New Desert Digs for Steven Seagal

BUYER: Steven Seagal
LOCATION: Scottsdale, AZ
PRICE: $3,500,000
SIZE: 8,450 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Martial artist turned action film actor turned law enforcement officer turned reality show eccentric Steven Seagal is on a multi-state real estate merry go round.

Mister Seagal doesn’t factor much into the Tinseltown two step anymore his Hollywood heyday being in the late 1980s and 90s when he shook his money maker as the good looking and manly hero of action films that include Hard to Kill, Under Seige, Under Seige 2: Dark Territory and The Glimmer Man. Time has not been kind to Mister Seagal’s good looks or his his silver screen grape, which pretty much dried up into a raisin in the mid-1990s. During the early 2000s he released little more than a number of film failures that practically no one has ever heard of and went directly to DVD.

Perhaps due in part to the decline in his action film career Mister Seagal went to the police academy in the early 1990s and currently acts as a Reserve Deputy Chief of the sheriff’s office in Jefferson Parish, LA. Naturally, in classic b-list actor fashion, Mister Seagal has a reality program that follows him around as he busts chops and criminals. He is said to own a home in Louisiana, which makes sense but, honestly chickens, we didn’t find any (obvious) record that confirms that real estate rumor.

Most recently, along with Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk) and Peter Lupus (Mission Impossible), Mister Seagal joined the illegal immigration operations posse of armed volunteers under Arizona’s attention seeking, highly controversial, cranky and extremely aggressive Maricopa County Sherrif Joe Arpaio, a man famous for making prisoners wear pink underwear and who has recently came up under the microscope of the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice and a Federal Grand Jury for alleged civil rights violations, abuse of power, and racial profiling.

Anyhoodles poodles, a few weeks ago the children may recall that Your Mama discussed Hollywood’s second highest paid actress Reese Witherspoon who forked over $6,900,000 to purchase Mister Seagal’s very private property in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles, CA.

Since 2005 Mister Seagal has owned a home just east of Memphis, TN in the tiny town of Eads that he purchased in October of 2005 for $1,500,000. As it turns out the 13+ acre spread in Eads with its brick-faced 5 bedroom and 4.5 pooper traditional (below) has been on the market since at least February of 2010 and is currently listed with an asking price of $1,999,000.
Word now comes slip sliding down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Mister Seagal and his fourth wife–ballroom dancer Erdenetuya Batsukh–have snatched up a contemporary residence on almost 12 acres in the Tonto National Forest near Phoenix, AZ, just north of Carefree. According to information provided on the sly to Your Mama by Sangita Snitcharoo Mister Seagal paid $3,500,000 for the 8,450 square foot modern mansion that sits high on a ridge above the Chiricahua Golf Course with long views over the rolling desert. Listing information indicates that the furnishings were available for purchase by separate agreement and Miss Snitcharoo told Your Mama that Mister and Fourth Missus Seagal did buy some of the furniture.

Listing information provided by Miss Snitcharoo shows that Mister Seagal’s new desert digs have 4 bedrooms and 5 full and 2 half poopers. A guesthouse with family room and kitchenette provide extra over night space, which is a good thing since Mister Seagal has 7 children by four different woman so it’s probably a real clusterfuck during the holidays.

The multi-level stone, glass and copper residence, built in 2001, has walls of butted and floor to ceiling glass panels that allow the dee-luxe if dated and somewhat hotel like interior spaces to visually merge with the spectacular views and the many private terraces that surround the house. The main terrace wraps around a negative edge swimming pool and spa that spills dramatically into the landscape.

The master bedroom has a walk in closet and a private pooper with jetted tub, a step-down shower with a private view of the gardens and a bee-day for scrubbing down the naughty bits after doing the dirty bizness. Other amenities and luxuries include a 3 car attached garage, and exercise room with sauna, three fireplaces, built in barbecue and a golf room located just off the driveway that is equipped with software and a screen that allows one to golf virtually at a myriad of courses around the world.

Property records indicate this is not the first time Mister Seagal has owned property in Arizona. In April of 2006 Mister Seagal sold a house in the 55 and up Leisure World community in Mesa. Presumably this house was occupied by one of Mister Seagal’s relatives.

Property records show that in May of 2003 Mister Seagal picked up a huge amount of mostly undeveloped land in Montague, CA near the Oregon border. Your Mama’s rudimentary and not necessarily accurate calculations on our bejeweled abacus shows that there are more than 25 parcels that combined measure in at about 6,352.8 acres. Who knows what his plans for this swathe of land might be.

There are also scads of reports that Mister Seagal owns a dude ranch in Colorado, but just like Prissy in Gone With the Wind don’t know nuthin‘ ’bout birthin‘ no babies, Your Mama don’t known nuthin‘ about any dude ranch in Coloraduh.

listing photos: Prudential Arizona Properties

Jenny Craig Trims Her Real Estate Fat

SELLER Jenny Craig
LOCATION: Rancho Santa Fe, CA
PRICE: $8,995,000
SIZE: 10,029 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 3 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to the kindness of Sandy Sandiego, Your Mama recently learned that diet plan diva Jenny Craig has put her posh pad in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe, CA on the market with an asking price of $8,995,000

Miz Craig and her deceased huzband/bidness partner Sidney founded the eponymous Jenny Craig weight loss and weight management system in Austrailia in the early 1980s and in the mid-1980s they exported their weight loss wares to the United States and around the world. In 2002 Mister and Missus Craig’s lucrative diet plan enterprise was acquired by a private equity firm (MidOcean Partners) and in 2006 the company was sold to Nestlé in a deal worth approximately $600,00,000. Your Mama does not know how much moolah Mister and Missus Craig pocketed from either transaction, but from the looks of their real estate holdings in the Rancho Santa Fe area, the company and the sale of said company was enormously profitable for the pashas of the low-cal pre-planned meal.

Certainly the Jenny Craig diet plan (or whatever it’s called) has helped a lot of people down size their denims but the program is not without critics and controversies. At least one website dedicated to the fine art of dieting claims it costs a person roughly eighty clams to lose every single pound on the Jenny Craig weight reduction regimen. By the rudimentary calculations of Your Mama’s bejeweled abacus, iffin a person needs/wants to lose 100 pounds–and there are an unnerving number of people who waddle the streets and clog up the drive-thrus at Mac-Donalds who need to lose 100 pounds–it’ll cost them an astonishing eight thousand dollars.

While our opinion ain’t worth squat, the one and only weight loss plan Your Mama thinks actually works is to eat less, eat healthy and get up off your big ol‘ backside and get some damn exercise. All these porcine people who think they can freeze the fat off their asses or–like that bewigged and deluded Kim Zolciak ladee on The Real Housewives of Atlanta–decrease the size of their colossal cabooses by shining some silly lasers on their muffin tops are just wasting their damn dollars and being made the fool. Eat less, eat healthy and get up off your big ol‘ backside and get some damn exercise. That, butter balls, is the cold, hard truth on the matter.

Anyoodles poodles, let’s get down off our dietary soap box, shall we? Jenny Craig–the company–seems pretty popular with the celebrity set or is, at least, well-known for celebrities being paid big bucks to provide testimonial and push the plan on over-weight non-celebrities. Over the years Jenny Craig’s spokespeople have included Fat Actress Kirstie Alley who appears on an endless loop of puffing up and slimming down, former presidential mistress Monica Lewinsky, newly svelte actress Valerie Bertinelli, ladee-luvin‘ superstar musician/actress Queen Latifah and Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander.

A peep and a poke around the public records reveals that Mister and Miz Craig scooped up their 3.37 acre Rancho Santa Fe estate in May of 1997. The property was purchased from the estate of Pete Rozelle, former commissioner of the National Football League–from January 1960 through November 1989–who went to meet the great quarterback in the sky in December 1996. Rancho Santa Fe is consistently ranked among the top 3 or 4 most expensive zip codes in California and among the most expensive in all of the United States of America.

The San Diego County Tax Man shows The Widda Craig’s crib measures 10,029 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms while listing information indicates there are 4+ bedrooms and 4 full and 3 half poopers in the main house. Another two bedrooms located in the 550 square foot guesthouse share, we presume, at least one more terliting and bathing facility.

The property, rather grandly called The Villa, sits on sloping lot in and un-gated community of similarly sized homes in Rancho Santa Fe and is saddled with yearly homeowners fees of $13,126 per year. Many rooms of the Spanish-Mediterranean mansion, circa 1992, and the backyard overlook Rancho Paseana Farm, a 228-acre thoroughbred race horse training facility that Mister and Missus Craig purchased in 1995 and Miz Craig currently has on the market with a mouth drying asking price of $29,950,000.

Huge wood gates swing open from the street into the first of three gravel motor courts at The Villa. A weave around a planter at the center of the first motor court brings one to the second motor court that has a fountain at the center swings around to the front front of the tile-roofed residence. A sharply curving drive extends off from the first motor court to a third motor court tucked out of site behind the guest house and garage.

Shallow and gently curved stone steps lead from the driveway to a stunning pair of arched antique wood doors that open into an airy, multi-level foyer with wood inlaid terra cotta tile floors. Just off the front door a tightly curving staircase that Norma Desmond would adore has a series of arched windows that march up the the exterior wall and a delicate and sensuous wrought iron banister. The entrance hall steps down into the 33-foot long formal living room with stone fireplace, intricately carved wood ceiling and a vaguely ecclesiastical carved wood chandelier. The nearby formal dining room with antique wood beamed ceiling and over-scaled parquet flooring that reminds Your Mama of the sorts of nightmares we had as a child where everything was in the puzzling, disturbing and extreme opposite proportion as in walking life.

That kitchen complex includes a butlers pantry, gore-may cookery and breakfast room where a floor to ceiling curving glass window frames the view of surrounding hills. The chestnut colored cabinetry has a carved rope detail that matches identically to the rope detailing on the edge of the granite counter tops, an unnecessary decorative conceit we don’t particularly care for. Up above rough hewn beams, down below Mexican paver tiles laid at a 45-degree angle and in between sit two work islands, two dishwashers, full-sized side-by side-fridge and freezer and hand-painted vine and the walls around the arched windows.

Other rooms include a vast, stone floored family room with arched fireplace, built in sunken wet bar, a pool table placed at a disharmonious angle in the middle of the room and a gigantic old-school big screen tee-vee. There are three more boob-toobs in the paneled library/media room that features distressed wood floors, wood coffered ceiling, and fireplace with elaborate carved wood mantel. Lowerd people, who watches three programs on the tee-vee at one time? Your Mama’s boozy brain can barely follow one program at a time so we’d wind up in the nut house for sure iffin we attempted to view three programs at one once. Just the very idea causes us to need a nerve pill to manage the presumed stress of an attempt to watch three programs at once.

The master bedroom suite includes a private study/office and a 29-foot long bedroom with a hand-painted mural on the ceiling, wet bar and private balcony. Both of the huge his and her poopers have separate showers and soaking tubs. “His” facility has a tee-vee mounted up on the wall like it’s a damn hospital room and the “her” facility has a fireplace and more wall and ceiling murals that depict nekkid angels and other crap. Listen, cinnamon sticks, Rule Number 62 in Your Mama’s Big Book of Decoratin‘ Dos and Don’ts states that wall murals in private residences must be approached with extreme caution. There is an impossibly thin line between a tasteful and well-conceived mural and an expensive piece of painted poo that represents a lame and painfully thwarted attempt to imbue a new(ish) house with a patina of age and old money. Although some exceptions can and must be made for wall and ceiling murals in houses of religious worship, any mural in a residential setting that depicts cherubs and/or angels shall arouse previously unknown depths of decorative suspicion and deep cynicism.

Miz Craig’s property has a fully-finished 4-car garage/car museum with tile floors and tons of track lighting. Mister Craig, in his life, had a small but exquisite collection of historical automobiles, many of which were previously owned by celebrities. More than a dozen cars from the Craig collection were auctioned at Bonhams & Butterfields in August of 2010 including a 1933 Duesenberg convertible previously owned by William Boyd, a.k.a. Hopalong Cassidy and a 1935 Lincoln K V-12 Phaeton President Franklin D. Roosevelt used in California during his second re-election campaign. Mister Craig’s collection also included vintage vehicles once owned by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Clark Gable. Your Mama finds it interesting to note that at least two listing photographs show a Lincoln stretch limousine parked up in the Craig’s garage. This leads Your Mama to believe that Mister and Miz Craig actually owned their own limousine which they, presumably, used to ostentatiously schlep around Rancho Santa Fe and San Diego. Having to rent a stretch limo for uppity events is one thing, candy canes, it’s another thing to own a damn stretch limo. It’s unseemly, really.

Anyhoo, the grounds at the rear of the house include vine shaded terraces, large swathes of very green rolling lawns, heated swimming pool, stone lined circular spa, tennis court and a 1,500 square foot pool pavilion. Your Mama thinks, but is not positive, that the Craig’s installed a home fitness room in the pool pavilion complete with treadmill, free weights, punching bag, several other body toture devices and a small hot tub sitting right on the wall-to-wall carpeting, a situation that looks to Your Mama like nothing but a sure-fire recipe for mold.

Your Mama makes no claims to knowing a damn thing about the real estate market in Rancho Santa Fe and/or the value of the Craig’s estate The Villa. What we do know from our brief bit o’ research on the internets this morning is that the highest recorded price paid for a property in Rancho Santa Fe in the last year (as per Redfin) was $8,500,000 and that, puppies, was for a 21,000 square foot mega-mansion on 9 acres with 8 bedrooms and 10.5 poopers. Make of that what you will.

listing photos: Barry Estates

A Little Mish Mash for Mundee

1.
Oh dear. It seems there’s another marriage that’s done swirled down the Tinseltown terlit of love. This time it’s Tish and Billy Ray Cyrus, the parents of Disney’s pole dancing and salvia smoking cash cow Miley Cyrus.

As all the children know, a dee-vorce often means the family homestead gets sold and rumors have started to circulate that Mister and soon to be ex-Missus Cyrus plan to sell their mansion in the star studded Los Angeles, CA enclave of Toluca Lake.

The Cyrus clan bought their 8,300 square foot mock-Tuscan mansion brand spanking new in 2007 for $5,838,000 and the gossip juggernaut TMZ says they’ll probably ask “for more than $7 million.” TMZ also reported that soon to be ex-Missus Cyrus has already been out hunting for a new house and allegedly had a look-see at a $4,600,000 crib in Encino three months ago.

In April of 2009 a very teen aged Miss Miley dropped a very grown up $3,400,000 for a sprawling Spanish style hacienda of her very own that happens to be just around the corner from her parents’ pad. Will Miss Miley stay put? Or will she move on to Encino or some other suburban locale in Los Angeles to be near her momager?

The upscale Toluca Lake community claims a plethora of celeb residents including actor Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry, not particularly funny comedian George Lopez, former Baywatch babe Brook Burns, actor James Marsden, one of Puff Daddy’s several baby mommas, Beverly Hills 90210 alum Jason Priestley, Beverly Hills 90210 alum Jennie Garth and her man-mate Peter Facinelli (Nurse Jackie) who listed their huge house in June of 2010 for $5,995,000, and comedy’s reigning king Steve Carell who has long lived in the ‘hood, recently shelled out $6,000,000 to buy the old Jonathan Winters house around the corner from his current residence, and quickly tore it down to make way for his own Barbie Dreamhouse.

2.
In early 2010 superstar singer/dancer/whatever Jennifer Lopez and her cantinero huzband Marc Anthony purchased a massive 17,129 square foot mansion in the hot as Hades Hidden Hills community in suburban Los Angeles, CA. The 3-acre estate, last listed for just under ten million smackers, has 9 bedrooms and 12 poopers divided up between the main house and the guest house.

The couple hired celebrity decorator Michelle Workman to work over the interiors of the 2-story country ranch style mansion and recent pictures of the house, photographed for the January/February 2011 issue of Veranda magazine, show a glam 1940s thing all done in a very restrained and sophisticated palette of white, creams, greys and black lacquer.

Miz Lopez, who also owns a 10,000+ square foot traditional mansion on Long Island in Glen Head, NY, has come a long damn ways from the the block in the Bronx where she was raised up hasn’t she children?

3.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich owns scads of high priced and high maintenance homes around the world including a luxury flat at the Bridges Wharf conveniently located near the Battersea heliport, the 420-acre Fyning Hill estate in West Sussex, a villa in the South of France, a house in Tuscany, another in Montenegro, a posh pad in Moscow and a hillside compound in swank St. Barts that he bought last year for a mind altering $90,000,000 (or thereabouts).

Starting in the late 1990s Mister Abramovich started buying up flats in two adjacent London townhouses on Lowndes Square near Harrods and Harvey Nicks that had been split into 9 luxe apartments. By 2008 Mister Abramovich had managed to acquire all nine apartments at a reported cost of between fifteen and twenty million pounds.

The plan is to combine all nine units in the two townhouses into one 30,000-ish square foot mega mansion with five floors above street level and another three below. Submitted plans for the main house show 8 bedrooms each with private pooper, numerous sitting/drawing/living rooms, a cinema/media room, kitchen complex, and a swimming pool, sauna and spa in the the basement. Staff will be accommodated above the garage in the mews building at the rear of the property.

Recent reports suggest that when completed, Mister Abramovich’s house will be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of £150,000,000. According to Your Mama’s currency conversion contraption shows that’s a knee bucking 231,498,000 in American dollars at today’s rates.

4.
All the East End gossip rags are all a-go-go about Jersey Shore stars Jenni “JWOWW” Farley and Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi house hunting on Long Island. That’s right puppies, most of those too tan party hounds on that horrific but very popular Jersey Shore program aren’t even from New Jersey. We’re not sure why the producers weren’t able to find enough liquor swilling guidos and guidettes in Jersey to cast the show, but that’s another issue for another blog.

Anyhoo, according to the gals at Real LI, the boozy babes wanted to have a looks at a 5 bedroom and 3 pooper “postmodern Colonial” in East Setauket, NY with a 44-foot long salt water swimming pool. The listing agent for the property told Real LI that the gals requested to bring television cameras to the showing–the owner nixed that–which makes Your Mama think this whole house hunting thing is related to the Jersey Shore show or possibly some kind of spin off with Snooks and WOW as the stars.

Subsequent to the reports Miss JWOWW tweeted or twated or whatever it’s called and denied the house hunting rumors. Make of that what y’all will.

Gawd. Who cares, right?

5.
All you little boys out there who desire to don a dress and slap on a pair of high heels shouldn’t let anyone tell you that cross-dressing won’t get you anywhere because superstar drag queen/author/reality television hostess/MAC cosmetics spokesperson RuPaul is a damn millionaire. Werq!

According to The Real Deal and Streeteasy RuPaul paid $1,095,000 for a 1,490 square foot apartment in New York City’s far West Village way back in 1998 and sold the 13th floor pad in mid-December 2010 for $2,400,000. A few quick flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama’s bejeweled abacus shows that even after the fat real estate fees were paid lucky Ru likely took in more than a million clams on her real estate investment.

RuPaul’s apartment, which appear to never have been on the open market, was sold to an LLC under the name of Jerry Gorovy. Mister Gorovy, who looks a little too much like Jesus for Your Mama’s comfort, is the longtime pal and assistant of the late and great French sculptor Louise Bourgeois.

Happy Christmas To One and All

Bristol Palin Get a New House for the Holidays

BUYER: Bristol Palin
LOCATION: Maricopa, AZ
PRICE: $172,000
SIZE: 3,929 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It’s Christmas Eve y’all and shooting out of the real estate gate like a Christmas present is the real estate news that 20-year old Bristol Palin paid $172,000 to purchase herself a house in the unlikely community of Maricopa, AZ, about 35 miles south of Phoenix.

Miss Palin’s claim to semi-celebrity is, of course, is that’s she’s the eldest daughter of political rabble-rouser and Tea Party queen Sarah Palin. She became part of the national discourse when it was revealed during the 2008 presidential campaign–when her mother was the Republican Party’s rather unusual and unexpected choice for vice-president–that a teen aged Miss Palin was going to be a mother.

The children will note that the abstinence advocate and unwed teenage mother of one paid for her new crib in cash. That’s right, puppies, cold hard cash. We’d say that young Miss Palin must have got a financial leg up from her newly minted millionaire mommy, but somewhere recently we heard (but can not confirm) that the younger Miss Palin earns fifty grand a pop to go talk to teenagers about sexual abstinence. Oh pleeze. How does a young gal who birthed a baby as a teenager, made a huge splash on that stoopid Dancing With the Stars program and has the financial power at the dewy age of 20 to pay $172,000–in cash–for a house in suburban Phoenix have the nerve to get up in front of teenagers and tell them that an unexpected pregnancy could ruin their lives. Honestly. It would be high-sterical if the moral audacity of the thing wasn’t so completely unnerving.

Anyhoodles poodles, listing information shows Miss Palin’s new digs measure 3,929 square feet and includes 5 bedrooms and 2.5 poopers. There’s a three car garage for all Miss Palin’s whips and the large, landscaped backyard, according to listing information, is “perfect for volleyball, BBQs and more!” We can’t be bothered to discuss the details of the house because, well, there’s nothing to discuss. It’s just a big ol‘ beige piece of architectural banality. You can talk it up and tart it up but a pig with lipstick is still a pig.

The ungated Cobblestone Farms subdivision has palm tree lined streets that wind in on each other like a nautilus shell and includes basketball courts, baseball field, soccer field, children’s play center, a swimming pool, and a horse shoe playing pit. That’s right, horse shoes. Sakes alive. Horse shoes. Lowerd have mercy.

On that note we’re off to slumber with one eye open to see if Santy Claus will be coming down the chimney tonight.

Turn on the Lights!

P!nk’s New Pad

BUYER: Pink and Carey Hart
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $11,850,000
SIZE: 6,800 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Today is a travel day, butter beans, so brevity is the sugar in Your Mama’s cookie this morning.

Ages ago Your Mama heard from a gentleman we’ll call Sherman Oaks who whispered in our big ol‘ ear that platinum haired pop star P!ink was on the prowl for a new crib and planned to put her house on Sherman Oaks, CA on the market. As far as our research on the interweb shows, the Grammy winning songstress hasn’t listed her house in Sherman Oaks–at least not on the open market–but earlier this week an article in the Los Angeles Times revealed that the P!nk and her back in the saddle motorcycle riding huzband Carey Hart are fixin‘ to move into a new house in the Point Dume area of Malibu, CA.

Not long after the article hit the internets, we received a covert communique from Ms. Nosey Pants out in the Bu who let P!nk’s real estate cat out of the bag. According to Ms. Pants (and those bizzy bees at Blockshopper), P!nk purchased a property in the Point Dume area of Malee-boo in late October of 2010. Listing information Your Mama provoked out of the computer shows the beach house was first put on the market way back in February of 2008 and its last price tag was $15,995,000. Property records show the house was sold for $11,850,000, which means it was over-priced to start with or that P!nk’s people drove a hard-ass bargain.

Electronic drive gates swing open to a long, straight, stone driveway that stretches deep into the lot where it ends at a large motor court with five car garage. To one side of the garages, a main house with 5 bedrooms and half a dozen poopers. On the other side, a two-story guesthouse/pool cabana with another bedroom and pooper. The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the house measures 5,218 square feet while listing information suggests it comes in at around 6,800 square feet. We know it makes an ass out of both you and Your Mama, but we’re going to assume anyway. The larger number likely takes the square footage of the guesthouse/pool cabana into account and the smaller number does not. Okay?

The architecture feels vaguely Craftsman with a cliché twist of what listing information calls “Balinese contemporary.” The house was built in 2005 and the spacious interiors have stone and hardwood floors, vaulted wood-beamed ceilings, custom millwork, and six chunky stone fireplaces throughout the house.

A long open plan space that encompasses the gore-may kitchen, breakfast room and family room opens up through a bank of French doors to a terrace that overlooks the shallow canyon at the back of the 1-acre property. It’s along a private path in this canyon area that P!nk and Mister Hart will walk in order to access a private and particularly scenic section of beach at the bottom of the vertical and dramatic Point Dume cliffs.

Other terraces and patios around the house offer tree tops views, ponds, fountains and far too much of that only-in-L.A.-is-it-stylish kind of Balinese-y statuary. The bulk of the outdoor space of the mini-estate actually sits at the front of the property. The front yard put on the pants of the backyard, so to speak. A party-sized spa and a 25-yard swimming pool with a gently tapering shallow beach end are sunk into a long stretch of lawn. Listing photographs show a trampoline sunk into the ground not too far from the swimming pool, a scenario that looks to Your Mama like a drunken accident just waiting to happen.

Once settled, P!nk and Mister Hart will live sugar borrowing distance from actor Matthew McConaughey–who has the body of a homosexual porn star–and his equally hot-to-trot Brazilian model baby momma Camila Alves. Matt and Cammy and the two genetically gifted children they formed out of wedlock–Quell scandale!–use the same path through the canyon to get to the same private and particularly scenic section of beach at the bottom of the vertical and dramatic Point Dume cliffs that P!nk, Mister Hart and the baby they’re about to bring into this world will use. Mazel tov!

RE/MAX Brand Expands

RE/MAX Brand Expands in a Contracting Market with Second Keller-Williams Conversion in a 12-month Period

RE/MAX Achievers to serve West Roxbury/Greater Boston Natick, MA – December 21, 2010 – A four-member Keller-Williams team in West Roxbury has recently converted to a RE/MAX office, marking the second such conversion in a 12-month period and boosting RE/MAX’s overall position in the local marketplace from number four to number one.

Read more on RE/MAX Brand Expands…

A Wee Peep at 770 Park Avenue

Sorry folks, we’re just not feeling much in the mood to chit-chat about the real estate comings and goings of Tinseltown types today. We’d rather piggy-back on the fascinating recent report by Chloe Malle in the pink pages of the New York Observer about the pending fate of democratic fund raising power player Hassan Nemazee’s vast doo-plex pad up in the exclusive 770 Park Avenue building in New York City.

The elite co-operative buildings in Manhattan each have their own vibe and reputation as regards to the sorts of financial heavy hitters who have what it takes to squeeze past the persnickety co-op boards who wield the power to nix a potential buyer of an apartment for any reason whatsoever. They don’t even have to explain themselves. They can just say, “nay” and that’s the end of that. Potential buyers in the top tier co-operative apartment houses could get sent packing for any reason such as they can’t meet the financial requirements, they may not fraternize with the right people or they might be too high profile, the wrong religion or color, have attended the wrong university or they just might make the grievous mistake of wearing the wrong color of shoe to the interview.

Anyhoo, 770 Park Avenue is known around town by the people who care about such things as a bastion of exceedingly wealthy and generous left-leaning donors to democratic candidates. Until recently Mister Nemazee epitomized the sort of democratic fat cat who lived in the pre-war dowager designed and built in 1929 by Rosario Candela, one of the legendary architects of some of the swankiest of the swank co-operative apartment houses in the NYC. This building was so swish when it was erected that the lobbies and hallways were done up by influential high-society decorator Dorothy Draper.

In 2008 Mister Nemazee acted as the finance chairman for Hillary Rodham Clinton during her unsuccessful bid for the democratic presidential nomination and in July of 2010 he was sent to the pokey for 12 years on convictions related to the operation of a colossal Ponzi scheme that collected a knee buckling $292,000,000 in fraudulent loans from major lending institutions such as HSBC, Citibank and Bank of America.

According to an early August (2010) report in the New York Post, the feds want to evict Mister Namazee and his wife Sheila from their big-ol‘ doo-plex at 770 due to unpaid monthly maintenance charges and quarterly mortgage bills. Apparently, according to the Post, Mister and Missus Nemazee’s stopped paying their ten grand (or so) a month maintenance at 770 almost as soon as Mister Nemazee got caught with his hand in the cookie jar in the summer of 2009. An unnamed source told the Post that the Nemazees were more than a year behind on their fees but that the building’s board wasn’t getting their panties in a bunch about it because “they feel sorry for Ms. Nemazee.” Oh lowerd, pleeze. Do they really?

While Mister Nemazee was shipped off to the white collar clinkety-clink in Texarkana, TX, Ms. Nemazee remained ensconced in the couple’s desirably high floor A-line apartment at 770. The thing is, as part of the plea deal made with Mister Nemazee, the feds plan to sell the large and luxe residence to help pay back some of the hundreds of millions Mister Nemazee stole.

Missus Nemazee, however, does not want to move. She likes living large up in 770 and she hoped to stay in residence. In an attempt to stake her personal claim to the apartment she alleged that it was she and not her felonious husband who came up with the bulk of the cash used to buy the lavish apartment in 1989. Missus Nemazee requested a trial to appoint her as the legal and sole owner of the apartment in the hope that it would then not have to be sold to pay back the massive debt owed due to her huzband’s nefarious financial activities.

Iffin Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, we’d admit that we don’t know if Missus Nemezee’s real estate concerns about the doo-plex at 770 were brought before a court. What is clear, as expressed in Miss Malle’s report last week, is that all the uptown brokers are abuzz because it looks like the Nemazee spread will soon be put on the market.

Many of the uptown brokers, according to Miss Malle’s report, are foaming at the mouth and hope they are the chose one to list such a rare real estate gem as the Nemazee spread at 770. All of the brokers quoted in Miss Malle’s report oohed and aahed over the both the building–Brown Harris Stevens’ John Burger called it “one of the best Park Avenue buildings”–and the apartment. One broker who went nameless suggested the apartment could and should be listed as high as $28,000,000 and big time broker Kathy Steinberg, also from Brown Harris Stevens, concurred saying, “I think that’s totally, totally fair. It could even go over $30 million, though it’s unlikely.”

Now, babies, who are we to cast aspersions at the hyperbole of the some of New York City’s most successful and well connected real estate brokers, many of whom live in the very same luxurious and expensive buildings where they sell high priced pads. We really ought to defer to their expertise. After all, we’ve never even stepped foot in 770 Park Avenue let alone had a look see at the Nemazee’s corner doo-plex. However, maybe because it’s been raining non-stop for a week on the west coast and we’re feeling a bit claustrophobic and crabby, were going to go all bitchy and huffy-puffy and say that a $28,000,000 price tag might be a wee bit optimistic for the Nemazee nest at 770 when you consider that no recorded sale in the building in the last six or seven years has come anywhere near that sky-high price. Granted, A-line corner apartments like the Nemazee crib may very well be far more grand than the colossal D-line doo-plex units like the high-floor hunny that transferred in late 2007 for $20,000,000. (More on that in a second.) However, for eight or ten million clams more than a D-line the Nemazee’s corner A-line would have to be a lot better, Taj Majhal better, you know what we mean? Otherwise Your Mama just might stick to the beautifully laid out 11-room and 4 fireplace B-line doo-plex on the 4th and 5th floors currently listed at $17,900,000.

In June of 2008, before the real estate market really drove itself off the cliff, a quirky but spectacular penthouse doo-plex with no fewer than five terraces sold for $12,000,000. The apartment was originally listed in October of 2007 with an asking price of $19,500,000. Just a few weeks later the priced dropped dramatically 10% to $17,500,000 and the very next day the price plummeted another 26% to $12,995,000.

The 8-room residence (pictured above as it was done up by the seller) has just 2 bedrooms and 3 poopers plus a staff room with private facilities tucked back behind the kitchen. A separate, cell-sized room on the buildings third floor has a closet but no terliting or bathing facilities. This is a sure way to get your live-in staff to hate your rich guts: Make them stay in a punishingly wee room 16 floors from a damn terlit.
Floor plan information (above) reveals a private elevator landing, entry vestibule and entime foyer. A long, canal-like hall stretches off the foyer, leads past a winding staircase and a wet bar and births one into the living room complete with wood burning fireplace and access through French doors to three–count ‘em kids, three–separate terraces. A small fourth terrace is located off the surprisingly tiny formal dining room located between the entry foyer and the gore-may kitchen.

The two bedrooms are well situated for privacy, far from each other as well as removed from the public areas of the penthouse. Upstairs a crow’s nest-ish bedroom has windows on three sides a a private pooper that, sadly, can only be accessed via the public upper hall. Of course, there’s little “public” on the second floor but, even still, it could get awkward for Bill Barebottomedhouseguest to come strolling out the pooper buck nekkid only to run into Florinda the day maid digging around in the large walk-in hall closet looking for the damn Swiffer. The main floor master suite, situated off the entry foyer in the rear of the apartment, consists of an entry hall, small book-lined library, dressing hall with mirrored doors, dual baths each with a window, and a commodious 400 square foot bedroom with a second wood burning fireplace.

The seller, according to the peeps at Property Shark was a ladee named Margaret Love Stevens the buyer, according to our unscientific research on the interweb, was Texas construction tycoon James Sowell and his wife Elizabeth. We don’t really know how involved Mister and/or Missus Sowell are in the political arean, but public records do show that since 2004 Miz Stevens donated more than twenty grand to Democratic candidates while Mister Sowell donated just four thousand dollars to Republican candidates. Make of that what you will, children.

One of the few Republicans in the thick Democratic mist at 770 Park Ave is hedge hog Robert Niehaus and his wife Kate. In October of 2007 the well-heeled pair shelled out $20,000,000 to purchase the 5,000-ish square foot, 4 bedroom and 5.5 pooper doo-plex digs of big biznesswoman and “Democratic fund raising powerhouse” Connie Milstein.

Miz Milstein–an heiress to the Milstein real estate fortune–gained some notoriety during the 2000 presidential election when she was caught red handed–as in on camera–bribing homeless people with cigarettes as absurd incentive to get them to vote. She was fined $5,000 for her astonishingly ludicrous effort to get out the vote. Speechless. Your Mama is truly speechless and need to take a few minutes away in a dark and quiet room in order to try to get our mind around that snap from reality.

Whatever the fall out from the cigarette incident, it certainly didn’t make Miz Milstein a real estate hot potato. See kids, she decamped the very exclusive 770 Park Avenue for the even more uppity 998 Fifth Avenue, where owners of grand apartments include a Russian oligarch (Len Blavatnik), an heir to a famous liquor fortune (Matthew Bronfman), and a corporate raider (Mark Rachesky).

A few months before Miz Milstein fled the scene at 770, in April of 2007, female Republican mover and shaker K.T. Mcfarland sold her gigantic B-line duplex for $17,500,000 to Kentucky booze heir W.L. Lyons Brown Junior, the former Bush-appointed ambassador to Austria and a recently appointed honorary trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Junior comes from the Kentucky Browns, purveyors of fine booze brands such as Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort and Finlandia Vodkas who still run the Brown-Forman Corporation that they founded in 1870.

In an article from the New York Observer from the time of the sale–May 2007– shows the 13-room doo-plex apartment contained 4 bedrooms with private poopers, a curving staircase with neoclassical banister, a 30 foot long formal living room and, in addition to a staff room and bath behind the kitchen complex, another staff room located three floors below. Interior details included herringbone hardwood floors, high ceilings with impressively substantial dentil and acanthus moldings and windows that reach almost down to the floor with Juliet balconies in the living and dining rooms. Monthly maintenance charges ran $9,177, or that is what it was at the time of the sale.

Like Miz Milstein, Miz Mcfarland is a real damn politico. She was a national security adviser to Henry Kissinger, a speech writer for politician Caspar Weinberger, and held the long-winded title of deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs at the Pentagon in the mid-1980s under President Ronald Reagan. Miz Mcfarland cemented her place in the pantheon of political pundit candy during the 2006 Senate campaign when she ran as a Republican against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Poor Miz Mcfarland, according to reports, had to admit that she didn’t vote in recent elections she also said she thought Hilary Clinton was spying on her via helicopters hovering over her Park Avenue building which also served as her campaign headquarters much, Your Mama imagines, to the delight of her far more liberal neighbors. Miz Mcfarland later said she was joking about the helicopter thing.

You can’t make this stuff up, kids. The rich movers and shakers who pull the levers of big bizness and politics are amazing. It’s like watching Vaudville.

In addition to all the big girl apartments that have been bought and sold in the last 5 or six years, there have been several lower priced sales at 770 including a ground commercial unit that went for $2,200,000 in July of 2005 and a two bedroom and 2 pooper place on the second floor that sold for $3,600,000 in October of 2007. The most recent sale at 770 was in January of 2010 when the high floor 2 bedroom and 3 pooper pad of a ladee named Eleanor Winthrow was sold to a couple who may or may not have something to do with the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. The apartment, which has a very narrow 45-foot long terrace that runs along the living and dining rooms, was sold for $5,000,000. It had originally been listed, the children may wish to note, with a much higher price tag of $10,950,000.

Some of the other high profile people that occupy the discreet building include Vornado Realty Trust chairman (and billionaire) Steve Roth and his Broadway producer wife Daryl Roth who bought the late Gianni Agnelli’s spread in 2003. Your Mama does not know what they paid for the place, so don’t even ask. What we do know is that Agnelli’s pied a terre was listed at $25,000,000. Some of the children may recognize Mister and Missus Roth as the very same folks who in 2009 forked over $9,410,000 to buy imprisoned Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff’s ocean front house in Montauk, NY. The Roths, it should be no surprise to now, have given nearly one hundred thousand clams to democratic causes and candidates.

Also in residence at 770 according to property records and previous reports on the building are airport transportation expert, MTA board member, and donator to democrats Doreen Frasca, powerful co-CEO of New Line Cinema Michael Lynne who also donates to democrats, and socialite art patron Sylvia de Cuevas. David and Lisa Schiff, the well-connected parents of son Drew who married Al Gore’s daughter Karenna also live up in 770 and, natch, lean heavy to the left with their pocketbooks.

With Republicans being some of the newest residents at 770, could it be that the building is seeing a shift to the red? Would a right winger buying the Nemazee apartment not only be a sweet kind of real estate revenge on the democrats but a further following of the political leanings of its residents? We shall see, puppies, we shall see when the Nemazee’s apartment sells to the highest bidder, or at least the highest bidder who can pass muster with the board.

photos and floor plan: Stribling

George Michael Goes Down Under

BUYER: George Michael
LOCATION: Palm Beach, Australia
PRICE: around $6,000,000
SIZE: 3,500 square feet (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday Your Mama discussed the posh London residence recently purchased by two-time Oscar nominated actor Jude Law and ack-tress/model/fashion designer Siena Miller. The back in the saddle couple’s new crib in the hoity-toity and star studded Highgate area happens to be a few doors down from a home owned by British pop star George Michael and his long-time American lover-mate Kenny Goss.

Miss Michael rose to the pinnacle of pop music fame and fortune in the 1980s as one half of the screamingly successful and–for those of us who came of age in the 1980s–iconic British duo Wham! In the late 1980s, Miss Michael launched a solo career that spawned a number of hit songs such as Freedom! 90, which included a video that helped merge the music and fashion industries by featuring Amazonic supermodels Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Tatjana Patitz and the other worldly Christy Turlington. Miss Michaels last had a number one hit in the U.S. in 1991 (Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me with Elton John) in the U.K. in 1996 with Fastlove, a song Your Mama had never heard until this very day. Meh. We like Miss Michael and her feisty ways, but we don’t particularly care for his brand of pop music.

Before meeting and coupling up with Miss Michael in 1996, Mister Goss–a native of Texas–was reportedly an executive at Adidas and, prior to that, a cheerleading coach, probably the gayest damn job Your Mama has ever heard of.

Unfortunately for him, Miss Michael is just as well known for his antics due to drink and drugs and his predilection for tea rooms as he is for his contributions to pop music. In the late 1990s naughty Miss Michael was picked up for lewd behavior as part of a sting operation in a Beverly Hills, CA public terlit, an event during which good looking and well formed undercover cops went into public terliting facilities, flashed and played with their man bits in order to get the attentions of men who like man bits, and then arrested any of the men like Miss Michael who expressed interest in joining in the po-po’s reindeer games. Miss Michael handled the humiliating and very public slap in a commendably ballsy and completely unapologetic manner. Miss Michael, not one to learn his tea room lesson apparently, was picked up by the po-po twice more–in 2006 and 2008–for cruising a public terlit in a park near his home in London.

Along the way, he was arrested (and quickly released) for possession of drugs in 2006 and in July of 2009 he rammed his Range Rover into a Snappy Snaps shop in Hampstead Heath. He was charged and convicted of driving under the influence and spent 4 weeks in the pokey in September of 2010. He’s now not legally allowed to drive a car for 5 years and he says he’s cut his cannabis habit down from 25 spliffs a day to just 7 or 8. Twenty-five? Lowerd have mercy child, how does a person even smoke that much damn weed in a day and remain operational?

At least one previous reports indicates that Miss Michael took a shine to the sunny city of Sydney in the early months of 2010 when he made an extended two month stay. During that time he was reportedly a “fixture” on the gay gay gay Oxford Street bar and club circuit where he was (allegedly) seen kissing on a number of men who are not his American mate Kenny. Clearly these two have some sort of understanding in regards to outside dalliances. At least we hope they do. Otherwise Mister Goss just looks like a damn fool motivated by something other than, ahem, love.

Anyhoo, it seems the Miss Michael was so smitten that he wanted to set down some real estate roots along the Australian seaside. So a hunting for a house he went and reportedly settled on a stunner north of Sydney near Whales Beach. It’s not clear to Your Mama how much Miss Michael paid for his new digs Down Under but it does appear from our entirely unscientific research that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of six million Aussie dollars, a number our currency conversion contraption shows amounts to about six million American dollars and close to four million British pounds.

Listing information for the property that we cajoled out of the interweb shows the clean-lined contemporary residence measures around 3,500 square feet and includes a total of 5 bedrooms, each with access to the exterior and each with en suite terliting and bathing facilities. Floor plan information shows there are two additional powder poopers, one just off the entry and the other conveniently situated on the lower level near the swimming pool.

Your Mama had one of them eerie deja vu thingys happen when we looked at the photos and floor plan for this house. Although we’re a little befuddled and boozy brained, we’re pretty sure we’ve seen this house before, perhaps in Architectural Digest or in one of the expensive and imported Australian architecture magazines we used to buy when we had a brief but intense love affair with contemporary Australian architecture in the early naughts.

The property lies about an hour north of the Sydney central business district near the tail end of a narrow peninsula along Whales Beach in the affluent and scenic seaside town of Palm Beach. This is, for anyone that might care, the same neck of the Australian seaside where that weird little hair obsessed Justin Bieber fellow was recently and unfortunately–heaven help us all–photographed frolicking on the shore without his shirt.

Dramatically perched on a rocky coastline with a sparkling water view of the Tasman Sea, the house has three levels of carefully calibrated living space that maximizes the amazing view and provides clear but interconnected separation between the public and private areas. The front door opens into a long hall that leads deep into the house to the the airy, 40-foot long open plan living/dining/kitchen area.

The multi-purpose room has a high pitched ceiling, a fireplace flanked by storage and media cabinets, and two walls of curtain glass that confuse the division between what is inside and what is outside. To one side of the living room glass panels sides back and connect the indoor space to a courtyard that sits between the two major masses that comprise the residence. On the opposite wall another series of floor to ceiling glass panels slide open and join the living room to a large waterside deck. The windows allow someone sitting in any part of the courtyard to look clear through the house to the water view beyond.

In the two-story section of the house that sits nearest the street, an intimate study with fireplace acts as a buffer between the more public rooms and (some of) the bedrooms. Adjacent to the study a large bedroom opens out to the courtyard and upstairs two bedrooms with built in wardrobes have access to a balcony that looks down into the courtyard and over the roof of the living/dining/kitchen pavilion to the sea view.

A flight of stairs in the entrance hall descends to the lower level of the house, directly underneath the living/dining/kitchen room. A rumpus room–otherwise known as a family room–has a wet bar and a bank of folding glass panels that peel back and open the room to the backyard. An “L” shaped hall provides access to a powder pooper, storage room, laundry facilities and two more bedrooms, both with built-in wardrobes and both with fold glass panels that also open into the backyard.

Decking surrounds the plunge-sized, trapezoidal-shaped infinity edged swimming pool and a wee patch of grass is just enough space for a couple of long bodied bitches like Your Mama’s Linda and Beverly to tinkle and squat. The view–let’s be honest hunnies, the view is breathtaking iffin you like seaside views–reaches completely over the Tasman Sea–often referred to as “The Ditch”–to the southern coastline of the Central Coast.

In addition to their house in Highgate and now this new hideaway in Australia, Mister Goss and Miss Michael own several other homes including a 16th-century house in Goring, Oxfordshire that’s about an hour due west outside of London and just a hop skip and a jump over the Thames river from Spice Girl Geri Halliwell’s house. A tour of the quaint crib Miss Michael gave to chat show queen Oprah Winfrey back in 2006 included the library where Miss Michael admits that the shelves are full of antique books he’s never cracked open. Now, hunnies, that’s just sad. We don’t mind your thing for tea rooms Miss Thing, but gurl, seriously, read a damn book sometimes. That one does not read books is not something civilized people should admit on the Oprah damn Winfrey Show.

The real estate holdings of Miss Michael have long included properties in the United States. From 1989 to 1996 Georgie-boy owned a fab house in swish and to-die-for gorgeous Santa Barbara, CA . After selling that house Miss Michael bought a big house in Beverly Hills on the very same street where too big for his britches Tommy Crooz now lives. That house was sold off in 2003 for $2,850,000. In 2006 Miss Michael and Mister Goss couple traded in a large condo at the Vendôme building in Dallas, TX for a stately mansion in Highland Park, an uppity ‘hood that Dallas-based real estate gossip Candy Evans told Your Mama is, “very classy, stodgy, Republican, safe and rich.”

Property records show that the 5,538 square foot house was bought early 2006 for $3,325,000 and has 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers. Mister Goss, a former gallerist and major collector of contemporary art, has filled the couple’s homestead in Dallas with the sort of works that many people often dismiss out of hand as something other than actual art. According to various articles available on the internets we learned that Mister Goss and Miss Michael’s collection includes a lot of work by British artists who include the clever Tim Noble and Sue Webster, the always controversial and insanely successful Damien Hirst, op-art grande dame Bridget Riley, sculptress Rachel Whiteread, the often provocative Tracey Emin and the usually quite alarming Chapman brothers Jake and Dinos.

One wonders, of course, if this property purchase in Australia is merely some sort of real estate lark of a rich and famous person or if Mister Michael–and Mister Goss–actually intend to spend more time bumming around the beach in Australia. If it’s the latter, we expect the house will be back on the market in six months time. If it’s the former, Your Mama would like to offer Miss Michael and Mister Goss our house sitting services because there’s little better we can imagine than whittling away a few weeks by a swimming pool in the southern hemisphere with little more than a chilled pitcher of gin & tonics, a tall stack of gossip glossies, the New York Times crossword puzzle app on my iPhone and perhaps something divine by Joan Didion to remind us of home. Can you hear Your Mama Miss Michael? Because we’re being serious like a heart attack so give us a ringy-dingy.

listing photos and floor plan: Raine & Horne

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