Leeza Gibbons Tries to Sell, Leases, Buys, Buys Again, Tries to Sell Again, Sells, and Buys Again...

BUYER: Leeza Gibbons
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $7,690,000
SIZE: 7 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the years, starting with the late 2006 discussion of the West Hollywood compound she and her third husband, architect and inventor Stephen Meadows, then had on the open market with an asking price of $7,995,000,* Your Mama has often discussed the real estate doings of entrepreneurial and philanthropic t.v. personality and radio hostess Leeza Gibbons.

Miz Gibbons rose to Showbiz prominence in the mid-980s as the approachable host of the entertainment news program Entertainment Tonight. Since then she's popped up on a few game shows (Pyramid, Hollywood Squares) and television programs (Murphy Brown, Sunset Beach, The Simpsons) and hosted the televised 75th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade. In the mid-Aughts she landed her own, eponymous (if short-lived) daytime chat show and in 2007 she secured a much-coveted (but also short-lived) spot on Dancing With the Stars.

She took home an Emmy last year for her hosting duties on the PBS series My Generation, currently hosts the long-running and well syndicated radio show Hollywood Confidential and co-hosts the also syndicated, news-related t.v. program America Now with reality television star/author/motivational speaker Bill Rancic. In the early 2000s she developed a mineral make-up line and founded a nonprofit, Leeza's Place, aimed at providing support to caregivers of people with memory disorders.

We last heard word of the real estate doings of Miz Gibbons back in July 2011 when she put a Beverly Hills faux-Tuscan mini-manse on the market with an asking price of $6.895 million. She bought the house only since June 2010 when she paid paid $6.6 million for the big but bland six bedroom and 5.5 bathroom residence on Tower Road.**

The following July (2011), shortly after she married her fourth (and much younger) husband, Steven Fenton,*** she hoisted the oppressively banal house back on the market for $6,895,000. Although it did not sell, it was taken off the market just a few months later because Miz Gibbons leased the property, according to tireless real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak, to entertainment advertising bigwig Steph Sebbag. It was less than half a year later, in early December, 2011, that Miz Gibbons and her new mister surreptitiously shelled out $5.2 million for what's commonly known by real estate people in Los Angeles as the Al Jolson Estate, a celebrity pedigreed two-plus acre estate in Encino (CA).

According to the fine fellas at Movieland Directory, Mister Jolson sold the house in the early 1940s for $28,000 to Oscar winner Don Ameche. Later residents include Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen (long divorced), Kirstie Alley and Parker Stevenson( long divorced), and Katey Sagal and Jake White (also long divorced). Anyways, the Gibbons-Fentons quickly caught a classic case of The Real Estate Fickle because Your Mama found digital evidence they flipped the celeb-pedigreed property back on the market less than a year later, in late September, 2012, with a significantly higher $6.5 million price tag. The price eventually fell to $5.995 million before it was taken off the open market in April 2013, although it still appears as an "active" listing on the digital portal of at least one of Beverly Hills' more lee-gendary lady real estate agents.

At the same time Miz Gibbons and Mister Fenton de-listed their fabled estate in Encino they re-listed the aforementioned faux-Tuscan on Tower Road for $6,995,000 and this time, butter beans and bean counters, they had Lady Luck on their side. Property records show the house in late August (2013) for $6.9 million to a corporate entity Yolanda swears is connected to a non-famous Israeli businessman.

Given alls real estate hurly-burly over the last few years Your Mama might have imagined that Miz Gibbons and Mister Fenton could have easily decided to stay put in Encino but no siree Bob. Thanks to good ol' Yolanda it's come to Your Mama's celebrity real estate attention that in late January (2014) Miz and fourth Mister Gibbons quietly coughed up $7,690,000 for a classy, clapboard-sided fixer upper on a much-coveted, tree-lined street in the flats of Beverly Hills.****

Official listing details don't show the square footage of the center hall traditional—the L.A. County Tax Man puts it at 4,294—but do indicate the well preserved (if wan) residence was built in 1927 and sits on a mid-block lot that's all but half an acre. As far as we can tell from a careful perusal of various digital marketing materials, there are a total of seven bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms divided between the main house and a detached guest house at the back of the property.

The tightly curved floating staircase, original moldings, and honey-toned wood floors in the bullet-shaped center hall foyer hint loudly at the architectural and decorative elegance easily pulled out and polished by an accomplished and highly compensated nice-gay or lady decorator.

Side-lit French doors in the foyer open into a spacious formal living room with street-facing bay window and fireplace and identical side-lit French doors on the opposite wall open into the step up formal dining room where angled, glass-fronted china cabinets flank a bank of multi-paned windows that stretch almost to the floor. A third set of side-lit French doors link the dining room to a clubby, wood paneled library with fireplace, leaded glass windows, and garden access through—you got it—French doors.

It's not going to win any style or design awards but the kitchen has, as per listing details, been updated. Your Mama notes perfectly ordinary white raised panel cabinetry, flecked dark grey granite counter tops, tile back splashes, and a full suite of high-grade appliances including a six (or maybe eight) burner commercial-style range.

In addition to the ones in the living room and library there are at least two more fireplaces in the main house, one an awkwardly off-center wart in one of the upstairs bedrooms and the other in an adjoining sitting room/sun porch with symmetrical built-in book shelves and at least three sizes of multi-pane windows.

The grounds look in listing photos to be gardener maintained if a bit, uhm, tired and encompass a trellis-shaded veranda, multi-level red brick terraces, a simple rectangular swimming pool—we did not spy a spa, and a rose garden planted with a few fig trees. A long driveway runs from the street to the extreme rear of the parcel where there's a car park area next to the aforementioned guest house that has yet another fireplace.

*Miz Gibbons and Mister Meadows, by then long divorced, finally sold the property in June 2010 for $4,795,000.

**In late 2011, about six months after she bought the Tower Road residence, Miz Gibbons shelled out $1.199 million for an unassuming micro-compound just off hotsy-totsy Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood. Listing details from the time of the purchase show the compact 5,000 square foot lot includes a two-story main house with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms plus a detached guest house with living room, laundry, kitchen, another bedroom and bathroom. It's Your Mama's understanding Miz Gibbons uses—or at least used—the house as a base for her various business and philanthropic ventures.

**Miz Gibbons is currently married to her fourth husband, the 13 years younger Steven Fenton. We're not sure exactly what Mister Fenton does for work right now but at the time they were married he was most frequently identified as the former president of the Beverly Hills Board of Education. Incidentally, his father, a financial services executive, was also previously the president of the Beverly Hills Board of Education and was also, very briefly in 2008, the mayor of Beverly Hills. Anyways...

****It is Yolanda's opinion that the Gibbons-Fenton's new acquired residence is located on one of the best blocks on one of the best streets in all of the Beverly Hills flats. Some of the couple's nearest neighbors in Bev Hills now include lauded lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, film and television producer Tony Krantz, model/socialite Christina Estrada Juffali—she once dated Prince Andrew and is the ex-wife of a Saudi billionaire Walid Juffali, philanthropic theater heiress Victoria Mann Simms, nail polish tycoon George Schaeffer, and Gabonese political power players Pascaline Bongo Ondimba and Paul Toungui.

listing photos (Beverly Hills Flats): Rodeo Realty

Word on the Celebrity Real Estate Street...

...is that hellion hip hop pop star Justin Bieber has done sold his mansion in The Oaks, an upscale and celebrity-approved guard-gated community in Calabasas, CA. The buyer was reported by gossip juggernaut TMZ to be soon-to-be-divorced reality television staple Khloe Kardashian, who, in case anyone cares, popped up as a celebrity judge on RuPaul's Drag Race this week.

Good grief, children, do any of these Kardashian women ever to anything that isn't an obvious and calculated attempt to curry attention from all the gossip glossies, celebrity-centric blogs and property gossips? No. They really don't go in much for that sort of thing, do they? Listen, Khloe Kardashian, you go on with your rich, badass self and snatch up all the multi-million dollar houses you want. Indeed, spend six or so million of your clams for The Beebs crib, one of the most infamous and over-publicized houses in all of Calabasas. But, gurl, if you don't think this cynical property gossip isn't on to your blatant, multi-million dollar real estate attempt to remain tits up, ass out and face forward in the tabloid media, well, you must think you're dealing with a moe-ron.

Anyways, at this point this burgeoning celebrity real estate brouhaha is all just rumor and gossip so we really can't say if soon to be ex-Missus Odom bought the property or how much she paid for the 9,214 square foot Spanish hacienda style mansion that The Beebs bought, much to the later chagrin of some of his neighbors, in April 2012 for $6.5 million.

Of course, The Beebs may have made alterations to the interiors but old digital listing details Your Mama dug up on the internets show that at the time of his purchase the 1.28 acre spread had a two-story main house with six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, half a dozen fireplaces, and two three car garages. A spacious, self-contained one bedroom and one bathroom casita near the swimming pool has—or had—a kitchen and a fireplace in the living room.

The Kardashian clan mostly kongregate in the hot as Hades far western suburbs of Los Angeles. Kimmie K. and her grimly pretentious baby daddy, Kanye West, are all set to move to a $9 million macmansion situated so far on the edge of Bel Air it might as well be in Encino. Momma Kardashian (and whichever of her Brady Bunch litter that still lives with her) resides in a decadently decorated house in the affluent equestrian-oriented Hidden Hills community and Khloe K.'s older sister, Kourtney, and her douchebaggy baby daddy, Scott Disick, are the peeps who paid upwards of $8.4 million for Keyshawn Johnson's 11,000+ square foot mansion in Calabasas that happens to be just around the corner from the house The Beebs allegedly sold to Khloe K for an as yet unknown amount of dinero.

It's been widely reported by celebrity and celebrity property gossips that young, tatted and erratic Mister Bieber—holed up on the spaceship-like Atlanta residence of music producer Dallas Austin— is looking for more isolated if no less luxurious digs around Thousand Oaks, CA, and Atlanta, GA.

aerial photo: Pacific Coast News

A Couple of Art World Bigwigs List Art-Filled Time Warner Aerie

SELLERS: Tobias Meyer and Mark Fletcher
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $16,950,000
SIZE: 2,632 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was valued New York City real estate tattletale Steven Harris Brown who snitched to Your Mama that art world muckety-mucks Tobias Meyer and Mark Fletcher hoisted their not surprisingly art-filled aerie at the twin-towered Time Warner Center in New York City on the open market with an asking price of $16,950,000.

Mister Fletcher, according to his own website, is a curator, collector, advisor and private contemporary dealer with nearly three decades of experience. Until late last year, when he left "amid criticism," German-born Mister Meyer was an accomplished auctioneer and the worldwide head honcho of contemporary art at the venerable—if sagging and under attack—Sotheby's auction house. Interestingly—and quite possibly pointedly—Misters Meyer and Fletcher chose not to make use of a Sotheby's real estate brokerage when they listed their cosmopolitan crib and instead hired a couple of high-powered lady agents at Corcoran. ¡Es un escándalo inmobilaria! Anyways...

Property records Your Mama peeped show Misters Meyer and Fletcher purchased the 66th floor city-, river- and park -view spread in March of 2004 for $5,482,215. A few quick flick of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that should the high-power lady real estate agents manage to haul in a sale anywhere close to it's current asking price the high-cultured fellas could realize a mouth watering 300+ percent return on their decade-long ownership—not counting improvements, carrying costs and real estate fees, of course. Not a bad way to turn several million bucks into a small fortune in a relatively short amount of time but—and here's the rub, butter beans with big financial dreams—you gotta have the first several million in order to parlay it into many more.

It is Your Mama's admittedly uneducated decorative opinion that the overall vision of a well-dressed home should be summed up —or at least hinted at in a tantalizing manner—right away in the foyer (or entrance hall or what have you). Misters Meyer and Fletcher's Time Warner Center foyer, hunties and other children, does not disappoint for, indeed, it proudly and vigorously announces its thoroughly ebullient decorative cacophony right away in the foyer with super-graphic black and white stripe floor covering—it could be carpet or maybe marble—juxtaposed against low-grade plywood paneling on the ceiling and walls. A Matthew Barney diptych from his five-part and fab-freaky Cremaster series surmounts an 18th century giltwood console topped by a probably pricey and possibly pedigreed pair of rococo candelabra while an over-sized, gold-toned light up dollar sign by YBA art duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster leans ever so not casually against the wall.*

The boldly striped floor pattern and the art-centric decorative merry-making continues into the irregularly shaped combination living and dining room where floor to ceiling windows on two, obtusely angled walls provide soaring views of Central Park as well as the upper floors of the black-glassed (and slightly sinister looking) Trump International Hotel and Towers. On the back wall a decadently framed portrait by John Currin hangs above an gilt-trimmed 18th century commode in front of a frenetic, pop art-y wall mural that—word to the wise—doesn't shy way from nipples and pubic hair. The mural not only covers just about every available inch of wall space and at least one exposed structural column it also creeps creepily up on to the ceiling. The site specific mural was done, our research shows, by the Brazilian artist Eli Sudbrack, a principle member of the arts collective Assume Vivid Astro Focus.

The adjacent kitchen isn't particularly roomy but it does offer a dining area with built-in banquette seating in front of an entire wall of north-facing windows and is expensively equipped with vertical grained walnut (or maybe teak or cherry) cabinetry, marble counter tops and floors, and a stainless steel volume that holds Euro-style double ovens and two integrated refrigerator-freezers.

Listing photos show one of the two guest bedrooms decked out as an office/library with book-lined book shelves and a marble-topped desk in front of another full wall of north-facing windows. The second guest bedroom has another wall of book-stuffed book shelves and another wall of windows but this time in a western direction that allows for an almost unobstructed view across the Hudson River to the densely developed eastern shore of New Jersey.

The striped floors continue, finally, into the prow-shaped master bedroom where two walls of glass with panoramic (if not entirely unobstructed) north and west views. There are also a dressing area/entry vestibule, two walk-in closets—both, no doubt, lined with expensive suits, and a six-piece marble bathroom with frameless glass shower enclosure.

According to listing details the monthly taxes and common charges total $10,771 and cover, according to Your Mama's research, the full range of Time Warner's super-luxe amenities such as round the clock doorman, concierge and maid services. There's a giant Whole Foods market in the basement of the building—if that's your food shopping thing—as well as an on-site garage with valet services and a chauffeurs lounge. Also on the grounds are a full-service five-star spa and fitness center, a multi-story shopping galleria, and a couple of New York's best regarded and most expensive eateries, Masa and Per Se.

Although it does not appear to Your Mama that Misters Meyer and/or Fletcher now or ever owned them, Mister Fletcher's website indicates he recently but previously maintained a couple of quasi-public art spaces in New York City including one in a vaunted, 1977 Paul Rudolph designed penthouse in Midtown Manhattan and another a 19th century townhouse across from Washington Square Park.** He also has (or had) more private, by appointment only art viewing spaces in a severely-angled Daniel Libeskind designed residence in Connecticut and at the so-called Domus Solaris, an all but perfect, 1975-built Buff and Hensmen designed pavilion with one bedroom and 1.5 bathrooms on L.A.'s famed Mulholland Drive. (As it turns out the downright dee-voon Domus Solaris, owned by sports agent Michael Reilly, is currently on the open market and, as of this morning, in escrow with an asking price of $2.4 million.)

*Listing photographs Your Mama combed over with a fine toothed comb do not show the foyer but it does appear in March 2005 article about the obviously rich art-minded couple in W Magazine with the aforementioned finishes and artworks.

**The four-unit (rental) building on top of which the Paul Rudolph penthouse sits was listed for sale in late 2012 for $27.5 million. The price was lowered to $22.5 million before it was de-listed in May 2013. The building does not appear to have been sold. In May 2013 the high-glam penthouse once leased by Mister Fletcher popped up for lease at $14,000 per month and, after it was reduced to $13,700, rented to an unknown party in late March. The parlor floor space on Washington Square North that Mister Fletcher used as an art exhibition and project space was listed for lease in mid-January 2014 at $8,500 per month. It was taken off the market 11 days later but it's not clear to this property snoop if the 1 bedroom and 1.5 space was rented.

exterior photo of Time Warner towers: Christopher Bride for Property Shark
listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar Flipping out in Brentwood

SELLERS: Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $7,900,000
SIZE: 7,318 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only six short months ago, eagle-eyed celebrity real estate watchers will recall, that Hollywood veterans Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar paid $6.1 million for an East Coast-y mini-manse in the rustically swank (upper) Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles which they've flipped back on the market this week with a significantly (and curiously) higher price tag of $7.9 million.

Current listing details show the three-story, clapboard clad Colonial, partially hidden from the street behind a short stacked stone wall and a high hedge, has a total of six bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in 7,318 square feet. A careful if quick comparison of current listing photos to those from the time of the couples' August 2013 acquisition suggest few (if any) alterations were made to the residence besides a trendy darkening the hardwood floors throughout the main floor, a little paint here and/or there, and the installation of their own comfortable if vanilla-flavored furnishings.

A double-height entrance hall with the same drippy crystal chandelier duo as when they bought the house links through to formal living and dining rooms, the former with with fireplace, wet bar, and wine storage room. A series of French doors framed by the same crimson curtains that hung there when the Prinze-Gellers bought that house last year open to a shallow veranda with verdant backyard views. There's a second fireplace in a cozy study and a third, cattywompus one in the spacious open-plan kitchen/eating/family room space that, like the formal living room, opens through a series of French doors to a trellis-shaded terrace.

There are a total of six bedrooms including a staff suite on the main floor and four guest/family bedrooms on the second floor. The roomy, second floor master suite has a soaring, sky-lit vaulted ceiling, a (fourth) fireplace, two sets of French doors that open to a small private terrace, and two fitted walk-in closets. The marble-tiled master bathroom also appears unaltered from the the Prinze-Gellers' 2013 purchase and (still) includes a pair of sinks, a windowed crapper cubicle, a soaking tub set in front of an over-sized window, and a separate marble-sheathed steam shower with convenient built-in bench.

Tucked up under the eaves on the third floor, as per listing details, there's a "bonus room" and a home fitness room where we imagine Mister Prinze, Jr. and Miz Gellar spend a lot of time keeping their bodies in HD camera ready condition.

The backyard isn't particularly large for a nearly eight million dollar home in an area of Los Angeles known for its horse-friendly estates but it is private and lush with several shaded terraces, a long and slender strip of well-watered lawn for the pooches and kiddies, a built-in barbecue station, and a free-from swimming pool and spa set into a flagstone terrace wedged between an ugly (if practical) child safety fence and a steep up slope.

Of course, Your Mama has no idea what Mister Prinze, Jr. and Miz Gellar's future real estate plans hold but it could be they'll decamp to whence they came, a 7,335 square foot residence in the same guard-gated Bel Air community where Kimmie Kardashian and her baby-daddy Kanye West own a lavishly renovated macmansion. Property records and other digitally accessed resources show the three-enshrouded residence has seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms and that they picked it up for $2.45 million way back in October 2001.

listing photos: Teles Properties

Ryan Lewis Snags Pricey Puget Sound Pad

BUYER: Ryan Lewis
LOCATION: Seattle, WA
PRICE: $3,300,000
SIZE: 7,610 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although it's starting to get out all over the Pacific Northwest media Your Mama first heard word from one of the busy celebrity real estate rubberneckers at Redfin that Grammy winning musician Ryan Lewis is all set to trade up from the Thrift Shop to a water front spread in Seattle, WA, that he picked up in late January (2014) for a Rodeo Drive designer boutique price of $3.3 million.

Mister Lewis, an only marginally successful solo musician, was launched to pop music super stardom  in 2013 as Macklemore's scruffy-chinned sidekick, dj, mix master and video directer. In case any of the children somehow failed to notice, Mister Macklemore (née Ben Haggerty) and Mister Lewis were nominated for seven Grammys this year (2014) and the pair took home four statuettes (Best New Artist, Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance). If you don't know who these two are are don't blame Your Mama because it's not because they ain't famous it's because you're either uninterested in what's happening in popular music—and fair enough—or simply feel too over the hill to participate in new music memes. Anyways...

Property records show Mister Lewis purchased the bluff top property that overlooks the glistening waters of Puget Sound from Bonnie and Ron Elgin, the latter of whom is a renown and somewhat recently retired advertising honcho whose clientele included McDonalds, Nordstroms, and Holland America Line.

Information Your Mama dug up on the internets suggests Mister and Missus Elgin custom built the two-story—let's call it a vaguely Italian- post-modern villa, shall we—in the affluent Briarcliff 'hood. It has been on and off the market since the middle of 2005. In September 2012 Mister and Missus Elgin re-listed the nearly one acre spread with a rose-tinted asking price of $4,499,000 and by October 2013 the price had plummeted precipitously to $3,490,000 before Mister Lewis came along and snatched it up for $3.3 million.

Listing details show the existing residence was completed in 1995 and contains a total of four bedrooms and three full and two half bathrooms plus five fireplaces in 7,610 square feet of interior space oriented to take best advantage of the sweeping bluff-top western views of the pretty but not exactly pristine Puget Sound and the snow-capped Olympic Mountains. The three-story house is a much more traditional and luxuriously bland affair than we might have imagined would best suit Mister Lewis but the first rule in real estate is, of course, location, location, location and this is unquestionably a prime Puget Sound-side perch in a super-prime locale. Yes? No?

It's a long (if elegant) flight of concrete stairs from the gated, street-level parking pad and detached two-car garage to the double front doors to open into a marble-floored double-height atrium-foyer with a view clear through the house to the spectacularly silhouetted Olympic Mountain range. The marble floors turn to honey-toned wood in the adjoining ballroom-sized combination formal living/dining room where a trio of extra-wide French doors open to a stone (or, more likely, cast concrete) balustraded terrace with unobstructed views across shimming water to Bainbridge Island.

The eat-in kitchen is certainly well-equipped with amenities such as Shaker-style cabinetry, black granite counter tops, and a full suite of top-grade appliances including an industrial-grade range and multiple dishwashers. However, hunties, Your Mama can't help but notice that heavily laden pot rack that's hung ominously over the butcher block topped center work island where the inanimate yet still deeply sinister contraptions could easily drop a copper pot on the unsuspecting head of a toddler or snatch a bobble-headed queen's lace-front weave right off her head.

The upper level master suite is comprised of a bedroom with fireplace, a private den/sitting room, a water-side wrap around terrace, and a private bathroom with what appears to be—but we sincerely hope is not—blush-hued marble.

Other rooms include a small library lined with floor-to-ceiling book shelves, a den off the kitchen that opens to the same balustraded terrace as the living/dining room, and a roomy and fully-carpeted family room that opens to a vine-draped water-side loggia that extends the full width of the house. Somewhere there's a wine cellar with a simply godawful mural that Your Mama can only hope Mister Lewis has the good sense to paint over.

Set to the side and below the house, a series of terraces and lawns step down towards the 150-foot salt water beach at the water's edge. There does not appear to be a swimming pool on the property, which is kind of a bummer in a $3.3 million dollar house but let's face it, sugar beets, Seattle isn't exactly a sunbather's paradise and it surely costs a small fortune each year to heat an outdoor swimming pool in this notably damp (if uncommonly stunning) corner of these great United States.

In early November last year (2013) Mister Lewis's professional compatriot Macklemore gave the celebrity gossips at E! a (video taped) tour of his modest, rental-grade apartment in Seattle. This was, it should be noted, just a few short days after rumors began to swirl amongst Seattleites (and others) who care about such real estate trivialities that Mister Macklemore (and his fiancée) might be moving to million-dollar plus digs in Seattle's thriving  Capital Hill district. Although there has been some speculation as to the property Mister Macklemore (allegedly) acquired this property gossip can not, at this time, confirm or deny a million dollar purchase in the Capital Hill are by Mister Macklemore.

listing photos: Windermere Real Estate

Bank owned canal front with Ocean view 2/2 500K

This is a great deal in South Key Largo, MM95 on the Ocean side with great views!

It'll go quickly, don't wait.



If you are interested in property in the Keys, please contact me, veepka, at 305-393-0923 or VeepkaC21@gmail.com

In Case You Missed It: A Brazilian Giga-Mansion

Just for shits and giggles and the freakish absurdity of the whole thing we're gonna wind up this rainy Friday afternoon with a piggy on the back of the impressively focussed fellow at Homes of the Rich (via Veja São Paulo) who unearthed some recently published details about a 191,000+ square foot residential compound in Santana de Parnaiba, outside of São Paulo, Brazil. The recently completed hill top compound is owned by innovative Brazilian television executive Amilcare Dallevo Jr. and his t.v. presenter wife Daniela Albuquerque, a couple of unrepentant real estate size queens if this property gossip has ever seen one.

The high-walled and no-doubt heavily fortified property has a three-plus story main mansion with—so the scuttlebutt goes—a 13,000 square foot master suite that includes a private, roof-top swimming pool. No, butter cups, that is not a drunken typo, we really meant thirteen thousand square feet...a 13,000 square foot master suite. Think about that for a minute because it makes Your Mama need a nerve pill and a stiff, pre-cocktail hour gin & tonic to imagine a bedroom complex larger than some public schools. Anyways, somewhere on the property there's a cinema and spa—natch—as as well his and her offices of 1,000 or more square feet apiece and a 26-foot long fish tank because, let's be honest, what good is a 191,000 square foot giga-mansion without a 26-foot long fish tank that probably requires constant and expensive upkeep and maintenance by a team of fish wranglers, glass cleaners and tank decorators?

In addition to the main mansion the property also includes an entertainment pavilion that looks the offices of a financial services outfit in Manhasset, NY, along with a multi-storied complex next to the swimming pool, and a rather bizarre cylindrical blue glass structure (with adjacent parking lot) located outside the walls. Other features of note include three heliports—including one on the roof of the main mansion, hanger space for four helicopters, subterranean parking for 50 cars, and extensive formal gardens.

Frankly it looks to Your Mama more like a luxury training facility for top tier CIA executives and operative rather than a private residence, but we've never been a residential real estate size queen so what do we know?

photo: Gutho Galiano for Veja São Paulo

In Case You Missed It: Oliver Stone

SELLER: Oliver Stone
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,999,999
SIZE: 1,736 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As far as Your Mama knows the real estate gossips at The Wall Street Journal were the first to reveal that New York City-born and L.A.-based movie maker Oliver Stone put his 1,736 square foot—and patriotically paletted—downtown Manhattan pièd-a-terre on the market this week with an asking price of $2,999,999.*

Property records show the vaunted, three-time Oscar winner (Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon, Midnight Express) shelled out $2.2 million in February 2010 for the two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom apartment on the second floor of high cost, full service and the architecturally anti-intellectual 1 Morton Square complex. The rigorously red, white and blue day-core is the handiwork, it was thoughtfully brought to Your Mama's attention Polly Wannacracker, of upper class decorator Geoffrey Bradfield.

The floor plan included with digital marketing materials shows an angled front door opens into the aggressive, outside point of an L-shaped entrance hall that may or may not be property Feng Shui-d. One leg of the foyer leads to 20+ foot, nearly square open-plan living/dining room that connects through to a small but smartly efficient galley kitchen over a three-stool snack counter. The powder room, nicely situated for olfactory and auditory seclusion, has an interesting lattice-pattern riveting detail on the walls that is both visually stimulating and equilibrium compromising all at the same time.

The bedrooms are nicely separate for maximum privacy. A good-sized guest bedroom, opposite the kitchen across the foyer, offers up a generous walk-in closet and simple, windowless bathroom. The master suite, off one end of the aforementioned L-shaped foyer, includes a modest but adequate bedroom, four closets including a fitted walk-in, and a dressing vestibule outside the Crema Marfil marble-lined bathroom.

Other features of note include 11-foot ceilings, gleaming medium brown hardwood floors, large windows with Hudson River views, and high-grade finishes and fixtures. The 280-some unit 1 Morton Place complex hugs the fast moving and heavily trafficked West Side Highway and offers its well-heeled residents 24-hour doorman and concierge services, a state-of-the-art fitness center, children's play room and an on-site attended parking garage.

Your Mama's research shows Mister Stone's west coast residence—purchased in April 2005 for $5.8 million and located on a private, tree-shaded lane in the lower section of the swankily rustic Mandeville Canyon area of L.A.—has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms in more than 6,500 square feet.

*Mister Stone's West Village pièd-a-terre, with monthly common charges and taxes that total $3,521, is also listed for lease at $13,000 per month.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

In Case You Missed It: Christian Audigier

SELLER: Christin Audigier
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,199,000
SIZE: 5,330 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the last several years French-born (and frequently maligned) fashion designer Christian Audigier—he's the fella who foisted the once ubiquitous and now grimly passé Von Dutch and Ed Hardy brands on the world in the early Aughts—failed to sell at least two multi-million dollar properties he owns in the Los Angeles area. In the fall of 2010 he had his exuberantly decorated mansion in Hancock Park listed for $8,299,000. It did not sell and was de-listed in late February 2012. In the fall of 2011 he put his also exuberantly decorated mini-ranch in Topanga, CA up for sale at $3,299,000 and for lease at $16,500 per month. Alas, the so-called C-A Ranch also did not sell and was taken off the market in July 2012. It was taken off the rental market the following month although, to be honest, puppies, we're not sure if anyone actually leased the place or not. Anyhoo...

The lady property gossip at the L.A. Times revealed this week that Mister Audigier has put yet another of his several multi-million dollar houses in Los Angeles up for sale. The asking price is currently $3,199,000—it's also for lease at $25,000 per month—and property records suggest Mister Audigier bought the property, a few short blocks east of the charming (if somewhat vanilla) Larchmont Village shopping and dining district in the downtown adjacent Windsor Square 'hood, in September 2007 for $2,695,000.

Listing details show the 1925 red brick English Tudor residence has five bedrooms and four bathroom in 5,330 square feet of—not surprisingly—exuberantly decorated and liberally chandeliered interior space. There are additional (if less exuberantly decorated and chandelier free) living quarters in a self-contained two-story back house that's clearly suitable as a pool house or for over-nighting guests or a live-in domestic.

The first of the home's innumerable crystal chandeliers hangs in the center hall foyer that's flanked by chandelier-lit formal living and dining rooms. The foyer stretches deep into the house before it links to the roomy and cook-friendly eat-in kitchen where, much to our surprise, there does not appear to be a chandelier of any kind. The kitchen, which opens through French doors to the backyard, is fully modern with a double-wide commercial-style range and a refrigerator/freezer with a most unusual alligator skin (or faux alligator) facing.

As far as Your Mama can tell, all of the bedrooms are lit by one or more chandeliers. In the master bedroom there are at least three glimmering fixtures as there are in one of the several guest bedroom where there are also three hooded twin beds that strike Your Mama as a little too coffin-esque for our comfort. Three more over-sized chandeliers hand from the exposed rafters in a meandering, en-suite bedroom tucked up into the many-gabled eaves on the third floor. Good grief, Your Mama imagines Charlene Chandelierseller was able to retire to Boca after Mister Audigier bought up every chandelier in her shop.

While some of the children will most assuredly consider Mister Audigier's highly curated day-care unacceptably garish—and that argument is most certainly easily made—the interiors also, as Madonna used to shriek, strike a pose. They are not easily dismissed or soon forgotten and there's something to be said for that, children. We can't defend all (or even many) of Mister Audigier's decorative choices—y'all noticed the table in the living room that's essentially some sort of mold of the lower half of a goddamn elephant or hippopotamus, right?—but we'd much rather be in and look around this house than an appropriately beige and gruesomely forgettable macmansion in a generic gated development. But we're crazy that way. Anyways...

The backyard entertainment and recreation areas include flourishing gardens, a swimming pool and spa surrounded by brick terracing, and various decks and patios that include an alfresco dining area lit with—you got it, kiddos—a crystal chandelier.

listing photos: Hancock Homes Realty

Upper Matecumbe True Tropical living with dockage Bank owned 850K

This is a one of a kind property in a gated community on the Ocean with dockage and a pool, beautifully landscaped grounds. 2208 SF living space on a 14826 SF lot.
Walk to Cheeca, Morada Bay .... this is THE location!



If you are interested in property in the Keys, please contact me, Veepka, at 305-393-0923 or VeepkaC21@gmail.com

In Case You Missed It: Maggie Lawson

BUYER: Maggie Lawson and James Roday
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,100,000
SIZE: 1,419 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Six weeks or so ago Your Mama revealed that actress Maggie Lawson (Psych) listed her eco-friendly home in L.A.'s Los Feliz area for $2.2 million. (It's currently in escrow for an unknown amount with an unknown buyer.) This week, the long-legged blonde gal at Trulia Luxe Living let the cat out of the bag about how Miz Lawson and her long-time man-pal and Psych co-star, actor James Roday, opted to downsize their living situation in L.A. and paid $1.1 million for a fully refurbished, late 19th-century bungalow in L.A.'s Bronson Canyon area in the foothills above Hollywood.

Listing details show the 1,419 square foot house has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, parquet wood floors in the adjoining living and dining rooms, and a nicely-equipped (if somewhat small and generic) kitchen with center work island, black granite counter tops atop simple Shaker-style cabinetry, and higher-end stainless steel appliances.

Terraced and high hedged outdoor spaces provide various outdoor living spaces and lounge areas and a detached garage looks just big enough to park two regular sized cars.

listing photos: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

In Case You Missed It: Deepak Chopra

SELLER: Deepak Chopra
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $3,595,000
SIZE: 1,551 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Celebrity-approved New Age guru Deepak Chopra has his two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom corner apartment on the 69th floor at the Park Imperial building* on New York City's Upper West Side up for sale with a $3.595 million asking price. As Your Mama taps our fingers to bloody nubbins for the children this morning the Chopra apartment is in contract to be sold to an unidentified buyer for an unknown amount.

Listing details show the 1,551 square foot apartment (above) has a short entry hall that dumps into a 21+ foot long living/dining room wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows with Hudson River views. There's a compact but well-equipped eat-in kitchen next door and, just off the entry hall, a well-placed (if windowless) powder pooper. Both of the efficiently sized but well separated bedrooms have reasonable closet space and private (and again windowless) bathrooms.

The sometimes controversial alternative health care advocate has already moved forward with the purchase of his next New York City residence, it was revealed by the the property gossips at Page Six in the New York Post and confirmed by the developers. So the stories go, Mister Chopra and his wife, Rita, will acquire a significantly larger and more expensive spread at the Delos building, a high-priced, wellness-oriented boutique development in Greenwich Village where Leo DiCaprio will also buy a place. The lower floor unit has, according to listing details, three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in almost 3,700 square feet. The sale price has yet to be revealed or recorded but the lower floor unit was last listed with an asking price of $14.5 million.

*The full-service Park Imperial complex has been home to a number of other high profile people including man-hunk actor Chris Meloni who tried to sell his family-sized aerie in the spring of 2012 for $12 million but ended up leasing it to some young Saudi prince for at $55,000 per month. Still in residence at the Park Imperial would be P. Diddy—or Diddle Fiddle or Papa Puff or whatever hell name he goes by now—who listed his glammy one bedroom apartment in the fall of 2012 for $8.5 million. The price was eventually lowered to $7,999,000 but to no avail and the apartment was taken off the market in 2013.

listing photos and floor plan: Dolly Lenz Real Estate

James Wan Buys Nebil Zarif's House in The Birds

SELLER: Nebil "Bilo" Zarif
BUYER: James Wan
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $9,750,000
SIZE: 7,500 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last night, whilst still in recovery from a fantabulously clamorous four-day weekend with long-time pals Miss Anne, Soozie Soo and the tirelessly trampy Fiona Trambeau, Your Mama received a covert communique from inestimable real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak who let the cat out of the bag about Malaysian-Australian horror movie wunderkind James Wan—now 36 years old—shelling out $9,750,000 to upgrade his living circumstances in the star-studded Bird Streets 'hood high above L.A.'s forever-chic—or, depending on your point of view, sheek—Sunset Strip.

Property records we peeped and perused show Mister Wan acquired the property, via trust, from a fella named Nebil "Bilo" Zarif. Mister Zarif is a Turkish-born businessman and winemaker who was once married to L.A.-based heiress, activist and philanthropist Nancy Davis, the fifth child and third daughter of Texas oil tycoon turned Tinseltown power player Marvin Davis. (Mister Davis once owned and lorded over 20th Century Fox as well as the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Aspen Skiing Company, the Pebble Beach Corporation, and the legendary Beverly Hills estate known as The Knoll, once owned by Kenny Rogers and now owned by tool and die mogul Eric Smidt). Anyways, Mister Zarif sired three children with Miz Davis, two of whom—Brandon and Jason—became tabloid catnip in the early and mid-Aught for the shenanigans they participated in with dimmed but not forgotten celebutantes and gossip glossy veterans like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. But we digress...

James Wan, born in Malaysia and raised in Melbourne, Australia, may not be a highly recognized name outside of Hollywood but within the insular confines of Tinseltown he's long been a shooting star in the high octane, blood curdling and highly lucrative horror/action flick genre. Ten or so year ago, when just a 20-something year old whippersnapper, Mister Wan and Australian screenwriter/producer Leigh Whannell co-created the globally successful and seemingly ceaseless silver screen psychological horror series Saw, currently in production on its eighth installment.

In addition to his impressive and clearly financially fruitful executive producer credits on about half the Saw films, Mister Wan has also directed an over-flowing handful of other feature length horror films (Dead Silence, Death Sentence, Insidious and Insidious; Chapter 2, The Conjuring). Last year he was tapped to direct the upcoming seventh installment of the also ceaseless and money minting Fast and Furious franchise. In short, he's a very busy—and, hence, wealthy—player in the crowded and competitive horror/action flick sandbox.

As it turns out, children, this isn't the first time Your Mama has (dissed and) discussed this particular property. Back in May 2007, before Mister Zarif gave the property its current modern-minded make over, we briefly discussed the property when it popped up for sale on the open market for an undisclosed amount. The house has been on and off the market ever since at a variety of prices. In October 2013—after Mister Zarif gave the entire property a high-end if fairly generically contemporary and not entirely cohesive overhaul—the property was re-listed on the open market with an indisputably optimistic $13,495,000 price tag that fell steadily and precipitously to $10,250,000 before Mister Wan came along and, at long last, took Mister Zarif's Bird Streets white elephant off his hands in mid-February (2014) for—as we mentioned earlier—$9,750,000.

There are, as per listing details, five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in the sprawling, approximately 7,500 square foot single-story main house. A self-contained detached guest house provides additional living space with a combination living room and kitchen space, a city-view bedroom, and a bathroom larger and far more luxuriously equipped than most master bathrooms.

An unexpectedly spacious, gallery-like foyer with multiple skylights and concrete floors leads directly into the main living space, an open-concept area with extra-wide plank wood floors and entire walls of glass that slide open to the backyard entertainment and recreation area. A fireplace with a carved stone (or possibly cast concrete) mantelpiece that looks like it came from the Loire Valley (or someplace like that) warms and anchors the far end of the living room.

At the other end of the long, angled space there's a much more modern fireplace surmounted by an inset flat screen television in the dining area that's open to the kitchen across a super-sized double-wide center island that includes snack counter seating for five or more. The kitchen itself is sleek with two-tone cabinetry—white and chocolate, high quality integrated appliances, and some sort of slab stone (or solid surface) counter tops.

The oddly-shaped master suite has a dramatically high vaulted ceiling with exposed wood beams, an awkwardly positioned fireplace, a flat-screen television hung from the ceiling above the bed for optimal—ahem—news and sitcom watching, and two long banks of sliding glass doors that open to the wrap-around back yard.

Other features of note include a walk-in wine cellar, a separate gym located in a detached pavilion, and a compact and fully-carpeted cave-like screening room with a fourth fireplace, suede covered walls, and a super-long sofa opposite a super-sized wall-mounted flat screen television.

The outdoor living and entertaining areas wrap around two long sides of the angled residence. The rooms along the long, angle side open to an expansive flagstone terrace with free-form swimming pool and slightly raised spa. At the kitchen end of the house a slightly elevated and pergola-shaded platform with built-in barbecue, four-stool snack and booze counter, and a pizza oven. The rooms that open to the ass end of the .63 acre lot hook into a mostly trellis-shaded deck that extends from the above-mentioned gym pavilion and out towards a glass railed perch that provides sweeping, multi-million dollar views across a wide swathe of Los Angeles.

Mister Wan doesn't have far to move his things since, our research and resources indicate, he currently lives literally just around the corner in a nearly 3,000 square foot house with three bedrooms and four bathrooms that was purchased in June 2007 for $3,210,000 via the same trust that bought Mister Zarif's house. As of this morning, Mister Wan's old house does not appear to Your Mama to be listed for sale on the open market.

listing photos: The Agency

Your Mama Hears...

...from Amanda D. Desert that juicy word on the Coachella Valley real estate street is that A-list Tinseltown hot shot Leo DiCaprio just might be the new owner of the old Dinah Shore estate in Palm Springs (CA) that sold this week according to various online resources for a $5,230,000.

The 1.34 acre estate, in the heart of the fabled and celebrity-pedigreed Old Las Palmas 'hood, was custom designed as a series of glass-walled pavilions and built in the mid-1960s for the late and legendary singer/actress Dinah Shore by prominent mid-century modern architect Donald Wexler, now in his late 80s, who in his professional heyday plied his trade predominantly in and around the Palm Springs area.

Your Mama discussed Miz Shore's former desert digs at some length back in May 2009 when five-time Emmy-winning television writer/producer David Lee (The Jeffersons, Cheers, Wings, Frasier) had the glassy, low-slung mid-century modern compound on the open market with an asking price of $5,995,000.

The estate didn't sell until April 2011 when it was acquired for $4.9 million by Ben and Jude Lipps, an obviously rich but not exactly famous couple from Orange County. The Orange County couple, in turn, listed the compound-like estate in mid-January (2014) for $5,495,000 and this time around—lucky for the Lipps—it took just two weeks instead of nearly two years before it was quickly put into escrow and sold this week to a buyer who, according to My Desert required all parties sign confidentiality agreements. That certainly sounds like something an A-list Showbizzer like, say, Mister DiCaprio would do, right?

Anyways, the estate includes a 7,022 square foot multi-winged main house, a self-contained studio-style pool/guest house, and a third, glass walled pavilion next to the tennis court. Listing details show there are six bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms, a count that may or may not include any sleeping and/or toileting facilities in the guest house and tennis pavilion.

The groomed grounds include two discreet motor courts, an almost enclosed entrance courtyard with water feature, extensive terraces and courtyards, vast swathes of well-watered lawns, a swimming pool and spa set well away but in view of the main house, and the aforementioned (mostly glass) guest/pool house and the (mostly) glass pavilion that's adjacent to a hedge-ringed tennis court.

Although the entire property has been updated and upgraded to modern standards with all new kitchens and bathrooms the three structures retain much of the architect's original features. We look forward to a rousing debate amongst all the mid-century modern aficionados (and otherwise opinionated children) about the merits of the various improvements and upgrades made to Mixer Wexler's original architectural vision.

In the last few months the five time Academy Award nominee—he's up for an Oscar this year for The Wolf of Wall Street, who owns a pair of neighboring houses near the apex of the celeb-saturated Bird Streets neighborhood above L.A.'s the Sunset Strip, has been on a bit of a real estate buying and selling spree so maybe it's not so unusual he might have opted to acquire a pricey pad in the desert. He sold an ocean front compound in Malibu late last year for $17.35 million—he still owns another ocean front house on Carbon Beach below the estate David and Yolanda Foster have on the market for $27.5 million, has reportedly agreed to shell out an as yet unknown amount for a pied a terre in a newly developed boutique building in New York City's Greenwich Village, and was rumored last August—by yours truly, of course—to have made an offer in the $30 million range for Rupert Murdoch's house in Beverly Hills. None the less, for now, his (alleged) purchase of the historic Dinah Shore estate in Palm Springs ain't nuthin' but some delectable celebrity real estate rumor and gossip and the real buyer could very well just be some Richie Rich who prefers to keep his and/or her name under wraps.

listing photos: Surterre Properties