Tidbits and Morsels: Ludacris

We first heard from the long-legged blond property gossip gal at Trulia Luxe Living that three-time Grammy winning rapper and actor Ludacris is moving up in the glittery (cut-throat and competitive) Tinseltown real estate world.

A week or so ago he sold one of his two (uncombined) duplex penthouse apartments on a heavily trafficked boulevard just west of Century City for $879,000. A quick peek at property records and a couple calculations on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's exactly $151,000 less than the $1,030,000 he paid for the place in late 2006, not counting improvements, carrying costs, and real estate fees.

A few days, maybe, before he closed the sale on the Century City-adjacent penthouse, Mister Ludacris—nee the far more prosaic Christopher Brian Bridges—splashed out $4.8 million for a nearly 6,000 square foot, freshly rehabbed contemporary high the Hollywood Hills near Runyon Canyon.

Listing details show the three-plus floor residence has an attached two-car garage with additional off-street parking for up to seven—a real luxury in a house in the hills. There are five bedrooms and five bathrooms including separate staff quarters and a spacious master suite complete with sitting area, fireplace, wet bar, dual bathrooms, large dressing room/closets, and private balconies with glass balustrades and views of the Hollywood sign and the twinkling lights of Hollywood and beyond.

The voluminous, open-concept main living space (living, dining and kitchen) has walls of of glass to open to a multi-level deck, wide plank blond wood floors and much darker brown kitchen cabinetry, and a bevy of state-of-the-art electronic systems. Other luxury features include a home theater, a wine cellar, and a city-view infinity-edged swimming pool and raised spa.

Your Mama's brief and entirely unscientific research shows Mister Ludacris continues to own the second, aforementioned two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom duplex penthouse pad next door to the one he just sold that's currently on the market for $879,000, a good bit more than the $699,000 he paid in May 2002. He also still owns a sprawling, 22+ acre estate with a private lake and a 10,663 square foot mansion southwest of Atlanta (GA) in suburban Cliftondale that he picked up in early 200for $2.8 million.

listing photos: Keller Williams

Tidbits and Morsels: Michael Jordan

Seemingly undeterred by its failure to sell earlier this week at an auction of international réclame with a $13 million reserve, His Airness Michael Jordan jumped right back in the real estate game and, as first reported by the Chicago Tribune, audaciously re-listed his Highland Park mega-mansion with a nearly 25% higher $16 million price tag.*

Probably some of you children fell right off your asses wondering, "What is the world is this fool thinking raising the damn price of that house?" It's a logical question, for sure, but there is, as we've told the children 49,000 times before, an accepted if infrequently utilized school of real estate thought that reads (and we paraphrase liberally): If a highly-customized, multi-million dollar house isn't selling—even after several substantial price chops—raise the price, preferably significantly. Certainly it's somewhat radical and counter-intuitive to conventional real estate wisdom and practice but, believe it or not, puppies, this upping-the-price maneuver works often enough that, regardless of what any of us who don't work or swim in the sometimes illogical miasma of the real estate industry, it remains a viable option for upper-market real estate professionals and high end sellers.

The 7.39 acre estate, ringed by a towering wall of 150 mature evergreens that ensure privacy, has a total of nine bedrooms, 19 toilets—15 full and 4 half bathrooms, a Euro-style kitchen and numerous entertainment and recreation lounges that include formal living and dining rooms, a cigar lounge with walk-in humidor, and a second floor games room. There's also a professional-grade indoor basketball court—of course, a unique circular swimming pool, a putting green, a private fish-stocked pond and enough parking for a small army of friends, family, and domestic workers.

While Your Mama recognizes and appreciates the quality of the materials and expertise of the workmanship that went into the sparely done but super-luxe interiors on the convention center-sized residence but this property gossip still think the damn thing looks, on the outside, like an upscale medical research facility.

*The property, dubbed Legend Point, was originally listed in 2012 for $29 million and later reduced to $21 million before the unsuccessful $13 million reserve auction attempt.

listing photo: Baird and Warner

Jason Biggs Trades Up to BHPO Mini-Compound

BUYER: Jason Biggs and Jenny Mollen
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $3,905,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms (total)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in July, (comedy) actor Jason Biggs revealed on the delectably naughty Chelsea Handler Show that he and his witty wife, artist/actress/writer wife Jenny Mollen, were—and still are as far as we know—preggers with their first child. He was much more crass (and funny) about how it all came about but let's keep it clean, shall we? Anyways, it should come as no surprise to avid celebrity real estate watchers that the expectant couple have done as some many rich and/or famous folk have done before them: They traded up to a more expensive house in which to bring up baby. According to both Yolanda Yakketyyak and Lucy Spillerguts the Biggs-Mollens shelled out $3,905,000 for a multi-acre mini-compound in the Beverly Hills Post Office Area (BHPO) that property records show was acquired (via an obscurely named trust) in early November, 2013.

Though the former child actor who was nominated for an Emmy as a teenager in 1995 for his role on the daytime soap story As the World Turns he didn't achieve honest to goodness Showbiz fame (and fortune) until until several years later, in 1999, when he (in)famously humped a warm apple pie in the first of the stupid but highly lucrative teen comedy movie series, American Pie. More recently Mister Biggs has taken on more dignified roles and popped up briefly on The Good Wife. He currently has a regular role on the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black and voices the Leonardo character in the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series.

Whip smart, fearlessly outspoken, humorously provocative, and multi-lingual Miz Mollen was trained in the theater. (Our research suggests she has quite a bit of Shakespeare under her belt). Despite a long resume that dates back to the early 2000s Miz Mollen has had less successthan her husband as an actor. She is, perhaps, best known for her short stint on Angel (2003) but she's more recently nabbed a number of bit parts on shows such as Wilfred, Hawaii 5-O and and the rom-com movie Crazy, Stupid, Love. She also writes a column (What She Said) for Playboy's The Smoking Jacket and forthcoming is a book of comedic essays (I Like Your Just The Way I am).

Anyways, with a baby on the way the giddily vulgar couple appear to have decided they need a bit more space for baby to grow up so they snatched up a wooded and otherwise lushly planted 2.5 acre mini-compound in the star-studded Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills.

A long gated drive off at the tail end of a discreet private lane ensure privacy for the upgraded and modernized 1950's Spanish ranch-style residence. Listing details we dug up don't denote the exact size of the single-story sprawler—the L.A. County Tax Man put it at 3,533 square feet—but does show there are three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in the main house, including a roomy master suite with exposed wood vaulted ceiling, fireplace, and two sets of French doors that lead out to a private terrace. A separate, self-contained guest house, perfect for in-laws coming to stay after the baby's born and/or well-suited to a live-in nanny situation* contains two more bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen.

The separate but interconnected main living areas are united by exposed wood vaulted ceiling and rustic wide plank wood floors (that may or may not be some sort of soft pine). They are divided, however, by a massive, central fireplace set at a slightly cattywompus angle and opens on one side to the living room and on the other in the dining room. The dining room, which does double duty as the library due to a full wall of built-in bookshelves, is separated from the kitchen by a three-stool snack peninsula.

The kitchen isn't huge but is nicely functional with simple, snow-white Shaker-style cabinetry, butcher block counter tops, and top-quality commercial-inspired stainless steel appliances that include a mouth watering glass-fronted refrigerator with lower freezer drawer. Your Mama always thinks of butcher block counter tops as unsanitary although we realize they don't have to be unsanitary if they're maintained properly but that's really neither here not there in terms of relevance to the topic at hand, is it?

The ever so slightly angled house opens on it's northwest side(s) to a stone terrace the runs the entire length of the house before it spreads out and surrounds a heated, rectangular swimming pool. Beyond the terrace along the rear of the residence there's a super-sized deck that extends out over the hillside in the tree tops. Stone pathways lined with lush foliage wind their ways to a (strange) gingerbread-y shed, a tree-shaded children's play structure, and a walled and fenced tennis court that's tucked nicely into the hillside but doesn't have lights for evening play and looks in the listing photo like it could use a bit of a spruce up.

If anyone cares—and we're not sure anyone does—this would not be Your Mama and/or The Dr. Cooter's $3.9 million dream house though we fully understand the attractive appeal of the privacy afforded by the property's flag shape and generous 2.5 acres. The thickly treed property (looks in listing photos like it) feels blissfully removed from the urban thrum of Tinseltown but Your Mama's research indicates it's but a quick-'n'-easy 3.5 miles to the Beverly Hills Hotel. The living spaces appear comfortable and even somewhat luxurious but stop well short of ostentation. Sure, the exterior of the house isn't much to behold but surely the kinks can be ironed out by a smart architect, an imaginative lady or nice-gay decorator, and a good deal of money. Right? No?

Back in March 2007, just before he met Miz Mollen, Mister Biggs paid actor (and occasional house flipper) Fred Savage $2,249,000 for a 2,756 square foot contemporary with three bedrooms and three bathrooms perched on a short bluff just above the Sunset Strip. The couple have lived there since sometime in 2008 when they met and, just a few months later, married.

*Of course Your Mama has no idea if the parents of either of these two soon-to-be new parents will come to visit after the baby arrives let along stick around and help change diapers and change the batteries in the breast pump device. We also haven't got a clue whether the couple will or will not hire a nanny and, if they do, if said nanny would live on the property full or part time. Anyways...

listing photos: Nelson Shelton & Associates

Canal Front CBS on Plantation Key/Islamorada 2/2 up, studio down 660K UNDER CONTRACT

This property is ready to be occupied and in a great boating location.




If you are interested in this or any other property in the Keys please contact me, Veepka, at 305-393-0923 or VeepkaC21@gmail.com
I look forward to hearing from you!