Martin Lawrence Downsizes in Encino
LOCATION: Encino, CA
PRICE: $6,630,000
SIZE: 10,211 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We first heard rumbles of it weeks ago from a gal we'll call Suburban Sally and last night we heard it from the eerily well-informed Yolanda Yakketyyak that comedian Martin Lawrence scooped up a newly constructed mock-Med MacMansion perched atop a high knoll in the foothills above L.A.'s prototypically suburban community of Encino. Property records show the property in question, last listed for $7.1 million, changed hands in early June (2013) for $6,630,000.
It was recently announced that Mister Lawrence, who starred in an eponymous t.v. sitcom in the 1990s and whose biggest contribution to The Cinema has been the money minting Big Momma and Bad Boys franchises, will co-star in an as yet untitled sitcom with Kelsey Grammer. Hooray for Hollywood! Anyhoo...
Listing details Your Mama managed to tease out of the interweb shows the recently completed residence, located at the tail end of a long cul-de-sac lined with much more modest, mostly ranch-style homes, was marketed with seven bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in 10,211 square feet.
Other features of the walled and gated three story mansion, as per listing details and other online resources, include half a dozen fireplaces, garage space for four cars, and a heated negative edge swimming pool with long and wide views over the San Fernando Valley.
Celebrity real estate watchers may recall that last June Mister Lawrence sold his 16,000+ square foot so-called "French Contemporary" mansion in the Beverly Park community to mid-priced shoe and handbag tycoon Bruce Makowsky for $17,200,000.
Property records and other online resources indicate Mister Lawrence, who split from his long-time lady-mate/wife Shamicka last year, continues to own a residence in L.A.'s Toluca Lake that he bought back in July 1992 for $640,000 as well as a sprawling, 21,000-plus square foot pond-front mansion on more than 100 acres acres in rural Purcellville, VA that he picked up in May 1997 for $1,250,000.
listing photo/rendering: Prudential California
In Case Your Haven't Heard: Tamar Braxton
What TMZ does not reveal, and what we first heard a several days ago from the always dishy informant Yolanda Yakketyyak, is that the buyers are the very same people—John and Gloria Gebbia—who sold the approximately 12,000 square foot faux-chateau to Mister and Missus Braxton in September 2011 for $3.4 million.*
Such are the crazy real estate ways of the rich and/or famous, right?
Mister and Missus Gebbia may not be household names but their actress daughter-in-law Carlton Gebbia may soon be as she's much rumored and reported to be joining the next season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Anyhoo...
Although we don't have much in the way of specifics, a little birdie told Your Mama that the Braxton clan has moved into a freshly customized mega-mansion in Calabasas (CA) complete with a barber shop, beauty salon, and recording studio.
*There is some evidence that Mister and Missus Braxton paid $6.9 million for the house but there is also plenty of evidence in various property record data bases that they paid just $3.4 million. We really have no idea why the wild discrepancy or how much that actually paid.
listing photos: Re/Max Olson & Associates
Michael Jackson's (In)Famous Dermatologist Arnie Klein Lists L.A. Mansion
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,250,000
SIZE: 11,341 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Poor, poor Dr. Arnie Klein. Once upon a time he was the Beverly Hills-based dermatologist, the so-called "Father of Botox"whose image obsessed clientele included nipped, tucked and injected Showbiz luminaries like Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie Fisher, and Michael Jackson. Alas, in the chaotic and highly publicized wake of Michael Jackson's sordid 2009 death, Dr. Klein's lavish lifestyle quickly evaporated in a haze of salacious accusations, a flurry of scandalous lawsuits, and a debilitating bankruptcy.
In late 2011 Dr. Klein—who reportedly supplied Michael Jackson with all sorts of prescription drugs and occasionally hints that he might be the father of at least one of The Gloved One's three children—listed his ocean front residence in Laguna Beach for $12,000,000. The cliff hanging house was finally sold in February (2013) for $7.1 million and yesterday his stately Tudor style mansion in L.A.'s affluent Hancock Park/Windsor Square area popped up on the open market as a bankruptcy sale with a listing price of $4,250,000.
Property records are not entirely clear but it appears to Your Mama's boozy-woozy eyeballs that Mister Klein picked up his Hancock Park spread in March 1985 for just $255,000 and over the years secured several mortgages and personal loans against the value of the historic mini-estate.
Current listing information shows the three story, 11,341 square foot Tudor style pile was built in 1914 on a very busy .66 acre corner lot and has eight bedrooms, five bathrooms and at least three fireplaces. Additional living space for guests or staff sits atop the detached five car garage that sits at the tail end of a long gated drive.
Listing photographs show the house has seen better days and, indeed, listing details describe the house as a "rare yet tarnished treasure with remarkable potential" and "a treasure waiting to be set free." Inside, as per online marketing materials, there's a grand, paneled foyer with an all wood double staircase, elegant formal living and dining rooms, a library, a garden room, and—somewhat curiously—a dance studio. Outside the slightly unkempt grounds include a swirling array of knee height box woods, a slightly unkempt rose garden, fountains, and swimming pool and spa that looks to have been long ago drained.
As evidenced by the thick layer of dust and debris that coats the main staircase, the financially beleaguered Mister Klein moved from his Hancock Park mansion some time ago. In early 2011 he agreed to pay $60,000 per month to lease a seven bedroom and 10 bathroom mansion in the Beverly Park community in Beverly Hills but was subsequently evicted.
Your Mama has no current intel about where the doctor holes up nowadays but perhaps the disgraced dermatologist decamped to Palm Springs where property records show he still owns a mid-century modern house in the upscale Vista Las Palmas area that he acquired in mid-2008 for $1,462,500. As far as Your Mama's brief and unscientific research, Dr. Klein's Palm Springs property is not currently on the open market and there does not appear to be any foreclosure activity on the property.
*Just for shits and giggles, Dr. Klein's former rental, an 11,000 square foot Frenchified villa, is back up for lease at $45,000 per month.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
Michael Ovitz to Sell Broad Beach Lots
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $29,500,000
SIZE: 1.08 acres
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It seems that veteran Hollywood power player Michael Ovitz has decided not to build the 10,000+ square foot compound on Malibu's star-lined (and ever-eroding) Broad Beach that he had custom-designed by architect Steve Giannetti* because he and his missus, Judy, hoisted the three contiguous oceanfront parcels where their custom compound was to be erected on the market with a blistering $29,500,000 price tag.
Property records suggest Mister Ovitz—a man who was (in)famously given $131 million in stock when he was hired on as president of the Walt Disney Company in late 1995 and another $38 million as a cash severance when he was unceremoniously axed by Disney's former and famously autocratic CEO Michael Eisner 14 short months later—acquired the first of his three Broad Beach parcels in April 1982 for an unknown amount of money. An adjacent property was scooped up in October 1998 for an unknown amount and the third property was picked up in December 2002, also for an unknown sum.
All together the three lots encompass just over an acre—47,082 square feet, according to listing details—with 120 feet of beach/ocean frontage. Access to the beach—or at least what's left of it—requires an undignified scramble over the unsightly 4,000+ foot long rock revetment that was put in place a couple years ago at the approximately $20 million expense of Broad Beach home owners who were (and remain) desperate to keep the relentlessly approaching Pacific Ocean from washing up into the professionally decorated living rooms of their multi-million dollar beach houses.
Mister and Missus Ovitz razed the three houses that once stood on the properties to make way for a tycoon-style compound that, as per marketing materials, was designed with 8 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms, including a "romantic" master suite complete with sitting area, fireplace, private balcony and sauna. Other planned creature comforts include a swimming pool and spa, a paddle tennis court, an office, and, of course, a screening room. Extensive planned patios, decks and balconies extend the the living areas to the salt and seat misty outdoors.
Mister and Missus Ovitz are well known as voracious collectors of blue chip contemporary artwork and recently completed construction on their in-town compound, an impressive and aggressively austere 28,000-ish square foot residence-slash-private museum on a multi-acre private promontory above Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills (CA) designed by cutting edge architect Michael Maltzan.
NOTE (Later same day): Turns our Mister and Missus Ovitz are divorced or, at least, long ago split up. Not sure how we missed that important detail. Must have been last night's third gin & tonic. Mister Ovitz, so the papers say, current squires fancy shoe mogul Tamara Mellon..
*Mister Giannetti has certainly worked his architectural magic a variety of vernaculars but even the most brief perusal of his digital marketing portal reveals he specializes in substantial and casually luxurious East Coast-y clapboard- or shingle-sided residences in some L.A.'s more affluent West Side zip codes. He designed a Hamptons-style micro-compound a few doors down from Mister Ovitz's Broad Beach lots that's currently owned by Friends co-creator Marta Kaufmann and her composer husband Michael Skloff. He's also the man responsible for the nearly 13,000 square foot mansion late philanthropist Nancy Daly had built in 2002 on Malibu's brutishly expensive Carbon Beach and that was purchased in October 2010 for not quite $37 million by a corporate entity controlled—Your Mama has been told by several sources who tend to know these sorts of things—by junk bond bigwig Michael Milken.
Listing photos: Pritchett Rapt & Associates
In Case You Missed It: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,225,000
SIZE: 6,289 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Late last week it was revealed by the folks at Zillow that two-time Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson put one of their many homes in the prosperous Los Angeles community of Pacific Palisades, CA on the market with an asking price of $5,225,000.
This isn't, so it would seem, Mister Hanks and Miz Wilson's first time to ride the real estate merry-go-round with this particular Spanish style casa. Your Mama uncovered online evidence the house was actually on the market with little or no fanfare last year (2012) with a higher $5,450,000 asking price.
Interestingly, since all the hoopla and hoo-ha about the listing hit the internets over the weekend most but not all online listings for the celeb-owned Spanish have all but disappeared from the interweb. However, thanks to some creative digging and an assist from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air Your Mama has managed to locate current and active listing details that show the so-called "legendary villa" was originally built in 1929 on a tight .3 acre lot and has four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in 6,289 square feet.
Property records show Mister Hanks acquired the walled, gated, and high-hedged property in Pac Pal's quietly ritzy Riviera 'hood for $1.9 million way back in April 1988, right about the time and Miz Wilson were united in legal matrimony and not long before his first Oscar nominations for Big.
A grand and monochromatic beige double-height foyer, lit by a glimmery crystal chandelier, is ringed by a second floor gallery. Strongly pedimented pocket doors lead to a robustly scaled formal living room with nearly white hardwood floors, a white-washed (or maybe it's limed) wood ceiling, a wood-burning fireplace, and a series French doors with semi-circular transoms, some of which open to a loggia that overlooks simply landscaped gardens. Pedimented pocket doors also mark the entrance from the foyer to the formal dining room that has a built-in bookcase/china display cabinet and a coffered wood ceiling. Somewhere in the house, presumably in close proximity to the formal living and dining rooms, there's also a library described in current listing details as "intimate" and "ideal for meditations or reading."
Numerous windows and several large sky lights placed between heavy duty wood beams on the ceiling flood the oppressively all-beige kitchen with natural light. The floors appear to be some sort of stone, possibly Travertine or limestone, and the top quality appliances include a mac-daddy six burner range and side-by-side fridge freezers. A shipping container-sized center island with veggie sink separates the kitchen proper from a roomy informal eating space and sitting area with direct access to the outside.
A "pretty, sun-filled" guest suite with newly remodeled bathroom is, as per listing details, well separated from the upper floor family quarters that include four bedrooms plus a "romantic" master suite complete with "stylish" bath and direct access to a meandering covered terrace with over the tree tops ocean view.
Curiously, the property does not have a swimming pool but it does have a number of other notable features and amenities that include: lots of archway, columns, and hand-frescoed ceilings; a basement level space converted to what listing details describe as "an incredible closet and storage space;" a private beauty salon—they are regular red carpet walkers, after all; and a window-ringed second floor sun room with fireplace. A guest suite with recently updated bathroom is situated well away from the four upstairs family/guest bedrooms and the master suite includes a fireplace and a "stylish bathroom that opens to a meandering ocean-view terrace.
The Tinseltown A-list royals maintain a healthy if not outright hefty portfolio of luxury residences. Way back in 1991 they paid $2.95 million for a modestly sized ocean front home in the coveted guard-gated Colony enclave in Malibu and in 2010 they paid 8-time Oscar nominated movie producer Kathleen Kennedy and five-time Oscar nominated movie producer Frank Marshall just over $26 million for a muscular 14,500+ square foot Gwathmey-Siegel-designed residence on a private promontory in Pacific Palisades. At the same time they bought the Kennedy-Marshall mansion they also forked over another $1,450,000 for an adjacent property with a much smaller 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom house, presumably for staff, family or guests.
According to our brief and unscientific research The Hanks-Wilsons also keep a substantial multi-million dollar residence near Sun Valley, ID as well as a down on her heels ranch style residence on a double lot in the Riviera area of Pacific Palisades plus a pair of much more modestly sized side-by-side residences a few short blocks the heart of downtown Pacific Palisades.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
In Case You Missed It: Robbie Williams
LOCATION: Compton Bassett, Wiltshire, U.K.
PRICE: £5,500,000
SIZE: 1,850 square meters, 9+ bedrooms, 13.5+ bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: First came word in late May that increasingly out of the limelight British pop star Robbie Williams sold—and took an approximately half million dollar loss—on a multi-residence compound on L.A.'s famed Mulholland Drive that's complete with full-sized lighted soccer pitch. Now comes word down the international celebrity real estate gossip grapevine via the always helpful Florinda Flapjaw that the nearly forty year old former boy bander has recently re-listed Compton Bassett House, a substantial, landed gentry-type 18th century mega-mansion on 71.55 acres in Wiltshire, about 85 miles west of Central London and 25 miles north of Stonehenge.
So the stories go, Mister Williams was interested in the mystical Ley Lines that (allegedly) criss cross the hills and dales of Wiltshire and purchased the property in 2009 for £8.1 million. A few clicks and clacks on Your Mama's currency conversion contraption shows that amount equalled about $13.4 million in June 2009 and comes to exactly $12,714,600 at today's rates. He quickly caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and flipped the country spread back on the market in 2010 with a £7.5 million price tag. Alas, the property did not sell and was eventually taken off the market. It's returned in the last week or tow with a new and prodigiously lower listing price of £5.5 million ($8,633,35) that represents a pearl clutching £2.6 million ($4,081,220) loss for Mister Williams on the updated and upgraded estate, not counting carrying costs, upkeep and improvements.
A long, tree-shaded driveway snakes through the estate's verdant grounds to the front of the ivy-encrusted residence that looks to Your Mama like it might have once been a very fancy stables or carriage house. The driveway continues around to the rear of the residence where there's a small parking area and access to a pair of side-by-side two-car tandem garages.
In addition to a grandly proportioned 43-plus foot long main drawing room with (off-center) fireplace, high ceiling, and huge windows on three sides, the ground floor public and family spaces include a fairly small formal dining room, a spacious eat-in kitchen, and a cozy children's play room. In addition to the guest/family bedroom suites, the upper level also has an awkwardly shaped library and a super-sized upper landing that connects through to a nearly 38-foot long office suite with a (properly centered) fireplace flanked by built-in cabinetry and a bidet-equipped attached bathroom.
The lower floor leisure complex includes a long but quite narrow fitness room, a 73-plus foot long indoor swimming pool and spa encircled by a series of stout pillars, a steam room and separate dry sauna, and the aforementioned his and hers changing rooms. There's also a wine cellar, laundry room, the garages, and one of the two staff suites. (The second staff suite is on the ground floor behind the master bedroom with exterior access.)
There are two small(ish) guest/family bedrooms with private attached bathrooms on the ground floor opposite the kitchen/breakfast room and four more bedroom suites on the second floor, each with a private sitting room and walk-in closet. The master suite, probably larger than most middle class homes, occupies its own wing of the ground floor and is comprised of a private study with built-in desk, a sizable sitting room, and and even larger bedroom, dual master bathrooms, and a fitted dressing room with a secret stairway that climbs up to the second floor bedroom corridor.
The park-like estate also has detached one bedroom and one bathroom cottage with 732 square feet as well as a 2,346 square foot structure that contains a helicopter hangar and adjoining workshop conveniently outfitted with wee kitchenette and half bathroom. There are acres of mowed grass, a walled formal garden with pavilion, a hedged water feature/fountain, a grass tennis court that does double duty as a soccer pitch, paddocks for the livestock, and unspoiled woodlands.
We're not sure of Mister Williams entire residential real estate holdings but we do know that he still owns the nearly 11,000 square foot residence in the Mulholland Estates community in Los Angeles (CA) that he picked up in July 2002 for $5,450,000 from country music king Clint Black and his actress/singer wife Lisa Hartman Black. A few of Mister William's Showbizzy neighbors include Saul Hudson (aka Slash), Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Charlie Sheen, and Vanna White.
listing photos and floor plan: Knight Frank
It's Official: Jodie Foster Lists Sunset Strip Digs
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,399,000
SIZE: 6,060 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in early December (2012) Your Mama let the cat out of the celebrity real estate bag about how smart, successful and semi-reclusive Tinseltown royal Jodie Foster very quietly shelled out $11,750,000 for a house set on a high ridge above the Coldwater and Franklin canyons in Beverly Hills, CA.
A few months later, in mid-April (2013), we passed along a bit of Sunset Strip real estate scuttlebutt about how Miz Foster was fixin' to hoist her long-time residence in the Bird Streets 'hood above L.A.'s Sunset Strip on to the open market with what Your Mama was then told would be a price tag of around five million clams. Well, it's official, Chicken Littles. As anticipated by property gossips of all stripes and types, the two time Oscar winner has officially put her 1930s Spanish villa on the open market. However, hunties, the price isn't five (or so) million clams but a substantially higher $6,399,000.
Your Mama doesn't know how much Miz Foster actually paid for the house but it appears she picked it in the mid 1990s. Various online resources suggest supermodel Cheryl Tiegs previously owned the house with former husband Tony Peck—Gregory's son—but it's not entirely clear if it was Tiegs and Peck who sold the property to Foster. The tax man's records show the house has four bedrooms and seven bathrooms in 5,357 square feet while current listing details show the 6,060 square feet residence spans three floors with four bedrooms and three full and two half bathrooms in the main house plus a separate guest/staff suite perched atop the garage that's self-sufficiently equipped with a separate, secured entrance; an alcove bedroom; a full bathroom and walk-in closet; a compact kitchenette; and a roof terrace with an over the tree tops city view.
Given her fierce and fastidious commitment to personal privacy—Miz Foster is not one of those famous people who call the tabs every time she goes to the supermarket—it should really come as little or no surprise to anyone that all that can bee seen from the narrow street at the front of the Foster house is a thick and towering wall of visually impenetrable hedges and a locked (and probably camera monitored) gate hidden by a riotous tumble of stickery bougainvillea. There is not, let it be said, a single shred of off-street parking at the front of the house. There is, however, an equally discreet gated driveway around the rear of the residence that accesses an attached two car garage. Anyhoo...
The step-down living room to the left of the front hall has rustic wood floors, a carved stone (or poured concrete) fireplace, and a vaulted wood ceiling traversed by pleasingly muscular exposed wood trusses. A rhythmic row of French doors swing open to four Juliet balconies that overlook the entrance courtyard and two more sets of French doors at the end of the room access a slender semi-circular balcony. There appear to be even more French doors to the right of the fireplace that link to a secluded terrace on the side of the house.
The dining room, a couple steps up from the foyer, has a second fireplace, a built-in buffet with book shelves, and three more sets of French doors that open to a tree-shaded dining terrace. To the right side of the dining room fireplace there's a partially paneled study/office area with more wood floors and a third fireplace* and, to the left, an over-sized butler's pantry passes on through to an all beige, brown and white faux-farmhouse style kitchen.
The Shaker style cabinets in the kitchen have bead board accents, the counter tops and, we think, the floors are stone, there's a two-stool snack bar at the center island, and the appliances of a quality that one expects to find in the multi-million dollar celebrity-owned home. Naturally, Your Mama—an avid and life long pot rack detester—advocates the next owner remove the industrial-grade pot rack that looms menacingly over the island.**
The circular stairway in the foyer winds elegantly down to the lower level. The floor plan included with online marketing materials indicates the lower level contains: a tiny, tucked away bedroom/office with adjoining bathroom; a separate powder room; and an unexpectedly cavernous screening/family room with a massive carved stone (or poured concrete) fireplace flanked by built-in bookcases and theatrical, curved wall of floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall windows. The walls in the screening/family room appear to be sheathed in suede (or some other similarly textured sound absorbing material) that's almost the identical rose-tinted taupe color as the plush wall-to-wall carpeting.
Back upstairs a corridor off the dining room leads to the bedrooms. Two guest/family bedrooms share a spacious Jack 'n' Jill style bathroom and both have direct access to a shared terrace that offers what listing details alliteratively describe as "verdant views." At the extreme rear of the residence the master suite features: a bedroom with fireplace and an adjoining, slightly elevated sitting room; a custom fitted walk-in closet/dressing room; a sauna; and a very brown and beige bathroom fitted and kitted in a—well, let's just say what everyone is thinking—in a fairly masculine manner that would be right at home in a swanky private gentleman's club.
The back of the Y-shaped residence horseshoes around a high-hedged red brick courtyard with tree-shaded dining terrace, a lap lane swimming pool. and a bit of room for sunbathing chaises and yoga mats. As mentioned earlier, the gated driveway at the back of the house provides access to an attached two car garage. There's direct entry from the garage, which is nice, of course, but unfortunately the garage opens awkwardly into the master suite. That's probably fine for when Miz Foster comes homes from the Academy Awards or whatever but Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would hate to have to schlep guests from the garage through our inner most sanctum.
Not too long ago, the children may recall, Miz Foster sold another house in Beverly Hills that she scooped up in July 2005 for $8.1 and sold in September 2011 to Dallas-based budget eyewear tycoon Doug Barnes.
*Although listing photos show a fireplace in the study/office it is not indicated on the floor plan. We're not sure—and it's not really that important—but maybe its one of those portable, plug-in type fireplaces we've seen hawked via infomercials and the home shopping channels.
**If we've said it once we've said it 49,000 too many times: rule No. 7 of Your Mama's Big Book of Decoratin' Do's and Don'ts vociferously 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.
listing photos and floor plan: Hilton & Hyland
Saxophonist David Sanborn Lists Manhattan Townhouse
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $12,000,000
SIZE: (approx.) 5,500 square feet*, 4-5 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama first saw the listing on the internet but the lightening fast property gossips at the Daily News were the first to chat up the New York City townhouse owned by five-time Grammy-winning alto saxophonist David Sanborn and (re-)listed this week with a $12,000,000 asking price.
This is not the first time Mister Sanborn and his missus, Sofia, have been to the real estate rodeo with their fully updated and upgraded turn of the 20th century townhouse located mid-block on a lovely, tree-canopied street just off busy-busy Broadway on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The legendary single reed woodwind blower and his educator wife listed the townhouse on the open market in September 2010 with a nine million dollar price tag. Several months later the price dropped to $8.45 million and in August 2011, for reasons Your Mama ain't privy, the well-maintained urban mini-manse was taken off the market.
We aren't exactly sure why the Sanborns and their team of moving and shaking real estate agents think the townhouse can now be sold for more than $3.5 million more than the reduced price it failed to sell for two years ago. Then again, children, business is quite brisk in the upper tiers of the property market in Manhattan and there is—some of y'all have surely heard it before—a certain school of converse real estate logic that suggests that if a high end house fails to sell at a certain price it sometimes and strangely becomes more desirable to deep pocketed buyers if the asking price is substantially increased. Don't scoff and pout and stomp your indignant feet, kittens. Believe it or not, this trick o' the trade isn't always effective but it works far more often than you might imagine or real estate agents would stop doing it. Anyhoo...
The 19-foot wide red brick and brownstone townhouse was originally built in (or around) 1900, according to current marketing materials, and was custom converted from a five unit multi-unit building to a single family residence by Mister and Missus Sanborn who bought it, according to the Daily News, more than 25 years for an unrevealed sum from an unidentified opera singer.
A classic stoop that makes Your Mama ache at our very core with Big Apple nostalgia climbs to the parlor floor where the rehabbed interiors retain many original architectural details and features. There are intricate inlaid parquet floors, almost grand 11-foot-8-inch ceilings, meticulous mill work, and crown moldings. A narrow sitting room off the foyer overlooks the street while a larger living room at the rear of the residence benefits from a more serene garden view and an exquisite all-oak coffered ceiling that's original to the house. Mister Sanborn reportedly used the wee library beyond the living room as a meditation lounge.
The garden level kitchen has both wide-plank wood and stone tile flooring plus custom-crafted Shaker-style cabinets, some sort of stone or solid surface counter tops, a large center island with vegetable sink and snack counter, and high-quality commercial-style appliances. An adjoining breakfast room connects through to a 35-foot deep walled garden with foliage-ringed brick dining terrace. Also on the garden level are second, under the stoop entrance, a guest or staff bedroom that does not have a private bathroom and instead makes use of a nearby three-quarter hall bathroom off the laundry room. There's a full basement, which is fantastic for storage, but the floor plan shows it has but a 6'4" high ceiling height so it's not exactly the best spot for the next wildly wealthy owners to add a media room or fitness studio.
Two equally sized guest/family bedrooms on the third floor share a Jack 'n' Jill style bathroom. One of the bedrooms—listing photographs indicate Mister Sanborn uses it as a den—has a pocket door that slides open to reveal a cozy office/study. Both of the bedrooms have a shockingly stingy amount of closet space that would be barely adequate for weekend guests—never make 'em too comfortable, right?—but an out and out toy and clothing storage nightmare for a resident child or teenager. Think, puppies, about how many pairs of shoes and designer sunglasses a 16 year old New Yorker with wickedly rich parents is likely to have.
The master suite, a proper retreat the encompasses the entire fourth floor, has a comfortably-sized bedroom with a fireplace and direct access to a small, private terrace that peers through the trees over the the surrounding buildings' storage unit-sized backyards. A well-equipped (and windowless) galley-style bathroom connects the bedroom to an enviably spacious dressing room lined with built-in wardrobes.
Mister Sanborn old the peeps at the Daily News he'd recorded half a dozen albums in the 52-foot long, open-plan penthouse level recording studio that's painstakingly soundproofed so as not to disturb the neighbors. He said, in fact, that fire crackers we're set off in the space to test the heavy duty soundproofing. One end of the loft-like space has a fireplace and lounge area while the other has a jumbled plethora of musical instruments beneath a massive sky light. A half bathroom is convenient if not exactly as private as Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter might prefer.
Mister and Missus Sanborn plan to maintain a (smaller) residence in Manhattan but, according to the Daily News are also shopping for a house in the country.
*Listing information from 2010-11 show the townhouse has about 6,800 square feet, the Tax Man's records put it at 5,529 square feet and Your Mama calculates it comes in at around 4,700 square feet, give or take a couple hundred square feet.
Reality Producer Buys House From Arty Farty Entrepreneur
BUYERS: Martin and Elizabeth (Morehead) Hilton
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
SIZE: 3,805 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
PRICE: $2,750,000
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Bear with us celebrity real estate aficionados while we veer a wee bit off the "celebrity" real estate monotrack today. Rather than (diss and) discuss the high-wattage real estate antics of, say, a superstar Hollywood high roller like Jennifer Aniston who reportedly upgraded the existing chicken coop on her completely overhauled $21 million dollar estate in Bel Air, Your Mama decided to have a look-see at a well-maintained gated micro-compound in Los Angeles's Los Feliz area recently sold by a couple of card carrying members of L.A.'s arty-farty east side cultural demimonde—that would be Julie Hermelin and Frank Mitchell—and purchased by Martin Hilton—an executive producer of several seriously successful reality television programs—and his occasional actress wife, Elizabeth Morehead.
Among other endeavors Miz Hermelin currently bills herself as the founder of The Friendex and a co-creator of the web-based mommy experience forum/series Jen&BarbMomLife as well as an investor/advisor for The Mother Company, another online portal for mommies to revel and wallow with other mommies in the trials and tribulations of Mommydom. During the first decade of the Aughts Miz Hermelin produced eight episodes of the z-list celebrity reality program The Surreal Life and wrote, directed and produced a short film called Final Sale. She probably did other stuff in the early 2000s too but that's what we got. Anyways, Miz Hermelin's urban hipster bona fides actually date back to the mid 1980s through about the late 1990s when she was a busy director of music videos for a platinum-plated list of underworld/alternative oriented musicians and bands such as Moby, Machines of Loving Grace, Luscious Jackson, Ben Folds Five, The Golden Palominos* and the ever so naughty early 90s club world cult favorite Ethyl Meatplow.
Mister Frank's name may mean nothing to a Platinum Triangle prince or princess who seldom ventures east of West Hollywood but, make no mistake, children, in rapidly gentrifying communities of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park and Eagle Rock (and beyond) he is a curtsy-worthy elder statesman of L.A.'s ever more mainstream east side music scene. In 1995 Mister Frank opened the venerable and venerated Spaceland nightclub music venue on on Silver Lake Boulevard where the opening night acts included The Foo Fighters and Beck. Closed in late 2010 the space continues as an indie music venue called The Satellite. Ten or so years ago Mister Frank (and a business partner) opened the now also venerable and venerated Echo and Echoplex live music venues in Silver Lake's grittier next door neighbor Echo Park. In more recent years Mister Frank opened the boutique-sized late-70s Fern Bar-ish El Prado beer and wine bar on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park as well as the always crowded Mexican eatery Malo in Silver Lake and its recently opened 1980s-chic sister establishment, Más Malo, in the heart of downtown L.A.'s rapidly emerging restaurant scene.
Mister Hilton—no relation to Rick and Paris that we know of—helped to pioneer the heart breakingly Hallmark-ian love and dating genre of the reality television craze when, in 2003, he signed on to (executive) produce The Bachelor. Additional reality t.v. credits include a number of other mostly dating oriented reality programs such as The Cougar, Leave It to Lamas, High School Reunion, and Bachelor Pad. He currently serves as an executive producer for The Bachelorette. Missus Hilton (née Morehead) never quite got a solid toe hold on Tinseltown fame but she has had minor roles in a slew of programs that include Seinfeld, ER, The Practice, NCIS, and Judging Amy. Last year she popped up in the little seen or heard of feature-length film Lionhead.
Okay, now that we know who the players are, let's (finally) get to the house in question, a fully renovated and modern minded 1922 Mediterranean that the Hermelin-Franks sold in late May (2013) to the Morehead-Hiltons for $2,750,000. Online resources show the house was in mid-April (2013) for $2,585,000 and within two weeks the property was put into escrow. The $2,750,000 sale price indicates there was stiff competition for the property that drove the Hilton's final sale price to a gob smacking $165,000 over ask.
We're not sure to where Mister Frank and Miz Hermelin have decamped but a quick search of property records reveals Mister and Missus Hilton still own a much more modest, 1922 traditional residence in the historic but little lauded Wilshire Park area of Los Angeles—about 4 miles directly south from their new house—that they picked up in October 1999 for $330,000.
*Unfortunately Your Mama could not locate the official, Julie Hermelin directed video for Little Suicides so instead we linked to a December 2012 live performance of the ditty by The Golden Palominos featuring singer-songwriter Lori Carson.
**It is not clear to Your Mama if the detached structure by the pool has a bathroom but it would sure be luxuriously convenient if it did because it just seems rude to ask an over nighting house guest to hike back up to the main house in the middle of the night to use the crapper or have a glass of water, no?
listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty
Billionaire Jeff Greene Still Trying to Unload in Malibu
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $12,500,000
SIZE: 4,110 square feet, four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Palm Beach-based multi-billionaire Jeff Greene, in case you somehow don't know, is a successful property developer now in his late fifties who smartly bet against the sub-prime mortgage market and laughed all the way to the bank when the real estate bubble burst in a blizzard of foreclosures and quickly constricting property values in 2007. Like all good and profligate (overnight) billionaires Mister Greene owns a hefty handful of high maintenance residences in some of the better and more expensive zip codes on both the east and left coasts of the United States. In Malibu, Mister (and Missus) Green have long-owned a custom-built ocean front home that has been for sale for just about for-evuh and is currently up for grabs with a $12,500,000 price tag.
The Mister Greene acquired the ocean front property for $5.5 million in May, 2007, a few months before his camp-glammy one million dollar Beverly Hills wedding—Mike Tyson was the best man fer chrissakes!—to the two decades younger former real estate entrepreneur Mei-Sze Chan. The property was purchased, as per property records, from a trust connected to fashion designer Perry Ellis's handbag designer daughter Tyler Alexandra Ellis who also—dontcha know?—also owned the gigantic, cutting edge contemporary house next door until she sold it in 2007 to a Beverly Hills-based real estate investor. Anyways...
Current listing information indicates the muscular, three-story glass, concrete, and wood clad residence was built in 2010 with four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in 4,110 square feet of expensively finished interior space. That would indicate that when Mister Greene added the property to his portfolio either it was essentially undeveloped or he substantially altered (or obliterated) whatever house was there to make way for the one that's for sale today.
There are medium brown hardwood floors throughout the multi-purpose, mid-level main living area, an open concept space outfitted with a fireplace surmounted by a flat-screen television in the living room and lots of ashy brown Armani Casa-esque cabinetry in the kitchen and dining area. Several floor-to-ceiling green-tinted sliding glass doors slip open to a slender, glass-railed terrace that hovers over a sensationally pricey strip of sand that—as appears in easily accessible digital aerial images—all but disappears at high-tide.
Three guest bedrooms on the lowest level each have private bathrooms and green-glass sliding doors that let out to a second, also very thin terrace that also hangs over the sand and surf. The top floor master suite has some sort of marble or Tavertine tile floor material, high ceilings, a fireplace, and an attached bathroom. There's floating double sink vanity, a soaking tub is set into an over-sized marble (or Travertine) platform next door to a separate glassed-in shower with a knock-out ocean views through a knee-to-ceiling window.
The master bedroom gives way through more green glass sliders to the largest of the homes' three ocean side terraces with panoramic, ocean liner-like views over the roiling and typically frigid Pacific. Now children, naturally Your Mama loves us a big ol' roof top terrace in a surf-side house. Who doesn't? Howevuh, hunties, let's talk the T here. Is there a person among the children who, like Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter, don't find it more than a little—uhm—unfortunate that the largest terrace, the one residents and guests would be most inclined to use precisely because of its commodiousness, requires a far too intimate for traipse through the master bedroom?* Oh, hayell no! Not for twelve and some million clams, thank you very much.
This is hardly Mister Greene first time on the real estate hobby horse with this house. In fact, Your Mama's brief and unscientific research shows the property has been on and off the market more than half a dozen times since November 2008 and a variety of prices. Although Mister Greene would, it seems, like to sell his long unwanted—or,at least, long un-needed—Malibu beach house, digital marketing materials indicate Mister Moneybags would also be open to lease it fully furnished short term at $49,000 per month or for one or more years at $29,000 per month.
Even when Mister Greene manages to finally unload his albatross in Malibu his property portfolio will still qualify him as a Class-A real estate baller. His other west coast outpost is Palazzo de Amore, an extravagantly immodest 27-ish acre estate above Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills (CA) where Mister Greene married the current and first Missus Greene. Mister Greene purchased the unfinished property out of foreclosure in early 2007 for about $35,000,000 and reportedly spent $15 million more finishing the main mega-mansion and the various accessory structures. Based on previous reports and listings for the property the compound has a quarter mile long gated driveway, a 43,000 (or so) square foot Mediterranean-style main mansion with 11 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and a 6,000 square foot ballroom. Substantial outbuildings include a 12,000 square foot pool house/entertaining pavilion, an 8,000 square foot guest house, and a 24 car garage with—so the stories go—a revolving dance floor on which their wedding guests danced the night away.
In 2009 Mister Greene made Palazzo de Amore available for least at a sphincter tightening $250,000 a month. The resort-style estate is currently available for lease at a discounted $195,000 per month and last year Your Mama heard through the Platinum Triangle property gossip grapevine that Mister Greene was prepared to list the house with tongue numbing $150,000,000 asking price. As of today, the house has not popped up for sale on the MLS at any price, let alone 150 million clams, but would anyone be at all surprised to learn that British Formula Racing heiress and hardcore real estate baller Tamara Ecclestone had a look see around the palatial property? No, Your Mama wouldn't faint with flabbergast either. Anyhoo...
Mister and Missus Greene's private residential holdings also include: La Bellucia, a 12,000 square foot Addison Mizner designed mansion on 2.8 super-prime ocean front acres in Palm Beach (FL) that he/they bought in April 2011 for $24,000,000 as well as a 55-acre spread known as Tyndal Point near Sag Harbor in the Hamptons (NY) that he/they picked up a few months later for $36,000,000.
In April 2011 Mister Greene paid $26,270,000 for an historic, six story cast iron building in New York City's Soho 'hood. Your Mama found evidence online that Mister Greene seeks to re-zone the upper five floors to multi-unit residential use and add a nearly 1,900 square foot penthouse lounge on the roof that's only accessible by way of the sixth floor unit and will give way to a roof terrace equipped with a private roof-top swimming pool and spa. That's right, a private roof tops swimming pool and spa in the very heart of SoHo. Imagine that... And, of course, we mustn't forget the illustrious Seawind, Mister Greene's nearly 150-foot long and internationally (in)famous boat.
*In all honesty, Your Mama isn't completely sure there one must cross through the master bedroom and/or bathroom to access the top floor terrace. It very well could be there's a more privacy promoting public access from an upper floor stair landing or some other such traffic pattern solution.
listing photos: Berlyn Photography for Coldwell Banker Previews International
Miscellaneous Monday Morsels
listing photo: One Sotheby's International Realty
listing photo: MLS via Trulia Luxe Living
We first heard it from the beaver busy kids at Curbed that limousine mogul turned restaurateur turned restaurant designer Nico Santucci has hung a publicity ensuring—and quite probably rose tinted—$5,250,000 price tag on Las Vegas's so-called Parisian Palace, a grotesquely meretricious mansion of dubious architectural distinction about five miles off The Strip that he rents out as a party space. Somehow Your Mama thinks Parisians will take justifiable umbrage at Mister Santucci calling the place the Parisian Palace.
listing photos: Rodney Marullo via YouTube
floor plan: Corcoran
listing photos and floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens
Your Mama Hears...
Property records Your Mama peeped reveal the comedienne and actress (Web Therapy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Drop Dead Diva) bought the acre-plus property in March 1999 for $6,750,000. Your Mama (dissed and) discussed the deluxe domicile when Miz O'Donnell first put the posh pad on the (open) market in March 2012 with a $19,500,000 price tag. In March 2013 the price was cut to $17,500,000.
Listing details show the two-story mansion was originally built in 1923 and current listing information shows there are a total of 12 bedrooms and 11.5 bathrooms between the 11,104 square foot main house and two separate and private guest houses.
Listing photographs show a full grown adult-sized, taxidermy hammerhead shark hung ominously on the wall above the staircase in the double height foyer. There are also formal living and dining rooms, a den/library/office, media room, and a well-equipped, two-island kitchen that's open to a family room and informal dining area with a huge built-in fish tank. The second floor bedrooms include what listing details describe as a "vast master suite" with sitting room, fireplace, private office, and direct access to a large terrace that overlooks the water.
At the front there's a massive red brick motor court shaded by a massive mangrove tree at its center. At least we think it's a mangrove. Anyways, at the back of the house there's extensive tropical landscaping, a swimming pool, and 203 feet of water frontage with private boat dock.
Other high profile residents/home owners on Star Island include seven-time Grammy winning singer Gloria Estafan, Puff Diddle—or Diddle Fiddle or whatever Sean Combs calls himself nowadays, and hunky Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin who bought his nearly 20,000 square foot Star Island mansion from retired professional basketballer Shaquille O'Neal for $16 million in 2009. Mister Doronin—so the scuttlebutt goes—recently traded famously volatile 43-year old supermodel Naomi Campbell in for a much younger, 25-year old up-and-coming model who—as it turns out—was mentored by Miz Campbell on the first season of the model search reality show The Face. Oh what a tangled romantic web he weaves. But that's really another story for another time and place.
In May 2011, Real Housewives of Miami's Lea Black, married to illustrious Miami-based criminal defense attorney Roy Black, paid $7,107,500—in cash—for a 9 bedroom and 9 bathroom Star Island fixer upper. Last fall (2012), in confusing bankruptcy and foreclosure situation, prominent plastic surgeon Lenny Hochstein and his lavishly plastified wife, Lisa—also a Real Housewives of Miami cast member—acquired a storied Star Island house that's immediately next door to Miz O'Donnell's. The Hochsteins say the mansion has a multitude of crippling issues includes a faulty foundation and would like to tear down and replace the existing house but they face a whole lot of opposition by preservation minded folks who would prefer they restore the existing house rather than tear it down. If we were the betting type—and we're not—we'd put all our dinero on the Hochsteins being granted permission to knock the beotch down. But that too is really another story for another time and place.
Miz O'Donnell's property portfolio includes a 1,391 square foot condo in Midtown Manhattan's Hells Kitchen area that she bought in October 2008 for $2,005,000 and a multi-acre Hudson River-front compound in Nyack, NY that has at least five separate residences and cost her a total of $8,605,000, according to property records and other online resources.
*For the record, as of this morning most online listings show Miz O'Donnell's Miami Beach spread is still available at $17.5 million and Your Mama did not find any record of a recent transfer of ownership so that means this is all, technically, just a bit o' celebrity real estate rumor and gossip.
listing photos: One Sotheby's International Realty
Micheala McManus Lists Bantam Bungalow
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
