SELL BUY PROPERTY

SELLERS: Michaela McManus and Mike Daniels
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $849,000
SIZE: 1,315 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Every now and then Your Mama unexpectedly comes across a humbly-sized house in Los Angeles that, as it turns out, is owned by a celebrity, a demi-celebrity, or a "celebrity." Such was the case this week when we stumbled upon a colorful and stylishly quirky 1930s bungalow in L.A.'s hip and trendy Los Feliz area that popped up for sale this week with an $849,000 asking price and is owned, as per property records, by up-and-coming actress Michaela McManus and her up-and-coming writer/producer hubby Mike Daniels.

Miz McManus and Mister Daniels—married in July 2011—aren't Tinseltown superstars in the vein of, say, Tom Cruise or Jennifer Aniston but over the last four or five years they've steadily climbed the often treacherous and sometimes soul crushing Showbiz ladder of fame. Miz McManus has had substantial roles in a handful of top-rated prime time shows including One Tree Hill, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and The Vampire Diaries. She currently shakes her well-formed money maker on a recently picked up program called The Last Ship, a post-apocalypse type drama with Adam Baldwin and Eric Dane. Mister Daniels' short list of high-profile credits include One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries, Pan Am, and the acclaimed dark drama Sons of Anarchy.

Property records show the couple purchased the petite pad in July 2010 for $780,000. Current listing details show the dark taupe stucco residence, conveniently located a few blocks off the Vermont and Hillcrest Avenue shopping and dining districts, was built in 1937 and has just two bedrooms in an apartment-sized 1,315 square feet. Charming if not exactly luxurious as this itty bitty bungalow may be with just one bathroom it is clearly not an acceptable situation for a couple of any persuasion who prefer to steer clear of each others toileting habits and issues.

Online marketing materials show the current owners—that would be Miz McManus and Mister Daniels—made numerous updates and improvements over the last three years. The kitchen underwent an cosmetic face lift, including new paint, new hardware and—we regret to inform—a new pot rack hung in front of the window.* A quick comparison to listing photos from the time the couple purchased the property suggests the pint-sized old bathtub appears to Your Mama to still be in residence in the lone bathroom that was otherwise done over just about soup to nuts with new plumbing, electric and tile work. The chimney was entirely overhauled, according to listing information, and the salt water swimming pool heater was replaced with one described as "high end."

A high hedge partially obscures the view from the sidewalk up to the compact covered porch where a baby blue door opens into a puny but proper entry hall. The children will note that Mister Daniels and Miz McManus have, Martha Stewart-like, stenciled the word "hello" over the doorway between the foyer and the living room. It's a bit too cute for Your Mama's particular decorative palette but it's, you know, cute. Medium brown hardwood floors and white-white walls highlight the vaulted ceiling, glossy black fireplace surround and provide a neutral backdrop for the mid century modern-edged mash up of clean lined contemporary and visibly worn vintage furnishings.

The next door dining room isn't particularly large but it certainly packs a giant visual wallop with an over-scaled, in-your-face mustard and ivory colored flower pattern wallpaper set off against gun metal gray walls. The graphic fantasia continues with a dark blue and white, diamond pattern rug and, on either side of the doorway to the kitchen, dozens of framed snapshots hung in a fetchingly cacophonous salon style. Based on intel harvested from a quick spin through Mister Daniels' Twitter Your Mama guesses the sextet of spindle-back chairs were more than likely hand-crafted by fifth generation furniture maker Geoffrey Keating and—in all seriousness—we covet them like no body's bizness. Those, children, are timeless heirlooms in the making. Anyways...

Beyond the dining room, the updated (could be an eat-in) kitchen has boring beige tile floors, crisp white cabinetry, common flecked gray granite counter tops, medium grade stainless steel appliances, and that aforementioned pot rack. The children will note the adjoining but separate laundry room, an out and out luxury in a house of this size.

There's only one bathroom between the two bedrooms so we're not sure how exactly one decides which to utilize as the master bedroom. One bedroom—the one used by Mister Daniels and Miz McManus as their master—has windows on two walls for breezy cross ventilation and paned glass door that connects to the spacious deck that runs along the back of the house. The second bedroom doesn't appear to be any larger than the master but it also has direct access the backyard plus a separate study/office nook. The only bathroom has vintage style tiles on the floor and gray-grouted subway tile behind the single-sink vanity, around the tub, and in the separate glassed-in shower stall.

The super-sized deck at the back of the house—accessible from both bedrooms as well as through the laundry room—gives way to a narrow strip of lawn anchored on either end by (what may or may not be) a couple of fruit trees. A slightly elevated concrete plinth pretty much stretches the full width of the lot with a small sunbathing terrace, a plunge-sized swimming pool with an inset spa.

Listing details indicate there is about 1,000 square feet of dry, concrete lined storage space beneath the house where there is also a street-facing two car garage.

Your Mama has no inside intel on where Miz McManus and Mister Daniels might move once they sell their bantam bungalow in Los Feliz but we'd fall over with flabbergast if they didn't decamp to a bigger and more expensive residence that's more reflective of their rising success.

*All the children know that Rule #7 in Your Mama's Big Book of Decoratin' Do's and Don'ts vehemently declares—and we paraphrase—that pot racks are entirely undesirable kitchen accoutrement due to their gleeful dust collection, propensity to snag and grab teased up weaves, and their occasional malicious intent to drop a copper pot on an unsuspecting pooch's tender cranium. In the case of pot racks, anyways, Your Mama whole heartedly agrees with former first lady Nancy Reagan and urges each and every one of the children to "Just Say No!"

listing photos: Val Riolo for Keller Williams

BUYER: Oprah Winfrey
LOCATION: Nashville, TN
PRICE: $299,0900
SIZE: 3,045 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama heard word from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that, last November (2012), epically powerful cross-platform media maven Oprah Winfrey—through a trust every property gossip on the globe understands to be linked to her—quietly coughed up $299,900 for a well-maintained if perfectly ordinary suburban home in a well-kept if architecturally homogenous development about 7.5 miles from miles northwest of The Main Library in downtown Nashville, TN.

No, puppies, Miz Winfrey did not buy this ho-hum house for herself. At least Your Mama can't fathom she purchased it for herself because this place is a little—uh—middle class compared to how Miz Winfrey rolls when it comes to her personal residences.

The self-made multi-billionaire may have come from severely restricted economic circumstances but, as anybody who's ever picked up a gossip glossy knows, nowadays the lady lives as high on the hog as a person can live. She is, to be sure, a real estate baller of the highest order and she most certainly lives in a money-is-no-object manner commensurate with her nearly three billion dollar-plus fortune. (More about her major real estate holdings in minute.)

Your Mama don't know a camel from a canoe, of course, but we have to presume Miz Winfrey purchased the suburban property for a friend, a staff worker or, most likely, a relative. It could be for her father, long time Nashville resident Vernon Winfrey, or it might just be for Vernon's soon-to-be ex-wife Barbara Winfrey, the two of whom have been engaged in a messy and public divorce that involves scandalous allegations infidelity and attempted murder.

Whatever the case, Miz Winfrey's fat property portfolio now includes a fairly modest house in Northwest Nashville that listing details Your Mama scared up out of the interweb show was built in 2006 on a .27 acre lot that backs up to an undeveloped forested open space. The 3,054 square foot brick-built two-story—uh—transitional-style** residence has four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms according to marketing materials.

A pair of arches separate the central foyer and stair hall from the intimately scaled "formal" dining room. Both the dining room and the foyer open to a living room at the back of the house that has wood floors and a (gas) fireplace surmounted by a flat-screen t.v. and flanked by built-in book cases. Either French or sliding doors—we're not sure which—allow for direct access to the backyard from the living room. The tile floored eat-in kitchen with step-in pantry adjoins the living room and is outfitted with hickory (or hickory-toned) raised panel cabinets, black granite counter tops, and medium grade stainless steel appliances.

The main floor master suite opens directly off the living room and includes a 22-foot long bedroom with a wide bay window, a high tray ceiling, and wall-to-wall carpeting the color of wet sand. The attached bathroom has more raised panel cabinetry topped with some sort of inexpensive looking solid surface material, two sinks, a make-up vanity, and a separate tub and stall shower. In addition to the two upstairs bedrooms that share a single hall bath, there's a decent size den/lounge on the upper floor with angled ceiling, wall to wall carpeting, and a Palladian-esque window.

The backyard isn't particularly big and it lacks any landscaping besides an essentially flat lawn. Although it's private at the rear as it backs up to a dense forested space, the backyard lacks any privacy from the sides where the iron fence shown in listing photos might keep Fido from escaping but it certainly won't stop the neighbors from gawking when The Big O swings by for some sweet tea on the patio.

Miz Winfrey has owned a slew of luxury properties from coast to coast and in many places in between but her primary residential real estate holdings currently include a multi-unit duplex penthouse atop Water Tower Place in Chicago (IL), a 23,000+ square foot mansion on 40+ landscaped acres in Montecito (CA), and a large and growing swathe of farmland near Kula in on the Hawaiian island of Maui.***, ****

By our last calculation of Miz Winfrey's Hawaiian holdings—in June 2012—she then owned more than thirty separate (and not all contiguous) rural parcels that combined encompass nearly 800 acres. She'd shelled out, according to property records and Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, well over $40 million and perhaps as much as sixty million for her sprawling Hawaiian hideaway that has more houses and farm buildings than Your Mama has fingers and toes.

Your Mama can't confirm it but late last year (2012) we heard word from a usually quite reliable source who snitched that Miz Winfrey (allegedly) dropped eight figures on a macmansion sized pied a terre apartment at the high-fallutin' Montage hotel and residences in downtown Beverly Hills, the same exclusive complex where East Coast-based Judge Judy Sheindlin recently dropped $11.7 million for a posh pied a terre of her own.

*There are multiple reports on the internets that Papa and Step Momma Winfrey's LaurelBrooke home was sold but none o' the property record databases Your Mama peeped yet reflect a recent transfer of ownership. Make of that what you will.

**We use the vague term "transitional-style" to describe an otherwise undistinguished and/or indistinguishable architectural vernacular.

***Miz Winfrey recently did a photo shoot—for her essentially eponymous lifestyle magazine O, natch—on her working Hawaiian farm. For one of the photos she donned a wide-brimmed straw hat and pushed a wheelbarrow laden with luscious, leafy greens. Your Mama laughed a day over that nonsense. How often, hunties, do we think Miz Winfrey actually pushes around a damn wheelbarrow laden with a whole bunch of leafy greens? Pleeze.

****Back in 2006 Miz Winfrey had the O photographers over to Hawaii to snap perfectly posed pictures of one of the many residences on the farm for the Summer 2006 issue.

listing photos: Realty Trust Residential

SELLER: Jim Carrey
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $13,400,000
SIZE: 2,866 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In June 2011 face-pulling comedian and actor Jim Carrey put his ocean front home in Malibu's guard-gated Colony enclave up for sale on the open market with an asking price of $18,000,000.*  The modestly sized residence was de- and re-listed at least three times before it was taken off the market in late 2011.

Your Mama (dissed and) discussed the five bedroom and 5.5 bathroom beach house back in June 2012 when returned to the open market with a significantly lower asking price of $13,950,000. In December (2012) the house was once again de-listed but none-the-less—we first heard from Yolanda Yakketyyak—it remained quietly available and property records reveal it quietly changed hands in late April (2013) for $13,400,000. The buyer's identity remains hidden behind a generically named limited liability corporation.

Property records show Mister Carrey purchased the property in October 2002 for $9,750,000.

Since the mid-1990s Mister Carrey's main residence has been a sprawling, solar-equipped multi-wing ranch residence with five bedrooms and nine bathrooms in 8,029 square feet on two park-like parcels that encompass more than two gated and high-hedged acres on one of Brentwood's better streets. In addition to the main house there's a substantial guest house between the swimming pool and the tennis court. Your Mama's research shows Mister Carrey acquired the first piece of his Brentwood bedsit in July 1994 for $3,800,000 and bought the adjacent vacant parcel in early 2000 for $1,700,000.

Of course Your Mama don't know a spelling bee from a hog trot so we don't know what Mister Carrey's future real estate plans may be. However, the West Coast-based comedian has been on a long and well-documented search for a New York City residence and he seems to be smitten with very contemporary urban spaces. Several years ago Mister Carrey shelled out a pretty penny to lease an fishbowl-like apartment at the glassy, Richard Meier-designed tower at 176 Perry Street where—so the scuttlebutt goes—unsuccessfully attempted to purchase a full floor spread that was not listed on the open market.

Back in October 2011 there were scads of reports that Mister Carrey visited a three bedroom, 2.5 bathroom, and two terrace duplex penthouse in TriBeCa's Zinc Building, then priced at $5,950,000 and now priced at $6.1 million (down from its original price tag of $7.25 million).

A few months later the quirky Tinseltown jokester went for a much publicized look see around a 25-foot wide townhouse in the art gallery-filled Chelsea neighborhood. The six floor townhouse was originally built in 1824 but recently underwent a full-scale renovation that left with six bedrooms and six full and four half bathrooms in more than 7,000 square feet of of sleek and modern interior space that include a penthouse level solarium with a mostly glass roof and access to two terraces. At the time the townhouse was listed at $13.65 million but the price dropped precipitously to $8,999,000 before it was, a few weeks ago, put into contract with an unknown buyer for an unknown amount.

More recently—well, a year ago—Mister Carrey was reported in the New York gossip columns to have toured the idiosyncratic and much ballyhooed quadruplex penthouse pad at the Clock Tower building in Brooklyn's expensively arty-fart DUMBO** 'hood. The apartment—also toured, they say, by professional basketballer LeBron James, fashion world icon Ralph Lauren and His Hip-Hop Highness Jay-Z—has 6,813 square feet on four floors with three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, four exposures, and voluminous triple height ceiling over the dining room. It would appear Mister Carrey didn't cotton to the quirky crib since it's currently listed for $18 million.

*Listen, butter beans, Your Mama's boozy brain sort recalls it was listed for $19.5 million but we failed to find any evidence to support that on the interweb so we went with the $18 million because we found digital listings from September 2011 with that figure. Anyways...

**That stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, in case you didn't know.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

OWNERS: Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $125,000/month
SIZE: 7,237 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It has come to Your Mama's attention via a covert communique from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air (OFGBA) that Hollywood honcho Steven Spielberg has quietly put his Craftsman-style beach front compound on celebrity lined (and quickly disappearing) Broad Beach in Malibu (CA) up for lease for the 2013 summer season at $125,000 per month.*

Your Mama's brief and unscientific research on the internets indicates the three time Oscar winner (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List) acquired the larger of the two parcels that comprise the ocean front estate in October 1989 for $3,375,000. Property records show he picked up the adjacent property in April 2002 for $3,191,000. A couple of quick and rudimentary calculations on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows Mister Spielberg coughed up a total of $6,566,000 for both properties that combined encompass 1.08 acres with more than 150 feet of quickly dwindling beach frontage.**

Listing details kindly provided by OFGBA shows the main house measures 7,237 square feet with a total of seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms. There are four bedrooms on the ground floor and three more on the second floor, as per listing details, including a spacious, ocean-view master suite complete with private study/library and a massage room.  Additional living space is accommodated in a detached two bedroom guest house and a flexi-use "bonus space" that could be used as an art studio, fitness room or meditation lounge.

The main house wraps around a wind-protected courtyard with multi-level decks and a small swimming pool and spa. Other amenities, according to marketing materials, include a screening room—natch, two fireplaces (living room and master bedroom), a three car garage, and a top-flight security system.

It might seem strange that someone with pockets as deep as Mister Spielberg might choose to lease out one of his luxurious homes but it might be that he's looking to recoup some of the excessive fuel costs he'll surely incur this summer while he takes his $200 million yacht, the 282-foot long blue hulled Seven Seas, on an around the world cruise with stops in exotic locales such as Shanghai, Sri Lanka and Hawaii.***

Despite its ever-shrinking beach, Broad Beach is lined with homes owned by entertainment industry movers and shakers. The Spielberg-Capshaw beach estate is just a couple doors down from the double-lot spread owned by Pierce Brosnan and listed last summer for least at $250,000 per month. Other Showbiz homeowners on Broad Beach include Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Steve Levitan, Dustin Hoffman, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Ray Romano, Avi Arad, Jami Gertz, and Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gourmet—here they are putting their special spin on Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun.

Award show super-producer Ken Ehrlich, who bought his East Coast-y beach front Cape Cod in early 2010 from investor (and Milwaukee Brewers owner) Mark Attanasio and, as it turns out, has it up for lease at $100,000 per month for the 2013 summer season. Other big business types who maintain homes on Broad Beach include Chicago-based real estate magnate George Novogroder and tool and die tycoon—and big-time real estate baller—Eric Smidt. The late insurance mogul Burton Borman's Frank Gehry-designed domicile popped up on the open market last week with a—uh—hopeful $57,500,000 price tag.

Make no mistake, chickens, despite their low-key, of-the-people image Mister Spielberg and Miz Capshaw are red-blooded real estate baller with a fat portfolio of pricey, high-maintenance properties. In addition to their deluxe digs in Malibu their Los Angeles holdings include a 5+ acre multi-residence hillside compound on a hillside in the ritzy upper Riviera area of Pacific Palisades and an expensively equipped multi-acre equestrian facility tucked back into rustic Sullivan Canyon below Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's Pacific Palisades estate.

Mister and Missus Spielberg-Capshaw also have a solid real estate foothold on the east coast. As far as Your Mama knows—thanks to a heads up by one of the helpful children—they still own a 6,000 square foot, two unit Gwathmey Siegel-designed combo coop at the star studded San Remo building on Central Park West where other high profile residents/owners include Demi Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Donna Karan, Steve Martin, and Paul Hewson—the rock star otherwise known as the unimonikered Bono.

And finally, they maintain Quelle Farm, a nearly 10-acre Gwathmey Siegel-designed compound on Georgica Pond in East Hampton, NY, with extensive equestrian facilities. The property is close enough for the Spielberg's scullery maid to borrow sugar from Time Warner widow and philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross who recently heaved Cody House—a 5.42 acre pond-front spread on Georgica Pond—on the open market with a tongue wagging $75,000,000 asking price. Mister Spielberg also owns three vacant lots directly opposite Quelle Farm. Your Mama assumes he bought the lots in order to preserve his view. A couple years ago he donated conservation easements the three lots that come to almost 7.5 acres to the Peconic Land Trust, a tax benefitting maneuver that will protect the land from development in perpetuity.

Property records indicate that in late 2007/early 2008 the redonkulously rich couple dropped $20,000,000 on a 3.3 acre Georgica Pond fronting estate that's located on the same swanky lane as their compound but isn't contiguous. We're not sure what their long term plans for the property are but it appears to Your Mama they've already razed the early 20th century singled cottage that stood on the property when they bought it.

*listing details suggest a longer term rental may be possible.

**Since 2008 when storms damaged a number of homes in Malibu, radical and expensive measures, including a 4,100 foot long revetment and towering walls of sandbags, have been taken over the years to protect the multi-million dollar homes on Broad Beach.

***Those with the dough can charter Mister Spielberg's super-luxe yacht that comfortably accommodates 12 in seven staterooms and is staffed by two dozen crew. In 2011 the ship sized boat was available at a skin peeling $1.3 million a week. 
listing photos: The Partners Trust

SELLER: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,295,000
SIZE: 2,563 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only a few weeks ago that Your Mama let the cat out of the celebrity real estate bag about married comedic actors Anna Faris and Chris Pratt dropping $3,300,000 to acquire a three bedroom and 3.5 bathroom mock-Med mini-estate in the Hollywood Hills from Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and his actress missus Jolene Blalock.

The couple have now hoisted their previous home, a 1950s modern ranch-style home on the open market with a $2,295,000 price tag. The house is, literally, across the street from their new house so iffin they wanted they could have schlepped their belongings from old house to new house with little more than a dolly and a couple of shopping carts temporarily pinched from Bristol Farms on Sunset.

This is not, bless her real estate heart, the first time Miz Faris has attempted to sell this particular house. Back in December 2007 she and her then first husband, actor Ben Indra, listed the house for $1,995,000, the exact same amount they paid for the place in November 2005. We don't know the details of their settlement but several sources confirmed to Your mama that Miz Faris got the house in the divorce.

Whatever the case, current listing details show the 2,563 square foot single story residence sits a bit above the quiet and little-known cul-de-sac street on an up sloping, .87 acre lot in the lower Nichols Canyon area. There are three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.

A quickie comparison with the old listing photos show there have been a number cosmetic changes and at least one major alteration since Miz Faris last had the house on the market: Although the 1980s gold-veined mirror remains in place, he previously lime green and avocado-colored powder pooper was painted white—as were the previously charcoal colored kitchen cabinets—and the master bathroom was gutted.

Also markedly different is the day-core. Gone is the spare, mid-century modern dining room set and vamoosed was the low-slung sectional sofa and the burled wood and Lucite coffee table in the living room. In its stead is now the ho-hum handiwork of Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota who stripped away every last vestige of decorative personality and replaced it with the sort of things designed not to offend anyone who might be offended by outspoken decorative choices.

Instead of a proper front hall, the front door opens directly into a large living room with chatoyant hardwood floors, unfortunately low ceilings, an oddly intrusive fireplace, and wonderful floor-to-ceiling, wood-framed windows and doors that open to the swimming pool and look out to a close up view of the steep and verdant hillside behind the house.

A small, "formal" dining area adjoins the living room and connects through to a decent-sized kitchen equipped with simple, eggshell-colored cabinetry, mottled brown and black granite counter tops, and top quality stainless steel appliances. In the space where the architect probably intended a breakfast table to be set up there's a gigantic, built-in butcher block topped work island and a pantry cabinet that sadly stops just short of the ceiling and doesn't quite extend from wall to wall. Your Mama could happily live without the greenhouse window over the sink since we have an innate detestation for them.

The wood floors extend into the step-down master bedroom has that has at least one rustic wood beam that runs across the ceiling, a bank of glass doors that open to a small stone-walled terrace, and a walk-in dressing room with enclosed cabinetry. The newly renovated bathroom was outfitted with a custom double vanity and a party-sized, marble-lined and sky-lit steam shower. Both of the guest/family bedrooms also open through wood-framed sliding glass doors to small, (semi-)private patios.

Although it appears to Your Mama that a supermodel slim terrace runs along the back of the house that connects the kitchen (and bedrooms) to the swimming pool, the most direct route is through the living room. The shady-looking oasis has organic flag stone terracing, a lagoon-ish swimming pool, at least three built-in fire pits, and a whole lotta Asian-infused tropical rain forest type landscaping. A steep stairway of railroad ties zig-zags up the hillside behind the house and swimming pool to a flat pad with a Bocce court surrounded by a flag stone terracing with multiple seating areas and canyon views.

listing photos: John Aaroe Group

In 2008 Russian fertilizer plutocrat Dmitry Rybolovlev paid blowhard billionaire Donald Trump an astonishing $95,000,000 for Maison de L'Amitie, a 33,000+ square foot mega-mansion on 6.26  acres with 475 feet of ocean frontage in famously snooty Palm Beach, FL.

Since his much publicized acquisition, according to South Florida gossip Jose Lambiet, Mister Rybolovlev has been inside the meretriciously opulent convention center-sized house "once or twice" and now plans to tear it down by the end of this year because it is—so the stories go—riddled with mold.

What exactly Mister Rybolovlev plans to do seems to be up in the air. Could be he'll replace the existing residence with an even bigger monument to his extreme wealth or—as was speculated by an unidentified source in Mister Lambiet's report—he could try to subdivide the property "into as many as a dozen large beachfront lots."

It was Mister Rybolovlev—or his now 24 year old daughter, Ekaterina, depending on who you as or what you read—who in 2011 shelled out a shocking $88,000,000 for financier Sandy Weill's posh penthouse apartment at 15 Central Park West in New York City and who reportedly agreed to pay Greek shipping heiress Athina Onassis Roussell $154,000,000 for the the legendary Greek island of Skorpios and the smaller neighboring island of Sparti.

photo: Bing

After a couple years on the market pop music provocateur Christina Aguilera finally sold her extravagantly decorated and gleefully garnished Beverly Hills mansion—the one she bought from Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne in 2007 for $11.5 million—in late April (2013) for exactly $11,500,000.

The buyer of the 11,571 square foot mock-Med mansion, according to Yolanda Yakketyyak—and confirmed with property records—is 30-something year old Chinese actress Miao Pu. That name won't ring many bells for readers of western celebrity gossip glossies but in China, children, she is unequivocally Show Business royalty.

Does this mean Miss Pu wants to make a run at Hollywood fame and fortune? We shall see, won't we?

Miz Aguilera decamped to a big new crib in the guard gated Mulholland Estates community in Beverly Hills/Sherman Oaks where some of her new neighbors include Paris Hilton, Vanna White, Charlie Sheen and British pop star Robbie Williams

photo: Pacific Coast News

Last August, amid a flurry of reports by property gossips on both coasts and around the world, steel magnate Leroy Schecter wanted $95,000,000 for his not yet fully-combined two-unit combo-condo at the hideously high-priced 15 Central Park West building in New York City. He hacked the price to $85 million in early April (2013) before he took it off the market a few weeks later.

The 35th floor aerie is back on the market for $85 million but it's also, as first reported in  the New York Observer, up for grabs as a rental for a throat constricting $125,000 per month. The now combined, suburban macmansion-sized apartment has, according to the floor plan included with current online listings, 4-5 bedrooms and five full and two half bathrooms plus four park-facing rooms (living, dining, library, master bedroom), three exposures (east, south and west), two laundry rooms, and more than a dozen closets—many of them walk-ins.

Mister Schecter, a well-known real estate baller, was recently outed as the $25 million buyer of the 11,000-plus square foot Rothschild mansion on E. 70th Street. The octogenarian real estate baller also owns a train station sized water front mansion with 7 bedrooms and 14 toilets on the prestigious, guard-gated Indian Creek Island in Miami Beach that he listed in May, 2012 for $45 million and reduced in May, 2013 to a still sky-high $42 million.

floor plan: CORE

SELLERS: Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig