It's Impossible to Judge Housing Now

Over the weekend, after Friday's report on sales of newly constructed homes, I found myself in a bit of a "debate" with California-based real estate analyst Mark Hanson, for whom I have great respect.

Hanson suggested I was a little too bullish on the news. Now don't get me wrong, not a day goes by in my work that someone (read A LOT of folks) doesn't criticize me for being too bullish, and someone else doesn't criticize me for being too bearish on whatever happens to be the news du jour.

But Hanson got me to thinking about how we judge today's housing market in general.

Friday's report from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce has sales of new homes up nearly 27 percent in March from the previous month. After Thursday's report from the Realtors that existing home sales rose nearly 7% month to month, the news wires were buzzing that housing was finally bouncing off the bottom. I was a bit skeptical in my reporting, only because there is so much government stimulus in the market right now, holding off foreclosures and spiking sales with the home buyer tax credit.

But no question, big jumps up are better than what we've been seeing for the last three years.

"What, you had to do your one bullish story for the quarter for the bosses?" Hanson wrote to me.

I argued that I am neither bullish nor bearish, but do my best to report the numbers with all the influences weighing on said numbers. But then he made a very valid point:

"You can't compare YoY sales and call them great when conditions YoY are 180 degrees different. It is not a fair apples and apples. Also you can't look at seasonally adjusted numbers."

Even the folks at S&P/Case-Shiller admitted that last week (see post 4/22). The numbers are so skewed because of the unique and historic nature of this housing crash, and the government's response to it, that it's very hard to do the usual annual comparisons in order to get any sense of recovery.

More from Hanson on new home sales:

"You are right, there were more sales this March than last March. 38k vs 31k last year during the worst despair ever, and all the gains this year came from one region, the South. But after spending as much as we have, knowing the stimulus is gone, rates won't go lower, and Foreclosures are hitting at a good clip, it sure would have been nice to see that number at 50k or 60k. Below is March sales for the past 30 years. It's up, but a "recovery"? Need more evidence."

Home prices post 1st annual increase in 3 years

MIAMI - Home prices in February posted their first annual increase since the end of 2006, lifted by temporary tax credits for homebuyers.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday squeezed out a 0.6 percent gain. But that was half the increase analysts had expected. On a more cautionary note, 11 of the 20 cities tracked by the index showed declines from February last year.

The data underscored the fragile nature of the housing recovery. Nationally, home prices are up more than 3 percent from the bottom in May 2009, but still are 30 percent below the May 2006 peak.

And there is a "risk that home prices could decline further before experiencing any sustained gains," cautioned David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee. "It is too early to say that the housing market is recovering."

Prices are getting a boost from temporary tax credits that expire at the end of April. First-time buyers can claim up to $8,000 and homeowners who buy and relocate can get up to $6,500. So buyers have more purchasing power.

That's helped propel prices in San Francisco up 12 percent, the best in the index. Likewise, in Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington prices climbed more than 5 percent.

But there are still pockets of weakness around the country. Las Vegas saw the largest annual price drop at almost 15 percent. And, in six markets — Charlotte, N.C.; Las Vegas; New York, Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Tampa, Fla. — the index fell to the lowest level since peaking in 2006 or 2007.

In Las Vegas — a market hit hard by overbuilding and foreclosures — appraisals are coming in consistently low, dragging down prices, said Brad Snyder, a local agent with ZIP Realty. Investors and first-time buyers are competing for homes in the lower price range.

"If the house is priced at $150,000, it's going to get a lot of action," Snyder said.

The Case-Shiller index measures home price increases and decreases relative to prices in January 2000. The base reading is 100; so a reading of 150 would mean that home prices increased 50 percent since the beginning of the index. The index registered 144.03 in February.

A rebound in prices is considered necessary to boost consumer optimism and help revive the economy. A home is the largest and most important financial asset for most Americans. So, as values climb, homeowners feel wealthier and more comfortable spending.

For homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth, rising prices rebuild equity.

Americans' confidence in the economy rose in April to the highest level since September 2008, just as the financial crisis escalated, a private research group reported Tuesday.

The upbeat reading, combined with bullish earnings reports this week from companies ranging from Whirlpool Corp. to UPS Inc., offers more hope the economic recovery is gathering steam.

But unlike U.S. businesses, which whittled down inventories during the recession, the housing market is suffering from a backlog of foreclosures. As banks unload these properties en masse, it could overwhelm demand and push prices down again.

"The bottom line is that we're still fighting an uphill battle against a shadow inventory of foreclosures," said Daniel Alpert, managing director of Westwood Capital LLC.

Still, it's "highly unlikely" that price declines will approach the slide suffered in late 2008 and early 2009, wrote Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist for MFR Inc.

A cool quarter million, Homes across the country vary in size, price is still $250,000

You can buy a lot with $250,000. You could get a superfast car—the Wiesmann GT MF 5 sports coupe that goes to 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. Or you could drink up 64,935 grande vanilla lattes. But if you want to know what a quarter of a million dollars gets you in real estate across the nation, we’ve got a sample of what’s for sale right here.

Robert Hurst's Duplex Digs Hit the Market with Much Fanfare

SELLER: Soledad and Robert "Bob" Hurst
LOCATION: New York, NY
PRICE: $29,000,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Even though it's a glorious and sunny morning here on the left coast, Your Mama is in a New York state of mind and thought it might be fun to peer in the windows of one of New York's top co-ops on Fifth Avenue where former Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs and former president and current Chairman of the Board of the Whitney Museum of American Art Robert Hurst and his wife Soledad recently hoisted their 12-room doo-plex digs onto the market with a sobering asking price of $29,000,000.

Having first been discussed on The Real Deal and subsequently on Curbed NY, Your Mama is well aware that we're a little late to the rodeo on this bit or real estate bidness. Unfortunately we had other fish to fry first. We also know–or at least expect–some of the children will get all pissy and hissy about how Mister Hurst isn't really a celebrity and blah blah blah. Certainly we realize Mister and Missus Hurst are not celebrities in the way that people like that Miley Cyrus gurl is, but in the high stakes world of high finance Mister Hurst is indeed a star. Besides, the man has reached a rare pinnacle of New York real estate, he owns a massive crib at 950 Fifth Avenue, a building deserving of discussion in its own right. Mister Hurst and his twenty-nine million dollar doo-plex is just the vehicle.

In case any of you people who stick to only to Star and Us Magazine care: In addition to his previous duties at the Whitney and his current and no doubt lucrative gig as a partner at some private equity place called Crestview Partners, Mister Hurst is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School (his alma mater), serves as Chairman Emeritus of the Jewish Museum, sits on the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was also, according to his snapshot bio on the Aspen Institute's website, the founding CEO of the 9/11 United Services Group, the "coordinating arm" for numerous social services agencies, including the Red Cross, that sprung into action in the aftermath of the ugly bizness of the September 11th attacks. So he's bizzy in the way rich bidnessmen in New York are bizzy, settin' on boards here and there, workin' the charity circuits and counting his coin in the rarefied rooms of his dee-luxe doo-plex.

Since New York City co-operative buildings were not until recently required to file deeds and paperwork when apartments changed hands, it can sometimes be difficult to suss and sort out the dates of transfers and the amounts tendered, particularly in cream of the crop buildings where mortgages are often not even allowed. However, based on our rooting around on the interweb we are pretty damn sure that Mister Hurst snatched up his 13- into 12-room doo-plex on the 8th and 9th floors in 1997. A previous report suggests Mister Hurst forked out around $8,500,000 for the privilege of living his luxe life up in 950 Fifth Avenue.

Some Manhattan property watchers and purveyors label 950 Fifth Avenue as one of the "B" buildings on Fifth Avenue while other real estate fiends and freaks think it's totally "A" list. Your Mama does not know whether 950 is an "A" or "B" building but we do know that the super slim 14-story limestone edifice contains just 9 very large, hideously expensive and mostly doo-plex apartments meaning there just aren't very many cribs to go around for the folks who might want to shack up there.

The Italian-Renaissance-palazzo style building was designed by preeminent architect James E.R. Carpenter and erected in 1926. Although it has a Fifth Avenue address, the relatively modest main entrance is on East 76th Street beneath a spare almost spartan steel canopy. The building's lower floors retain much of Mister Carpenter's original architectural detailing and a recent restoration of the facade gave it a new luster. Even still, the insensitive enlargement of the windows that face Central Park on the upper floors robbed the building of some of its elegance gives the building a wonky and dizzying imbalance.

According to online sources and listing information, 950 Fifth Avenue's amenities include round the clock doormen, a concierge (this is the dude–and it's always a dude–who takes deliveries for residents among other things), basement storage areas and, natch, an elevator with an attendant. People with enough disposable cheddar to spend upwards of twenty million dollars for an apartment at 950 Fifth apparently can't be bothered to push a damn button by themselves, at least not when they can pay someone to stand there in a cramped elevator car all day long and do nuthin' but push buttons and make small talk with the residents. Because the building is so small and the amenities typical for a white glove type of building, the monthly maintenance charges are high enough to make Your Mama need a nerve pill. It's been reported that the monthly maintenance for the penthouse is around $13,000 and, according to listing information, Mister Hurst's double floor nest carries astonishing, sit down and take a breath monthly charges of $17,532.

It is rumored that bachelors–a designation often used for both unmarried men and homosexes–are often rejected at the better co-operative buildings, even if they are billionaires. One never knows who or what sort of cat that billionaire bachelor might drag home, marry and/or move into the building. In the past, the board at 950 Fifth has shown no fear of bachelors and the building was once–and perhaps still is–considered friendly to a single gentleman as long as his financials are in order.

Let's have a look at Mister and Missus Hurst's two-floor spread at 950 before having a wee look-see at a few of the other past and present residents of the popsicle thin pre-war building. A private elevator landing opens into a charity event sized gallery with a nearby walk in closet, mahogany paneled wet bar, prudently placed powder pooper and a trio of arched windows that reach almost to the ceiling and dip almost all the way down to the floor. The ocher and biscuit colored checkerboard floors are marble and the walls limestone. To the right of the entrance gallery, the 500+ square foot living room has herringbone patterned hardwood floors, a wood burning fireplace–1 of 3 in the doo-plex–and one of those previously mentioned enlarged windows. The enlarged window certainly gives a more panoramic view of Central Park than the original trio of windows probably did, but there's just something so post-war looking about the extra-wide window and, truthfully, it makes Your Mama edgy.

Opposite the living room lies the dining room with its pale paneling and fireplace flanked by arched niches perfect for displaying Fabregé eggs. A swinging door swings open to a butler's pantry that in turn leads to the fully updated eat in kitchen dressed in rich and seriously glossy polished mahogany cabinetry. The counter tops are marble and the appliances, natch, top-of-the-line. Just off the breakfast area that is flooded with eastern morning light is a second half-pooper and laundry room. A small staff room, discreetly concealed behind the glistening cabinetry, has a private and luxuriously windowed pooper. If one did not know that room was there, any number of naughty and nefarious things could go on in there without anyone being the wiser.

A curving, limestone staircase winds up to a too-narrow landing. To the right lies the master suite with fireplace, unobstructed view through another of those enlarged windows of Central Park, generous terliting facilities with two gigantic windows, and a large dressing room. To the left of the landing a long, long, long dead straight hall is lined with walk-in closets and a pooper on one side and on the other two bedrooms (one with an en-suite terlit), a small gym and a library with with wet bar. Now kids, Your Mama would never in a million years take up valuable floor space with a bunch of ugly contraptions meant to torture a body into toned and taut submission, but we're all for people having home fitness centers iffin their vanity requires. However, we're wrinkling our nose and pursing our lips at having to indelicately squeeze past the iron pumping accoutrement in order to get to the damn library. That is not acceptable in Your Mama's book, not for twenty-nine million damn dollars.

Your Mama–a space planning problem solver from way back–recommends a radical re-organization of the second floor that involves moving the master bedroom to the back of the apartment where it would get the eastern morning light, which is always nice in the morning, and moving that library up to the where the existing master bedroom is currently located. The library, a semi-informal space is where, we presume, a resident of a large apartment like this spends a great deal of casual time at home, cross stitching cute pillows to give as gifts, watching reality television and reading gossip glossies. It only makes sense–at least to Your Mama–for the more frequently used room to take advantage of the $29,000,000 view. After all you cain't see Central Park when yer sleeping so the view is largely lost on the master bedroom. If we figure out a floor plan that we think works better we'll post it. Feel free to send Your Mama your about rearranging rooms too.

Anyhoo, Mister Hurst's other real estate holdings including (but may not be limited to) a significant spread in quietly swank Sagaponack, NY–that's the Hamptons, sugar cubes–that stretches over 33 acres surrounded on two sides by Sagaponack Pond and includes a 11,595 square foot shingled mansion with 7 bedrooms, 9 poopers and 4 fireplaces, according to property records. A few years ago the filthy rich financier dropped approximately $27,000,000 for a trio of properties in Aspen, CA that, at the time of the purchase, included an approximately 13,000 square foot mansion. He quickly, reportedly, flipped a couple of the three parcels raking in a few million for his real estate troubles. If we've said it once we've said it a thousand times chickens, one of the many way rich people get even richer is to buy well located and pricey properties and flip them to even wealthier people at a substantial profit. Maybe this isn't so realistic in these post Wall Street meltdown days, but once upon a time it was a sure and quick way to make enough to put a down payment on a new Gulfstream G650.

Other filthy rich residents of 950 Fifth Avenue include billionaire Mort Zuckerman–the current Editor in Chief of U.S. News and World Report and a regular on the wacky politico yak and shout fest that is The McLaughlin Report. Mister Zuckerman reportedly resides in the approximately 6,500 square foot triplex penthouse he bought in 1986 for $8,500,000 and for which he's rumored to pay around $13,000 in monthly maintenance charges.

In 2004, hedge hog James Dinan shelled out $20,200,000 for the doo-plex of disgraced Tyco tycoon Dennis Koszlowski. Mister Kozlowski, who did some time in the pokey for nefarious financial wheeling and dealing, had previously bought the apartment from Blackstone Group CEO and unimaginably rich Stephen Schwarzman. Mister Schwarzman and his wife Christine famously decamped for a vast 37-room, $30,000,000 Peter Marino designed triplex penthouse at the supremely snooty 740 Park Avenue. The triplex had formerly been owned by high on the hog financier Saul Steinberg and, long before that, by John D. Rockefeller.

The most recent sale at 950 Fifth Avenue, according to Street Easy, was in January of 2008 when prop records show Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz laid out $25,492,500 for a doo-plex owned by big bizness baron and co-chairman of the Loews Corporation Jonathan Tisch. Mister Tisch, who was once married to Saul Steinberg's daughter, moved on to pay a blood curdling $48,000,000 for a 14-room co-op–complete with both silver and china closets–at the frighteningly expensive 2 East 67th Street.

Your Mama wonders to which of the top co-op buildings Mister Hurst will head once (and if) he sells his doo-plex at 950 Fifth Avenue. Perhaps he's got his eye on the (approximately) 6,700 square foot doo-plex at 740 Park Avenue that's languishing on the market at $26,000,000 and being sold by the estate of oil heiress June Speight? What about the sprawling simplex at 2 E. 67th Street, currently owned by Greek pharmaceutical executive Dr. Athanase Lavidas and listed at a knee buckling $38,000,000? There's always the 4,750 square foot high floor doo-lex at the very posh 834 Fifth Avenue, currently listed at $29,500,000 by bigwig Broadway producer–and former resident of 950 Fifth Avenue–Hal Prince.

Or maybe, as was suggested by Mister Hurst's wife Soledad in an article from long ago in the Wall Street Journal, maybe they've already made their primary home on their ranch in Aspen.

source: Brown Harris Stevens

Jackson Browne Buys Historic House in Los Angeles

BUYER: Jackson Browne
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,660,000
SIZE: 4,075 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few weeks ago Your Mama received a covert communique from the always entertaining and well connected Lurleen Letsusknow who funneled our scattered and boozy brain to information about the recent purchase of an historic home by the inestimable musician and dedicated environmental activist Jackson Browne. According to Miss Lestusknow–and confirmed with property records and by Lucy Spillerguts–Mister Brown paid $2,600,000 for a stunning and fully restored single story Spanish Colonial Revival residence in the Beverly Grove area of Los Angeles.

Mister Jackson, a bonified artist and musician, made a career singing and writing songs about his inner turmoils and issues of social justice and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. He has long lived in and around southern California. Born in Germany, he actually grew up just north of downtown L.A. in Highland Park, which was little more than a dusty outpost back in his toddler days. The still touring Mister Jackson, who once dated the fabulous and now dead Nico of The Velvet Underground, has long had a thing for pretty women. He married two models and then became famously entangled with fellow eco-activist Daryl Hannah.

Nowadays Mister Jackson makes a home with Dianna Cohen, a ladee artist who does interesting and intricate things with plastic shopping bags, an everyday and typically ignored object that carries and embodies much that is, for better or worse, culturally important in our hyper consumerist society. Cohen's re-purposing of plastic shopping bags brings a laser like attention to certain eco-issues but also forces a re-evaluation and re-imagining of how we see, perceive and utilize objects that are typically tossed aside (and left to fill up garbage dumps from now until the end of time). No doubt the children have not tuned in to Your Mama's little online endeavor for a damn art lesson, particularly about work Your Mama is quite certain many will poo-poo and claim ain't nothing more than–literally, figuratively metaphorically–garbage. So let's get on back to the real estate matter at hand, shall we?

The Spanish Colonial Revival casa was designed and built in 1929 by its original owner and architect Octavius W. Morgan and placed on Los Angeles' Historic Cultural Monument list in 1989. The accomplished but little discussed Mister Morgan was a principle in the celebrated architectural firm Morgan, Walls & Clements, the folks responsible for significant design aspects of several of Los Angeles' most notable moving picture palaces including The Mayan (now a sizzling salsa club), the Wiltern, and the extraordinary El Capitan (now owned by Disney).

According to property records and listing information, Mister Jackson's newly purchased and recently restored digs measures 4,075 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers including a master bedroom with 2 closets plus a dressing room with built in vanity, a vintage pooper with the original yellow and black accented tile work and French doors that open to a private patio that features and outdoor fireplace and is connected to the home's central courtyard, which is pretty much the back yard except it's not in the back.

The front of the house displays some classic details such as a deeply inset front door, casement windows and wrought iron window grill work. The landscaping would appear to be fresh and new, but also appears to be of the variety that requires a significant amount of water to keep looking fresh and new. Your Mama expects the environmentally concerned and eco-friendly Mister Jackson will replace it with something less thirsty and more drought tolerant.

The interior spaces display a sensitive and successful merger between the home's original details and the modern conveniences folks buying a $2,600,000 residence require. The large living room features dark stained oak floors, a vaulted ceiling with deep brown colored exposed beams and trusses, large casement windows that stretch down to the floor and French doors that open the aforementioned central courtyard. A library has shelving recessed into the walls, large casement windows, an original stained glass window with a multi-colored pattern of circles, and an interesting ceiling treatment that we suspect is original to the house.

The kitchen retains a vintage vibe with its rolled linoleum floors, trio of hanging lights over the work island and turqwaze tile work. There is flat-fronted, winter white cabinetry topped by charcoal colored soap stone counter tops and stainless steel appliances including a double fridge/freezer. A large butler's pantry that connects the kitchen to the formal dining room has mahogany counter tops. A petite family room adjacent to the kitchen makes for an intimate spot to curl up with a book, a stack of tabs or spend the evening watching the terrifying and yet mesmerizing spectacle that is RuPaul's Drag Race. (You better start your engines, hunties!)

Anyhoo, the central courtyard–and who among us does not crave, covet and love a central courtyard that ensures the sort of privacy one requires and desires when nood sunbathing?–has a swimming pool and spa encircled by a stone terrace, and a long promenade runs the length of the courtyard and has a second outdoor fireplace. An outdoor living room not located in the central courtyard features a third outdoor fireplace. Another of the homes notable features would be the 7-car garage that means neither Mister Jackson, Miz Cohen nor any of their house guests suffer arcane parking restrictions enforced by the city and all the Missus Kravitz's in the neighborhood.

Records reveal that Mister Jackson, who formerly lived on a triple wide double lot just one block from the beach on posh Palisades Avenue in Santa Monica, still owns his childhood in Highland Park, a 100+ acre spread in the rugged, rustic and stunningly beautiful Hollister Ranch community just outside of Santa Barbara that he bought in the late 1970s, and a rural property in Aptos, CA. If Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, we don't know which of those properties–if any of them–Mister Browne and Miz Cohen currently live but we do know from our research on the internets that wherever it is they live their home is almost completely off the grid, powered by wind and solar energy and has its own water well.

source: Teles Properties / Ernie Carswell

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Kelly Wearstler Lists Beige Beast in Malibu

SELLERS: Brad Korzen and Kelly Wearstler and etc.
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $21,900,000
SIZE: 5,658 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: If the children will recall, in late February of 2010 Your Mama relayed the über juicy real estate rumor whispered to us by several well connected informants that property developer Brad Korzen and his superstar decorator/authoress/fashion daredevil wife Kelly Wearstler had quietly floated their legendary and quite substantial Beverly Hills estate on the market with a monumental asking price of around $50,000,000.

Three gin & tonics into last night while perusing the newest listings in Los Angeles, Your Mama ran across a listing for Mister Korzen and La Wearstler's Malee-bee beach house, which they apparently share with three other families and not entirely unexpectedly heaved on to the open market this week with an fat asking price of $21,900,000.

Even all boozed up Your Mama immediately recognized the residence as La Wearstler's. Not only is the place worked over with an easily identifiable version of her sometimes discombobulating signature style of harrowing decorative abandon, the house appeared in all its glory on the glossy pages of the November 2009 issue of Metropolitan Home. According to the Metropolitan Home article, when Mister Korzen and La Wearstler bought the beach house it was "reminiscent of an '80s surf-and-turf restaurant." A couple of years of intensive renovations later and the old surf-and-turf style has been replaced with a kind of Super Studios meets Michael Taylor meets an eight ball of cocaine from the 1970s mixed with a soupçon of Fornasetti and a dash of the Museum of Natural History all of which is blanketed with every shade of cream, sand, tan, taupe, beige, biscuit, ecru and café au lait known to (wo)mankind.

A peep and a poke around the somewhat convoluted and incomplete property records and a quick consult with the ever knowledgeable Lucy Spillerguts reveals that Mister Korzen and La Wearstler–and presumably these three other families that share the house with them–paid $8,500,000 for the beach house in August of 2004. Records and previous reports also show that the property was purchased from none other than Janet Jackson, otherwise known as Miss Jackson if Your Nasty.

Chickens, how do you think Miss Jackson If Your Nasty feels about La Wearstler being quoted in a national and well respected interior decoratin' publication essentially calling her former home a steaming hot pile of architectural and decorative doo-doo? Oh low-erd. We have a feeling that both of these ladees can take off their earrings and really throw. it. down. like a couple of prize fighters and Your Mama would not want to find our self in a dark Beverly Hills alley standing between La Wearstler–who would no doubt be sporting a tutu, toe socks and some sort of rat's nest of a hair don't–and an angry and decoratively scorned Miss Jackson If Your Nasty.

The Los Angeles County tax man shows Mister Korzen and La Wearstler's ocean front house measures 5,658 square feet while listing information eyeballs it at "approximately 6,000 sq. ft." According to listing information, the house sits on 72 feet of Carbon Beach frontage, surely some of the most expensive sand in California. There are, according to listing information, 6 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers including a master suite with its own private sitting room. One has to wonder how these bedrooms get divided up between the four families who share this place. Who gets the master bedroom? Do they take alternate summer weekends? Flip coins? Draw Straws?

A windowless, almost like fortress like front facade runs along the Pacific Coast Highway that La Wearstler has somewhat softened with a uni-brow of planted hedges that she's placed along the roof's edge. While we're concerned about the lack of parking on the property–there is only the 2-car garage and whatever street parking that can be snatched up, Your Mama does indeed love us a seriously solid and formidable facade that makes no beef or bones about declaring, "You better step off Missy Hoo Hoo and Peeping Pete because there will be no peering through the windows of this house." At least not from the street side.

Looking beyond La Wearstler's wacky, unflinching and, yes, rather courageous day-core defined by a conscious tension between hard and soft and an almost cacophonous melange of organic and geometric shapes reminiscent of the Age of Disco, and we find airy interior spaces with bleached hardwood floors, funky light fixtures, and walls wrapped with several kinds of stone including, according to listing information, Honey Onyx, Calcutta Gold and Cippolino stone.

The step down living/dining/lounging room features a fireplace with a monolithic and modern carved stone surround that reaches to the ceiling and a series of tall window openings that spill the interior space onto the terraces that hang over the sand. We're not sure–so don't nobody make the fool mistake of quoting Your Mama on this–but the multi-purpose room appears to stretch the full width of the house, which would make it somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or 70 feet long, a stunning, rare, valuable and almost civic stretch of interior space for an ocean front house in Malibu.

The bedrooms all appear to be hotel-suite sized each with, which Your Mama hopes and prays an en-suite pooper. Otherwise a potentially malodorous situation could develop between the 4 families that share this house and cause a serious rift. Other notable features of Mister Korzen and La Wearstler's beach house, according to listing information, include a total of 3 fireplaces, central heat and air conditioning, a media/music room, a private spa, direct garage access, inside laundry facilities (as opposed to a couple of machines stuck up in the corner of the garage), a heavy duty security system, and guest/staff quarters.

While Your Mama is not really sure that some of Miz Wearstler's stylistic frippery will withstand the brutal test of decorative time, there are without question some utterly magnificent moments and pieces that we think should make every decorating fool and shelter rag reading queen sit up and take a wee bit of notice. Did y'all see those barrel shaped dining room chairs? Gore-jhus. The Escher-esque staircase? Weird but wonderful. The utterly bee-zare but brilliant slipper chairs and matching couch in the living room that look like smooth boulders wrapped Christo-like with a million yards of ruched fabric? Fabulous. We don't want them in our house, but we could certainly spend some time looking at them and wonder how well they hold up against sea salt, sand and the kind of damp daily fog banks bring.

Of course there are some glaring mistakes such as those inadequately sized stick chandelier thingamabobs hanging from the ceiling in the living/dining/lounging room and the kitchen is also problematic for Your Mama. We appreciate that the wall between the kitchen area and the living/dining/lounging room was opened up so that the ocean view can penetrate deep into the house, we l.o.v.e. a built in banquette breakfast table (we don't know why, we just do), the veined marble is absolutely stunning, and there's certainly an enviable and generous amount of counter space. But, that said, Your Mama can only describe La Wearstler's beach house kitchen as all done up and did over in a mausoleum chic manner. Don't misunderstand Your Mama. We like a clean lined and functional kitchen space as much as the next water boiler, but we do not, thank you very much, want to prepare a meal on a surface that closely resembles the sort of thing on which a dead body would be laid out for a viewing by the family.

We know some of you Midwesterners and East Coast types who covet the wide open spaces of the Hamptons or Newport, RI will hiss and howl about how it's certifiably insane for a person to pay twenty million clams for a beach house that sits right up against the very bizzy Pacific Coast Highway with neighbors so close on both sides you can converse and pass sugar from kitchen window to kitchen window. But all those other people who understand the geography and lexicon of oceanfront living in southern California will surely get the absolute rarity and desirability of a house this wide on this particular stretch of sand. Will Mister Korzen, La Wearstler and those three other families be able to parlay that rareness and desirability into a big Kaching! on their investment of $8,500,000 for the property and–we're guessing–several million more in renovations?

Only time will tell chickens. Certainly there is enormous appeal about a newly renovated house on Carbon freaking Beach. However, according to the peeps at listing and sales figure aggregator Redfin, the current state of the real estate market isn't really on their side. Excluding private sales, there have been just 10 transactions in excess of $10,000,000 in Malibu in the last 12 months and the the highest price paid for a single family house in Malibu in the last year is $16,500,000 for a 1+ acre Point Dume estate that happens to have Barbra Streisand as its next door neighbor.

source: Stephen Resnick / Westside Estates Agency

Barbara Taylor Bradford Lists Sutton Place Pad

SELLER: Robert and Barbara Taylor Bradford
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $18,995,000
SIZE: 5,310 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A week or so ago, Your Mama received a message from our pal Misty Mountain who pointed us in the direction of a listing for a large apartment at River House, one of New York's most elite cooperative buildings located in the swank but somewhat isolated Sutton Place neighborhood of Midtown Manhattan. Misty Mountain was quite certain, even adamant that the significantly sized apartment, listed at $18,995,000, is owned by producer Robert Bradford and bestselling authoress Barbara Taylor Bradford. A little digging around on the interweb and sure enough, just like Misty Mountain promised, the hoity toity and very expensive River House residence is indeed owned by Mister and Missus Bradford.

Missus Bradford, a still quite spry septuagenarian, first worked as a fashion editor in London before marrying Mister Taylor and moving to the United States in the early 1960s where she became a successful syndicated columnist (Designing Woman) who wrote ad infinitum about the ins and outs of tasteful interior day-core. She later wrote a slew of children's books based on stories from the Bible and–according to her own biography–8 books on home day-core including How to Solve Your Decorating Problems in 1976 and Luxury Designs for Apartment Living in 1983.

Although her vast fortune pales in comparison to J.K. Rowling's billion dollar bank account, and no one is going to mistake the novels Missus Bradford pumps out at an almost alarming rate as lit-ruh-chuh, British born and hard working Missus Bradford is none the less one of the wealthiest writers alive due to the screaming sales figures of her 25 novels that include 1979's wildly successful A Woman of Substance, as well as Angel, Another Town, Emma's Secret and her most recent book Breaking the Rules.

Combined, Missus Bradford's books have sold more than 80,000,000 copies in 90 countries and in 40 languages. Impressive statistics by any account. To date, ten of Missus Bradford's books have been made into movies or mini-series' for the boob-toob. Most (if not all) were, not surprisingly, produced by her huzband Robert Bradford, a former actor who among other credits sang on a number of songs for the original Wizard of Oz.

We confess to never having read one of Missus Bradford's books but based on their titles and cover art Your Mama would have to classify Missus Bradford's novels as shlocky romance affairs with complicated and interwoven story lines. (We're pretty certain she would have even less flattering words for Your Mama's admittedly limited abilities as a wordsmith.) However, according to Missus Bradford a book can not be judged by its cover (or title) and in a 2004 interview in the Palm Beach Post, she curtly corrected the interviewer telling him that she is "not" (emphasis in the original) a romance novelist but rather a "family saga writer." Your Mama's not going to argue with her self-characterization because not only is Missus Bradford a formidable woman but she's about 80 some million books more successful than Your Mama so, you know, who are we to judge?

Anyhoo, after a peep around the property records Your Mama can't quite sort out when Mister and Missus Bradford bought their cooperative apartment at River House but it was most certainly prior to 2006. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Listing information for Mister and Missus Bradford's big ol' apartment at River House states it measures 5,310 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers plus a sizable staff suite comprised of three bedrooms–two of which have been merged into one, a single pooper and a large laundry room.

A private elevator landing opens to a foyer, which in turn leads to the 18 foot wide and 29' 9" living room, all done up and did over in various shades of blush and beige. There are three windows over looking the East River, walls upholstered in cream colored silk, polished hard wood floors, and a fireplace. An adjacent bar room–that Your Mama thinks was unfortunately carved out of what was once a much larger gallery style foyer–is furnished with a banquette covered in tufted mushroom colored velvet, a burled occasional table that probably cost as much as Your Mama's big BMW, and a built in bar of mahogany with a brass foot rail and a trio of bar stools that appear to be screwed into the floors.

On one side of the living room we find the library, also with a fireplace and also did up in shades of blush and beige, and on the other side the really red and rather theatrical dining room with its view of the East River. Besides the red (silk covered) walls Missus Bradford, who is responsible for her own day-core, outfitted the room with a burled walnut table and matching chairs, striped fire engine red drapery–those, hunnies, are most certainly draperies and not curtains–an antique crystal chandelier, and moldings given a faux tortoise shell treatment using brown paint and gold leaf.

Other rooms in the Mister and Missus Bradford's River House residence include a blue sitting room where the Missus displays her collection of blue and white porcelain pieces from England and France and where during the apartment's decorative re-do Missus Bradford discovered, uncovered and restored a painted canvas in the over-door. The monochromatic linen and stone colored painted was installed by the apartments original owner and a second similar canvas was found (and restored) in the over door leading from the dining room to the living room.

A long corridor from the foyer leads to the three bedrooms which the childless Bradfords have re-purposed into a sitting room/dressing room for the Mister, an office where the Missus spends the bulk of her days pounding out her family sagas and, at the back of the apartment, a den or family room custom fitted with loads of shiny wood built-ins that house the electronic and boob-toob equipment.

The primary access to the couple's private quarters, we are sorry to say, requires an inelegant squeeze past the built-in bar in the "bar room." Had this "bar room" not been carved out of the original gallery entrance the entrance to the master suite would make a lot more sense from a programmatic point of view. As it is, the path to the master suite is, at best, clunky.

The master suite consists of a fair if not over-sized bedroom with cherry red wall to wall carpeting, raspberry colored silk upholstered walls, a rose colored chaise lounge, and pink and blue chintz valances and drapery that was also used in the making of the canopy over the head of the bed. Listen butter beans, we don't mean to be mean, but lo-ward have mercy, the Bradford's bedroom looks like the sort of thing one might find at the Madonna Inn. Now children, Your Mama loves us some of that campy hot mess that is the Madonna Inn where the themed rooms have nutty names like Barrell of Fun, Country Gentleman, Krazy Dazy, and the truly crazy and famous Caveman suite. But children Your Mama would never our self nor do we recommend anyone else actually work over their boo-dwar like it could be the Revolutionary Rose room at the damn Madonna Inn.

Missus Bradford's personal pooper is accessed through her dressing room, an octagonal room that hides three closets behind the paneled walls. Believe it or not chickens, the dressing room day-core shows a modicum of restraint despite the crystal chandelier, the myriad of carved floral accents, the dressing table draped in flowered fabric, the black lacquer chinoiserie style dresser, and silver leaf moldings.

The casually elegant ink slinger, still dishing a pleasantly lilting English accent even after nearly 50 years in the U.S., once took Joy Philbin–that would be the wife of television's most annoying talking head Regis Philbin–on a tour of her generously scaled if old-fashioned apartment during which she said, "Apartments or houses that are devoid of accessories tend to look like hotel rooms." Your Mama agrees with Missus Bradford that proper and well executed day-core should absolutely reflect the personality, interests and quirks of the owner. However and despite knowing as much about the nuances and traits of "traditional" day-core as we do about brain surgery, we dare-say that Missus Bradford might have been wise to have heeded the sage advice of the inestimable and laser sharp Coco Chanel who supposedly said something along the lines of, "Before leaving the house, a ladee should look in the mirror and remove at least one thing."

Anyhoo, given the utter improbability that a single person who resides at the seriously selective River House would ever consider allowing Your Mama, our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly or our mean ol' pussy Sugar to even cross the threshold of the lobby let alone live up in the old pre-war dowager, our opinion is really of little import. Never the less we'd sooner chop off a couple fingers than live in that stodgy and staid beast of a building that's about a million miles from anything. In Manhattan terms, a million miles is like four or five blocks and four or five blocks might as well be a million miles in Manhattan. Who wants to schlep more than a block or maybe two (by foot, cab or car service) in order to snatch up a late night candy snack at the nearest bodega or Korean deli? Plus, there's practically no place to eat over there on the farthest east side of Midtown Manhattan besides a Mac-Donalds and the old-school French restaurant Le Perigord, neither of which is on Your Mama's preferred list of dine-in or take-out establishments.

The relative dearth of services might help to explain why River House, once the cream of the co-operative crop in Manhattan, has declined in residential desirability over the last decade or so. There is no question that River House, built in a stunning Art Deco style in the early 1930s, is impressive and by most people's standards prohibitively and ludicrously expensive. However, Your Mama sees Old Ladee River House like an aristocratic blue blood living in reduced circumstances who still shows up for lunch in an expensive but very old couture suit, a pair of scuffed up Ferragamo pumps, and the only emerald choker she hasn't had to hawk in order to keep the lights on and pay her pinch faced housekeeper Helen to keep her from seeking employment with a younger and wealthier woman.

Although it's not uncommon for River House residents to list their cribs with sky high prices excess of twelve or even twenty million clams, according to Street Easy (and Dana Rubenstein at the New York Observer) the single most expensive apartment to change hands in the last 6 years went for a mere $10,000,000. One agent who does the bidness in the building told Miss Rubenstein that 9 years ago, back when River House was still the shit for old money types looking to live among their own kind and new money types looking for an instant air of old money, an apartment traded for $12,500,000. That may be true but we find no easily accessible record of that transaction. Either way those selling prices are far below the asking numbers of 4 of the 5 spreads currently available on the open market at River house and make Your Mama think that the price tag on Mister and Missus Bradford's prairie like pad is, perhaps, a bit more than optimistic.

The most expensive apartment to be on the market recently belongs to former WorldCom director Francesco Galesi who spent a couple of unsuccessful years trying to unload his 16 room, 8 bedroom and 7.5 pooper penthouse with a blistering asking price of $35,000,000 and monthly maintenance charges coming in at a heart stopping $12,600. The doo-plex digs are no longer on the open market but that don't mean it isn't being quietly shopped around by one of the city's better connected real estate brokers. Mister Galesi, some of the children may recall, is the very same guy who sold Calvin Klein a grotesquely towered and turreted $29,000,000 tear down in Southampton that the fashion diva is in the process of replacing with a sensationally sleek Michael Haverland designed compound.

Philanthropist and theater maven Laura Pels has her sprawling spread on the market at $24,500,000 (reduced from $29,000,000) making it the highest priced place currently on the open market at River House. Miz Pels' pad, according to listing information, includes 4 family bedrooms, 4 fireplaces, 3 poopers (plus a staff suite with servant's hall, laundry facilities, double sized bedroom and private pooper), 2 balconies hanging over the river and a large set back terrace accessible only through bedrooms and the library.

No run-down of apartments for sale at River House, no matter how brief, would be complete without mentioning Broadway producer Marty Richards epic struggle to off-load his queenly 14-room maisonette unit since about the time dinosaurs roamed the earth. The doo-plex digs, first listed 10 or so years ago, have been priced as high as $29,000,000 and as low as $11,500,000. Miss Richards has reportedly had several buyers enter into contract for the colossal penthouse but none of the deals were fully consummated. Miss Richards remains, as far as Your Mama knows, in residence and his penthouse now carries an asking price of $13,900,000.

Some of River House's earliest residents included illustrious, old-money New York names like Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, retail tycoon Marshall Field III, William Rhinelander Stewart, Jr., James A. Burden, Jr. and Huntington Hartford, the entrepreneurial heir to the A&P supermarket fortune and the man who once owned the land that is now the dog walking paradise of Runyon Canyon in Los Angeles. More recent former residents have included actress/heiress Dina Merrill (her mother was Mrs. E.F. Hutton dontcha know) who moved out in the late 1990s, former head of Tiffany & Co. Walter Hoving, Susan and John Gutfruend who decamped for a beast of a doo-plex at 834 Fifth Avenue and who recently put their pied a terre in Paris on the market.

Current residents of River House, according to city records and previous reports, include the always controversial political powerhouse Henry Kissinger who has lived up in River House forevuh, and a lot of bankers and financiers such as Alexander Navab, Leslie Bains, and Jeffrey Leeds who paid $10,000,000 for the apartment of Blackstone Group's Pete Peterson. The younger set at River House includes old New York money scion Kiliaen Van Rensselaer and young socials Brook and Ferebee Taube.

Where Mister and Missus Bradford will hole up next is any one's guess-or at least it's not known to Your Mama. Perhaps they'll head across the pond to the Missus' homeland, maybe they've decided they don't really need such a grand home and are looking to downsize or perhaps they'll move on down to Palm Beach and live out their remaining days surrounded by the same sort of old money blue bloods, big bizness barons and Wall Street tycoons who have typically inhabited both River House and Palm Beach.

Judd Apatow Lists Unfunny House

SELLER: Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $6,495,000
SIZE: 6,018 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama spent the morning fielding an influx of covert communiques from a number well placed real estate people on the West Side of Los Angeles who kindly and thoughtfully let us know that low-brow comedy king Judd Apatow and his wife Leslie Mann have listed their Pacific Palisades property with an asking price of $6,495,000.

In the 1990s Judd Apatow wrote and produced a myriad boob-toob programs like The Ben Stiller Show, The Larry Sanders Show and Freaks and Geeks. In the 2000s Mister Apatow moved over to making movies scoring huge hits with The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Pineapple Express. A few nimble flicks of the beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus and we discover that just those three movies alone did a combined and colossal $498,080,006 in world wide box office. That kind of bizness in less than 5 years times means Mister Apatow and can write his own ticket in Tinseltown, hunnies.

In addition to making the already rich Mister Apatow filthy stinking rich, his raging success making movies about dimwitted dweebs and torpid tokers also meant that he and the Missus–an actress who, not surprisingly, makes appearances in many of her huzband's motion picture projects–needed a new house to match their new super wealth and his new-found status as one of Hollywood's hardcore power players.

Property records reveal Mister and Missus Apatow bought their Pacific Palisades starter estate in February of 2003, forking over $4,474,000 for the perfectly private property located at the tail end of a gated cul-de-sac. Listing information indicates the gated mini-estate encompasses nearly an acre of land and a manse that measures 6,018 square feet with 4 family bedrooms, each with en suite bathing and terliting facilities, a powder pooper, and a separate staff suite with its own private pooper.

The double height entrance hall with its gently curving Scarlett O'Hara style staircase and glossy parquet flooring sets the mood and decorative language of the house and, children, the style is decidedly grown up and not even remotely comical. It's not that Your Mama thought the Apatows would cotton to a type of day-core that has Jack-in-the-Boxes popping up out of the shrubbery when the doorbell gets rung, but seriously people, there ain't a hookah or a bong to be seen anywhere.

In addition to a paneled library that, according to listing information, has a fireplace and built in bookshelves, the Apatow's soon to be former home has a formal dining room, a narrow, state of the art movie theater with raked seating and what looks like a gold-leafed ceiling treatment, and a secret room. Of course, Your Mama don't know an I-talian from an iPhone, but we have to assume the secret room is a panic room of some sort since panic rooms have become both trendy and de rigueur in the fancy (and not so fancy) homes owned by the rich, the famous and the paranoid.

The open plan eat-in kitchen has a high flat ceiling criss-crossed by rough hewn wood beams, a built in breakfast booth wrapped in a row tall eight-pane windows, high-grade stainless steel appliances including a multi-burner mac-daddy Wolf brand range, a butler's pantry with a temperature controlled wine cellar and, hanging above the hulking work island with its delicate feet, an sparkly crystal chandelier. We could–it should not surprise the children to know–do without the sparkly chandelier and the dainty feet on the work island. Oh, let's be honest buttons. As well equipped and expensive as this kitchen clearly is, there's really nothing in there that's Your Mama's personal taste. But that's really no matter because we're not in the market for this house or any other six and a half million clam casa. Anyhoo, the kitchen is open to the adjacent family room that, according to listing information, features some vaulted and and beamed ceilings, a fireplace and French doors that open to a stone patio that in turns gives way to the backyard.

In addition to a fully done up and did over playroom with a pink and white checkerboard flooring, a puny built-in stage complete with a fringed velvet curtain, and a child-sized play kitchen, the second floor includes the master suite, painted the palest shade of blush Your Mama has ever seen, that features a fireplace with a flat screen tee-vee mounted above it, a private ocean view balcony, a "lavish" pooper, and 2 large custom fitted closets.

There are several patios and terraces off the back of the house that lead to the flat backyard where the Apatows have a flat grassy pad with a jungle gym that probably cost more than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's monthly mortgage and a stone terrace that surrounds a simple rectangular shaped swimming pool and spa. Beyond the gardener maintained grounds, the land falls off into the rough and tumble of a canyon that funnels the eye to an ocean view that, while not panoramic, offers a charming whitewater and Queen's Necklace view of the beach as it curves around and turns from Pacific Palisades into Santa Monica. On a clear day, it's probably possible to see the Santa Monica Pier.
Your Mama does not know if the Apatow clan has decamped for new digs or not, but we do know that they purchased a new family nest nearly a year ago. In early July of 2009, some of the children who haven't fried their brain on the dope may recall, Your Mama passed along a juicy morsel of real estate rumor and gossip that we got from a frightfully well connected source who snitched that Mister and Missus Apatow were fixin' to spend around $20,000,000 to purchase the home (and every stick of furniture in the home) of tee-vee producer Marty Adelstein (Prison Break, Point Pleasant, Tru Calling). Records and previous reports reveal they paid $18,250,000 for the estate. While we don't know if that number includes the purchase of the furniture, we have it on good authority–and from previous reports–that property was never on the open market. The Apatow's new homestead, located in a very desirable section of lower Brentwood and built in 2006 in the style of Los Angeles' legendary architect Paul Williams, weighs in at a Hollywood honcho sized 10,341 square feet and includes 5 bedrooms and 8 poopers mansion (above)

Property records show that Mister and Missus Apatow also own a swank condo at the Hualalai Resort just outside Kailua-Kona on the big island of Hawaii that they purchased in January of 2009 for $4,900,000. This is the same development where Cher recently sold a newly built and never occupied compound for $8,720,000.

source: David Offer, Prudential CA Brentwood / photos Lee Manning Photography

Another Beverly Park Beast Goes Up for Sale

SELLER: A Bit of a Mystery Maybe (But See Below)
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $21,995,000
SIZE: 29,069 square feet (approx.), 18 bedrooms, 28 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It's not unusual for a big ol' beast of a residence in the 24-hour guard gated Beverly Park community to come up for sale. In just the last couple of years alone there have been a multitude of multi-millionaires looking to unload their boo-teek hotel sized homes. This group of sellers includes (but is not limited to): Hollywood honcho Mike Medavoy, who first listed his East Coast style mansion in 2007 at $23,500,000 and sold it in the fall of 2009 for about half that amount; Property developer George Santopietro–that would be Vanna White's ex-man mate–who spec-built a 9 bedroom and 15 pooper pile, listed it at $50,000,000, leased it to Prince for a rumored $200,000 per month and has it currently listed at $29,500,000; Rockstar Energy drink founder Russ Weiner currently has his Beverly Park bachelor pad listed at $28,000,000; The mansion of country music superstars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, whose manse was last listed at $10,800,000, is currently in escrow; Porn purveyor Norm Zada, whose Beverly Park spread recently fell out of escrow after being tied up for months, recently put his very contemporary compound back on the market with a price tag of $19,500,000, five million clams less its original asking price of $24,500,000; And let's not forget property developer Robert Bisno, who made enemies of his Beverly Park neighbors when he installed a sculpture in the center of his motor court that looked an awful lot like a woman with her legs up in the air in a not very dignified manner and who lost his house last year in an ugly and protracted foreclosure brouhaha.

The newest estate to be put up for sale in the eye poppingly opulent Beverly Hills community of colossal cribs–where real estate size queens go to manifest their mega-mansion dreams–is a 3.03 acre spread with a coral colored Italianate mansion that recently landed on the open market with an asking price of $21,995,000. Your Mama knows we are a little late to the rodeo on this one children, the property having already been discussed here, there and just about everywhere that cares about obscenely sized and insanely expensive mansions. However, we hope to shed a little light on some of the darker corners of this property as regards to its ownership.

But before we get to that, let's cover some of the numbers. At 29,069 square feet, the mansion is large even by Beverly Park standards. This isn't, however and in actuality, a 29,069 square foot single family residence but rather a two-family affair with two (approximately) 15,000 square foot side-by-side and attached mansions. Altogether, according to listing information, the two mansions contain 18 bedrooms and a staggering 28 poopers. The children will note that the Los Angeles tax man shows the manse measures 26,116 square feet and includes 18 bedrooms and 28 poopers. Either way it's ginormous and has a staggering number of bedrooms and bathrooms

This morning, chit-chatting with our imperious and sometimes theatrical house gurl Svetlana while she attached our morning I.V. drip of liberally sugared coffee, we mentioned that there were at least 25 and perhaps as many as 28 terlits between these two houses. All of the sudden ol' Svetlana let out a gutteral and inhuman screech, dropped to the floor in convulsive fits and started speaking in tongues. Your Mama had never seen Svetlana speak in tongues–shmalla holla da lalla shocka muhlocka heeny hiney ho–so we were, to say the least, freaked out. After about four minutes of her unrestrained hysteria, Sveta leaped up and ran from the house howling and hollering that she would rather be a charwoman than scrub 25 terlits every damn day. She's yet to come back and we'd be a wee bit worried except every now and then we can hear an all too familiar screech from up in the scrubby hills behind our house that assures us that our dear Svetlana hasn't gone far and will come home when the shock and awe subsides.

Anyhoo, a single electronically controlled drive gate gives way to two motor courts where each mansion has its own private garages and entrances. Listing information states that each mansion claims its own 2-story story foyer, generously sized living spaces, arched hallways, kitchen quarters and a slew of bedroom suites with private poopers. The meticulously groomed grounds have not been divided and contain just one swimming pool with an adjacent cabana and changing area that is shared by both mansions. There is not a tennis court, which is a real shame because for twenty million bucks Your Mama wants to be able to have Ivan the tennis pro come to the house for our private lessons on swatting balls with big rackets.

Although preposterously long and a little squat looking, the exterior articulation isn't entirely unpleasant. There are, we find, a number attractive architectural moments. Plus, we rather like the muted but still bold coral exterior. We feel, however, less charitable about the interior day-core. The interiors are, as expected, grand in scale and heavy on not always necessary architectural details, at least in some rooms, but the day-core is surprisingly spare and unexpectedly contemporary in style. While Your Mama is positively beside our self with glee not to find the sort of faux Tuscan decorative tragedy we're used to finding over-sized suburban mega-mansions, we're also utterly shocked to find a vermilion colored sitting room with a series of gilded frames on the walls, a Fortuny chandelier and an aggressively minimalist fireplace surround painted a slightly lighter shade of vermilion. Your Mama does loves us a minimalist fireplace surround and we are nuts about the color vermilion, a shade of orange that's full of chutzpah and that in the right hands works in the right circumstances. However, as glorious as the color may be, it's simply not working on any level with those beige overstuffed arm chairs and, horror of all furniture horrors, that cheap looking and profoundly problematic floral davenport.

No less shocking or unnerving is the woven grass wall covering in one of the mansions' dining rooms and even more upsetting still is the painting of the red urn. Who buys a perfectly pedestrian painting like that and thinks it's appropriate to hang it in a twenty million dollar two family house? The damn thing looks like something anyone can find at their local Salvation Army, which is, quite frankly, were it belongs.

There are "concept plans," according to listing information, for converting the two mansions into one gigantic single family house. Honestly chickens, in this day and age of less is more, who'd really want to do that? Then again, there are and probably always will be wildly wealthy real estate size queens who find it a punishment to live in less than 15,000 square feet and who care not a whit about the high cost or environmental ramifications of heating, cooling and maintaining a private house the size of an international damn airport.

As far as Your Mama can tell, the first folks to blab about the newly listed Beverly Park behemoth were the peeps at Guest of a Guest who called the property a "stunner" and who did not–or perhaps were unable to–identify the seller. Your Mama would certainly not be surprised if the peeps at G of a G were unable to identify the seller because–lo-ward have mercy–the property records are nothing if not complicating and discombobulating even for an old school property record reader like Your Mama.

Your Mama wishes we could speak with 100% authority regarding the ownership of this two-family mega mansion in Beverly Park, but we can't. Not really anyway. None the less, based on a thorough study of the public property records available to us and–more importantly–a couple of secret confabs with a few folks with detailed knowledge of the denizens of Beverly Park, we think we've been able to pinpoint the owner. It's certainly no secret among real estate watchers and property gossips in Los Angeles (and beyond) that several of the estates in Beverly Park are owned by Saudi royals and our best guess as to the owner's identity is (Saudi Crown) Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah whose father is King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Bin Abdulrahman Bin Faisal Bin Turki Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud, otherwise known as the current King of Saudi Arabia.

We come to that conclusion because we actually found the name "A, Abdullah Prince Abdul" on some public tax records. That said, it's mind boggling and nearly impossible for us to say with 100% authority that the two-family mansion is owned (Saudi Crown) Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah whose father is King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Bin Abdulrahman Bin Faisal Bin Turki Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud, otherwise known as the current King of Saudi Arabia because so many of these members of the Saudi royal family have nearly identical names or full names that incorporate a jumbled series of the same names. For example, we might find the name Prince Turki al Saud bin Faisal bin Abdullah and we might find the name Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki al Saud. And since we're not privvy to or knowledgeable of the nuances of Saudi royal family naming practices we would not for the life of us know if those would be the same person or two different people. Are y'all as upsettingly perplexed as Your Mama? Yes, well, it doesn't get any clearer so do your best to keep up.

Based on our research, in addition to the two-family spread currently on the market, Saudi royals own two other residential beasts in Beverly Park, one a 16,520 square foot pile with 8 bedrooms and 17 poopers and another with 26,072 square feet of interior space and an unknown number of bedrooms and poopers. The two estates owned by Saudi royals that are not currently for sale appear to be owned by either (Saudi) Prince Turki Bin Faisal Al Saud, a nephew of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Bin Abdulrahman Bin Faisal Bin Turki Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud, otherwise known as the current King of Saudi Arabia or, possibly, by the King himself. There again we run into the problem of close relatives having nearly identical names.

Listen butter beans, if it wasn't clear before then it should be now that Your Mama really don't know a cookie jar from a Fendi clutch and we are just grasping at straws based on the the unclear information we obtained from the property records and information provided to us by usually very reliable sources. At some point we imagine someone will be able to sort out just which Saudi royal owns which estate, but until then we're going to keep on keepin' on and head on over to the bar to make us a big and stiff gin & tonic to soother our oh so addled brains.

source: David Kramer / Hilton & Hyland