Anybody wonder just how unreservedly (self-)indulged British racing heiress Petra (Ecclestone) Stunt and her new husband James Stunt worked over interiors of the 50,000-plus square foot faux-French pile in L.A.'s Holmby Hills that she bought in mid-2011 for $85,000,000?
We did too, until yesterday when a clever but anonymous commenter directed us to a website with large, post-redo photographs that show the new day-core not particularly surprisingly skews towards a brooding and occasionally girly kind of glammy that looks to Your Mama like a plush hybrid between a fancy boutique hotel, an upscale gentlemen's club and a high end department store. We suggest y'all peep the pictures right quick before they get pulled from the interweb.
We perused the many lush images of the interior and exterior for seven or eight entire minutes and can only hope that Mister and Missus Stunt have flung a few personal knick-knacks and paddywhacks around the 120-some room behemoth since the photos were snapped because it all looks a little impersonal and comes off as overwhelmingly out-sized, especially considering that just two people actually live there.
The paneling in the airline hangar-sized foyer with its massive sweetheart staircase has all been slathered with crisp, white paint and Candy Spelling's plain ol' buff-colored marble flooring was swapped for a high-impact and super graphic over-scaled black and white marble stripe pattern. There are a number of gilt-framed oil portraits of unknown people affixed to the walls as well a deeply saturated photo of Petra that shows her sitting on the edge of some piece of furniture in an unidentifiable but decadent setting looking somewhat forlorn in a turquoise colored shift dress that probably cost as much or more as her cleaning gal's car.*
There are enough reception halls, living rooms, dining areas and lushly textured lounges on both the main and basement levels to comfortably accommodate dozens of people at the same time. This house, children is so damn big that there could easily be a raucous party working it out down in the bowling alley and a tea party going on in the cavernous, ballroom sized living room and neither party would know the better. The tremendous main kitchen has at least three boxcar-sized work islands and commercial-grade appliances that would probably allow a well-oiled kitchen staff to turn out delectable spreads for both hypothetical parties at the same time plus a midnight buffet for forty.
Both the his and the her bathrooms in the master suite are exceptionally spacious and lavishly appointed. Mister Stunt's is mostly brown and manly while hers is girlishly glitzy with a giant heart shaped mirror and a free standing soaking tub smack in the center of the many-sided room.
Mister Stunt's walk-in closet/dressing is cozy and elegant like an expensive haberdashery with lustrous ebony cabinetry and wall-to-wall carpeting while hers is a gigantic, well-lit multi-level extravaganza with built-in jewelry cases and dressers, a grid of handbag cubbies, several dozens of feet of built-in drawers, motorized shoe racks, and rows of hanging racks set into mirrored walls that ring the upper level. In the center of the room a tufted sled-style sofa sits under a white glass chandelier and is flanked by a pair of headless manikins with a metallic finish.
The two-lane bowling alley in the basement was done over in shades of chocolate brown and a nearby game room with a similar milk chocolaty palette has a pool table, poker table and walls that appear to be upholstered in some sort of (probably and hopefully faux) fur.
Photos show Missus Stunt installed a full service professional grade beauty salon with a dizzying mirrored hallway that leads to a semi-circular reception lounge furnished with little more than an obscene, pink heart shaped settee. The salon itself is equipped with at least one make up vanity, two manicure stations and three hair style stations with platinum-toned tufted leather chairs.
And that's just the inside, puppies. Outside there are several acres of precisely manicured lawns and formal gardens, citrus groves, a resort-like swimming pool complex with and outdoor kitchen and lounging pavilion, vast terraces that would be right at home at the Taj Majal, a tennis court and garaging for a dozen or more of the Stunt couple's extensive fleet of high performance whips.
Public records show the 2012 property taxes alone for Missus Stunt's titanic Tinseltown pied-à-terre were almost $1.1. million. Anyone even want to guess at the annual upkeep costs for a property of this magnitude? Boggles and betwixts the mind, don't it?
*Be smart, children, Your Mama has no idea if Missus Stunt employs a cleaning gal and if so how much she earns or the value of any car she might drive. We also have no idea how much Missus Stunt may have paid for the turquoise dress. We sorta doubt it but for all we know she picked it up off the discount rack at T.J.Maxx.
Friday, 4 January 2013
