John and Laurie Rudey's Former Fifth Ave Spread
BUYERS: Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega and Maria de la Concepcion Legorreta de Angoitia
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $16,500,000
SIZE: 10 rooms, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A couple months ago, to global gasps and a plethora of international publicity, septuagenarian timber magnate John Rudey hoisted Copper Beech Farm, his first-rate, 50-acre water front estate in Greenwich, CT, on the market with a sensational $190,000,000 asking price. As many of the children surely saw, last week the ever-industrious kids at Curbed posted a smattering of interior photographs of the 15,000 square foot main mansion that had not previously been included with publicly available listing details and today the property gossips at The New York Times revealed that Mister and Missus Rudey have saddled Copper Beech Farm with more than a hundred million dollars in mortgages. ¡Escándalo! Or is it? You decide.
In 2010, according to The New York Times, the Rudeys had secured (at least) $203 million in loans against Copper Beech Farm. Presumably there were some payment issues because in 2011 one of their several lenders, Bank of America, initiated foreclosure proceedings. Uh-oh. The Rudeys—natch—responded by filing suit against the bank for "predatory lending practices." We don't know the exact results but the lawsuits were dropped last summer (2012), as per The New York Times, and the Rudeys appear to have restructured their debt and/or paid some of the loan(s) because they currently carry, according to The New York Times, a much less but still gargantuan sounding $120+ million in debt secured against the Connecticut estate. That's unquestionably a lot of dinero but, to be fair, at 63% of the current list price of $190 million, it's actually much less than the 80% loan to value that most people—particularly financial mortals—typically use to finance their home purchases.
A source who claims inside knowledge of the Rudeys financial/real estate arrangements snitched to the New York Times that the super-sized mortgages might have something to do with the Rudey's desire to unload Copper Beech Farm at an elephantine price. However, before you jump on that bandwagon, know the couple's seriously successful real estate agent, David Ogilvy, poo-pooed that ugly notion and told The New York Times that the Rudeys desire to sell Copper Beech Farm was—and we paraphrase—simply the sensible estate planning of a very wealthy family.
Whatever the reason—and we can all be sure their are a myriad of them—the article casually mentioned that last December Mister and Missus Rudey divested themselves of their long time residence at the venerable 1030 Fifth Avenue in New York City that carried, according to online resources, monthly maintenance fees of $10731. Your Mama thought that since we've all (probably) seen the waterside decadence of Copper Beech Farm it might be fun to have a look around the couple's elegant, art-filled and much more contemporary digs in The Big Apple that they sold, according to property records and previous reports on the sale, for $16,500,000 to Mexican-born media mogul Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega and his epically named wife, Maria de la Concepcion Legorreta de Angoitia.
We're not sure exactly when Mister and Missus Rudey acquired their now former apartment at 1030 Fifth Avenue but it had to have been before 1980 when, with the permission of the building's board and much to the chagrin of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, they replaced the apartment's original multi-pane sash windows with much more contemporary, aluminum framed single pane windows. It took years but the controversial window replacement ended up—as they always do with the very rich, kittens—in a legal kerfuffle in the late 1980s. We didn't turn up any reports of the results of the heated skirmish in our brief and incomplete research but it would seem the Rudeys prevailed because the single pane aluminum framed windows remain in place as evidenced by listing photos from the time they sold the apartment last year.
The dining room is open to the kitchen over a built-in buffet set between two tall and thin doors. The center island kitchen has a built in breakfast table, eggshell colored Shaker-style cabinetry with stone (maybe marble) counter tops, two sinks, two dishwashers, two refrigerators, and a walk-in pantry. The service areas behind the kitchen include a windowed half bath, a den/office and an unusually generous laundry room with slop sink and window.
The bedroom wing runs down the southern flank and includes a total of four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The rear most bedroom has a private bathroom plus two walk in closets and the middle two bedrooms each have a walk in closet and share a compact Jack 'n' Jill style bathroom. The perplexingly puny master bedroom also has a walk-in closet but, much to our meaningless annoyance, shares another way-too-tiny but blessedly windowed Jack 'n' Jill style bathroom with the library.
Although it may not be amongst the uppermost echelon of Fifth Avenue buildings 1030 Fifth Ave. is, none the less, a much coveted and brutally expensive address that has long attracted rich and powerful Wall Street titans, spendthrift hedge fund fat casts, and Showbiz bigwigs. In 2009, Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon reportedly had a look-see at a monstrous 9,000-ish square foot duplex with 8 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms. Owned by hedge fund queen Karen Fleiss, the suburban mansion-sized apartment originally had a sky-high $47.5 million price tag that was later hacked and slashed to $19.9 million. The duplex was eventually offered as two separate apartments and the lower half was sold in early 2010 for $8,898,000 to financier Richard Duke Buchan III. As far as Your Mama knows—and we really know so very little—Miz Fleiss and her orthopedic surgeon husband still own the upper portion of their former duplex.
Other current owners of swanky spreads at 1030 Fifth Ave. include private equity pasha Prakash Melwani who paid $27.5 million in late 2008 for his 11th floor spread, hedge fund fat cat John Griffon who paid $32.25 million for his place one floor below, also in late 2008, and money man Zachary Jared Schreiber who paid cellular communications tycoon George Blumenthal $31.5 for a sprawling 9th floor apartment in April 2012. In September 2007 Academy Award winning super-producer Wendy Finerman paid just over $10 million for a 12 room duplex and film director Mike Nichols and well-compensated broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer reportedly paid around $10 million in 2001 for the penthouse apartment that was formerly owned by Tinseltown poo-bah Robert Redford.
exterior photo: Scott Bintner for Property Shark
listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty
Julian Casablancas (of The Strokes) Sells Downtown Digs
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $1,250,000
SIZE: 1 bedrooms, 1 bathroom
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week Nick Valensi—lead guitarist for the post punk garage rock band The Strokes—and his actress turned celebrity chat show hostess wife, Amanda de Cadenet, listed their neo-Colonial crib in Studio City, CA for $1,799,000. This week word slipped down the music industry real estate gossip grapevine (via an anonymous tipster) that The Strokes' front man Julian Casablancas quietly unloaded a New York City apartment for $1,250,000.
Property records show shag-haired Mister Casablancas—the privileged, New York City born and bred issue of legendary (super)model agent John Casablancas—and his wife, Juliet—the former assistant to Mister Casablancas's manager, picked up the apartment in July 2005 for $840,000. Listing details from the time of the sale show the maintenance charges for the one bedroom and one bathroom apartment—which include the property taxes—ring up to a hefty $2,150 per month.
The bi-level apartment includes a sizable foyer with office niche and a cavernous sunken living room with wood floors underfoot, beamed 18-foot ceilings over head, and a working wood-burning fireplace. The room-wide built-in bench seat under the three arched widows that drop to the floor, stretch to the ceiling, and flood the room with natural light not only provides loads of seating for party guests but also cleverly conceals the radiators.
The wee, windowed kitchen on the apartment's upper level was renovated with marble counter tops and has a picayune breakfast nook that overlooks the living room. That breakfast nook, with horizontal wood cladding on the walls, might be a tight squeeze for anyone like Your Mama who carries around a few (too many) extra pounds but, children, in space starved lower Manhattan, an itty-bitty, skinny bitches only breakfast nook is better than none at all. The corner bedroom, not show in any of the listing photos we dug up on the interweb, has sunny south and west exposures.
Property records Your Mama peeped show the buyer of the pre-war pad is a fella named Richard Armitage who may or may not be the deep-voiced English actor whose movie credits include Robin Hood, Captain America: The First Avenger, and the currently mid-cycle Hobbit trilogy.
Other past and present residents of the much sought after, full-service Greenwich Village apartment complex include Tony- and Emmy-winning playwright Terrence McNally, Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City actor Chris Noth, and style and design mavens Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan.
A December, 2012 article in The New York Times revealed the Casablancases no longer occupied their former Greenwich Village one bedroom. We don't know shit from shinola, of course, but Your Mama's just going to assume they sought more sizable digs sometime around the time they made a baby in 2010. A quick spin through a couple of property record data bases did not, however, turn up any credible evidence when or where they might have moved.
Like Mister Casablancas, most of the other members of The Strokes live or maintain a residence in lower Manhattan: Drummer Fabrizio Moretti—Drew Barrymore's ex-man-friend and the current beau of comedienne Kristin Wiig—keeps an apartment at the American Felt Building in the East Village, the same building where Tom Cruise recently sold his long-time pied-a-terre; Last year guitarist/keyboardist Albert Hammond, Jr. paid Victoria Secret model Maryna Linchuck $1,250,000 for a loft-like 1 bedroom and 2 bathroom apartment in the same NoLiTa nabe building where, as per property records, A-list artist/fashion photographer Inez Van Lansweerde also owns an apartment; Property records also reveal that in February 2009 bass player Nikolai Fraiture shelled out $450,000 for a studio apartment in a post-war West Village building that's right next door to the one bedroom and one bathroom apartment he and his wife, Ilona, bought in March 2005 for $875,000; And finally, our admittedly very brief and entirely unscientific research indicates (but does not prove) that lead guitarist Nick Valensi and wife Amanda de Cadenet do not currently own a residence in New York City. Property records do show that in September 2011 they sold a three floor (plus basement) townhouse in Brooklyn's Park Slope 'hood for $1,315,000.
listing photos: LJB Law (via StreetEasy)
Hilary Swank Re-Lists Pac Pal Pad
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $9,450,000
SIZE: 6,722 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last fall two-time Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don't Cry) put her ocean view house in Pacific Palisades, CA on the open market with an asking price of $9,450,000. Before long the house was put into escrow with an unknown buyer for an unknown price). Within a week the 6,722 square foot Mediterranean mini-mansion had fallen out of escrow and was back on the market with the same $9,450,000 price tag. The listing expired in mid-Mary (2013) and has just today returned to the open market with the by now very familiar asking price of $9,450,000.
Property records show Miz Swank picked up the 6 bedroom and 6.5 bathroom multi-story hillside house in March 2007 for $5,800,000.
Since Your Mama has (dissed and) discussed the property previously, it will suffice for today to point out just a few of the many features of the Marc Appleton-designed digs: A lovely veranda off the spacious step-down living room with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean; a colossal center island kitchen with an adjoining dining room capable of seating 20 or more; a home theater with lobby-lounge and elevated seating; a cigar room/wine cellar with rivet accented padded leather walls; and a master bathroom with Jerusalem limestone counter tops. Exterior amenities include an open air poolside pavilion with dining area, built-in barbecue, and bathroom, an organic vegetable garden (probably maintained by someone other that Miz Swank, and a fire pit ringed by cushioned concrete benches. It probably goes without saying that the property is well and expensively equipped with state of the art security, home automation and audio-visual systems.
We have no inside intel as to Miz Swank's future real estate plans in the Los Angeles area but we've read in the celebrity gossip rags she spends a fair amount of time in Paris with her real estate broker/investor man-friend, Laurent Fleury, and our research indicates she continues to own a modestly sized if quite pricey 1,441 square foot corner condo in New York City's Far West Village that she acquired in December 2009 for $3,640,000.
listing photos: Nourmand and Associates
Mario Van Peebles Sells His Hollywood Hills "Tree House"
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,519,000
SIZE: 4,225 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.75 bathrooms (total)
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen, kittens, as happens most mid-summers the celebrity real estate pickins are a mite slim so instead of something glorious and aspirational being bought or sold by an A-lister we have instead an exhausted looking micro-compound in the Hollywood Hills owned by actor/director/producer Mario Van Peebles who (re-)listed the property over the weekend with an asking price of $1,519,000.
Property records show the well educated fifty-something year old former politico—he earned a degree in economics from Columbia University and worked for former New York City mayor Ed Koch in the late 1970s—picked up the nearly half acre property way back in October 1989 for $875,000.*
Online resources reveal Mister Van Peebles has been trying to dump his hippy-dippy mini-compound in the Cahuenga Pass area of L.A. since at least October 2012 when it popped up for sale with an asking price of $1,675,000. The property was briefly taken off the market in early 2013 before it reappeared with a new and lower asking price of $1,550,000. The price eventually fell to $1,495,000 before it inexplicably jumped back up again to its current (and final) asking price of $1,519,000.**
Nestled into a sylvan hollow at the tail end of a shared driveway below comedienne Kathy Griffin's airplane-shaped house, Mister Van Peebles secluded micro-compound—current listing details call it a "hidden gem" and a "TREE HOUSE"—comprises, as per listing details, an approximately 3,500 square foot main house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms plus a (rather homely) guest house.
Double wood front doors that look like something out of a Dungeons and Dragons player's fervid real estate fantasies open to the main living areas that include a living room that features a free-standing red brick fireplace with an—ahem—artsy, free-form mantel and hearth; a vaulted, exposed wood ceiling with a ribbon of sky lights; and a full wall windows that looks out to a dining terrace shaded by mature trees and girdled by scrubby vegetation. Your Mama's not even going to mention the hodge-podge day-core—if it can be called that—or the funky statuary because, well, that just seems like the right thing to do.
The floors switch from wall-to-wall gray carpeting in the living room to narrow gauge wood planks in the dining area that's open to a woefully dated kitchen where the painted gray lower cabinets are topped with gray grouted white ceramic tile that continues up the walls all the way to the ceiling and wraps around four—count 'em, four!—greenhouse-type windows.
The main floor master suite has a corner fireplace, a pitched exposed wood ceiling, and a bank of windows that open to the outdoors plus a godawful row of three differently sized and unevenly spaced windows. The fully carpeted room is furnished sparely and somewhat bizarrely with little more than a rope swing—that's right, buckaroos, there's a damn rope swing in the middle of the room—and a rugged, Earth Mother-worthy bed that looks to be hand-crafted of driftwood and other reclaimed woods.
Listing photos show one of the guest/family bedrooms has a vaulted exposed wood ceiling and wood-framed glass sliders flanked by a couple of downright depressing knotted up curtain panels that make Your Mama's decorative heart skip a beat, and not in the good way. We're not sure if the guest house is detached or a separate wing of the main house but listing photographs show it has gray wall-to-wall carpeting, a raised hearth brick fireplace, at least one glass block window, a complete but compact kitchen, and a private bathroom.
The L.A. Times property gossip gal reported last year that Mister Van Peebles and his New Age-y wife Chita Sukhu, own another home in the Los Angeles area. Thanks to an assist from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial we've learned that Van Peebles-Sukhu residence, acquired in the early days of 2007 for $1.3 million, is located in the affluent and largely uncelebrified View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood, one of the wealthiest predominantly African American communities in the United States. Property records show the Van Peebles-Sukhus also maintain a secluded mountain retreat in the Big Bear Lake area that was purchased in 1999 for $170,000.
*Property records show Mister Van Peebles also owns two adjacent parcels that form a long narrow strip but it's not clear to Your Mama if they were included in his 1989 purchase and/or if they're included in the current offering.
**Online listings show a sale is pending.
listing photos: Keller Williams
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
Mid-Week Celebrity Real Estate Link Love
Listen, chickens, Your Mama is just about to board a steel bird and wing our way to the 49th State of Alaska for a 4th of July visit with our wonderfully neurotic old friend Sheila Sinn. That means we don't have the time to go on and on (and on) like we usually do but, rather than leave y'all high and dry, we thought we'd send y'all on over to have a look see at some of the other celebrity real estate doings that have gone down this week.
A year ago, Rosie O'Donnell spent $8,095,087.50 to buy a duplex penthouse pièd-a-terre in downtown Manhattan. It was the eagle-eyed kids at Curbed who revealed that the ol' chat show hostess caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and flipped the four bedroom and three bathroom apartment back on the market this week with a much higher $10,950,000 price tag.
Miz O'Donnell must be in the mood to shake up her property portfolio because Your Mama heard word last month that she'd done sold her estate on Miami Beach's star studded Star Island to an unknown buyer for not quite $13 million but property records now reveal she actually sold it for $16,500,000 to New York City-based real estate investors David and Linda Frankel. (floor plan: Douglas Elliman Real Estate)
Also stricken with an especially acute case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle, as per the peeps at Zillow, is disgraced Tour de France cyclist Lance Armstrong. First he sold his water guzzling central Austin (TX) estate and shelled out $4.34 million for a contemporary compound perched on a bluff that over looks Lake Austin (shown above). However, bunnies, the capricious pedal pumper quickly and quietly re-sold the lake view house for an unknown amount to professional race car driver Bret Curtis and snatched up a 7,646 square foot house in Austin from Texas politico Ben Barnes. (listing photo: via Zillow)
We're not sure who first revealed it but Your Mama first saw it on Trulia Luxe Living that ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky listed his mock-Med mansion in a 12-residence gated enclave in prosperous Scottsdale, AZ, with an asking price of $3,395,000. (listing photo: Platinum Realty Network)
As per the New York Observer, after putting it out for lease in July 2011 at a rate of $16,000 per month—it rented in October 2011 for an unknown amount for an unknown length of time—Los Angeles-based actor Hank Azaria has off loaded his lofty apartment in the heart of New York City's SoHo 'hood in an off-market deal to a mysterious buyer for $8,000,000. Mister Azaria acquired the three bedroom and three bathroom loft in 2005 for $4.6 million from big-shit artist Cindy Sherman. The children will take special note of the 50-foot long entrance loggia and the unusually spacious private professional grade gym. (floor plan: Stribling)
Soon to be divorced movie producer Bob Weinstein has not so quietly heaved his 3.28 waterfront estate in Greenwich, CT on the open market with a $32,000,000 asking price, as was first revealed by those crazy kids at Curbed yesterday. Listing details show the 12,788 square foot mansion was built in 1916 and currently has six bedrooms, six full and two half bathrooms, 9 fireplaces, and 440 feet of prime Long Island Sound shore line with a sandy beach and stone pier for deep water mooring. (listing photo: Coldwell Banker)
The Miami Condo Investments blog spilled the beans about design-oriented hip-hopper Pharrell Williams having hacked a blood curdling $5.9 million dollars off the price of his airy, multi-level penthouse aerie atop the Bristol Tower complex in Miami Beach, FL. Your Mama (dissed and) discussed the 9,080 square foot 5 bedroom and 6.5 bathroom penthouse back in November 2012 when it first popped up on the open market with an in-hindsight wickedly optimistic $16.8 million price tag. (listing photo: Coldwell Banker)
The Zillow folks figured out that Courteney Cox's Cougartown cast mate (and alleged new squeeze) Brian Van Holt unloaded his 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom condo-loft in Venice, CA for $925,000. The 1,096 square foot spread has double height ceilings, a wood and steel floating staircase, and a roof top terrace with wrap around views. (listing photo: Partners Trust)
Rosie O'Donnell and Lance Armstrong aren't the only celebs who caught a case of The Real Estate Fickle this week. The celebrity gossips at Radar Online revealed today that sitcom star Kevin James and hoisted the Delray Beach (FL) mansion he bought nine months ago for $18.5 million back on the market for $19.95 million. (aerial photo: Radar Online via Curbed)
NOTE: Turns out, Kevin James does not have a screaming case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle.
Miz O'Donnell must be in the mood to shake up her property portfolio because Your Mama heard word last month that she'd done sold her estate on Miami Beach's star studded Star Island to an unknown buyer for not quite $13 million but property records now reveal she actually sold it for $16,500,000 to New York City-based real estate investors David and Linda Frankel. (floor plan: Douglas Elliman Real Estate)
NOTE: Turns out, Kevin James does not have a screaming case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle.
Your Mama Hears...
Property records—at least none of the ones Your Mama scoured—do not reveal the purchase price and shield the new owner's identity behind an ambiguously named corporate entity with a mail box address in a run-of-the-mill strip mall in Culver City (CA). However, children, our ever-intrepid informant Yolanda Yakketyyak swears on her bejeweled life that he new owner of Le Palais is none other than Miz Karimova and another source—a high powered real estate mover and shaker we'll call Pete D. Propertypurveyor—snitched to Your Mama that word on the Platinum Triangle real estate street is that the garishly opulent mega-manse sold in mid-June (2013) for somewhere in the neighborhood of $47 million.*
This ain't nuthin' but gossip but we've been told twice by the sorts of people who know these sorts of things, including Mister Propertypurveyor, that Miz Karimova-Tillyaeva et famille—husband, Timur, and their three young children—had previously shacked up in a 12,000+ square foot villa in the guard-gated Beverly Park community that they rented from mid-priced handbag tycoon and hardcore real estate baller Bruce Makowsky. We don't have an inkling, of course, of how much the Karimova-Tillyaevas paid but we do know that Mister Makowsky has the 8 bedroom and 10 bathroom spread back up for rent at $100,000 per month.
Anyone who knows a thing about the upper echelons of the Platinum Triangle real estate market knows that Le Palais, a brobdingnagian faux-French chateau wrapped around technologically advanced and decidedly contemporary interiors, was built on spec from the ground up by Mohamed Hadid, a Beverly Hills based developer of who earned a significant portion of his fortune building Ritz Carlton Hotels and has risen to pop cultural semi-fame as a bit player on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Mister Hadid, in case any of ya'll somehow did not know, pals around with RHOBH queen bee Lisa Vanderpump and is the ex-husband of cast member Yolanda Foster who, some of the children may recall, hosted an on-camera cocktail party at Le Palais on the most recent season of the diamond encrusted drama-rama.
Miz Karimova-Tillyaeva, who maintains an extensive personal website that promotes her various diplomatic and philanthropic endeavors,** may be little known to most Americans but she hails from an internationally illustrious family with vast riches and, not surprisingly, a penchant for lavish living. In 2010 it was widely reported that Mister and Missus Karimova-Tillyaeva plunked down SFr43.4 million—about 41 million U.S. dollars according to Your Mama's trusty currency conversion contraption—for an estate in Vandeœuvres, a swank Swiss suburb often referred to as the Beverly Hills of Geneva. Miz Karimova-Tillyaeva's older sister, Goulnora—a well-connected and polarizing entrepreneur who currently serves as Uzbekistan's ambassador to Spain—also owns a Swiss hideaway in the neighboring community of Cologny that she reportedly picked up in 2009 for $18.2 million.
Le Palais, steel-framed and faced with imported French limestone, sits just off a bustling and clamorous Sunset Boulevard intersection. The house measures in at a monstrous 48,000 (or so) square feet that's tightly wedged on to a walled, gated and heavily secured two parcel property that encompasses a relatively compact 1.09 acres.
While the omnipresent traffic noise—not to mention the car exhaust—might be a deal breaker for some Richie Riches, La Palais' location directly across the street from the heavenly Beverly Hills Hotel is absolute perfection for those who fancy a quick daily luncheon at the world renown Polo Lounge where a (delicious) basket of Parmesan encrusted French fries will set a person back nine bucks and the Niçoise Salad rings up with at $36. (Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter both recommend the Mocha Ice Cream Pie. It's a goddamn bargain at $10 during lunch and still worth it during dinner when the price inexplicably jumps to $12.)
Listing details show the—ahem—elegant and elephantine abode contains a total of 7 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms plus three additional bathrooms that serve the outdoor areas. Digital marketing materials Your Mama peeped and perused do not indicate any existing staff bedrooms in the main house but do reveal that a two bedroom and 1 bathroom staff apartment is planned over the the garage.
Forget about the mortgage—believe it or not, butter beans, plenty of bazillonaires carry heavy duty mortgages—but Your Mama simply keels and reels at the exorbitant costs associated with staffing, securing and maintaining a private residence of this magnitude. This isn't a beach cottage one closes up and padlocks at the end of the summer. No, puppies, a house like this has to be be fully staffed whether the owners live in it 365 days a year or—more likely—drop in for a few days or a few weeks a couple times a year. For chrissakes the owner of a home like this has to pay a full time person—probably a six figure earning estate manager—just to keep track of the army of low wage workers hired to mow the lawns, pull the weeds, wash the windows, vacuum the carpets, clean the pool, trim the trees, fix the oven, scrub the toilets, secure the perimeter on a 24-7 basis, and on and on and on. But, children, such are the excessive financial abilities of someone like, say, a prodigiously rich dictator's daughter, right?
*All just rumor and conjecture, puppies, rumor and conjecture.
**Miz Karimova-Tillyaeva's website shows she's earned a bachelor's and master's degrees in International Law from the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent"—that's in Uzbekistan, kids—and "later received a doctorate in Psychology from Tashkent State University." She heads up a couple of "major charitable organizations" that promote education and sports and champion the rights of orphaned and disabled children. She currently serves and "Uzbekistan's envoy to UNESCO." An unflattering, a September 2012 article on the Foreign Policy website claims Miz Karimova-Tillyaeva "is a business mogul in her own right" who owns a company that controls the import of Chinese goods. Although we have no way of verifying the accuracy of the reporting, Miz Karimova-Tillyaeva and her olders sister's combined fortune was estimated in late 2011 to be about $1 billion.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International
Pectastic Actor Joe Manganiello Snags New Digs
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,806,000
SIZE; 2,422 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama first heard it last week from the freakishly well-connected real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and then we heard if from our eerily well-informed celebrity real estate confrère Lucy Spillerguts: In late April (2013), hard-bodied actor Joe Manganiello quietly coughed up $1,806,000 for a updated and upgraded 1960s ranch house nestled into a discrete—and discreet—neighborhood between L.A's Laurel and Nichols canyons.
Not surprisingly, Mister Manganiello—a six-foot-five-inch classically trained thespian with rippling muscles and uncommonly good looks—found immediate if slow burning Showbiz success soon after arriving in Hollywood in the early 2000s when he landed the role of Flash Thompson in the Spider-Man film franchise. He went on to score recurring roles on a handful of television programs such as American Heiress, ER, How I Met Your Mother, and One Tree Hill before he nabbed his plummiest role to date, that of a surveying company owning werewolf on the astoundingly successful supernatural drama True Blood. Mister Manganiello's professional credits also include a number of theater productions and a growing bunch of feature films including the star studded but woefully flaccid rom-com What To Expect When You're Expecting. Last year, much to the delight of lusty ladies and concupiscent gays around the globe, the scraggly bearded and bodaciously built beau hunk bared just about every inch of his carefully sculpted man-body in the high octane male stripper fest Magic Mike.
Evidence Your Mama quickly and easily discovered on the internets suggests there may have been stiff competition for the house as property records reveal Mister Manganiello—through an ambiguously named trust—paid $17,000 more than the last asking price of $1,790,000 for the low slung, single-story residence that contains four bedrooms and three bathrooms in 2,422 square feet.
A slate courtyard lined along the street with a glimmering row of stainless steel planter boxes leads to the front door that opens to a proper entrance hall. A stacked stone wall the color of dry sand anchors one side of the foyer and wraps around to face the over-sized fireplace in the wood-floored living room. The adjoining dining room, separated from the living room by an elevated stone tile walkway and row of slender square columns, has a quartet of French doors the open to the backyard. The living and dining room flow directly into a family room with more wood floors, more French doors to the backyard, and a handsome, geometrically minded slate-faced corner fireplace.
The well-equipped, U-shaped kitchen has dark brown or maybe black Shaker style cabinets with sleek stainless steel hardware, mottled grey counter tops that may or may not be granite, and a customary suite of high-quality stainless steel appliances. The adjoining breakfast area has floor to ceiling pantry cabinets one one side and frosted glass double doors on the other that conceal a wet bar with under-counter wine fridge, stainless steel vessel sink, and floating shelves on which the sellers displayed their booze bottles and stemware.
The master suite isn't huge but it is certainly comfortably appointed with a custom-fitted walk-in closet, a separate dressing area with built-in dressers, and an all-beige bathroom slathered in travertine. French doors conveniently connect directly to the backyard. It's not, however, the master bedroom but one of the three secondary guest/family bedrooms that's the real voyeuristic show stopper since all the separates the sleeping area from the attached bathroom is a transparent wall of floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall glass.
The back of the L-shaped house embraces a courtyard type back yard where dark slate terracing wraps completely around a dark bottomed, kidney-ish shaped swimming pool and spa. We love the look of that dark slate but we imagine it could get a little roasty on the tootsies when—as it regularly does in Southern California—the mercury spikes. Anyways, there's plenty of room for dining, lounging and sunbathing as well as a built-in barbecue and a built-in fire pit.
Mister Manganiello currently squires curvaceous brunette model Bridget Peters who, at least according to Lucy Spillerguts, currently shacks up with her super-sized True Blood stud.
listing photos: Keller Williams Beverly Hills
RIcki Lake Lists Long Time L.A. Residence
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $8,750,000
SIZE: (roughly) 5,226 square feet, 5-6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Looks like somewhat newly (re-)married actress, Emmy winning daytime chat show hostess, and Dancing with the Stars alum Ricki Lake is on the move and has listed her long time home in L.A.'s tony Brentwood area with an asking price of $8,750,000.
Although listing details don't specify the square footage, the L.A. County Tax Man puts the low-profile two story residence at 5,226 square feet, a figure that may or may not reflect its actual size. Listing information also indicates there are six bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms, while the Tax Man shows six bedrooms and five full bathrooms. Listing details go on to show the existing house, all but hidden behind lush and mature semi-tropical foliage, high walls, and double driveway gates, was originally built in 1949 on a flat, .81 acre parcel on a famously star-lined street in Brentwood.
The family room merges with the spacious center island kitchen that appears upgraded and well-equipped with dark chocolate colored wood cabinetry, stone colored counter tops of unknown material, and the usual complement of high grade stainless steel appliances. However, that quilted stainless steel breakfast island with the glossy wood counter top and the quartet of sculptural, Eames/Brâncusi-esque stools? We're afraid all that amounts to a brazen breach of decorative good taste in Your Mama's utterly meaningless opinion. Anyways...
Miz Lake's mini-estate sits on one of the more coveted lanes in quietly but decidedly affluent Brentwood where other home owners include Maria Shriver, Arianna Huffington, Lindsay Buckingham, and Betty White. Property records show Tobey Maguire and his Tinseltown pedigreed jewelry designer wife, Jennifer Meyer Maguire, still own the still vacant lot just down and across the street for Miz Lake's spread that they scooped up in early 2008 for $10 millon.
listing photos: Partners Trust
