullard.

BUYER: Hope Solo
LOCATION: Kirkland, WA
PRICE: $1,200,000
SIZE: 5,330 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Huzzah! Looks like Wheatie's box ready American soccer goalie Hope Solo has won a (second) Olympic gold medal and bought a new, lake-view mansion in the affluent Seattle suburb of Kirkland, WA.

The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Property Aerial and property records both reveal 31-year old Miss Solo—who made several downright spectacular saves in yesterday's electrifying gold medal match against Japan—ponied up $1,200,000 for her new Kirkland crib in late April, 2012.

Listing information Your Mama found on the interweb shows the Dancing With the Stars semi-finalist's spacious new spread, privately situated on a wooded hillside above Lake Washington, spans a family-friendly 5,330 square feet on two floors with three to four bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and two fireplaces.

The contemporary Prairie-style inspired exterior, defined by deep eaves and ochre-toned horizontal wood siding broken by ribbons of windows and walls of glass doors gives way to spacious and luxurious if architecturally pared down and ho-hum open-plan interior spaces. Gleaming, honey-colored hardwood floors in the roomy entrance hall switches to (stain-attracting) bone-colored wall-to-wall carpeting in the formal living and dining rooms as well as in the compact, corporate-flavored office/library outfitted with built-in desk and floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

Less-formal, family quarters include a large, wood-floored, U-shaped eat-in kitchen with slab granite counter tops, dark raised-panel cabinetry, high-quality built-in stainless steel appliances, lots of windows and dark wood beams across the ceiling. The adjoining breakfast area opens through wood-framed glass doors to the backyard and swimming pool and steps down to a carpeted family room finished with inset wood ceiling and two full walls of nearly floor-to-ceiling windows and doors that provide direct backyard access and sparkling, over-the-tree-top city and lake views.

Listing information indicates there are at least two more "bonus rooms" for lounging and recreation as well as a wine cellar and squeezy media room where Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota inexplicably thought it would be cute to stick some films reels up on the wall and call it day-core. Uh, no. Anyhoo, there's also a two-car attached garage with direct access to the residence, according to listing information, plus a sizable detached structure located across a side motor court with workshop and four more pristinely-finished, art-gallery-like garage spaces.

The back of the lower level spills out to a huge terrace with sunken, lap-length swimming pool and spa, cabana-lounge with sunset views over Lake Washington. Set below the house and swimming pool terrace there's a full-sized sport court. Of course, a sport court is a total waste of space in Your Mama's lexicon of desirable property characteristics but we can certainly understand why a celebrated and decorated jockette like Miss Hope might find one appealing and maybe even useful.

Property records reveal this isn't currently single but (maybe) mingling Miss Solo's first time at the real estate rodeo. In August 2005 the soccer ball blocker paid $259,000 for a modest (and pretty minuscule) 1,090 square foot Kirkland (WA) residence with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Our entirely unscientific research indicates she continues to own her bantam bachelorette pad and it does not currently appear to be on the market.

listing photos: Lake Real Estate (via Zillow)

SELLER: Jackie Zeman
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $2,699,000
SIZE: 2,945 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a heads up from a fella we'll call Malibu Ken, Your Mama has learned soap story veteran Jackie Zeman, in a valiant effort to stave off foreclosure, has hoisted her Malibu, CA residence on the market with an asking price of $2,699,000.

Miz Zeman—who bless her heart, certainly appears, as Kathy Griffin would say, to see "the dentist" on a regular basis—was let go in 2010 after 30-plus years as Nurse Bobbi Spencer on General Hospital. Since then she's worked some—mostly on a web series called The Bay— but has none-the less found herself between a financial rock and a hard place. In mid-July (2012) the tabs and celebrity gossip blogs reported she'd fallen behind on the mortgage payments for her ocean view residence to the tune of $320,505. Oh dear.

Property records, unfortunately for the detail oriented children, aren't entirely clear on when exactly she bought the property or how much she paid. Blockshopper shows she transferred the property into a trust in August 2007 and Redfin shows the last time the property changed hands was in May 2005 for $3,250,000. Y'all can be the judge and jury on that one; We're just relaying our unscientific findings. All we can really say for sure is our research shows there's foreclosure activity on the Miz Zeman's spread and it's up for grabs on the open market at $2,699,000.

Current listing information shows the two-story, 1979 mock-Med mini-manse measures 2,925 square feet with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces and rights to the La Costa Beach and Tennis Club. Presumably access to the beach and tennis club requires a for-fee membership on top of the rights to pay such a membership, but we're not really sure. Can anyone in Malibu edumuhcate the children on that?

Anyhoo, a steep drive curves tightly up to a front-facing two car garage. A narrow flagstone path curls around the garage, hugs tightly to the façade as it extends along the narrow strip of land between the house and the steep slope that falls nerve-wrackingly away just a few feet from the house.

Inside, the combination living/dining room has hardwood floors, walls of windows with almost unobstructed ocean views, and a carved stone (gas) fireplace flanked by a pair of flower sprays that look to Your Mama—no disrespect, JZ—like they was bought discount from a funeral home yard sale. Seriously.

The hardwood floors and ocean views continue into the updated (if sorta out-dated) and decidedly countrified eat-in kitchen complete with center island snack counter; faux-distressed, bone-colored cabinetry, some with glass doors; bull-nosed granite counter tops; high-grade built-in appliances; a breakfast nook in a five-sided bay window; and a perplexing tile-like ceiling treatment that may or may not actually be tile, we can't tell. A nearby den with (gas) fireplace has a convenient, built-in wet bar for commercial-time booze and beverage refreshments.

Each of the three, spacious upstairs bedrooms have ship-like sea and sunset views through large (but not entirely pleasingly arranged) windows. At least one bedroom connects directly a private bathroom and at least two open to covered balconies ringed by wrought iron railings.

Besides the front door, a single sliding glass door in the kitchen is the sole egress to the backyard entertainment areas that include a long, flagstone-paved dining and sun bathing terrace night lit by a couple of (too-charming) Old-Timey street lamps and a slender, in-ground swimming pool and spa.

 Good luck Miz Zeman. Your Mama hopes you save your house and get a job soon.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International

SELLER: Penny Hart (formerly owned by Frank Sinatra)
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $7,700,000
SIZE: 3,200 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After much anticipation and chattering by property gossips around the globe the last week or so, a glammy New York City triplex penthouse long ago owned by Rat Pack crooner Frank Sinatra has finally popped up on the open market with an asking price of $7,700,000.

Mister Sinatra, who went to meet The Great Sound Mixer in the Sky in 1998, owned the glassy aerie atop the so-called Edgewater building at the eastern terminus of East 72nd Street from 1961 until 1972. Over the decade he owned the place he reportedly and not surprisingly entertained a cavalcade of famous friends including Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Marilyn Monroe, President John. F. Kennedy, and Sammy Davis Jr., who (allegedly) used to toss champagne glasses off the terrace.

As much celebrity sheen as Mister Sinatra's ownership gives the completely over-hauled triplex, the penthouse's post-Sinatra years are no less fascinating. In 1972 Mister Sinatra sold the penthouse to Dr. Denton Sayer Cox, an Upper East Side internist who famously treated a high profile clientele that included Mister Sinatra himself, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning writer John Steinbeck, troubled singer Judy Garland, and pop artist Andy Warhol who, according to current listing information, once called the penthouse "a glittering grotto in the sky."

In 2007 the good Dr. Cox, then 79 years old, was badly beaten and hospitalized with severe and mysterious chemical burns that covered more than 40% of his body. He claimed he'd been attacked on the street near his penthouse by a trio of thugs who doused him with an unknown substance. However, the general consensus by the police and media was that the septuagenarian physician was actually horrifically brutalized inside his East 72nd Street penthouse during some sort of sexual encounter gone horribly wrong with an unidentified male companion.

Dr. Cox died from his injuries in March 2007 and the penthouse was sold by the executors of his estate to Penny Fern Hart, a Long Island-based car insurance mogul. Property records we peeped show the penthouse was purchased by Miz Hart in July 2010 for $2,300,000 while an earlier report in the New York Post pegged the purchase at "$4.5 million in 2008."

Like the penthouse's previous owners, Miz Hart has a somewhat inneresting and illustrious life, too. In 2002, after a chance meeting in what was described as "a Midtown Manhattan pick up bar," Miz Hart (reportedly) became romantically entangled with a mobbed-up gentleman named Tommy Cappa who had just days before been released after six years in the pokey for his role in a failed murder conspiracy. We don't know if Miz Hart and Mister Cappa continue to be coupled but at one point she described him in court papers as her "'soul mate,' fiancée, best friend, and partner" as well as a "'devoted, sensitive, and affectionate' role model for her three children." Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

Anyhoo, presumably it's Miz Hart who's responsible for the recent renovation of the three-story penthouse that has, according to current listing information, (approx.) 3,200 square feet of interior space and another (approx.) 2,200 square feet of terraces on two levels. The penthouse has 4 bedrooms and 4 full and 2 half bathrooms including a (melo)dramatic, two-story master suite connected with a floating glass and steel staircase that more than resembles the sort of thing one might expect to find installed in an Apple Store.

A wrap around terrace encircles the 22nd floor living space that includes a living room with monolithic marble-faced fireplace and inlaid hardwood floors that extend into a wee dining area open to a clean-lined kitchen finished with dark marble floors, a white porcelain farmhouse sink and Euro-style stainless steel appliances.

Each of the three guest/family bedrooms on the lower floor has a private bathroom and direct access to the terrace that rings the apartment's lowest level and hangs over busy, loud and dirty FDR Drive with sweeping views up and down the East River and directly across to the dour apartment blocks lined up on Roosevelt Island.

A winding staircase climbs to a second floor landing where there's a second powder pooper—the first is not so ideally situated in the kitchen—and access to the lower level of the sexed-up, two-floor master suite.

The lower level—formerly Mister Sinatra's party room—has a voluminous 18-foot ceiling; convenient wet bar for those like Your Mama who enjoy a pre-bed and/or early a.m. nipper of something boozy; a 20-foot long fitted dressing room with—ahem—a convenient back door entrance; and three, angled, prow-like walls of glass filled with decidedly urban, bird's eye vistas of the mixed residential and industrial neighborhoods up and down both side of the cold, grey and powerful East River. Double glass doors open to an expansive terrace outfitted with, according to listing information, a putting green and solar panel.

The aforementioned floating glass and steel staircase in the master bedrooms makes a harrowing and, let's hope, meticulously engineered climb up to the mezzanine where the floor plan included with current listing information indicates there's a sitting/sleeping area, an itty-bitty study and oddly-shaped but reasonably sized bathroom.

Listen children, The Dr. Cooter can be awfully clumsy and Your Mama is straight-up lazy like a hog in the wet blanket humidity of an Alabama summer—not to mention more often than not drunk as a skunk—so that staircase is simply out of the question. We could never navigate that practically see-through thing in the middle of a dark night. And, besides, who wants guests and other people traipsing through their boo-dwar in order to get to the putting green on the roof terrace? Not Your Mama, that's who.

Of course, we ain't in the market for a suped-up seven and some million dollar penthouse on the edge of the Upper East Side of Manhattan so our opinion is entirely irrelevant. None-the-less we can certainly understand why a young and rich Wall Street bachelor or a profligate professional athlete might find this overtly-sexy, superhero-style duplex bedroom to be hella sick or da bomb or whatever silly colloquialism the kids say nowadays to describe a bedroom that Your Mama's boozy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau colorfully called a "a God damn panty dropper."

listing photos and floor plan: Rubicon Property

BUYER: Liam Gallagher
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,500,000
SIZE: 1,575 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Okay, we're stretching it to call this two bedroom New York City apartment an oasis even if it did cost (former) Oasis front man Liam Gallagher $2,500,000. Still, it's pretty nice for a pied-a-terre that the English rock star, now the U.K.-based front man for a band called Beady Eye, will most likely be used more like a luxury hotel suite than a private home.

The New York Observer revealed last week that Mister Gallagher—a man who has previously displayed some disdain for the good ol' United States of America—scooped up a two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom condo nestled onto a high floor of the mixed-used Jumeriah Essex House on Central Park South that does double duty as a high-class residential condominium complex and a high-priced hotel.

The apartment was sold to the sellers in December 2007 for $3,120,936, according to StreetEasy, and flipped back on the market less than 1.5 years later with an asking price of $3,300,000. Six weeks after than the price was briefly reduced to $3,195,000 before it was right back up at $3,300,000. Within days the price inexplicably ballooned to $3,650,000 and two months later it was taken off the market only to reappear nearly two years later with a much lower (but still optimistic) asking price of $2,950,000.

After just two weeks on the (open) market Mister Gallagher came along and snatched the compact, bi-winged contemporary-styled condo into contract and quickly closed with a fairy steeply discounted sale price of $2,500,000.

Listing information shows the 1,575 square foot condo has an open plan main living area with double exposures, over-scaled wide-plank herringbone-pattern wood floors, and a sleek, Euro-style kitchen with marble slab counter tops, dark brown Shaker-style cabinetry and high-grade stainless steel appliances that include a built-in 40-bottle wine cooler.

Each of the two bedrooms, situated down a zig-zagging corridor with laundry closet and powder pooper, has a private, attached bathroom. The only slightly larger master also has more spacious (but still window-free) facility plus a walk-in closet larger than some Manhattan studio apartments.

The full-service hotel-condo building offers residents five-star services such as 24-7 doormen and room service, (pay for play) laundry, dry cleaning and valet services, and access to the hotel's health club, meeting room and concierge services. For all this Mister Gallagher will cough up, as per listing information from the time of his purchase, $4,690 per month in common charges and another $2,089 in property taxes.

Should Mister Gallagher like, he can lease the condo (with a one month minimum) when he's not in residence. Laugh and scoff all you want but stranger things have happened. It's really not such an unusual occurrence for celebs and other high profile types to rent out little used properties in their portfolios. Just yesterday, in fact, it was reported by the property gossips at Zillow that pop star Natasha Bedingfield made the Los Angeles, CA residence she bought in 2009 for $2,300,000 up for rent at $18,000 per month.

listing photos and floor plan: Stribling

Even the most casual of celebrity property watchers surely know by now that soon-to-be-thrice-divorced actor Tom Cruise is looking to pick up an East Coast abode where he can host post-divorce visitations with his and Katie Holmes's high-heel wearing toddler daughter Suri.

The latest reports out of the leafy and exceedingly affluent (suburban) enclaves that ring New York City reveal Mister Cruise had a look see at a sprawling 75-acre estate (above) in Greenwich, CT formerly and (in)famously owned by opinionated actor/director Mel Gibson.

Mister Gibson and ex-wife Robin bought the so-dubbed Old Mill Farm estate with its gloriously gloomy 15,800 square foot Tudor-style pile back in 1994 for $9,300,000. After an ice age on the market Mister Gibson finally unloaded the pastoral property in early summer 2010 for $24,000,000.

The unidentified buyers quickly had a real estate change of heart—or maybe they're just trying to make a few million bucks—and flipped the essentially self-contained compound back on the market last month with a much increased asking price of $32,995,000.

Why does this make Your Mama wanna roll our eyes and sigh forlornly? No doubt Mister Cruise can afford to buy whatever mansion tickles his real estate fancy no matter the price. But seriously? A thirty million dollar 75 acre estate in Greenwich? Oh, puh-leeze and bless his showboating real estate heart.

In other, semi-related Tom Cruise real estate news, his second ex-wife Nicole Kidman—now married to and procreating with country music king Keith Urban—quietly sold her glassy New York City pied a terre, as first revealed by the wily property reporters at The Real Deal, for $16,000,000.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

...from Knancy Knowsthedish—an always impeccably informed source deep inside the celebrity real estate game—that freshly divorced pop star Katy Perry has done moved out of the celebrity-style Los Angeles, CA mansion she briefly shared with her shaggy-maned ex-husband Russell Brand and into a rented three bedroom condo in one of West Hollywood's most dignified apartment houses where previous residents are said to have included silver screen sirens and icons like Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Norma Talmadge, and Clark Gable.

Your Mama isn't sure how much Miss Perry shells out each month for her bachelorette pad but we did find some evidence on the intereweb the apartment had been available for lease earlier in the year at $8,500 per month.

Property records show Miss Perry and Mister Brand coughed up $6,500,000 for their (now former), 2.98 acre, double-gated marital compound perched on a semi-private knoll near the West Hollywood mouth of Laurel Canyon in June 2011. This was just a few short months before they officially (or at least publicly) called it quits. The celebrity-style estate includes an 8,835 square foot Mediterranean mansion with 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and five fireplaces, plus two additional detached guest residences.

She of the Candy-colored Hair was granted ownership of the Laurel Canyon compound in their July (2012) divorce settlement and the scuttlebutt on the celebrity real estate street is ex-Missus Perry has begun to hunt for a new and private multi-million dollar estate in Tinseltown. Both Knancy Knowsthedish and Patty Propertyseller—another source from deep within the Platinum Triangle real estate game—told Your Mama that Miss Perry would like to unload her fixer-upper mansion in Laurel Canyon but that it's unlikely it will every be listed on the open market.

The missionaries' daughter and the foul-mouthed former sex and drug addict were married only briefly but, in quintessential celebrity style, managed to rack up a number of multi-million dollar residences. In September 2010—shortly before their October 2010 nuptials in India—the then-happy pair picked up a petite two bedroom and two bathroom duplex penthouse in New York City's TriBeCa for $2,680,000. The penthouse was sold at a small loss in mid-July (2012) for $2,625,000.

On the west coast, the erstwhile couple first settled into a four-story house with 4,706 square feet in L.A.'s Los Feliz 'hood snatched up in December 2009—right around the time they got engaged—for $3,250,000. Alas, they quickly caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and sold the walled and gated mini-estate for $3,300,000 in July 2011, just a month (or so) before they picked up the aforementioned and no-longer-wanted Laurel Canyon crib.

It all just kinda makes yer head spin, don't it?

Mister Brand, if anyone cares or is curious, reportedly decamped to a 4,017 square foot contemporary residence high above the Sunset Strip rented, according to documents we quickly and easily dug up out of the internets, in early 2012 for $16,000 per month.

listing photos (above series): Westside Estate Agency

SELLER: David Schwimmer
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $8,650,000
SIZE: 11,336square feet, 9 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES (UPDATED 8/14/12): Late last year, after it was shopped around off-market for a little bit, Friends actor David Schwimmer listed his grandly-scaled house in Los Angeles's affluent Hancock Park 'hood with an asking price of $10,700,000. The price eventually dropped to $10,200,000.

In May we heard from someone in a position to know, let's call her Penny Pincher, who snitched to Your Mama that Mister Schwimmer's residence had been eyeballed by at least one big name celebrity and that we should expect the house to soon be sold for a good deal less than the last asking price. Low and behold property records reflect the mid-city estate was sold in late June 2012 for $8,865,000 to a generically-named blind trust that shields the identity of the buyer.

Naturally we did some asking around with some of our better informed informants in the cut-throat world of high-end real estate and it wasn't long before two separate sources identified the buyers of the deeply discounted Schwimmer estate as filmmaker (and Tinseltown scion) Eric Eisner—his papa is none other than Hollywood power player Michael Eisner—and fashion designer Stacey Bendet Eisner, founder of the lighthearted, uptown-girl-goes-downtown Alice + Olivia label. However, it should be noted a representative of Missus Bendet Eisner contacted Your Mama to let us know that our informants were dead wrong. Well, she didn't say it like that, she was far to professional to say that but that's, in effect, what she said but in a much more friendly fashion.

Listing information from the time of the sale shows Mister Schwimmer's hulking, 11,000-plus square foot main mansion has 9 bedrooms and six bathrooms (plus a pair of powder poopers), five fireplaces, and a state-of-the-art screening room. Additional, loft-like living space with living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom—perfect for guests, live-in domestic(s) and/or irritating house guests—sits atop a detached three-car garage.

The meticulously groomed 1.02-acre grounds—walled, gated and well-screened for celebrity-style security and privacy, natch—encompasses a rear motor court, flat lawns, parterre garden or two thick tropical landscaping, resort-style swimming pool and spa, and a properly-aligned (north-south) tennis court with viewing pavilion.

Some of the high profile peeps who own homes in the immediate vicinity include Jason Alexander; (Seinfeld); Sean Hayes (Will & Grace), who unsuccessfully attempted to sell his manse in 2008 with an asking price of $8,950,000; writer/producer Shonda Rimes (Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice) who bought her fully-updated and upgraded mansion for $5,600,000 in March 2010 from indie music superstar Beck; and sitcom superstar Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond, The Middle) who, Your Mama hears through the celebrity property gossip grapevine, will allow her estate to be shown with a $12,000,000 (or so) price tag through one of Hancock Park's most successful Real Estates. Just more celebrity real estate rumor and gossip.

We queried our exceedingly smart Fairy Godmother in Bel Air on the matter and although she was entirely unaware of the Eisner's (alleged and denied) acquisition of the Schwimmer estate in Hancock Park she was quite certain a home the Eisner's own in the Bird Streets area above the Sunset Strip is currently on the market with a (greatly reduced) asking price of $3,495,000. Now, we ask that y'all use yer noggins: Ownership of residence is obscured behind a generically named trust so Your Mama can't say for certain the house in question (below) is owned by Mister and Missus Eisner. However, it's worth nothing, Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air is not, nor has she ever been, in the habit of providing Your Mama with inaccurate real estate information.


listing photos (above series): Sotheby's International Realty

Anyhoo, current listing information we perused shows the recently renovated contemporary-Spanish residence was built in 1970 and last purchased in April 2000 for $1,575,000. There are 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms in the single-story residence that angles around a flat backyard with flagstone terraces, built-in barbecue station, swimming pool and elevated spa. The bedroom wing also opens up to deep terraces nestled between the house and the thickly-planted property perimeter.

The day-core is dizzyingly vibrant with hard punches and electric pops of primary colors and a willy-nilly layering of textures and eye-spinning patterns. The guest bathroom with the floral wall covering and black and white tile flooring definitely makes a bold, exuberantly graphic and maybe even garish decorative statement but it's so vexingly insane we can hardly bear to turn away. We'll probably take a bullet or two from the children for saying so but Your Mama finds it unusually refreshing and commendable for someone really go at it with such a fearless and joyful abandonment of the sometimes strict confines of decorative "appropriateness," even if the result can be a more than a little chaotic and, at moments, questionable.

As it turns out, this isn't the only house in Los Angeles (allegedly) connected to Stacy Bendet Eisner that's currently on the market. As has been reported here, there and everywhere including by the kids at Curbed both recently and in years past, Missus Eisner and quirky musician Moby co-own a quintessentially L.A., 1926 Hollywood Regency-style residence above the Sunset Strip designed by the late-great John Elgin Woolf and previously owned by high-sterical, high-camp comedian Paul Lynde.

listing photos (above series): Sotheby's International Realty

Online resources show the funny house was last purchased in February 2008 for $2,950,000 and about a year later the high-glam pad popped up on the rental market at $15,000 per month. Missus Bendet Eisner and Mister Moby first and unsuccessfully attempted to sell it in June 2010 with a $3,495,000 price tag. Since then it's been de- and re-listed a few times and showed back up on the open sales market with a higher asking price of $3,695,000. Our friend and informant Lucy Spillerguts tells us the house is or was recently leased (for an unknown amount) to a trendy, high-end sneaker-shoe designer. We don't ask how she knows these things, she just does.

Current listing information shows the two-and-some story villa measures 3,700 square feet with a total of 3 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, a count that may or may not take into account the separate guest house located at the bottom of the steeply pitched hillside property where there's also a nearly secret, gated back entrance and a detached two-car garage.

Inside the decadent main living spaces have both black and white checkerboard marble or Parquet de Versailles style wood floors under foot and 12 foot ceilings over and towering windows with canyon and city views. The ceiling of the dining room has an appetite-suppressing, gridded and mirrored ceiling along with a petite table for four that looks like it came through the looking glass. The eat-in kitchen is comparatively blank with its white, raised-panel cabinetry, white and grey-veined Carrara marble counter tops and back splashes, and usual complement of high-grade stainless steel appliances.

At least two of the bedrooms in the main house are master suite worthy with bleached (or pickled or otherwise whitened) hardwood floors, pretty canyon and city views and bathrooms that feel a bit beige and Beijing 4-star hotel suite sleek for the clunky, colorful and haphazardly elegant house.

The nearly all white interiors act as a gleaming canvas for courageous and invigorating (if dizzying) finishes and day-core that include striped wall coverings, garish artworks, a pair of cheap-looking Louis the something (or something) reworked in monochromatic blood red, and a silvery rococo mirror propped drunkenly in front of an exterior door in the kitchen, It's colorful and rebellious and not at all correct but it's way more amusing and provocative to look at than perfectly pristine and mannered sorts of decor that typically falls within the range of "good taste," whatever that is.

There's a mouth-watering slew of listing photos here and here.

Since we've meandered so far astray already, let's cover all the real estate bases in regards to the parties involved in today's roundabout real estate story.

Moby, who maintains one of the the most charming and intimate blogs about Los Angeles real estate, paid nearly $4 million in March 2010 to buy Wolf's Lair, a castle-like compound perched proudly atop a perfectly private ridge with panoramic views over Beachwood Canyon and Lake Hollywood. He bought the place from now broken up music executive Jay Faires and television hostess/correspondent Debbie Matenopoulos who originally wanted $7,500,000 for the quirky lair.

The New York Times reported last year Moby spent another two or so million on an extensive restoration and renovation of the idiosyncratic aerie that includes a main house, pool/guest house, an incongruous but thrilling John Lautner-designed guest house and, tucked deep into the towering stone ramparts, a secret tiki-bar lounge Moby plans to turn in to an invite-only magic den (to which we can assure the children Your Mama will not be invited).

SELLER: Kevin Williamson
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,715,000
SIZE: 5,140 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After just four months and a starting asking price of $3,950,000, film and television writer/producer Kevin Williamson has unloaded his boxy, glass and white stucco contemporary crib in L.A.'s Hollywood Hills for $3,715,000.

Mister Williamson, best known as the screenwriter and (executive) producer of the wildly successful Scream film franchise as well as a number of money-minting television programs that include the long-ago canceled Dawson's Creek and currently on the air The Vampire Diaries, acquired the Hollywood Hills residence in December 2003 for $3,100,000

Property records indicated Mister Williamson sold his house to a single man with the exact same name as a professional basketball player who dribbles and shoots (and whatever) for the Indiana Pacers but we're not sure if that's really who bought the house or if it's just someone with an identical name. Stranger things have happened.

Listing information shows the two-story residence, situated on a quiet hillside road near the top of Runyon Canyon and composed of a series of interconnected planes and volumes, sits on a thickly treed .65 hillside acre lot, was originally built in 1990, measures 5,140 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms.

Wide slabs of concrete descend gently down a narrow strip of unnaturally green grass from the (un-gated) motor court with three-car garage and two-car carport to a locked and gated courtyard entrance. A sky lit entry steps down to the open-plan and bi-winged "formal" living areas with high-gloss wood floors (that look like but may or may not be mahogany), minimal architectural detailing, and wide expanses of windows and sliders that open to a terrace that floats over the canyon with sky-high city, canyon and mountain views.

The sky lit and expensive-looking center island kitchen comes off a little Arts and Crafts-y compared to the lacquered sheen of most of the rest of the residence but is well-equipped with some sort of solid surface counter top, cabinetry custom-fashioned from what appears to be some sort of nearly exotic wood, a walk-in pantry, and the full complement of high-grade stainless steel appliances including side-by-side fridge and freezer that all by themselves, we guesstimate, cost far more than the Yolanda the cleaning lady's Kia Rio.

A few steps down from the kitchen the family room has vast windows, a high ceiling, and an inset wide-screen tee-vee mounted above the massive, beveled fireplace. There's also a state-of-the-art screening room with an adjoining wet bar, a cozy library with fireplace flanked by open display shelves, built-in book cases with glass doors, and lofty ceilings.

The master suite offers a separate, private office with a wall of built-in bookshelves, a good-sized bedroom ringed on two sides with floor-to-ceiling windows and glass sliders that connect to a narrow terrace, a gigantic custom-fitted walk-in closet with center island dresser, and a large and luxurious yet perfectly ordinary-looking bathroom with double vanity, separate shower and jetted soaking tub, dressing area, and private cubby for the crapper.

Recreational amenities include a stone-floored and mirror-walled fitness room with sauna—if torturing one's body into physical submission can be considered a recreation—and a trapezoidal concrete sunbathing and dining terrace with sweeping mountain view over the canyon that falls away below the house. A swimming pool and spa bisects the terrace, a chunky ramada nestled into the tree line provides a respite from the relentless SoCal sunshine, and an interior poolside kitchenette with dishwasher is perfect for mixing up summertime pitchers of gin & tonic.

Other Showbiz types living up in the same twisted neck of the Hollywood Hills near the tippy-top of dog- and celeb-friendly Runyon Canyon include über-artist David Hockney, actress (and soon-to-be UCLA student) Justine Batemen (Desperate Housewives, Family Ties), Jay Leno's bandleader Rickey Minor (who bought Katey Sagal's house in late 2010), Oscar winning movie maker Quentin Tarantino, and Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain and the way better Donny Darko) who, as far as Your Mama knows, remains privately ensconced in the gated and  mini-estate around the corner he's leased for years.

Of course, Your Mama don't know a donut from a doughnut, so we can't be sure to where Mister Williamson decamped but we do find evidence in the property records he coughed up $2,400,000 in July 2011 for a walled and gated, 4,660 square foot mock-Med mini-mansion just off Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, CA.

listing photos: Val Riolo for Coldwell Banker / Sunset Boulevard