BUYER: Jason Bateman and Amanda Anka
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,000,000
SIZE: 6,148 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We first heard it yesterday from our always scoopy pal Patty Propertyseller but the long-legged blond gal at Trulia Luxe Livingbeat us to the digital punch about Showbiz couple Jason Batemanand Amanda Anka dropping an even-steven $3,000,000 to snatch up the Beverly Hills (Post Office) residence of recently deceased film and television actor Ernest Borgnine.
Archive for 2013-01-27
Jason Bateman Buys Ernest Borgnine's Beverly Hills Mini-Compound
The eminently likable and wryly funny Mister Bateman has been shaking his money maker around Tinseltown since the early 1980s when, as a wee child, he landed a regular gig on Little House on the Prairie. He quickly went on to sitcom child stardom on the silly and shallow Silver Spoons, then on the short-lived It's Your Move and, in the mid- to late-80s, on Valerie, a network switching family comedy later known as The Hogan Family and Valerie's Family. Mister Bateman as also been lucky enough to work steadily as an adult on both t.v.—sometimes plum roles such on the too little appreciated cult hit Arrested Development—and on the silver screen in movies that include Juno, Up In The Air and Horrible Bosses. His sister is, of course actress Justine Bateman who shot to her own child stardom in the early '80s on the sitcom Family Ties. The low-key Miz Bateman currently has a pivotal role on the goofy, low budget short form web series Easy to Assemble and she previously had a recurring gig on the now-canceled Desperate Housewives.
The Bateman-Anka's new half-acre mini-compound had been owned and occupied or more than fifty years by the five-times married Oscar-winning Mister Borgnine (Marty) and, since the 1970s, with his much younger and surviving fifth wife, Tova Traesnaes, a Norwegian-born skincare, cosmetics and fragrance mogul who hawks her various wares on the QVC.
Missus Batemen—that would be Amanda Anka—also hails from a show business family; Her father is iconic 1950s and '60s crooner Paul Anka. Miz Anka-Bateman occasionally works as an actress and her resume features an anemic list of small television roles on a number of big shows like Beverly Hills, 90210—the original one—and ER as well as a few puny parts on the big screen such as in the very melancholy Sofia Coppola-written and -directed film Somewhere.
The Bateman-Anka's new half-acre mini-compound had been owned and occupied or more than fifty years by the five-times married Oscar-winning Mister Borgnine (Marty) and, since the 1970s, with his much younger and surviving fifth wife, Tova Traesnaes, a Norwegian-born skincare, cosmetics and fragrance mogul who hawks her various wares on the QVC.
Anyhoodles poodles, the property, described in listing details as a "Country English compound," was reportedly first floated off-market by Miz Traesnaes as a so-called pocket listing with a $3.395 million asking price in late September 2012, just a couple short months after 95-year old Mister Borgnine went to meet his maker in early July. The property finally popped up on the open market in late October (2012) with a familiar $3.395 million dollar asking price.
Listing information revealed the gated property sits on a private knoll just above Mulholland Drive with easy access to both Beverly Hills and Studio City and shows the spacious but hardly huge 6,148 square foot residence is fronted by a parking lot-sized motor court and includes a formal center hall entry with rustic wood floors, a glittering crystal chandelier and a sweeping circular stair case perfect for prom pictures and making a (melo)dramatic entrances at cocktail parties and family functions.
Listing information goes on to reveal the well-maintained but woefully dated residence includes a formal living room with fireplace and a double-height family room with built-in wet bar, at least one oval stained glass window and mortifying mint-green drapery swags stuck to the the towering arched windows that look like they're desperately but unsuccessfully trying to class up the otherwise faux-rustic booze and boob-toob watching room. The somewhat snug formal dining room overlooks the front motor court and is dressed in an old fashioned and not-quite-scaled-correctly printed wall covering (or mural) that depicts a bunch of birds hanging out on the branches of nearly leafless trees.
There's also a paneled library, a den and an eat-in kitchen with adjoining breakfast room, built-in glass-fronted china cabinets and white tile counter tops painted (or screen printed) with decoratively saccharine little bouquets of multi-colored flowers. We're sure those tiles cost Mister and fifth-Missus Borgnine a fortune to buy and have installed but an even larger sum of money will surely be spent by the Bateman-Ankas to remove them and overhaul the existing, strangely formal-feeling kitchen.
Two guest/family bedrooms occupy their own upstairs wing and share a Jack-n-Jill bathroom. The other upstairs wing is devoted entirely to an expansive master suite that encompasses a bedroom, private sitting room, a roomy balcony and dual dressing rooms and bathrooms, one of which has horrendous mint-green wall to wall carpeting on floor and pearl-clutching mirror-backed lattice tacked to the walls and the angled ceiling. Once again we're absolutely certain Mister and fifth-Missus Borgnine paid some nice-gay or lady decorator an arm and a leg to come up with that—ahem—design and it will surely cost Mister and Missus Bateman another arm and a leg to hire their own nice-gay or lady decorator to remove and replace all that over-latticed decorative wackiness.
Over nighting guests or live-in domestic staff can be comfortably and privately accommodated in a self-contained guest house that Your Mama thinks sits atop the detached two car garage and contains, according to listing information, a living room, kitchen, play area, one bedroom and a bathroom.
Red brick terracing laid in a tight basket weave pattern surrounds the backyard swimming pool where there's some sort of blue statue sticking up out of the shallow end. Another part of the yard has a couple of built-in water features and a glass-enclosed wooden gazebo for—we don't know—having tea in the rain or maybe meditating.
Given that the Bateman-Anka's paid three million clams for this place and, as well maintained as it all appears to be, given all that it needs in updates and upgrades we imagine it'll be some time and another couple million spent before they actually move their still-growing young family move in.
Your Mama really can't say where Mister Bateman and Missus Anka-Bateman actually live but we do know that they've long owned a 2,617 square foot house with five bedrooms and three bathrooms in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles that property records show they picked up in the fall of 2002 for $885,000.
listing photos: The Agency and Westside Estate Agency
listing photos: The Agency and Westside Estate Agency
Sitcom Queen Patricia Heaton Officially Lists in Hancock Park
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $8,295,000
SIZE: 8,398 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was almost a year ago that Your Mama relayed the celebrity real estate scuttlebutt about two-time Emmy-winning sitcom queen Patricia Heaton (The Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond) and her part-time actor/producer hubby David Hunt (Liz and Dick, Mad Men, 24) quietly making their Los Angeles (CA) estate available off-market with a price tag of around—we were told by two separate and generally very well-informed sources—$12,000,000.
Well, chick-a-diddles, the off-market market apparently didn't respond so well to the rumored eight-figure asking price but thanks to eagle-eyed informant Rick Wrinklebottom Your Mama has learned that Mister Hunt and Missus Heaton's expensively renovated, painstakingly restored and much-published Elmer Grey-designed mansion in L.A.'s historic and star-studded Hancock Park 'hood* popped up on the open market with an arguably much more reasonable and realistic asking price of $8,295,000.
The walled, gated and security camera equipped corner property—published in the December 2009 issue of Architectural Digest—encompasses two contiguous parcels that total 1.14 acres in the affluent heart of Hancock Park. The mansion was built in 1923 for Merritt Adamson and Rhoda Rindge Adamson whose mother founded the famed Malibu Potteries company in the mid-1920s, hence all the authentically spectacular tile-work throughout the residence.
Listing information indicates the elegantly proportioned main mansion measures in at 8,398 square feet with a total of six bedrooms, five bathrooms and seven fireplaces. The inset double front doors are framed by carved wood pilasters and swing open into a spacious and somewhat oddly angled foyer and stair hall with slightly disturbing butter-colored walls, gleaming hardwood floors, an Old-Timey crystal chandelier and an elegant staircase with carved wood and wrought iron banisters.
There are roomy formal living and dining rooms, of course, the former with a fireplace and lots of richly textured upholstered furniture and the later a very sophisticated decorative mash-up with more than a twinge of Chinoiserie. There's also a low-key library/den with painted paneled walls, built-in book-shelves, a corner fireplace and at least two sets of French doors that connect to two of the many patios and covered verandas that surround the house.
An loggia-like billiards room with sitting area makes an exceptionally long run along the rear of the residence's lower level and is lavishly done up with intricate patterned tile flooring, a stenciled exposed wood beam ceiling and a fireplace stenciled with a pair of peacock-like birds. At least six arched French doors with elaborate iron grill work open the room to the entertainment terrace that overlooks the main part of the back yard.
Miz Heaton is best known for portraying frazzled middle-class housewives with cluttered kitchens on the boob toob but in real life her swanky eat-in kitchen is clearly that of a wealthy woman and includes all the commercial-grade stainless steel appliances money can buy and a butcher block work island and a hideous and menacing looking pot rack that frazzles Your Mama's delicate decorative nerves. We know some of the children think pot racks are charming and convenient but we think they're dust catching noggin knockers.
Anyhoo, there are at least two other family room type spaces with large televisions which sorta makes sense since Mister Hunt and Miz Heaton have four young-ish children and giving them each a t.v. to watch probably saves a lot of unnecessary and annoying yelling between them. One of the family rooms has a corner fireplace and a grid of heavy wood beams on the ceiling and the slightly larger other one is architecturally blessed with a steeply pitched and hand-stenciled wood ceiling.
But for the old-fashioned slide, we do rather like the simplicity and geometric elegance of the flagstone terrace surrounded swimming pool that's overlooked by a pergola-shaded pavilion with outdoor fireplace and changing room/bathroom so that wet and wild children need not traipse through the house when it comes time for them to use the terlit.
We're not sure what Mister and Missus Hunt-Heaton's future real estate plans are but we do know that the couple maintains a multi-parcel property just outside of Cleveland, OH in Miz Heaton's hometown of Bay Village.
And we also know they won't be moving to the multi-level West Hollywood (CA) condo the couple picked up in March 2007 for $1,145,000 and, after more than three years on and off the market, finally unloaded in October 2012 for $865,000, at steep $270,000 loss not counting upkeep, carrying costs and real estate fees.
*Your Mama already knows that some of the children will gripe and groan about how Hancock Park is riddled with crime compared to some of the other uppity zip codes in L.A. like 90210, 90077 and 90272 but the fact is the centrally located neighborhood has always attracted its fair share of wealthy doctors, lawyers, businessman and Tinseltowners with the dough—if not the inclination—to live in one of those other, less crime-riddled zip codes. Some of the other notably named folks in Hancock Park include (but are far from limited to) actor Sean Hayes, celebrity gossip Janet Charleton, actor Matt Bomer and his publicist man-mate Simon Halls, t.v. writer/producer Shonda Rhimes, actress Kathy Bates, producer John Wells and financier Bruce Raben.
listing photos: PostRAIN Productions for Coldwell Banker
Keyshawn Johnson Re-Lists Calabasas Albatross
LOCATION: Calabasas, CA
PRICE: $10,500,000
SIZE: 11,746 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 2 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday Your Mama discussed the Pacific Palisades mansion that Miami-based professional basketball player Chris Bosh bought late last year for $9.4 million and currently has up for lease at $45,000 per month. Today, much to our own surprise since we're not very athletically inclined, we've decided to continue in the professional athlete real estate vein and discuss the Calabasas, CA estate listed in early December 2012 for $10,500,000 by former professional footballer turned television commentator Keyshawn Johnson.
This isn't, as it turns out, the first time at the real estate rodeo for Mister Johnson and his custom built Calabasas crib. In fact, the Superbowl winning former wide receiver has been trying to unload his real estate albatross in Calabasas since at least March 2011 when it was unsuccessfully heaved on the open market with an asking price of $11,995,000. By late 2011 the price tag had plummeted to $9,500,000 but, alas... In early 2012 the hard-to-sell estate popped back up on the open market with a surprisingly higher $10,995,000 asking price that ten months later was dropped to it's current $10.5 million.
The difficulty Mister Johnson has had selling his big ol' house in the guard-gated Oaks community isn't even the most interesting part of the story though, children. Property records show Mister Johnson purchased the then vacant 1.86 acre property in April—or maybe August—2004 for an undisclosed amount of money. By early 2007, according to online documentation we perused, Mister Johnson had secured at least six million dollars in mortgages against the property, presumably for the construction of the residence.
For reasons Your Mama can't possibly know or fathom, especially since he surely earned many millions during his 11 seasons as a professional pig skinner, by late 2009 Mister Johnson fallen enough behind on his mortgage payment(s) that his lender began the ugly foreclosure process. The property was scheduled to be auctioned on the third of June 2010 but sometime before that happened, Mister Johnson must have made good on mortgage because by late June the foreclosure wolves had been called off with a Notice of Rescission recorded on the tenth of June.
Anyhoo, while Your Mama might describe it in less flattering terms, current listing information describes the 11,746 square foot Richard Landry-designed residence as a "Contemporary, Mediterranean" that was completed in 2011 and includes six bedrooms and seven full and two half bathrooms.
The double-height foyer, study/library and formal living and dining areas are complimented, according to listing information, by less formal family quarters that include a colossal and contemporary double-island kitchen that opens to a spacious family room, a media/game room, home theater/multi-purpose room, a bonus room and a home spa and exercise room set up with sauna.
Additional amenities listed in marketing materials include an elevator, a gated driveway with garage space for four cars, various fruit and shade trees, guest/staff quarters and a whole house sound system.
Steel framed windows and doors connect the luxurious interior spaces to the expansive outdoor entertaining spaces that include a wide terrace that hugs the back of the house, a covered veranda with outdoor fireplace and long views over the surrounding mountains, a broad free-form lawn area, a built-in barbecue center, a lighted sunken basketball court, an extra-long rectangular swimming pool with inset spa and plenty of sunbathing space and and adjacent cabana/gazebo.
Far be it from Your Mama to place any kind of value on a property—all property is worth, of course, as much as someone will pay for it—but a few minutes research on the interweb indicates that Mister Johnson and his extremely successful real estate agent(s) may have a tough time getting someone to cough up more than ten million clams for his Calabasas mansion considering it's current price tag is substantially higher, according to the peeps at Redfin, than any other sale in Calabasas in the last three years.
In the last three years, according to Redin, there are only four recorded sales in Calabasas above six million dollars, all of them in gated enclave known as the Estates at The Oaks where—lucky for him—Mister Johnson's mansion is also located. In July 2010 professional baseball pitcher Jeff Suppan and his wife Dana scooped up a 10,816 square foot faux Italian macmansion with six bedrooms and seven full and two half bathrooms for $6,250,000.
Property records (and previous reports) reveal the following January (2011) chat show host Phil McGraw and wife Robin shelled out $6,575,000 for an 11,127 square foot mansion on more than three acres. So the stories go, the six bedroom and 8.5 bathroom pseudo Tuscan villa was purchased for their television producer son Jay McGraw and his former Playboy Playmate wife Erica Dahm.
In April 2012,18-year old bubble gum pop super star Justin Bieber paid $6.5 million for a very grown up 1.28 acre spread with a 9,214 square foot mansion that includes six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, six fireplaces, two three-car garages, an elevator, a movie theater, a second floor game room, a family room with wet bar and wine cellar—somewhat ironic since he's not even close to being old enough to imbibe booze legally—and a poolside guest casita with outdoor living room and a complete indoor kitchen.
The most recent and most expensive purchase in the Estates at the Oaks enclave occurred just last November (2012) when a wealthy businessman paid an abnormally high $9,200,000 for a single story architectural pastiche of a mansion with seven bedrooms and seven full and two half bathrooms in 11,649 square feet. The seller, according to property records we peeped, was tax consultant Ramin Salari. Mister Salari's name won't ring a bell for most of the children but Los Angeles-based real estate watchers may recall Mister Ramin reportedly paid $185,000 in bribes to L.A. County Tax Assessor John Noguez in exchange for reduced property taxes for his wealthy clients. But that's another sordid real estate story for another blog...
Your Mama, who does not know a pencil from a pinhead, has no idea if Mister Johnson lives in this house or if he ever even intended to occupy the premises. What we do know based upon a care perusal of property record data bases is that he maintains some sort of ownership in at least one other luxurious Los Angeles area residence including a 6,549 square foot house in Tarzana that he bought way back in December 1996 for $1,143,000.
Propety records also reveal that back in December 2004 Mister Johnson sold an 11,206 square foot mansion with six bedrooms and nine bathrooms in the guard-gated Beverly Ridge community for $10,500,000. The modern Mediterranean mansion is currently back on the market for lease at $75,000 per month and for sale at $11,750,000, reduced from $13,750,000. The house was later (and very briefly) owned by Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis and was used as the Esquire House by Esquire magazine. It's also just down the street from the massive mega-mansion recently completed by Showbiz tycoon Tyler Perry.
listing photos: Prudential California Realty
Professional Hoopster Chris Bosh Puts Pacific Palisades Mansion Up for Lease
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades
PRICE: $45,000 per month
SIZE: 10,755 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: All the children know that Your Mama don't know a football from a baseball bat. So, when our magnificently prolific informant Yolanda Yakketyak sent over a covert communique to tell us that the resort-like mock-Med mansion in Pacific Palisades, CA that professional basketball player Chris Bosh and his new-ish missus Adrienne quietly purchased late last year for $9,400,000 has popped up for lease at $45,000 per month we said, "Who da hell is Chris Bosh?"
Well, turns out six-foot-eleven inch Mister Bosh is really somebody in the professional basketball world. The native Texan started out his professional hoopster career with the Toronto Raptors back in 2003 but he currently dribbles shoots and passes for the Miami Heat.
The eight-time NBA All-Star is reportedly set to earn $17,545,000 for the 2012/13 season, not counting any endorsements he may have. Well compensated Mister Bosh's annual salary is scheduled to rise to more than $22 million for the 2015-16 season so, make no mistake butter beans, the towering power forward can well afford a nearly $9.5 million dollar house in Pacific Palisades not to mention the very contemporary $12-plus million bay front mansion he already owns in Miami Beach. (More on that manse in a minute.)
Property records reveal the seller, Korean-born steel tycoon Steven Koh, Ph.D., purchased the 1.73 acre knoll-top estate, located at the tail end of a gated cul-de-sac and not very cleverly dubbed Villa Cielo, in September 2005 for $12,500,000. That means, according to the well-worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, that Dr. Koh took a punishing $3,100,000 financial gut punch when he sold the lavishly fitted mansion to Mister and Missus Bosh.
Listing information kindly provided by Yolanda shows the two-story, tile-roofed Mediterranean-ish mansion was built in 2001, measures in at a substantial 10,755 square feet and contains a total of six bedrooms and eight full bathrooms, a count that Your Mama thinks but isn't sure encompasses the fully equipped staff quarters.
A double-height rotunda entry with a sweeping, wrap-around staircase leads to the many and various living and entertaining spaces that include a formal living with fireplace, a formal dining room with an upsetting tented ceiling, a sky-lit center island kitchen with all the commercial-style stainless steel appliances money can buy and a large library/office with book shelf flanked fireplace, partially paneled walls and a built in aquarium that surely requires a part-time expert to take care of.
An open-concept built-in wet bar separates the living room from the billiard room and a small but expensively equipped movie theater has a state-of-the-art sound and projection system and plush, burnt caramel-colored leather recliner seats with built-in cup holders.
We're not sure why Mister and Missus Bosh would spend nearly ten million bucks on a fancy mansion in Pacific Palisades only to turn around and try to lease it out for $45,000 per month, but if Your Mama has said it once we've said it ten thousand times: It's generally frustrating and futile operation to try and makes sense of the wacky real estate ways of the rich and famous.
listing photos (Pacific Palisades): Sotheby's International Realty
listing photos (Miami Beach): London Realty Group (via Zillow)
Irving Azoff Shakes Up Real Estate Portfolio
In case any of y'all don't know, Mister Azoff was named by the folks at Billboard as the most powerful person in the music industry for 2012. Not only has he represented the professional interests of an almost endless list of high profile recording artists and groups such as Christina Aguilera, Guns N' Roses, Morrissey the Eagles, Seal, Van Halen, Neil Diamond and New Kids on the Block, until the end of 2012 he was the Executive Chairman of the music industry juggernaut now known as Live Nation Entertainment.
Mister and Missus Azoffs recently sold an ocean front house on swanky Carbon Beach for $10,000,000 to an obviously very successful attorney and now—according to our Mister Martin—the couple are seriously considering coughing up around $16,000,000 to acquire a one story contemporary villa next door to the Playboy Mansion in the hoity toity Holmby Hills 'hood. The property is currently listed at $18,500,000.
The reason for the purchase, according to our Mister Martin, is that the pecunious pair need a plush place to temporarily reside while their posh primary residence—a hulking, 12,600-plus square foot Tudor-style pile in Beverly Hills*—gets a multi-year make over.
Listing information shows the 9,632 square foot contemporary Mediterranean villa the Azoff's are thinking of acquiring was originally built in 1932, sits on 1.49 meticulously manicured acres and has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms including a master suite with dual bathrooms. Listing information goes on to indicate there's a staff suite and an attached wing that contains a family room, office and three more guest bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. The property also has a full-sized gym with bathroom, swimming pool with pool house and a separate guest house with living room and kitchen.
Property records reveal the seller is businessman John Pourmoradi who earned his fortune primarily distributing wholesale merchandise to discount, drug and dollar stores and purchased the property way back in August 1998 for $4,000,000.
A little peeping and poking around various property record data bases shows that in addition to their 1932 Tudor in Beverly Hills Mister and Missus Azoff's fat property portfolio still includes—but is not limited to—a 12-plus acre spread in the mountains above Malibu, a couple of houses in La Quinta, CA including a recently erected 17,000-plus square foot residence on 1.52 golf course fronting acres in the guard gated Madison Club community in La Quinta, CA and a ski chalet on six-or-so acres in Snowmass, CO.
Now children, use yer noggins. We haven't any reason to doubt the intel provided by Aston Martin but for now this ain't nuthin' but some high-priced conjecture and rumor at this point, okay?
*Fun but useless real estate tidbit: It was at Mister and Missus Azoff's Beverly Hills estate where Khloe Kardashian wed L.A. Laker Lamar Odom in September 2009.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
Peter Morton Does It In Trousdale Estates
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $9,800,000
SIZE: 5,367 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
NOTE FROM YOUR MAMA (01-03-13): Your Mama posted this a week or so ago but we mistakenly deleted it. Here it is again in case anyone was missing it.
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Property gossips around the globe went hog wild in October 2012 when a single story French Regency meets mid-century modern style residence high in the terrifically trendy Trousdale Estates 'hood in Beverly Hills hit the open market with at asking price of $12,995,000.
The hoopla and hoo-ha wasn't just because the gated residence occupies a highly desirable 1.18 acre lot on what is arguably one of the better streets in Trousdale Estates where some of the other homes are owned by folks like celebrity photographer Steven Meisel but rather because the house is loosely known in real estate circles as the west coast Graceland. That's right, back in 1967—the year they were married—hip-swiveling music industry icon Elvis Presley and his then new bride Priscilla purchased the house for $400,000.
Property records shows the old Presley pad was sold in mid-December 2012 to a corporate entity for $9,800,000. Everybody Your Mama talked to—including our well-informed confreres Yolanda Yakketyak and Helen A. Hightower—snitched that the buyer was high-end property flipping former restaurateur and hotelier Peter Morton.
Mister Peter Morton—not to be confused with his prolific property flipping restaurateur son Harry who owns the lewdly named Pink Taco eateries in L.A.—made the bulk of his (estimated) half billion dollar fortune in 1995 when he sold his co-founding interest in the Hard Rock Cafe chain for $410 million and in 2006 when he sold the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for $770 million to boutique hotel magnate Ian Schrager's Morgans Hotel Group.
Anyhoo, listing information shows the existing, single-story residence was originally built in 1958 and includes four bedrooms and five bathroom in 5,367 square feet of interior space, plus an attached guest house with additional private bathroom.
The low-slung sprawler, recently upgraded and renovated according to listing information, contains a spacious formal living room with fireplace, a formal dining room, family room, office, media room and a newly installed eat-in kitchen that looks to Your Mama like it belongs in an upscale but uninspired suburban mini-mansion.
Floor to ceiling windows and sliders throughout flood the house with natural light and allow for long vistas down the canyons and—on a clear day—over the glittering lights of Los Angeles all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The walls of windows seamlessly integrate the inside and the outside living spaces that include various terraces and patios, a flat patch of grass for the pooches and a free-form swimming pool and spa. Out front, there's a gated motor court and a four-car car port
Your Mama's been told by someone in a position to know that the house remains remarkably intact from the time Mister Presley and Miss Priscilla owned it in the mid- to late-sixties but that's probably no matter since the scuttlebutt on the Trousdale real estate street is that Mister Morton plans to raze the existing residence to make way for an all new house that he'll no doubt sell at an enviably enormous profit.
Certainly buying, knocking down and building anew seems to be the growing trend on this particular cul-de-sac. Back in August (2012), budding real estate baller—and mid-priced handbag purveyor—Bruce Makowsky quietly paid $12,650,000 for an almost 7,000 square foot house directly across from the old Presley pad that's he's already razed in preparation for what will surely be a bigger and sleeker new house that Your Mama imagines will eventually wind up on the market with a fat eight figure asking price. Next door to the house Mister Makowsky recently tore down movie producer turned property developer Nile Niami paid Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown, Shampoo, Mission Impossible franchise) $9,800,000 for a nearly six thousand square foot house that rumor has it he too will tear down to make way for a bigger and slicker house that will also—no doubt—eventually turn up for sale with an eye-popping eight figure asking price.
Mister Morton has bought and sold more pricey properties in some of the more expensive zip codes of Los Angeles that Your Mama cares to count, including a hulking Tudor style pile on 4.1 private acres in Beverly Hills that he bought in 2006 for $18,500,000, never lived in and sold—at a substantial loss—in the spring of 2011 for $16,190,000 to property-collecting Oscar-winning superstar actress Sandra Bullock.
As far as Your Mama knows—and we really don't know a ham from a gold fish—since the mid 1990s Mister Morton's primary residence in Tinseltown has been a 13,000- plus square foot mansion on 1.3-plus gated and landscaped acres in a particularly plum section of the Holmby Hills that he bought from entertainment industry executive Robert A. Daly for $9,250,000.
Mister Morton also maintains an elegantly contemporary Richard Meier-designed mini-compound with a total of seven bedrooms and seven full and two half bathrooms on two—or maybe three—prime ocean front lots on Carbon Beach, Malibu's most expensive stretch of sand where some of the other homeowners include endlessly rich trophy property amassing titans of industry like David Geffen, Michael Milken, Paul Allen, Eli Broad and Larry Ellison.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
Your Mama Hears...
Mister and Missus Smidt's sprawling two-parcel compound comprises more than six acres and, as best as we can tell from a perusal of various property record data bases, the couple picked up the first of their two Beverly Park parcels July 1995 from ice hockey honcho Wayne Gretzky for an undisclosed amount of dough. They subsequently scooped up the the adjacent parcel, in November 1999, for just over three million smackers.
The L.A. County Tax Man indicates the seven bedroom and ten bathroom multi-winged main mansion was built in the late 1990s and, at 11,204 square feet, is actually quite modest by the famously steroidal standards of Beverly Park where a fair number of the super-sized single family abodes top 25,000 square feet. Property records also show the compound includes at least one other secondary structure with an additional two bedrooms and five bathrooms in 3,863 square feet of interior space.
That Mister and Missus Smidt would like to unload their custom-built compound in Beverly Park should come as no surprise to Platinum Triangle property watchers who are well aware the lavish living couple also own The Knoll, the storied Beverly Hills mega-estate they bought from oil baron turned Showbiz tycoon Marvin Davis in February 2005 for—according to the folks at Blockshopper—$39,352,500.
The L.A. County Tax Man shows Mister and Missus Smidt—who spent years and Lord only knowns how many millions on a soup-to-nuts renovation that reportedly changed the original 25,000-plus square foot Georgian mega-mansion into an even larger white brick Regency style pile—shelled out $472,540 and eighteen cents in property taxes in 2010.
The Knoll, one of Los Angeles' most illustrious homes was originally built in the 1950s for Lucy Doheny Batson—the wealthy widow of oil heir Ned Doheny—and was later owned by Italian-born movie producer Dino De Laurentiis who sold it to country music king Kenny Rogers in 1980 for $14,500,000. It was Mister Rogers who sold The Knoll to Marvin and Barbara Davis in 1984 for $20,250,000.
Mister and Missus Smidt also maintain an ocean front residence a few doors down for Pierce Brosnan on Malibu's quickly disappearing Broad Beach that they snatched up in early 2003 for $14,950,000.
Now children, keep in mind that at this poing this is all just just high-priced real estate rumor and gossip; We're just passing along a tidbit we heard from someone who plays in the same sandbox as all the Platinum Triangle real estate big mommas and mack-daddies. We wouldn't bet money on it but for all Your Mama really knows Mister and Missus Smidt plan to keep their Bev Park property to house their domestic staff.
aerial photo: Google
Jude Law Lists in London's Maida Vale
LOCATION: London (Maida Vaile), U.K.
PRICE: £4,350,000
SIZE: 4-5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms*
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: About two years ago, two-time Oscar nominated British actor Jude Law and his on-again/off-again/on-again gal-pal Siena Miller picked up a £7-plus million property in North London's hoity-toity and star-studded Highgate neighborhood.
We don't know when or if Mister Law (and Miss Miller) moved into their big new house in Highgate where some of the neighboring residences are owned by folks like supermodel Kate Moss, actor Clive Owens, pop star George Michael and veteran rock star Sting and wife Trudy Styler but thanks to an English informant we'll call Bree Tish we've learned that Mister Law has listed his four-floor, Grade II listed Georgian style house on the border between London's natty Maida Vale nabe and the even more posh St. John's Wood 'hood.
Online listings forwarded by Miss Tish show the asking price set at £4,350,000. A few quick clicks on Your Mama's trusty currency conversion contraption shows that equals $6,869,910 (U.S.) at today's rates.
According to Miss Tish, Mister Law's walled and gated residence sits on a very busy thoroughfare across from a high-rise social housing complex. Not the most elegant location but as anyone who'se ever lived in a major metropolitan area, urban living sometimes pushes the privileged up against the less financially fortunate.
Anyhoo, a good-sized gated and graveled motor court with what appears to be a single car garage in front provides enviably generous off-street parking and the rear garden extends a unusually deep 144-feet.
Listing information indicates the raised main floor contains an entrance hall with powder pooper and a double reception room, both filled with all sorts of interesting unusual objects like an over-sized Pez dispenser, an under-sized Foosball machine, a classic Eames lounger, lots of artwork both on the walls and leaning against the walls and scores of books stacked on just about every flat surface. The children will note that the decidedly eclectic decorative chaos is cleverly balanced by matching circular mirrors mounted above the simple fireboxes that anchor the outer wall of each room.
As best as Your Mama can tell from listing information, the partially subterranean lower ground floor contains a guest/staff bedroom, utility rooms, a family room with blood red walls and an all-glass garden view conservatory-style dining room furnished a giant farmhouse table. Also on the lower ground floor—we think—is a U-shaped kitchen with a country house meets city living vibe that's expensively outfitted with slate tile floors, crisp white Shaker style cabinetry, gleaming black granite counter tops, a white porcelain farmhouse style sink and high-grade stainless steel appliances. Regrettably the cabinets stop just shy of the ceiling, a ugly situation that creates a hard-to clean space ripe for growing buffalo sized dust bunnies.
Marketing materials and listing photographs suggest there are two guest/family bedrooms that share a bathroom/shower room plus a master suite with attached dressing room and en suite facility. It's not the low ceilings or the deep burgundy-colored walls in the master bedroom that make Your Mama most squeamish but rather all that stuff tucked up under the bed. If there's anything we loathe more than a lethal-looking pot rack in the kitchen it's a bunch of visible shit shoved up underneath a bed.
The affluent and centrally located Maida Vale neighborhood has long attracted high-profile Showbizzers. Some of the past and present residents with recognizable names include actor Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Victoria Secret bra and panty model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, wacky Icelandic singer Björk, brilliant comedienne Jennifer Saunders, The Cure's lipstick wearing front man Robert Smith and iconic actor John Inman.
*We're not 100% sure the actual count is four-to-five bedrooms and three-point-five bathrooms. We've come up with that number based on a careful parse of somewhat vague online marketing materials which aren't—as it turns our—terribly specific abotu such things.
listing photos: Ian Green Residential
