SELL BUY PROPERTY

SELLER: Ronnie Sassoon
BUYER: François Pinault
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $16,500,000

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Some of you may have read it first somewhere else but Your Mama first learned from the kids at Curbed that multi-billionaire French luxury goods purveyor François Pinault just dropped $16,500,000 on the so-called Singleton House, a glassy, low-slung Richard Neurtra modernist affair in Bel Air commissioned in 1959 by L.A.-based industrialist Henry Singleton.

Monsieur Pinault, if the name doesn't ring a bell, heads up PPR, the Paris-based multi-national conglomerate that wholly or partly owns a long and impressive list of luxury goods operations including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Boucheron, Brioni, Puma and Tretorn. Since the late 1990s Monsieur Pinault has held a majority interest in the illustrious Christie's auction house. He's the father of François-Henri Pinault, the headline making hubby of Mexican bombshell actress Salma Hayek and—far more scandalously—supermodel Linda Evangelista's baby daddy.

Anyhoo, the Singleton House was bought in 2004 for about six million clams by hair care mogul Vidal Sasson and his wife Ronnie who gave the place a complete and much disputed redo and expansion that many architectural purists complain does not remain true enough to Neutra's original design. According to an April 2011 article in Architectural Digest, when re-construction was completed the couple called up haughtily flamboyant Million Dollar Decorator Martyn Lawrence-Bullard to consult on the interiors, "particularly upholstered pieces and textiles."

Whatever opinion one may hold as to the purity of the Sassoon's redo of the 5.23 acre gated estate, it none-the-less remains a cocky and courageous example of modernist architectural chutzpah nestled gingerly on a tree-shaded knoll high above the Stone Canyon Reservoir with the exact sort of canyon and city views from which some L.A. residential real estate dreams are made.

According to the most recent listing, the single-story residence spans about 6,400 square feet with four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a living room with an imposing stone fireplace, an open-concept dining room/center island kitchen and a roomy media room with built-in seating lounge, sunken wet bar and a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass sliders.

The grounds of the estate are mostly left au natural except immediately around the house where the painstakingly tamed landscaping includes large stones allegedly placed into the broad flat lawn that surrounds the swimming pool by the Japanese-American artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi.

The Sassoons first put the Singleton House up for sale in 2007 with a eye popping $19,995,000 asking price. However, the property languished on and off the market for years at a variety of prices during which time they sold their Hal Leavitt-designed house in Beverly Hills that they'd previously had re-worked by architect Larry Totah. Last May (2012), the well-maintained 84-year old Mister Sassoon died at the Singleton House after a two-plus year battle with leukemia.

P.S. Given Monsieur Pinault's well-known propensity for collecting blue chip contemporary artworks, Your Mama can't help but wonder if the sleek and contemplating Anish Kapoor sculpture that the Sassoons set in a courtyard next to a huge and wonderfully gnarled olive tree was included in the purchase.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

SELLERS: Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $24,500,000
SIZE: 6,792 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since we've been ill the last couple days and are, in fact, still woozy with sick and medicine, we've gotten well behind the celebrity real estate 8-ball. We notice now we missed a couple of good celebrity real estate stories such and the lower Manhattan duplex penthouse that was pushed on the open market this week by energetic and tawny skinned morning chat show hostess Kelly Ripa and her criminally handsome husband Mark Consuelos. The couple, so the stories go, first attempted to unload their unwanted penthouse over the summer of 2010 when they allowed it to be unsuccessfully shopped off market at an unknown price.

Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelos picked up the unusually-ample-for-Manhattan 6,792 square foot penthouse in June 2005 for $9,500,000 and spent the next couple of years and—no doubt—many millions more on a massive overhaul. The resulting configuration, according to the floor plan included with listing details (below), provides for five bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, two kitchens, two fireplaces and approximately 2,500 square feet of outdoor space thickly landscaped with privacy in mind and a medium-weight nod towards a lush and Zen-ish pan-Asian vibe that Your Mama's thoroughly unscientific research suggests is favored by celebrities.

The Ripa/Consuelos penthouse has direct, key-lock elevator access into a 14-foot foyer with two windows and two closets convenient for hanging coats and storing other wintertime accoutrement. At 35 feet long, 20 feet wide and more than 12 feet high, the adjoining living room is indisputably spacious and well-lit through five over-sized southeast-facing windows. We're not sure who's responsible for the hotel lobby-like day-core but whomever it was was absolutely committed to red as the only accent color in an other wise neutral-toned space finished with dark stained white oak floors, pale parchment colored walls and a coffered ceiling.

The vivid red accent color theme continues right on into the open concept kitchen/dining room where every seating option is upholstered in the same red fabric. The kitchen has a boxcar-sized center island, both marble and blue stone counter tops, a six-burner commercial-grade range, two dishwashers and three integrated refrigerators. Listing details make a point of pointing out that the dishwashers are Electrolux brand, no coincidence when you consider Miz Ripa has shilled for the Swedish household appliance maker for years.

Tucked off a long and wide rear corridor is an unfortunately windowless den/office with wet bar and lots of closets, a half bathroom and a compact service hall with wine refrigerator and a dumbwaiter that efficiently ferries food and etc. to the second floor service kitchen.

The south end of the rear corridor opens to the guest/family bedroom wing where there are three bedrooms, two bathrooms—one a hall bath shared by two bedrooms, the other a private en suite—a built-in homework/computer station, and an unusually large laundry room equipped with two sets of washers and dryers that, if Miz Ripa knows what's good for her her future spokesperson income, had better be manufactured by Electrolux too.

The northern terminus of the rear corridor opens into the privately situated master bedroom comprised of an entry vestibule flanked by a pair of walk-in closets and a modestly sized bedroom with two west facing windows that ensure morning darkness. the attached two-room, and unfortunately windowless bathroom suite (above) is luxuriously kitted out with radiant heated marble floors, a freestanding soaking big enough for Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelos, a separate room for the terlit and bee-day that promotes privacy, and a sexily cantilevered, all-marble two sink vanity surmounted by a wide mirrored expanse.

The penthouse's second level is easily less than half the size of the lower level but could easily function as a completely separate apartment. The airy dining room (above, left) has a table with—natch—eight red chairs and the nearby galley style service kitchen is surely bigger and better equipped then the vast majority of kitchens in Manhattan. The media room/lounge (above, right), all done up in dulcet shades of gray and white and exuberantly flooded with natural light by a massive sky light, is anchored on its south wall by an austerely monolithic stone chimney breast with an inexplicably and unnecessarily off-center fire box.

There's also, upstairs, a smallish, fifth bedroom located off a short hallway with a three-quarter bathroom and two more rooms that could be utilized as bedrooms but are shown on the floor plan as a home gym and a small office with a large walk-in closet.

The media room, dining room and gym all open through French doors to the lush landscaped wrap around roof terrace. The media room joins to a south-facing, pergola-shaded outdoor living room with fireplace and television and beyond that a sizable expanse of faux-grass. The dining room opens to the narrow, eastern side that's shielded from peeping neighbors by a tall row of evergreen trees and outfitted with an outdoor kitchen/barbecue center. The northern end of the roof terrace was privatized with a fence of horizontal slatting fronted by a somewhat anemic looking row of bamboo. There's a t.v. mounted into the fencing behind the raised hot tub and, tucked around the corner, an outdoor shower. There really are so few wonderful things as showering outdoors and showering outdoors in the middle of Manhattan, well, children, that is a particularly delicious kind of thrilling, isn't it?

Your Mama isn't really sure what Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelo's real estate future holds. We do know that while they remodeled this penthouse they lived in a large rented apartment uptown so perhaps they're headed thataway. Or maybe they've set their sights on some leafy, ridiculously upscale suburb where their three children can live a more bucolic life. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

As far as we know, the only other residential real estate owned by Miz Ripa and/or Mister Consuelos is a totally land-locked, two-ish acre north of the highway estate in Southampton, NY they purchased over the summer in 2004 for $2,350,000.

The Ripa/Consuelos penthouse tops a boutique building right on the edge of the SoHo and NoLiTa nabes that may be wee in size but has always attracted an unusual number of high-profile residents. In March 2004 Gawker Media honcho Nick Denton shelled out $1,870,000 for a half floor unit and in early 2010 the other half of Mister Denton's floor was sold to Oscar-nominated actor Samuel L. Jackson for $3,995,000. In early 2005 a full floor unit on the third floor was sold for $6,830,000 to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein who sold it about 2.5 year later, in the fall of 2007, for $8,000,000. Some say Mister Weinstein never actually lived there but instead used the apartment to shelter visiting celebrities and other Showbiz bigwigs and VIPS, but we really have no idea of the veracity of that scuttlebutt.

The penthouse, the one being sold by Mister Consuelos and Miz Ripa, is widely rumored to have once been owned by German tennis icon Boris Becker who—allegedly—briefly leased it to Nicole Kidman for around forty grand a month.

And, as it turns out, this isn't the only unit at the red brick boutique building that Miz Ripa and Mister Consuelos have owned. In March 2002 they shelled out $2,800,500 for a full floor unit on the fifth floor. Property records show they sold the 5,262 square foot unit in January 2006 for $7,250,000 to banker Michael Rubinoff who quickly flipped the unit at a substantial loss in November (2006) for $6,700,000. The buyer, hotelier Edward Scheetz, didn't stay long and sold in May 2008 for $8,700,000 to private investor Robert Goergen Jr. and his wife Stacey.

listing photos and floor plan: The Modlin Group

SELLER: Eriq La Salle
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $7,950,000
SIZE: 6,000 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen children Your Mama was stricken yesterday with a particularly punishing flu and we are—for all intents and purposes—down for the count again today. However, rather than leave y'all high and dry we thought we'd offer up a brief celebrity real estate tidbit in the form of the Beverly Hills, CA mini-compound owned by actor Eriq La Salle and listed on the open market yesterday with a $7,950,000 price tag.

Mister La Salle's claim to Showbiz fame and fortune is his long-running role as Dr. Peter Benton on the hospital drama ER. That gig ran from 1994 to 2009—lucky him—but since then his Tinseltown career has been in the doldrums with supporting appearances on a handful of programs that include 24, How to Make It in America, A Gifted Man and Blackout.

Property records show Mister La Salle bought the view property way back in July 1996 for an unknown amount of money. The house underwent an extensive remodel in 2006, according to listing information.

The house sits hard up on the street—which lacks the sort of privacy celebs usually insist upon—and is perched on a steep hillside that overlooks Franklin Canyon.

Listing information describes the approximately 6,000 square foot house as a "celebrity owned Tuscan Villa" but this seems nothing Your Mama has ever seen in Tuscany. Maybe it's just our sick goggles but the whole thing looks more to Your Mama like a quintessentially SoCal faux-Tuscan contempo extravaganza jam-packed with every conceivable design conceit and high-end gewgaw that the architect and/or decorator could come up with.

Just a few of the notable features includes a full wall of glass that peels back and exposes the main living space to the courtyard-type back yard and swimming pool. In the living room a television drops down out of the ceiling at the touch of a button, in the dining room there's a walk-in wine closet and in the center island kitchen there's a notably expensive La Cornue brand range that easily set Mister La Salle back ten grand.

Somewhere up in the house there's a home fitness center and up the master bedroom there's a very modern copper fireplace set into a frameless ribbon of glass that allows for long, wide and almost unobstructed views out over the canyons towards the towers of downtown. There's also a meticulously kept walk-in closet and a large bathroom with a super-sized soaking tub that also looks to be crafted from copper.

Across the courtyard and swimming pool from the main house is a glassy guest house with full kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom.

Property records indicate Mister La Salle is in the mood to shake up his property portfolio. In addition to selling his house in Bev Hills he also recently unloaded his own private Xanadu—a six bedroom and 5.5 bathroom lake front house in Lake Arrowhead, CA that also, coincidentally, has a copper bathtub—sold in August 2011 for $2,724,000.

A few months later, in November (2011), Mister La Salle took a huge hit on the sale of another house he owned near L.A.'s dog-friendly Runyon Canyon that he bought in 2005 for $2,250,000 and sold for $1,610,000. Ouch.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

SELLER: Madonna
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $22,500,000
SIZE: 17,000 square feet, 9 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last March (2012) Your Mama tattled to the children that New York City-based middle aged pop superstar Madonna was quietly shopping her Beverly Hills, CA estate off-market with a $28,000,000 price tag. Well, hold on to your britches bitches because, thanks to Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, we've learned that Madge's manse popped up on the open market today with a substantially lower asking price of $22,500,000.

Listing information shows the estate, accessed by a 500 foot long gated driveway, includes a recently renovated and meticulously maintained French Country-style main house with 9 bedrooms, two living rooms, a double height formal dining room plus "junior dining room", a full-sized screening room and an open concept kitchen/breakfast/den area. There are also two offices plus offices for assistants, a home gym, an art studio, additional staff rooms and two guest houses. All told the estate has about 17,000 square feet of interior space according to current listing information.

There are no photos of the interior included with online listing details but a little birdie we know who's been up in the house told us last year the day-core is "comfy" and "surprisingly normal."

The 1.14 acre grounds, gated and set well off Sunset Boulevard with a state of the art security system, includes a north/south aligned lighted tennis court, a resort style swimming pool with adjacent cabana, intimate gardens and ample parking for guests and staff.

Madge bought the house in June 2003 from actress Sela Ward for around $12,000,000.

listing photo: Sotheby's International Realty

A couple of weeks ago—on Christmas Eve, to be exact—Your Mama whispered to the children that word on the real estate street in Los Angeles was that L.A.-based billionaire hedge fund fat cat Howard Marks and his social wife Nancy had inked an off-market deal to off-load their sprawling, bluff top Malibu estate for an ear piercing $75,000,000, give or take a few million.

Then, if y'all recall, a few days ago we relayed information tantalizingly tattled to Your Mama by several sources who speculated—based on what they were hearing slide down the gossip grapevine—that the buyers were a couple of young Russians with, as one put it, "suitcases full of cash."

Despite a report just yesterday by the property gossips at the Wall Street Journal that described the buyers as "A Russian billionaire couple," Your Mama conferred yesterday and today with two of our better connected informants from deep inside the Platinum Triangle real estate game—let's call them Ben d'Yerear and Lotta Scoop—who now tell us the Platinum Triangle real estate scuttlebutt has shifted away from the Russians. Now, according to Ben and Lotta, there are two decidedly non-Russian names being batted about as the possible (and still alleged) new owner of the Marks' Malibu spread.



Mister Jannard isn't on our list of hardcore L.A. based real estate ballers but he does own at least two other pricey properties in Los Angeles, both of them in the back in vogue and shockingly expensive Trousdale Estates neighborhood that runs up into the rugged canyons on the far eastern edge of Beverly Hills.

In October 2010 Mister Jannard dropped $5,200,000 on a 5,128 square foot single-story residence privately situated down a long, gated driveway at the tail end of a little lauded cul-de-sac and the previous December (2009) Mister Jannard picked up a very famous, crab-shaped mid-century modern masterpiece for which he paid $19,900,000 according to property records (and previous reports). The house is often attributed to Hal Leavitt but we hear from someone who knows about these things that the house was actually remodeled by Leavitt for the seller, entrepreneur William Hubner.

The house (above), supremely sited on 1.99 acres and curled tightly around a central circular motor court, was originally built in 1962. It measured 7,459 square feet and contained a total of six bedrooms and 9 bathrooms according to the L.A. County Tax Man. At the time of his purchase, a spokesperson for Mister Jannard told the WSJ that the house was not purchased for his own personal use but rather for guests of Mister Jannard's Red Digital Cinema, a company that makes digital movie cameras and is based in the Orange County community of Lake Forest, CA.

Did y'all catch the past tense up there? That's because, much to the chagrin of lovers of low-slung, crab-shaped mid-century modern masterpieces the world over, Mister Jannard has torn down the house down and is mid-way through the erection of an all knew residence that's more to his liking. Anyhoo...

Your Mama knows who we think bought the Marks' house but since we're not 100% sure so we'll just leave all the children to hash out all the possibilities. 1, 2, 3...Go!

aerial image (Trousdale Estates): Google

We know lots of y'all don't care to hear about Kim Kardashian and/or Kanye West and will kvetch about our decision to discuss this matter until the damn cows come home. Howevuh, hunties, we do have to feed all the children their favorite and sundry celebrity real estate meals and, as a property gossip in good standing, Your Mama just can't resist the latest from celebrity scuttlebutt juggernaut TMZ who reported this morning that the perpetually pap-trailed and newly preggers Kim K. and Kanye W. have snatched up an $11,000,000 mansion in a swank gated community in Bel Air.

The TMZ report claims the couple scooped up an approximately 10,000 square foot mansion several weeks ago and have already "gutted it" to make way for a much larger 14,000 square foot Italian-style villa. The rehabbed house, so the story goes, will be fitted and kitted with a gym, movie theater, bowling alley, basketball court as well as indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Naturally a full-serivce hair and makeup salon is planned because these two don't even go to the freaking terlit let alone outside without full hair and make-up.

Anyhoo, the TMZ report went on to note that "Kim & Kanye's new neighbors will include Jennifer Aniston, Chris Paul, and Joe Francis." Subsequent reports by People, the Daily News and the New York Post go on to report that Aniston, Paul and Francis all live in the same gated community as Kimye's (alleged) new crib. Well, children, we do not know who Chris Paul is but we do know that neither Jennifer Aniston nor Joe Francis live in this or any other gated community. In fact Miz Anistons new house in Bel Air is nearly six miles away on surface streets from the house pictured in the TMZ report and Mister Francis' Bel Air spread is even farther away.

Furthermore, the under construction residence pictured in the TMZ report was actually completed in 2010 according to the Los Angeles County Tax Man. There it is (above) from the air in all its bloviated semi-circularless. According to various property record data bases Your Mama consulted, that house—the one pictured in the TMZ report—already measures in at more than 20,000 square feet and records indicate it is currently owned by a high-powered attorney and his wife who also, as it turns out, own the nearly 9,000 square foot mock-Med mac-mansion immediately next door that's listed on the open market with a $10,750,000 price tag. Could that be the house they bought? Hmm.

Something's fishy. We're not saying Kim and Kanye didn't buy a big ol' house in Bel Air in which to bring up baby in unwedded bliss. We're just saying we're not sure the house shown in the TMZ report is the house they bought. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

UPDATE (Later same day): TMZ has amended their post to show that the Bel Air manse KK and KW actually (and allegedly) bought is the house next door to the one they'd previously indicated. The newly pinpointed pad (above) is currently still listed on the open market at $10,750,000 and listing information shows the so-called "Tuscan Mediterranean Estate" encompasses .75 of an acre and includes a 9,000 square foot residence with five bedrooms, seven bathrooms. There's also a double-height entry, Old School black walnut parquet wood floors throughout, a wet bar with leaded glass windows in the great room, an elevator. Out back there's an 800 square foot pavilion with built-in barbecue center, a broad flat lawn and a bullet-shaped dark-bottom swimming pool with elevated circular spa. The house has long views over the canyons towards the mansion dotted ridge lines of Bel Air and there are $933 per month homeowner's association dues.

We have no reason to doubt that Kim K. would like a house like this. Indeed, her Beverly Hills house is a smaller version of this and—we hear through the gossip grapevine—very quietly in escrow. But It's next to impossible to imagine that a guy like Kanye who has a real thing for architecturally very spare residences. Have you seen photos of his art-filled, Desiderata Design-designed Los Angeles residence? New York City pied-a-terre? How whipped does a contemporary art collecting minimalist like Kanye have to be to agree to live up in this big ol' mock-Med mac-mansion? We don't mean any disrespect, but seriously...have you seen his seriously austere, Claudio Silvestrin-designed New York City pied-a-terre? And he's gonna live up in in that?

aerial image: Google
front facade: Photos for Homes for Nelson Shelton & Associates

All the property gossips went berserk earlier today over the news that 102-year old philanthropist, art collector and sublime horticulturist Bunny Mellon sold her halcyon 26-acre waterfront compound in Osterville, MA for $19,500,000.

The official buyer of the property is listed in property records—and previous reports—as Home Port Investments LLC but as far as we know none of the reports revealed the Richie Rich behind Home Ports Investments. As was first done by our ever-so-wily informant Yolanda Yakketyyak, it doesn't take much drilling down into information publicly available through the website for the Secretary off the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to figure out that Home Port Investments LLC links to multi-billionaire mining magnate William I. "Bill" Koch.

Before all you indignant lefty liberals gets to hooping and hollering about how the famously conservative and politically active Koch brothers controversially—and unsuccessfully—spent many tens of millions to thwart the reelection of President Obama last year understand that this Koch brother is not one of those Koch brothers.

Yes, he is related to conservative minded lightening rods David and Charles Koch. They are, in fact, his even richer and far more publicly politically active brothers who the folks at Forbes estimate to be worth about $31 billion apiece. However and despite the few million bucks Bill Koch coughed up in vain to defeat Barak Obama last year, this Koch brother is much better known for his less political pursuits such as owning the yacht that won the America's Cup in 1992 and for his vast collections of wine, maritime memorabilia, military vehicles and American Old West doo-dads and gewgaws.

Anyhoo, Your Mama briefly discussed Miz Mellon's comely Cape Cod compound in April 2012 when it was still listed with it's initial price tag of $28,740,000. Listing information from the time shows the rare and private property occupies a private and secured peninsula with a 6,893 square foot Cape Cod-style main house plus separate guest and staff quarters as well as a detached art studio and a beachfront cottage. Several greenhouses dot the grounds that include broad lawns, orchards, formal gardens, a tennis court, a seasonal dock, a private beach and nearly 1,000 continuous feet of shore line, at least some of which is bulk headed. The property also has a swimming pool that capricious Miz Mellon once had dug up and re-installed after she determined the deep end was facing the wrong direction.

Your Mama doesn't know a single soul in picture perfect Osterville but we'd be quite surprised if any of the locals are the least bit surprised by Mister Koch's latest addition to his property portfolio in Osterville. A quick search of various property record data bases shows Mister Koch owns a handful of homes and properties in the area that include a waterfront spread a few doors down from the Mellon spread that he picked up in April 2011 for $8,400,000.

Like all multi-billionaires with seemingly unlimited amounts of disposable income Mister Koch maintains a number of large, high maintenance homes in some of the the country's most expensive zip codes.

His primary residence, as far as we can tell, is a sumptuous multi-acre estate in Palm Beach that runs from the ocean to the bay and includes two swimming pools. Iffin you want to know more about Mister Koch's pad in Palm Beach, just ask super star bubble gum pop princess Katy Perry who gave an hour-long private poolside performance last April as part of the lavish birthday celebration for 72-year old industrialist's third—and much younger—wife Bridget, a well-born lady from Pittsburgh's illustrious Rooney family.

As far as we know Mister Koch still also owns four contiguous properties in the upper Castle Creek Valley above fancy-pants Aspen, CO that he scooped in 2007 for a combined $51,000,000.* The acquisition included the former Elk Mountain Lodge, a 28,000 square foot compound on 52 acres that he converted from a hospitality lodge into a deluxe private residence.

Near the "middle-class mountain town" of Paonia, also outside of Aspen, Mister Koch owns the 6,400 (or so) acre Bear Ranch where he's spending untold millions to build an authentic replica of an Old West town complete with saloon, jailhouse, firehouse, livery and train station, a water treatment plant and a 21,000 square foot mansion. Why? To house his extensive collection of Old West memorabilia that includes the only authenticated photograph of Billy the Kid that he snagged last year at auction for $2.3 million.

*Some reports say it was $55,000,000 but what's four million bucks when you're talking about a fifty-some million dollar part-time residence?

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

SELLERS: Peter and Marion Madoff
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $4,600,000
SIZE: 2-3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Given that soon-to-be imprisoned Peter Madoff worked for and side-by-side with his Ponzi scheming older bother Bernie for 40-plus years it's utterly inconceivable to most people that he didn't—as he has repeatedly insisted—know a thing about his brother's towering house of cards that bilked thousands of people out of billions of dollars until the night big brother confessed his heinous financial transgressions. Somewhat oxymoronically, given his alleged ignorance of his brother's decades long charade, Peter Madoff did confess last fall to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of falsifying records for which he was sentenced to ten years in the pokey.

While the details about the very well-compensated Peter Madoff's knowledge of and involvement in his brother's super-sized Ponzi scheme will no doubt be investigated—and doubted—for many years to come there is no question he and his missus Marion lived a very luxe life with multi-million dollar residences in ritzy areas of New York City, Long Island and Palm Beach.

The spacious cooperative spread, located on the sixth floor of a handsome and finely detailed, full-service red brick and limestone edifice originally built in 1929, was purchased by Mister and Missus (Peter) Madoff in June 2004 for $4,100,000. According to listing details and photographs still available online, the two bedroom and 3.5 bathroom apartment was recently renovated to exacting standard in a warmly contemporary fashion with maintenance and common charges that total $4,748 per month.

The clean-lined, loft-like interior spaces include a roomy foyer, a partially paneled "formal" living room with wood-burning fireplace flanked by built in cabinetry and a nearly 30-foot long dining room/family room with more built-in cabinetry and shelving and a built-in wine-cooler. The seven-foot-three inch wide galley kitchen isn't big but it's expensively done in all stainless steel with top-grade appliances that include a washer and dryer. A small adjoining room with windowed bathroom and two wee closets is marked as the "maid's quarters" on the floor plan but it would be—in Your Mama's humble and meaningless opinion—to be downright cruel to make a live-in domestic live in such a cramped—and essentially windowless—room.

A brief corridor off the foyer connects to the guest bedroom—with two closets and windowed restroom—and the corner master suite that's complete with eight closets, four windows and a windowed bathroom with double sinks.

The transaction has not yet been recorded in any of the property record data bases Your Mama consulted—as of today the online listed shows the apartment is still in contract—but according to the Post, the new owner is an as yet unnamed attorney from Chicago.

The sale of the Peter Madoff's New York City apartment comes on the heels of the sale of their getaway down in Palm Beach (FL) where he and his pampered Missus Marion have catted around since at least the late 1990s when they owned a condo in a sexily sinuous 1960s-era building situated across the street from the yacht strewn Palm Beach Docks and a short Rolls ride from the swank shops and restaurants along tony Worth Avenue. They bought the condo, incidentally, from none other than Bernie and Ruth Madoff.

In May 2001 the Peter Madoffs traded up to a half acre mini-estate just a few short blocks north of the historically high-WASP Palm Beach Bath & Tennis Club and Donald Trump's characteristically ostentatious private club Mar-a-Lago.

Property records show the Peter Madoffs coughed up $3,752,000 for the 5,463 square foot South Florida meets French Regency-style residence that includes five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, a discreet side-facing three car garage and a swimming pool ringed by expensively maintained and punctiliously pruned lawns and gardens.

Your Mama dissed and discussed the fully renovated and upgraded 1970s residence that's set behind a row of assiduously clipped (and somewhat comical) conical hedges in January 2011 when it popped up on the market with a $6.5 million price tag. It only took one price chop to $5,900,000 before the house was sold in May 2011 for $5,500,000. Property records reveal the house is now owned by home fragrance honcho Harry Slatkin and his wife Laura who—as an aside—also own an opulently decorated 1870s Beaux Arts townhouse in New York City.

With two down, the Peter Madoff's still have one more house to sell, a 4-plus acre estate in Old Westbury, NY (above) that's currently on the open market with an asking price of $4,995,000.

Old Westbury, not quite 30 miles east of Midtown Manhattan, is an exclusive Long Island enclave long associated with old guard New York society—think E.F. Hutton, the Guests, the Phipps family and a Vanderbilt or two. Pop culturally the semi-rural suburban community is best known as the home of (alleged) mob daughter Victoria Gotti who still owns one of the more garish mansions ever to be erected in that blue-blooded neck of Long Island.

Property records show Mister and Missus Peter Madoff picked up the first portion of their Long Island estate that backs up to the Glen Oaks Club back in March 1988 when they paid $2,000,000 for a genteel, L-shaped center hall Colonial originally built in 1935 on just over two acres. In late 1990 they shelled out another $2,500,000 for the 2.014 acre lot next door.

The gated and privately situated estate sits at the tail end of a long cul-de-sac lined with similarly sized homes on smaller lots and current listing information shows the main house measures almost 8,000 square feet. Your Mama counted (above) a total of five bedrooms and five full and two half bathrooms on the floor plan included with current marketing materials (above).


There are three good-sized guest bedrooms on the second floor plus a fourth, rather puny one. One bedroom has a fireplace, two have private bathrooms and the two others share a hall bathroom. The extensive master suite (above) occupies and entire wing up the upper level and includes a roomy bedroom with fireplace and matching floral print curtains, canopy and bed clothes. They say the key to a happy long term marriage is—among other things—separate bathrooms and the Peter Madoffs not only have separate facilities for ablutions and bodily evacuations but separate closets and boudoirs, hers slathered in the same floral fabrics and carpeting as the bedroom and his an unsettling display of mis-matched stripes and brocades.

The basement, accessible by both front and back stairs as well as the elevator, includes a nearly 600 square foot entertainment space with fireplace, a bedroom-sized wet bar and a convenient powder pooper. Other ares of the massive basement include rooms for the mechanicals, severals storage rooms and a walk-in wine cellar.

The mostly landscaped grounds include large terraces for dining and entertaining, luxurious swathes of lawn, a tennis court and a swimming pool and spa surrounded by thick and lush foliage.

Presumably the proceeds of the sale of the Peter Madoff's house in Old Westbury, like the proceeds from the sale of the Park Avenue apartment, will be controlled by the Feds charged with disbursing any recovered funds to the victims of Bernie's breathtakingly unscrupulous scheme.

exterior photo (New York City): Property Shark
listing photos and floor plan (New York City): Douglas Elliman Real Estate
listing photos (Palm Beach): Sotheby's International Realty
listing photos: (Old Westbury): Daniel Gale / Sotheby's International Realty