Archive for 2012-12-09
Gerard Depardieu Lists Parisian Hôtel Particular
LOCATION: Paris, France
PRICE: somewhere in the neighborhood of €50,000,000
SIZE: 19,375 square feet, 10 bedrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although we first heard this a couple days ago from an informant we'll call Pepe Le Pew, a nasty, frustrating and ongoing tangle with our internet service provider has put us well behind the eight ball as regards to the international celebrity real estate news that Golden Globe winning and Oscar-nominated French actor Gerard Depardieu (Green Card, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean de Florette), has hoisted his super-sized 19th-century hôtel particular in the swank 6th arrondisement of Paris on the open market with an asking price rumored to be somewhere in the neighborhood of €50,000,000. A quick consult with Your Mama's currency conversion contraption shows that's a backbone straightening $65,362,000, at today's rates.
So the stories go, the wealthy 64-year old actor, filmmaker and entrepreneur has allegedly already pulled up stakes and moved to a tiny town in Belgium in order to avoid the temporary but painfully high 75% top tax rate set to take effect in France next year.
Global celebrity gossips say the once dashing now—well—less dashing actor has already decamped to the small town of Néchin, about 150 north of Paris and just 800 yard over the French-Belgian border, a tax avoiding relocation that France's Socialist president François Hollande called a "shabby" maneuver and the Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called "rather pathetic."
Just to be clear, as Your Mama understands it, the dramatically high rate applies to annual revenues in excess of €1,000,000, about 1,300,000 U.S. dollars at today's rates. "The highest marginal tax rate on the first $1.3 million would be 45 percent," according to an October report in the New York Times. That means if a resident of France earns €999,999 their tax rate tops out at 45%. President Hollande has said, according the New York Times article, that the higher rate was "a largely symbolic measure that will affect only a few thousand individuals." Anyhoo...
We don't know how to check property records in France but recent reports out of France reveal the much lauded and applauded actor actually acquired the property in 1994 for 25,000,000 (pre-euro) French francs, an amount then equal to about $4,614,670 (US). We're not able to check property records in France but
Mister Depardieu's Parisian pied a terre comprises two separate structures, according to listing information, with a total of 10 bedrooms in around 1,800 square meters of interior space. That's right around 19,375 square feet. The historic part of Monsieur Depardieu's humongous house—dubbed the Hôtel de Chambon—was built in 1820 for and named after the Baron de Chambon. Monsieur Depardieu acquired it in 2003 for an unknown sum. His original plans called for a 1.5 renovation—that's just under two million U.S. clams at today's rates—that would provide office space for his film production company as well as several apartments for family and friends. At some point Monsieur Depardieu switched gears and began to convert the bulk of the residence to a luxury boutique hotel that was scheduled to open sometime in 2013.
A private garden separates the hôtel from Monsieur Depardieu's much more contemporary private living quarters. The multi-level abode's primary living space is an especially cavernous, loft-like main room with living, dining and cooking areas. There are at least two bedrooms and—very rare in central Paris—a private indoor swimming pool in the basement. The children will note the elaborately florid fretwork on stairs and over the exterior windows.
Mister Depardieu is not the only wealthy Frenchman said to have (allegedly) left France in order to avoid the sky-high taxes. Both superstar singer Johnny Hallyday and Old Timey French actor Alain Delon have long lived in Switzerland and multi-billionaire Bernard Arnault—he-rah of the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) multi-national luxury goods conglomeration—was raked over the coals by the media last year when it became public he'd requested Belgian citizenship. Monsieur Arnault has denied the change in citizenship was requested due to tax reasons and, indeed, he sued one newspaper for public insult for making such a claim.
listing photos: Daniel Féau
The Bob and Dolores Hope Sell Off Starts in Palm Springs
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Let the great Bob and Dolores Hope sell off begin!
A month or so ago rumors and reports began to circulate around the Coachella Valley and beyond that Mister and Missus Hope's gigantic, bizarrely shaped John Lautner-designed house perched high above the desert floor in the exclusive Southridge enclave in Palm Springs would be made available with a rose-tinted $45,000,000 price tag and for the last two weekends the executors and heirs to Bob and Dolores Hope's considerable Showbiz fortune have held traffic-jammed garage sales just inside the imposing brick and iron gates of the deceased couple's sprawling four-parcel estate in the Toluca Lake area of Los Angeles.
Bargain hungers and looky-loos were allowed to comb through boxes of old Christmas ornaments and tables laden with random household items but were scrupulously prevented by a team of brawny security guards from a taking pictures, a roam around the fully landscaped 5.15 acre grounds or a peep through the windows the 15,000 square foot residence. Unless it's snapped up off-market first, the Hope estate is expected to be put on the open market sometime next year with an as-yet undisclosed asking price.
In addition to their Toluca Lake spread and the architecturally maniacal mushroom cap shaped mansion in the mountains above in Palm Springs, Mister and Missus Hope owned (at least) two other much more modest and well-maintained but dreadfully dated residences in the Palm Springs neighborhood known as The Movie Colony. The neighborhood, just east of the north end of downtown, got is name from the phalanx of Tinseltown luminaries who owned homes the area in the 1950s and '60s. Besides Mister and Missus Hope, celebs who owned in the area include Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Gloria Swanson, and Darryl Zanuck.
We're not sure if there are any big celebs who still own homes in The Movie Colony but we do know that in July 2012 high-camp and hi-larious television personality Ross Mathews and his Latin lover Salvador recently paid $223,000 for a walled and gated fixer upper with three bedrooms and three bathrooms situated on what listing information located as "right on the inside edge" of the neighborhood.
Anyhoo, way back in 1941—so the stories go—Mister and Missus Hope bought a 1936 Spanish bungalow directly across the street from Ruth Hardy Park. Missus Hope told Vanity Fair magazine back in 1999 that the house was "in the poor section" of Palm Springs. Isn't that a hoot? Only a dignfied lady in her 90s can get away with saying something like that in a global publication without being hissed at by the P.C. Police.
Listen kittens, for the record, The Move Colony may not be Palm Beach, Pacific Heights, or Preston Holler in Dallas but, children, it's hardly the 'hood. Maybe in 1941 if you were married to a beloved international superstar and lived in a 15,000 square foot mansion in Toluca Lake it was the ghetto but today The Movie Colony is a grid of wide, well-maintained streets lined with professionally landscaped yards and renovated homes and estates on decent sized lots Many of the homes are owned by out-of-towners who lease them out at exorbitant rates to sun-seeking snow birders who live in locales where the winters are actually winter-like.
UPDATE (later same day): Your Mama has been contacted by at least one sassy real estate professional in Palm Springs who would like us to clarify some geographical misconceptions as regards to the real location of Mister and Missus Hope's so-called Movie Colony residences. Bouth listings state they're located in the Movie Colony but both homes are, technically, east of Avenida Caballeros. That means, technically, they're not within the boundaries of the Movie Colony neighborhood organization. They are, in fact, situated in an area now known as Movie Colony East, designation no doubt designed to bask the less grand but still quite solid neighborhood in the reflected real estate glory of its more historic and affluent sister-hood immediately to the west. Capisce? Okay. Moving along then...
SELLER: Estate of Bob and Dolores Hope
LOCATION: Palm Springs, CA
PRICE: $469,000
SIZE: 2,126 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The first desert home purchased by Mister and Missus Hope, a dated but potentially charming 1936 Spanish bungalow now up for grabs with a $469,000 asking price, sits on an almost quarter acre pancake flat lot directly across from an elementary school that anchors the northeast corner of Ruth Hardy Park. The single story casa measures in at about 2,126 square feet, according to current listing information, with a total of three bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Underfoot there are dated but cooling, white basket weave pattern tiles on the floor throughout the main living spaces including in the Caribbean villa vibed living room with its painted brick fireplace and airy painted wood vaulted ceiling. The tile floors extend into the mountain view dining room and an amply scaled north-facing sun porch with swinging built-in wet bar and a long wall of sliding glass doors that open to a slender strip of concrete and a wider patch of well-watered lawn.
The open-ended galley kitchen and at least one of the three bathrooms appear in listing photos to be functional but are well past their prime and will likely be ripped out and replaced with something much more contemporary by the next owner.
There are, we surmise from marketing materials, two bedrooms and two bathrooms in the main part of the house plus an attached but separate casita bedroom with private bathroom.
The hedged grounds don't offer much in the way of eye candy and there isn't currently a swimming pool or spa on the property. There is, however, room for a pool and spa and there is plenty of off-street parking in the gated driveway and two car garage as well as mountain views marred by a few streaks of telephone wires.
SELLER: Estate of Bob and Dolores Hope
LOCATION: Palm Springs, CA
PRICE: $659,000
SIZE: 2,943square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Mister and Missus Hope seemed to like the—ahem—poor section of Palm Springs just fine because in 1946, five years after buying their park-side bungalow across from Ruth Hardy Park, they snatched up a second house in the 'hood just four blocks away.
The low-slung featureless mid-century ranch meets shuttered Bahamian bungalow residence that popped up on the open market yesterday with a $659,000 asking price, occupies a .37 acre corner lot behind high-wall and locked gates that promote privacy and security. Although architecturally apples to the Spanish bungalow's oranges, the finishes and remaining day-core between Mister and Missus Hope's two homes are remarkably similar.
Listing information shows the T-shaped single story house has five bedrooms and 7 three-quarter bathrooms slammed into 2,943 square feet. We're not exactly sure how you comfortably fit five bedrooms and seven bathrooms plus all the other living spaces into less than three thousand square feet but those is the numbers on the marketing materials.
Instead of the white tiles in the Hopes' Spanish bungalow there are equally ordinary and nicely cool under the feet beige square tiles with darker grouting laid throughout most of the main living areas. We see them in the living room with its massive white brick fireplace, in the dining room with its disturbing mirrored wall and in the sunny south-facing sun porch equipped with a swinging built-in wet bar and direct access to the front-loaded swimming pool through a wide bank of Old Timey aluminum framed sliding glass doors.
The all-white, circa 1980 kitchen appears in good repair and is certainly plenty large enough to to accommodate a center work island and—even though there's only one shown in the listing photo—side-by-side fridge/freezers. But it's also in desperate need of a face-lift. There's only so much injecting and contouring one can do to a kitchen before it will—if staying decoratively relevant is the goal— require a radical intervention.
The cooler north side of the house opens up to a broad concrete terrace that switches to very green grass as it stretches out to the property line fencing and down to the just about detached two car garage. Aerial images freely available on the interweb show the concrete terrace was at one time covered entirely by a shade making trellis.
We don't really know exactly why Mister and Missus Hope maintained both these homes for the last 70 years. Maybe they just liked them better than their big ol' crazy house on the hill or maybe they housed family, guests and or staff in them. Who knows? Whatever they case they're soon to be sold and believe it or not, puppies, Your Mama's real estate sources tell us the market in Palm Springs is actually quite brisk and they expect both houses will likely sell quickly in multiple offers, possibly for more than the asking price.
There's a good chance that one or both of the Hopes' homes will be bought by a house flipper and/or somebody who happens to be homosexual. Palm Springs is, children, almost comically gay friendly. Said fictional same sexer homeowner will, Your Mama might predict, blow a large wad of his discretionary income to push and prod each home into that colorful and "humorous" haute desert version of Hollywood Regency style that took hold in Palm Springs nearly 20 years ago, long ago reached its apex with the opening of the Kelly Wearstler-decorated Viceroy hotel in 2003 and stubbornly persists as a decorative norm with the tenacity that a barnacle cleaves to a pier's pylon.
There's also a very good chance that when the residences are refreshed and renovated one or both will become expensively available to rent for the wintertime vacations of lily white skinned heat seekers, many of whom will come from San Francisco and Vancouver.
Don't laugh or hate, children, because all of y'all who have been to Palm Springs even once in the last 10 years know instinctively in the pumice stoned soles of your feet that that is exactly what could very well happen. Anyhoo...
listing photos: Patrick Stewart Properties / Windermere Real Estate
A month or so ago rumors and reports began to circulate around the Coachella Valley and beyond that Mister and Missus Hope's gigantic, bizarrely shaped John Lautner-designed house perched high above the desert floor in the exclusive Southridge enclave in Palm Springs would be made available with a rose-tinted $45,000,000 price tag and for the last two weekends the executors and heirs to Bob and Dolores Hope's considerable Showbiz fortune have held traffic-jammed garage sales just inside the imposing brick and iron gates of the deceased couple's sprawling four-parcel estate in the Toluca Lake area of Los Angeles.
Bargain hungers and looky-loos were allowed to comb through boxes of old Christmas ornaments and tables laden with random household items but were scrupulously prevented by a team of brawny security guards from a taking pictures, a roam around the fully landscaped 5.15 acre grounds or a peep through the windows the 15,000 square foot residence. Unless it's snapped up off-market first, the Hope estate is expected to be put on the open market sometime next year with an as-yet undisclosed asking price.
In addition to their Toluca Lake spread and the architecturally maniacal mushroom cap shaped mansion in the mountains above in Palm Springs, Mister and Missus Hope owned (at least) two other much more modest and well-maintained but dreadfully dated residences in the Palm Springs neighborhood known as The Movie Colony. The neighborhood, just east of the north end of downtown, got is name from the phalanx of Tinseltown luminaries who owned homes the area in the 1950s and '60s. Besides Mister and Missus Hope, celebs who owned in the area include Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Gloria Swanson, and Darryl Zanuck.
We're not sure if there are any big celebs who still own homes in The Movie Colony but we do know that in July 2012 high-camp and hi-larious television personality Ross Mathews and his Latin lover Salvador recently paid $223,000 for a walled and gated fixer upper with three bedrooms and three bathrooms situated on what listing information located as "right on the inside edge" of the neighborhood.
Anyhoo, way back in 1941—so the stories go—Mister and Missus Hope bought a 1936 Spanish bungalow directly across the street from Ruth Hardy Park. Missus Hope told Vanity Fair magazine back in 1999 that the house was "in the poor section" of Palm Springs. Isn't that a hoot? Only a dignfied lady in her 90s can get away with saying something like that in a global publication without being hissed at by the P.C. Police.
Listen kittens, for the record, The Move Colony may not be Palm Beach, Pacific Heights, or Preston Holler in Dallas but, children, it's hardly the 'hood. Maybe in 1941 if you were married to a beloved international superstar and lived in a 15,000 square foot mansion in Toluca Lake it was the ghetto but today The Movie Colony is a grid of wide, well-maintained streets lined with professionally landscaped yards and renovated homes and estates on decent sized lots Many of the homes are owned by out-of-towners who lease them out at exorbitant rates to sun-seeking snow birders who live in locales where the winters are actually winter-like.
UPDATE (later same day): Your Mama has been contacted by at least one sassy real estate professional in Palm Springs who would like us to clarify some geographical misconceptions as regards to the real location of Mister and Missus Hope's so-called Movie Colony residences. Bouth listings state they're located in the Movie Colony but both homes are, technically, east of Avenida Caballeros. That means, technically, they're not within the boundaries of the Movie Colony neighborhood organization. They are, in fact, situated in an area now known as Movie Colony East, designation no doubt designed to bask the less grand but still quite solid neighborhood in the reflected real estate glory of its more historic and affluent sister-hood immediately to the west. Capisce? Okay. Moving along then...
LOCATION: Palm Springs, CA
PRICE: $469,000
SIZE: 2,126 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The first desert home purchased by Mister and Missus Hope, a dated but potentially charming 1936 Spanish bungalow now up for grabs with a $469,000 asking price, sits on an almost quarter acre pancake flat lot directly across from an elementary school that anchors the northeast corner of Ruth Hardy Park. The single story casa measures in at about 2,126 square feet, according to current listing information, with a total of three bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Underfoot there are dated but cooling, white basket weave pattern tiles on the floor throughout the main living spaces including in the Caribbean villa vibed living room with its painted brick fireplace and airy painted wood vaulted ceiling. The tile floors extend into the mountain view dining room and an amply scaled north-facing sun porch with swinging built-in wet bar and a long wall of sliding glass doors that open to a slender strip of concrete and a wider patch of well-watered lawn.
The open-ended galley kitchen and at least one of the three bathrooms appear in listing photos to be functional but are well past their prime and will likely be ripped out and replaced with something much more contemporary by the next owner.
There are, we surmise from marketing materials, two bedrooms and two bathrooms in the main part of the house plus an attached but separate casita bedroom with private bathroom.
The hedged grounds don't offer much in the way of eye candy and there isn't currently a swimming pool or spa on the property. There is, however, room for a pool and spa and there is plenty of off-street parking in the gated driveway and two car garage as well as mountain views marred by a few streaks of telephone wires.
LOCATION: Palm Springs, CA
PRICE: $659,000
SIZE: 2,943square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Mister and Missus Hope seemed to like the—ahem—poor section of Palm Springs just fine because in 1946, five years after buying their park-side bungalow across from Ruth Hardy Park, they snatched up a second house in the 'hood just four blocks away.
The low-slung featureless mid-century ranch meets shuttered Bahamian bungalow residence that popped up on the open market yesterday with a $659,000 asking price, occupies a .37 acre corner lot behind high-wall and locked gates that promote privacy and security. Although architecturally apples to the Spanish bungalow's oranges, the finishes and remaining day-core between Mister and Missus Hope's two homes are remarkably similar.
Listing information shows the T-shaped single story house has five bedrooms and 7 three-quarter bathrooms slammed into 2,943 square feet. We're not exactly sure how you comfortably fit five bedrooms and seven bathrooms plus all the other living spaces into less than three thousand square feet but those is the numbers on the marketing materials.
Instead of the white tiles in the Hopes' Spanish bungalow there are equally ordinary and nicely cool under the feet beige square tiles with darker grouting laid throughout most of the main living areas. We see them in the living room with its massive white brick fireplace, in the dining room with its disturbing mirrored wall and in the sunny south-facing sun porch equipped with a swinging built-in wet bar and direct access to the front-loaded swimming pool through a wide bank of Old Timey aluminum framed sliding glass doors.
The all-white, circa 1980 kitchen appears in good repair and is certainly plenty large enough to to accommodate a center work island and—even though there's only one shown in the listing photo—side-by-side fridge/freezers. But it's also in desperate need of a face-lift. There's only so much injecting and contouring one can do to a kitchen before it will—if staying decoratively relevant is the goal— require a radical intervention.
The cooler north side of the house opens up to a broad concrete terrace that switches to very green grass as it stretches out to the property line fencing and down to the just about detached two car garage. Aerial images freely available on the interweb show the concrete terrace was at one time covered entirely by a shade making trellis.
We don't really know exactly why Mister and Missus Hope maintained both these homes for the last 70 years. Maybe they just liked them better than their big ol' crazy house on the hill or maybe they housed family, guests and or staff in them. Who knows? Whatever they case they're soon to be sold and believe it or not, puppies, Your Mama's real estate sources tell us the market in Palm Springs is actually quite brisk and they expect both houses will likely sell quickly in multiple offers, possibly for more than the asking price.
There's a good chance that one or both of the Hopes' homes will be bought by a house flipper and/or somebody who happens to be homosexual. Palm Springs is, children, almost comically gay friendly. Said fictional same sexer homeowner will, Your Mama might predict, blow a large wad of his discretionary income to push and prod each home into that colorful and "humorous" haute desert version of Hollywood Regency style that took hold in Palm Springs nearly 20 years ago, long ago reached its apex with the opening of the Kelly Wearstler-decorated Viceroy hotel in 2003 and stubbornly persists as a decorative norm with the tenacity that a barnacle cleaves to a pier's pylon.
There's also a very good chance that when the residences are refreshed and renovated one or both will become expensively available to rent for the wintertime vacations of lily white skinned heat seekers, many of whom will come from San Francisco and Vancouver.
Don't laugh or hate, children, because all of y'all who have been to Palm Springs even once in the last 10 years know instinctively in the pumice stoned soles of your feet that that is exactly what could very well happen. Anyhoo...
listing photos: Patrick Stewart Properties / Windermere Real Estate
Brooke Mueller Flips Out in Tarzana
LOCATION: Tarzana, CA
PRICE: $3,550,000
SIZE: 9,200 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The bad news for Charlie Sheen's third ex-wife Brooke Mueller is that she's back in the tabloids and back in rehab...for the 19th time. The occasional actress and Paris Hilton pal was rushed to the hospital last week, so the stories go, due to an over-dose of Adderal, a name-brand psychostimulant most commonly prescribed to treat ADHD, with which—it seems—Miz Mueller suffers.
The good news is that notoriously erratic Miz Mueller, who grew up privileged in Palm Beach (FL), is well known amongst celebrity real estate followers for flipping high-priced properties in the Los Angeles area and has just about sold the Tarzana, CA mansion she bought less than a year ago from former Spice Girl Mel B and her movie producer hubby Stephen Belafonte (Bad Lieutenant, Thank Your For Smoking) for $3,000,000. After the addition of some glammy wall treatments, Miz Mueller flipped the property back on the market about a month ago with an asking price of $3,550,000 and two weeks later it was put into escrow with an unknown buyer for an unknown amount.
Not counting carrying costs, renovation expenditures and real estate fees, Mel B and Mister Belafonte took a $159,000 financial bath when they sold the the privately situated, .62 acre mini-estate in an affluent area of the quintessentially suburban community that they bought in September 2009 for $3,159,000.
Current listing information describes the property in all capital letters as "STUNNING, CELEBRITY GATED COMPOUND!" with four bedrooms and six bathrooms in approximately 9,200 square feet. The scandalized Los Angeles County Assessors office puts the house at a much smaller but still substantial 6,737 square feet. Your Mama's best guess—and it 'tis just a guest, dearies—is that the additional square footage indicated on current listing information is made up for by the detached guest house/games room/state of the art movie theater.
The double front doors, tucked into a shallow porch immediately and inelegantly adjacent to the attached three car garage, open into a macmansion sized double-height foyer outfitted with a curved Scarlett O'Hara-style staircase, a jazzy Swarovski crystal chandelier and shimmering gold-toned walls. The formal living room has a floor-to-ceiling carved stone fireplace and a wide bank of French doors that swing open to a narrow covered veranda. There are milk chocolate colored hardwood floors in both the formal living and dining rooms as well as animal print area rugs.
Listen people, Your Mama can really get behind a good animal print rug. We adored the idiosyncratic animal print shenanigans installed throughout Templeton, socialite Cornelia Guest's stately estate in stiff-lipped and old money Old Westbury, NY. The wide, celery-colored corridor with the worn leopard print wall-to-wall carpeting, potted geraniums and gilt-framed paintings strikes Your Mama as the very height of East Coast blue blood decorative chic. It may not be to everyone's preference or palatte but that does not mean it's not absolutely correct.
Anyhoo, the formal dining—lined with smoked mirrored glass panels meant, we imagine, to glam glam the room up—connects directly to a blood red den/family room with another carved stone fireplace, a ho-hum suite of distressed leather club chairs and sofa and direct access to the back yard entertainment areas through a pair of French doors.
The adjoining kitchen—unquestionably large and well-equipped—is a prototypical suburban center island eat-in situation tarted up with a Swarovski crystal chandelier, high grade appliances that include a commercial-style six-burner range, slab marble counter tops and wood cabinets finished in what may be the most unnatural yellow-beige color we have ever seen.*
The main level also includes, as per listing information, a coupe of "JUNIOR SUITES," an "PHENOMENAL OFFICE," laundry facilities and a separate stairway to a spacious fitness room lined with floor to ceiling mirrors on at three walls that ensures that each and every flabby this and cellulite-d that is remarkably and painfully visible ad infinitum from every angle. No thank you.
The upstairs master suite encompasses a plum-colored bedroom the size of a ballroom with fireplace, two bay windows and a lot of open space under yet another decadent Swarovski crystal chandelier. We're not sure if Miz Mueller just never got around to furnishing the room or if she maybe she likes the open space so she can do yoga and/or turn cartwheels on the big bone-colored shag rug. The master suite also includes a roomy walk-in closet custom fitted for function over style and an all-beige tile slathered bathroom with two sinks, make up vanity, separate soaking tub and glass enclosed shower.
The fully developed and landscaped areas around the house include a party-sized motor court at the front and a meandering terrace at the back of the house with a built-in fire pit fully realized outdoor kitchen and lounge set up with snack counter and massive stacked stone fireplace. Around the side of the house, overlooked by a covered veranda on both the first and second floors, is a large rectangular swimming pool with a slightly elevated spa and tanning terrace. We love that the pool appears to be set into a the tree tops but we're not so fond of the ticky-tacky child safety fence that surrounds it. We understand their utility and all that, they're just usually so visually incongruous, intrusive and, well, ugly.
The entire property has been expensively equipped with top of the line surround sound throughout and CAT 6 high speed wiring and—natch—a state of the art security system.
We really don't know what Miz Mueller's post-rehab real estate plans are but, given that she's a bit of a house flipper, we expect she'll soon enough snap up another expensive house in the Los Angeles area that she won't live in or own very long. In May 2005 she—along with her wealthy socialite mother—paid $1,525,000 for a glassy mid-century modern up in Nichols Canyon that they turned over with a nearly $800,000 profit—not counting costs– in August 2007 for $2,317,000. Shortly thereafter, in November 2007, she paid $2,575,000 for an especially appealing 1927 Mediterranean in the Los Feliz area that she listed in June 2009 and finally sold in October 2011 for $2,900,000 to actor Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory).
*Of course, the cabinets may actually be the most gorgeous shade of yellow-beige we've ever seen and it's just a shortcoming of the photograph that makes them appear the color of dog vomit.
listing photos: Keller Williams Realty
The Proenza Schouler Boys On the Move in Manhattan
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: If you're the sort that forgoes the hyper-elitist and punishingly expensive world of high-fashion for $12 cords from Old Navy and those disturbingly ubiquitous Croc shoe-things you may not be immediately familiar with the names Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough. If you are, on the other hand, a card-carrying fashionista or even a wannabe fashionista who subscribes to Visionaire and obsessively watches fashion shows on the You Tube then you well know they're the sartorial superstars behind the artfully conceived, exuberantly-priced and sick successful Proenza Schouler label.
Mister Hernandez and McCollough, now in their early 30s, met while students at Parsons School of Design where they were nurtured by mincing Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn. Even before they finished fashion school they gained the star-making support of Vogue's all-powerful editrix Anna Wintour who championed their perfectly tailored and meticulously crafted designs. Since they joined forces in 2002 they've earned two hotly coveted CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Awards—first in 2007 and again in 2011—and in the last few years have branched out from making perfectly calibrated skirts and dresses to eminently more lucrative lines of handbags and shoes. Your Mama expects they'll soon push some toilet water on to the market that will dump massive amounts of moolauh into their bank accounts like water over over Victoria Falls.
While they they are business and personal partners who co-own and share a late 19th-century center hall Colonial on 106 rustic acres in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts that they bought in March 2008 for $1,125,000, property records reveal these honchos of ladies habiliments have owned separate residences in lower Manhattan since at least the mid-Aughts.*
In July 2004 Mister McCollough coughed up $1,250,000 for a dynamite duplex penthouse in the West Village. A few months later, in November 2004, Mister Hernandez followed suit with the purchase of a compact suite of parlor level rooms in a 19th-century townhouse in the heart of the Chelsea that happens to be just a couple blocks from where Your Mama and The Doctor Cooter lived in un-wedded domesticity before we packed up and headed west several years ago and—even more importantly—just around the corner from the dee-voon Billy's Bakery.
Anyhoo, according to datum easily available online, on the same day in mid-October (2012 Misters Hernandez and Lazaro each put their separate apartments on the market with the same pair of Real Estates. Mister Hernandez's smaller apartment in Chelsea popped up at $985,000 but within weeks was reduced to its current $950,000 and Mister McCollough's larger duplex in the West Village was priced at $1,895,000 and is currently in contract.
We're not quite sure how much Mister Hernandez paid for his fully renovated parlor level apartment (above) but current listing information shows it has just one bedroom and one bathroom plus a den that could be converted to a second bedroom. Your Mama's rudimentary—and possibly inaccurate—calculations suggest the entire apartment comes in at less than 600 square feet.
Original wood floor run throughout the renovated and restored apartment that also has high ceilings, buff colored walls set against white trim work and moldings, historically correct six-over-six sash windows and an asymmetrically off-center red-brick fireplace in the living room that's flanked by book-filled built-in bookcases in the living room and a downright puny efficiency kitchen maximized with open shelving and an under-counter refrigerator.
The den/second bedroom opens directly to the rear-facing private terrace and the bedroom—such as it is as just seven feet wide according to the floor plan—has a generous amount of custom fitted wardrobes. The lone bathroom sits like an island in the middle of the apartment and while it does not have a window or even much room to turn around, does have an adequately sized stall shower lined with white subway tiles.
The monochromatic, earth tone-centric day-core mixes classic this and thats—i.e. the fluted column table lamp and the decadent gilt-framed mirror in the living room—with a little mid-century modernity—i.e. the probably pedigreed settee in the den—and strikes a decidedly masculine and simply tailored aspect with a perfectly distressed tufted leather club sofa and a typically toe-curlingly expensive and decoratively trendy shaggy Moroccan Beni Ouarain rug in the living room.
Mister McCollough's larger, south-facing duplex penthouse atop a fairly nondescript boutique condo building on a leafy cobblestone street in the West Village measures about 1,200 square feet, according to listing information, and looks like it might have been worked over by the same architect who did up the Chelsea apartment of Mister Hernandez.
The two-plus floor penthouse is currently set up as a spacious one bedroom with two windowless bathrooms, a small private terrace and an open-plan office space easily converted to a diminutive, closet-less second bedroom with the simple addition of one wall.
Entry is through an unexpectedly roomy foyer on the lower level. A floating staircase leads up to the main living level and an articulated freestanding partition divides the foyer from the decent-sized bedroom with its elevated wood burning fireplace set into a full wall of floor to ceiling wardrobes. There's also a wee walk-in closet and a meticulously tailored teak and tumbled Travertine tiled bathroom with open shower space, separate soaking tub and—curiously—an unholy mixture of sleek, silver toned contemporary and Old-Timey antique looking brass-colored fixtures.
Large, nearly floor to ceiling windows flood the south facing open concept living space on the upper level with natural light. The winter white walls and ceiling are counterbalanced by charcoal-colored floors of unknown material and a full wall of teak —or maybe it's ipe or mahogany or some other exotic wood we've never heard of—with an inset fireplace and wood box and a bank of built-in book shelves filled with actual books.
The galley style kitchen has streamlined cabinets painted the same snow white as the walls, matte black slab stone counter tops of unknown material, vintage (or vintage appearing) sink fixturing, full-sized high grade appliances and open shelving. A sculptural staircase set into the rear of the apartment in the office area leads up to a north-facing terrace with over the planter box views to the north.
We don't know where Misters Lazaro and Hernandez plan to decamp but we'd be shocked if they didn't—separately or together—move to more grandly proportioned quarters that befit fashion world darlings of their perpetual relevance and growing stature.
*Your Mama has absolutely no idea if Misters Hernandez and McCollough live together or apart in Manhattan, only that property records show they individually own separate apartments.
listing photos and floor plans: Corcoran
Mister Hernandez and McCollough, now in their early 30s, met while students at Parsons School of Design where they were nurtured by mincing Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn. Even before they finished fashion school they gained the star-making support of Vogue's all-powerful editrix Anna Wintour who championed their perfectly tailored and meticulously crafted designs. Since they joined forces in 2002 they've earned two hotly coveted CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Awards—first in 2007 and again in 2011—and in the last few years have branched out from making perfectly calibrated skirts and dresses to eminently more lucrative lines of handbags and shoes. Your Mama expects they'll soon push some toilet water on to the market that will dump massive amounts of moolauh into their bank accounts like water over over Victoria Falls.
While they they are business and personal partners who co-own and share a late 19th-century center hall Colonial on 106 rustic acres in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts that they bought in March 2008 for $1,125,000, property records reveal these honchos of ladies habiliments have owned separate residences in lower Manhattan since at least the mid-Aughts.*
In July 2004 Mister McCollough coughed up $1,250,000 for a dynamite duplex penthouse in the West Village. A few months later, in November 2004, Mister Hernandez followed suit with the purchase of a compact suite of parlor level rooms in a 19th-century townhouse in the heart of the Chelsea that happens to be just a couple blocks from where Your Mama and The Doctor Cooter lived in un-wedded domesticity before we packed up and headed west several years ago and—even more importantly—just around the corner from the dee-voon Billy's Bakery.
Anyhoo, according to datum easily available online, on the same day in mid-October (2012 Misters Hernandez and Lazaro each put their separate apartments on the market with the same pair of Real Estates. Mister Hernandez's smaller apartment in Chelsea popped up at $985,000 but within weeks was reduced to its current $950,000 and Mister McCollough's larger duplex in the West Village was priced at $1,895,000 and is currently in contract.
Original wood floor run throughout the renovated and restored apartment that also has high ceilings, buff colored walls set against white trim work and moldings, historically correct six-over-six sash windows and an asymmetrically off-center red-brick fireplace in the living room that's flanked by book-filled built-in bookcases in the living room and a downright puny efficiency kitchen maximized with open shelving and an under-counter refrigerator.
The den/second bedroom opens directly to the rear-facing private terrace and the bedroom—such as it is as just seven feet wide according to the floor plan—has a generous amount of custom fitted wardrobes. The lone bathroom sits like an island in the middle of the apartment and while it does not have a window or even much room to turn around, does have an adequately sized stall shower lined with white subway tiles.
The monochromatic, earth tone-centric day-core mixes classic this and thats—i.e. the fluted column table lamp and the decadent gilt-framed mirror in the living room—with a little mid-century modernity—i.e. the probably pedigreed settee in the den—and strikes a decidedly masculine and simply tailored aspect with a perfectly distressed tufted leather club sofa and a typically toe-curlingly expensive and decoratively trendy shaggy Moroccan Beni Ouarain rug in the living room.
The two-plus floor penthouse is currently set up as a spacious one bedroom with two windowless bathrooms, a small private terrace and an open-plan office space easily converted to a diminutive, closet-less second bedroom with the simple addition of one wall.
Entry is through an unexpectedly roomy foyer on the lower level. A floating staircase leads up to the main living level and an articulated freestanding partition divides the foyer from the decent-sized bedroom with its elevated wood burning fireplace set into a full wall of floor to ceiling wardrobes. There's also a wee walk-in closet and a meticulously tailored teak and tumbled Travertine tiled bathroom with open shower space, separate soaking tub and—curiously—an unholy mixture of sleek, silver toned contemporary and Old-Timey antique looking brass-colored fixtures.
Large, nearly floor to ceiling windows flood the south facing open concept living space on the upper level with natural light. The winter white walls and ceiling are counterbalanced by charcoal-colored floors of unknown material and a full wall of teak —or maybe it's ipe or mahogany or some other exotic wood we've never heard of—with an inset fireplace and wood box and a bank of built-in book shelves filled with actual books.
The galley style kitchen has streamlined cabinets painted the same snow white as the walls, matte black slab stone counter tops of unknown material, vintage (or vintage appearing) sink fixturing, full-sized high grade appliances and open shelving. A sculptural staircase set into the rear of the apartment in the office area leads up to a north-facing terrace with over the planter box views to the north.
We don't know where Misters Lazaro and Hernandez plan to decamp but we'd be shocked if they didn't—separately or together—move to more grandly proportioned quarters that befit fashion world darlings of their perpetual relevance and growing stature.
*Your Mama has absolutely no idea if Misters Hernandez and McCollough live together or apart in Manhattan, only that property records show they individually own separate apartments.
listing photos and floor plans: Corcoran
