Archive for 2013-07-07
Jessica Alba Buys Bare Land in The BHPO
LOCATION: Beverly Hills (Post Office), CA
PRICE: $2,000,000
SIZE: 12.96 acres (give or take)
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was recently brought to Your Mama's attention by a nameless real estate birdie that back in March (2013) entrepreneurial (action flick-y) actress Jessica Alba* and her neophyte producer husband, Cash Warren, quietly acquired an undeveloped, 13-ish acre residential parcel on a hillside near Franklin Canyon in an area of the 90210 zip code known as The Beverly Hills Post Office (BHPO).
The "Post Office" designation indicates the property bears a world renown 90210 zip code but—and this is an important but for a lot of people, mostly those who can afford to shack up in the 90210—residents of the "Post Office" make use of emergency services provided by the city of Los Angeles rather than those of the city of Beverly Hills. Your Mama knows some people who believe a person could bleed out on the floor of their custom fitted dressing room from a paper cut before the L.A.P.D., would bother to show up to a 911 call. Of course, Your Mama don't know an iPhone from an I-talian so we really can't say whether that's an accurate assessment of the emergency response situation in Los Angeles; We're just saying there are some heated opinions on the matter amongst a certain subset of wealthy, 90210-dwelling Angelenos, not to mention a whole bunch of less affluent busy body real estate fanatics who don't live anywhere near the 90210. Anyhoo...
Property records and other online resources show the scrubby, irregularly shaped patch of hills, dales and steep slopes was purchased for exactly $2,000,000 via a trust that Your Mama can easily link to two other properties in Los Angeles known to be owned by Miz Alba and/or Mister Warren.
We haven't a clue what the Alba-Warrens have (or don't have) planned for the BHPO property but listing details from the time of the sale indicate there were "tentative" development plans available for the reasonably secluded site that is just minutes (by car) from downtown Beverly Hills and offers both "verdant vistas" and easy access to the Franklin Canyon hiking trails.**
In addition to their newly acquired land holding, the Alba-Warrens also own a smaller house—also in the BHPO—that Miz Alba acquired back in 2002 for $1,100,000. That house, the children may recall, was up for lease back in 2010 at $8,950 per month. The Alba-Warren family's current residence, located on the very same BHPO canyon road as the big lot they just bought, was purchased as per property records in early 2008 for just a bit more than four million bucks. They gave the approximately 4,700 square foot house a significant, eco-oriented make that was photographed for and featured on the digital shelter publication Domaine.
*In addition to her various Showbiz related endeavors, Miz Alba also founded a company that—in a nutshell—develops and hawks eco-oriented products for eco-minded parents.
**The "tentative" plans mentioned in listing information may or may not have a damn thing to do with the grandiose estate depicted in a rendering included with publicly available online listings but, even if they did, it seems quite unlikely to Your Mama that a green life espousing actor lady like Miz Alba would choose to build and inhabit a resource hoovering estate of the magnitude and folly as shown in the rendering. No? Yes?
listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International
UPDATE: Burt Sugarman and Mary Hart
Back in mid-January (2013), some of y'all may recall, Your Mama passed along the unconfirmed real estate rumor that pioneering entertainment news reporter Mary Hart and her film and television producer husband, Burt Sugarman, had quietly floated their large and low-slung longtime residence in the chic and trendy Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills (CA) as a pocket listing with a price tag in the $37-39 million range. Remember that?
Well, dontcha know that two times already this morning Your Mama has heard word—first from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air and later from a plugged in real estate whistle blower we call Charlie Chitchatter—that the Sugarman-Harts managed to quietly unload their (possibly Cliff May-designed) Trousdale Estates mansion for just over $30 million?*
The walled and gated property was not available on the open market so we don't have access to any publicly available digital marketing materials but various resources accessible via the World Wide Web do indicate the sprawling single story residence encompasses more than 11,500 square feet and sits on 2.2 acres with a large flat building pad and knee buckling city views that—on a clear day—stretch all the way to downtown Long Beach and the Pacific Ocean. The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the existing residence has six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, three fireplaces, and covered parking for up to five cars but, of course, Your Mama don't know a pussy cat from a boll weevil so we really can't vouch for the veracity of the government's numbers.
Property records we peeped do reflect a transfer of ownership in the last few days but at this point Your Mama is unable to accurately identify the new owner of the Sugarman-Hart residence. One of our snitchy sources told us there was some unconfirmed chatter amongst the elites of the Platinum Triangle real estate game that the buyer was Nick and/or Christian Candy, the much ballyhooed British developers of billionaire-style properties. That sorta made sense since everybody in the upper echelons of the L.A. real estate game knows the elder Candy brother, Nick, and his Australian actress wife, Holly, have waged an exhaustive hunt for an appropriate West Coast abode over the last several or more months. Indeed, in early April (2013), the flash and fast-talking developer was reported in The New York Times to be in negotiations for "a two acre estate asking $40 million."
However, hunties, Charlie Chitchatter said he's heard from numerous sources that the buyer of the Sugarman-Hart residence is a straight up a sick rich Saudi and, in fact, property records show the mysteriously named corporate entity that acquired the property for an as yet unrevealed sum (that may or may not be around $32 million) links back to the Century City (CA) offices of and U.S. based international law office that specializes in the needs of Middle Easterners. Make of that connection what you will. Anyhoo...
Whether a Brit or a Saudi or some other jet setting foreigner with seemingly limitless wads of disposable income, the new owner of the Sugarman-Hart home joins a couple of other high profile home owners on the curved cul-de-sac high above West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. In April 2010 eyewear tycoon Jim Jannard shelled out $19,900,000 for a crab-shaped 1960s contemporary immediately next door to the Sugarman-Harts that had been re-worked by master architect Hal Leavitt in the 1980s. Published reports said Mister Jannard acquired the property for use as some sort of guest house for business associates but he's since knocked the mid-century modern beotch down to make way for something brand spanking new and—if we had to guess—probably much larger.
In October of 201, televised talent competition mega-mogul Simon Cowell coughed up $15,500,000 for a thrilling if slightly time-worn mid-century modern a few doors up the hill from the Sugaman-Harts. More recently, in April 2013, a corporation connected to B-movie producer Sergei Bespalov plunked down $13,250,000 for a recently renovated contemporary on just over half an acre. **
These are all big and impressive sales numbers. They are nowhere near, however, the extraordinary—not to mention attention grabbing—$30+ million we heard Mister Sugarman and Miz Hart nabbed for their Trousdale aerie that will, no doubt, be substantially altered by the new owner because, well, that's just what the world's super rich do nowadays. They spend $30 million to buy a house and another 10 or 12 million to rework it into a better representation of their real estate fantasies. Stay tuned...
*Your Mama actually heard the Sugarman-Hart house closed in the last few days and went for $32 million (or so). However, property records do not yet show a sale price. That means, butter beans, the $32 million figure is just some high grade real estate rumor and gossip, at least until it's reported—sans credit, natch—in one of the more respectable property gossip columns.
**For the record, we have no idea if Mister Bespalov is the owner of the referenced home that was recently purchased for $13.25 million. We only know that a search of the company that technically owns the home is somehow linked to Mister Bespalov. Make of that what you will.
Well, dontcha know that two times already this morning Your Mama has heard word—first from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air and later from a plugged in real estate whistle blower we call Charlie Chitchatter—that the Sugarman-Harts managed to quietly unload their (possibly Cliff May-designed) Trousdale Estates mansion for just over $30 million?*
The walled and gated property was not available on the open market so we don't have access to any publicly available digital marketing materials but various resources accessible via the World Wide Web do indicate the sprawling single story residence encompasses more than 11,500 square feet and sits on 2.2 acres with a large flat building pad and knee buckling city views that—on a clear day—stretch all the way to downtown Long Beach and the Pacific Ocean. The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the existing residence has six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, three fireplaces, and covered parking for up to five cars but, of course, Your Mama don't know a pussy cat from a boll weevil so we really can't vouch for the veracity of the government's numbers.
Property records we peeped do reflect a transfer of ownership in the last few days but at this point Your Mama is unable to accurately identify the new owner of the Sugarman-Hart residence. One of our snitchy sources told us there was some unconfirmed chatter amongst the elites of the Platinum Triangle real estate game that the buyer was Nick and/or Christian Candy, the much ballyhooed British developers of billionaire-style properties. That sorta made sense since everybody in the upper echelons of the L.A. real estate game knows the elder Candy brother, Nick, and his Australian actress wife, Holly, have waged an exhaustive hunt for an appropriate West Coast abode over the last several or more months. Indeed, in early April (2013), the flash and fast-talking developer was reported in The New York Times to be in negotiations for "a two acre estate asking $40 million."
However, hunties, Charlie Chitchatter said he's heard from numerous sources that the buyer of the Sugarman-Hart residence is a straight up a sick rich Saudi and, in fact, property records show the mysteriously named corporate entity that acquired the property for an as yet unrevealed sum (that may or may not be around $32 million) links back to the Century City (CA) offices of and U.S. based international law office that specializes in the needs of Middle Easterners. Make of that connection what you will. Anyhoo...
Whether a Brit or a Saudi or some other jet setting foreigner with seemingly limitless wads of disposable income, the new owner of the Sugarman-Hart home joins a couple of other high profile home owners on the curved cul-de-sac high above West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. In April 2010 eyewear tycoon Jim Jannard shelled out $19,900,000 for a crab-shaped 1960s contemporary immediately next door to the Sugarman-Harts that had been re-worked by master architect Hal Leavitt in the 1980s. Published reports said Mister Jannard acquired the property for use as some sort of guest house for business associates but he's since knocked the mid-century modern beotch down to make way for something brand spanking new and—if we had to guess—probably much larger.
In October of 201, televised talent competition mega-mogul Simon Cowell coughed up $15,500,000 for a thrilling if slightly time-worn mid-century modern a few doors up the hill from the Sugaman-Harts. More recently, in April 2013, a corporation connected to B-movie producer Sergei Bespalov plunked down $13,250,000 for a recently renovated contemporary on just over half an acre. **
These are all big and impressive sales numbers. They are nowhere near, however, the extraordinary—not to mention attention grabbing—$30+ million we heard Mister Sugarman and Miz Hart nabbed for their Trousdale aerie that will, no doubt, be substantially altered by the new owner because, well, that's just what the world's super rich do nowadays. They spend $30 million to buy a house and another 10 or 12 million to rework it into a better representation of their real estate fantasies. Stay tuned...
*Your Mama actually heard the Sugarman-Hart house closed in the last few days and went for $32 million (or so). However, property records do not yet show a sale price. That means, butter beans, the $32 million figure is just some high grade real estate rumor and gossip, at least until it's reported—sans credit, natch—in one of the more respectable property gossip columns.
**For the record, we have no idea if Mister Bespalov is the owner of the referenced home that was recently purchased for $13.25 million. We only know that a search of the company that technically owns the home is somehow linked to Mister Bespalov. Make of that what you will.
Megan Ellison Shakes Up Real Estate Portfolio
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $15,500,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A week or so before Your Mama left for a wee summer vacay in a semi-remote region of the Forty-Ninth State, we (dissed) and discussed the quirky New York City pied-a-terre recently picked up for $2.8 million by 27-year old high-tech heiress turned increasingly powerful indie film producer Megan Ellison. She, in case you somehow didn't know, would be trophy property collecting gazillionaire Larry Ellison's daughter. That explains, of course, how it is the ever-so-young but already Oscar-nominated young lady can maintain a residential real estate portfolio worth well in excess of $35 million.
Her purchase of a $2.8 million one bedroom bedsit in downtown Manhattan's perennially chic Police Building is hardly, however, Miss Ellison's only recent spin on the fast-paced upper end real estate merry-go-round. Like her father, Miss Ellison nurses a well-exercised penchant for the procurement of prodigiously pricey properties in desirable locales. In addition to her new digs in The Big Apple Miss Ellison owns three contiguous and uniformly contemporary residences perched near the edge of a vertiginous bluff high above the Sunset Strip in an area known by L.A. savvy real estate-o-philes as The Birds.*
The first Bird Street nest Miss Ellison bought and feathered, a sensationally sleek Steve Hermann-designed domicile, was acquired in February 2008 for $12.6 million and she unexpectedly picked up the glassy, also-Steve Hermann-designed abode next door in April 2009 for $6.25 million from media mogul Byron Allen. Even more surprisingly, in early 2011, the neophyte compound creator coughed up a back stiffening $13.8 million for the newly constructed mini-compound next door to the second one—the one she bought from Byron Allen—for $13.8 million. Her total outlay for the three contiguous cribs in The Birds? Nearly $33 million dollars, according to Your Mama's bejeweled abacus.
It seems, however, that three is more than enough for Miss Ellison who last April (2012) briefly made her first Bird Street acquisition available on the open market for an unknown price. The boxy but sexy residence was on the open market a scant four weeks but, as was pointed out to Your Mama by tipster Paulina Pointsitout, still appears on the listing agent's internet portal. The property does not, however and as far as we can tell, show up as an active listing on the Multiple Listing Service or any of the other two listing aggregators Your Mama briefly consulted.
Whatever the case, current digital listing details show the three bedroom and four bathroom residence carries a hefty asking price of $15,500,000. Listing details do not state the square footage but the L.A. County Tax Man puts it at 3,065 square feet. That seems to Your Mama a little small given the scale of the house as seen in listing photographs but, of course, what do we know? Nuthin', that's what. Listing details go on to explain that there are soaring 13-foot ceilings, custom Poliform kitchen and closets, whole house audio and security systems, and "outrageous views" through vast expanses of floor to ceiling windows, some of which telescope and disappear into the walls.
Other notable creature comforts and luxury amenities called out in listing details include an eight-foot wide gallery hallway, a warehouse-sized open-concept main living area with knee buckling city views, a state-of-the-art 20 seat home theater, and an interior courtyard with swimming pool and spa.
What's interesting, at least to a snarky property gossip like Your Mama, is that the publicly online marketing materials seem to make use of the exact same listing images as when Miss Ellison acquired the property residence back in 2008. Funny that, no?
Anyhoodles, poodles, as it turns out, this isn't the only multi-million dollar Sunset Strip house Miss Ellison has up for sale. A bit higher up in The Birds, at the tail end of an L-shaped cul-de-sac, Miss Ellison owns a low-profile ranch-style residence she quietly acquired in December for $1,800,000. This was, it would seem to the innocent bystander like Your Mama, a short term investment that Miss Ellison subjected to a contemporarizing gut renovation and flipped back on the market in November 2012 for $3,750,000. The price was later reduced—twice, actually—down to its current $2,990,000 price tag. The property, as per public listings, is currently in escrow—and has been since early April 2013—for an unknown price with an unknown buyer.
*All the streets in The Birds are named after birds. Get it? Robin, Thrasher, Warbler, and so on and so forth.
listing photos (Nightingale): Westside Estate Agency
listing photos (Swallow): Keller Williams Beverly Hills
Dean Cain Does It Again in the Roaring Fork Valley
LOCATION: Basalt, CO
PRICE: $5,900,000
SIZE: 4,399 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms.
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen, children, Your Mama is fresh out of the Alaskan bush where we were blissfully removed from the digital world for five liquor and laughter fueled days at a semi-remote and decidedly rustic lakeside cabin—we're talking a no-frills one-room, no indoor plumbing situation—owned and generously loaned by a couple of our dear Alaska-living amiga Sheila Sinn's dear friends (and dog sitters).
We are, y'all can be sure, tired as a post-Iditarod musher dog, dirty as the never been properly vacuumed carpeting in, well, a rustic and semi-remote one-room cabin in the Alaskan bush, and currently marooned in the Seattle airport on a frightfully lengthy layover. Rather than whittle the time away with a couple or several gin & tonics, we figured it was best for everybody if we immediately jump back in the celebrity real estate saddle. A quick sift through our forbiddingly long list of unread emails turned up a number of celebrity real estate tidbits, most of which have been covered by other property gossips during our absence. However, thanks to a nice lady we'll call Teri Ahkee, Your Mama has come to learn that beaver busy B-list film and television actor Dean Cain has recently (re-)listed his 35 acre ranch in Basalt, CO with an asking price of $5,900,000.
Mister Cain's fame peaked, some will argue, back in the mid 1990s when he shook his hard bodied money maker as Clark Kent in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Since then his roles may have been, uhm, a little bit more lower profile but, according to his resume on the Internet Movie Data Base, he's worked consistently with dozens of roles in movies and television programs, most of which Your Mama has neither seen nor heard of (Flight of Fancy, The Division, Clubhouse, Hope & Faith). More recently Mister Cain's popped up on the t.v. programs Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 and Hit the Floor, and he has nearly a dozen projects in the works including a sci-fi thriller with Hollywood veteran Malcolm McDowell (Mind's Eye), a horror film (The Appearing), and several holiday-themed comedies (A Dog For Christmas, Defending Santa, Holiday Miracle).
According to information we easily turned up on the interweb, this is not—by a long shot—the first time Mister Cain has tried to ride this particular real estate pony. In fact, the poor thing has had his Rocky Mountain spread—listing details describe it as a "Gentlemans [sic] Ranch" about 30 minutes from Aspen and minutes from Willits Town Center—on and off the open market since at least July 2011 when it popped up for sale with an in-hindsight optimistic asking price of $9,500,000.
Property records show Mister Cain purchased the 35 acre property in 1997 for $725,000. It's not clear—or, at least, it's not known to Your Mama—if the property contained any residential or ranch structures at the time. Listing information does indicate that the existing residence was custom built in 2002 as a recreational pavilion/guest house to an as yet un-built main house. Listing details indicate that "Plans are in place for a main home" of unknown size or style.
While it may have been designed and built as a guest house/recreation pavilion, the existing residence has all the features and amenities of a high-end Rocky Mountain mini-manse. Listing information shows there are five bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in 4,399 square feet of luxury interior space finished with the exact sorts of (predictably) rugged materials—stone, rough-hewn tree trunks and the like—that Your Mama expects to find in multi-million dollar, celeb-owned homes in and around the star-studded and profoundly pricey community of Aspen (CO).
Listing details are somewhat slim as to the home's specific features but photographs show a double height living room with an imposing river rock fireplace and what may or may not be heart pine floors. As they are in many frontier areas of The West (and elsewhere), the antlers hung above the room-wide picture windows are de rigueur as day-core in this part of the world. There are also double height ceilings in the expensively equipped, open-concept kitchen area where a light fixture hung from thick, log rafters inexplicably does double duty as a pot rack. Lowerd have mercy, children. If there's anything worse to Your Mama than a goddamn pot rack, it's a pot rack that lights up. Heavens to Betsy. Maybe we will have a mid-morning booze bomb, after all. Anyways...There's also a large office and an attached four car garage, as per listing details.
The scenic property includes a hay meadow and irrigated horse pasture plus, a small stable and riding ring, a fishing pond, and, perhaps most desirable to outdoorsy sorts, a quarter mile of private fly fishing on a gentle bend of the rushing Roaring Fork River that bisects the ranch.
Mister Cain also owns a 3,302 square foot, single story suburban style ranch house with a superbly sweeping ocean view in Malibu, CA that property records show was purchased in October 2004 for $2,590,000. The house, in case any of y'all might be innerested, happens to be located in the very same residential enclave where actress Shannen Doherty owns a house. In the early Aughts there were reports in the European media that were picked up by a number of Dean Cain oriented discussion groups that Mister Cain scooped up a five bedroom villa on the island of Ibiza—that's off the coast of Spain, punkins—from high society portrait artist Birgitte Knaus. Alas, butter beans, we know zip, zilch, and nada about whether the reports were true and/or if Mister Cain still maintains the Balearic Islands abode. Do you?
listing photos: Mason Morse Real Estate
