Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Did Julia Roberts List Her Secluded Hawaiian Hideaway and Buy Another?

SELLER: Julia Roberts and Danny Moder
LOCATION: Hanalei, Kauai, HI
PRICE: $17,000,000
SIZE: 1,807 square feet, 4bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (total)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It recently came to Your Mama's attention by way of The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that semi-reclusive Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts and her budding cinematographer husband, Danny Moder, own not just one but two multi-million dollar ocean front hideaways superbly located near heavenly Hanalei Bay on the North Shore of the achingly scenic and relatively unspoiled Hawaiian island of Kauai.

As it turns out, butter beans, one of the two ocean front estates that Your Mama understands to be owned by Miz Roberts and Mister Moder, happens on the market with an asking price of $17,000,000.*

And, children, it's gorgeous. In fact, it's pretty much exactly what Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter would buy iffin we had seventeen million extra dollars to spend on a relatively remote Hawaiian hideaway where, according to someone with whom Your Mama is acquainted who is intimately acquainted with the very strip of beach to which the Roberts-Moder property rubs up against, the swimming situation along the beach behind the house is far from idea due to the excessively rocky shoreline. "Attempting a swim in front of Ms. Robert's beach shack on the North Shore of Kauai ain't for sissies," We were informed. "If you want to swim along that part of the coastline you make a left at Pierce Brosnan's place and don't stop until you get to Ben Stiller scowling on a chaise outside his breathtaking beach front contemporary." There you have if from a wealthy Hollywood haole who frequents this particular corner of paradise. Anyhoo...

Property records for the estate are a mite convoluted but, as best as Your Mama can tell, in June 2009 Miz Roberts and Mister Moder coughed up somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million clams for the undeniably luxurious but low-key spread that spans three contiguous parcels that total 8.92 secluded acres and claims more than 400 feet of ocean frontage with, according to current listing details, "Seasonal swimming, surfing, windsurfing, and snorkeling." The recently re-habbed main residence has three bedrooms and two bathrooms in, according to property records, just over 1,800 square feet. A separate cottage near the head of the long driveway has another bedroom and bathroom for guests or caretakers.

At the heart of the low-slung Hawaiian-style ranch house is a roomy, open-concept great room with wide plank wood floors, a vaulted ceiling lined with heavy-duty wood beams, and clerestory windows. One the ocean side of the house a ribbon of windows provide a sweeping view of the beach and pounding surf. The children may or may not have noticed the well-conceived and executed wooden louvers below the windows that, Your Mama imagines, are used to increase or decrease the air flow as needed to keep the house cool on hot days.

On the opposite wall from the ocean view windows are a long row of wood-framed glass doors that fold back and expose the great room to a spacious screened porch that overlooks vast and verdant lawns that give way to dense tropical thickets and inspiring views of Mt. Makana and the unspoiled Limahuli Valley. Listing photos show there's some sort of portable, half-trashy blow-up plunge pool situation out on the back lawn where there's also, rather charmingly, a swing hung from the branch of a mature shade tree. We know it's not fair and we'll probably get called all kinds of snobby for saying so but even though we'd most certainly roll our eyes and scoff with superiority and disdain at a blow up pool on the back lawn of a suburban tract house in Peoria somehow it's charming and pleasantly humble when the same blow up pool sits on the back lawn of a stunningly redone residence in Kauai that only the financially elite can even afford to imagine owning.

As those who do it know, families and other groups of people who vacation in private homes, either rented or owned, often spend a great deal of time preparing and eating food. Trust Your Mama when we tell you, that's just what happens. Three days in to the vacay and everyone is like, "Can we pleeze go to a damn restaurant? I'm so tired of cooking and washing dishes I could spit urine." So, addressing that issue the designer(s) who handled the recent overhaul of the home—that would be Greg Warner of Walker-Warner Architects in San Francisco according to marketing materials—smartly installed a commodious, expensively equipped, and centrally located country-style kitchen with white porcelain apron sink, open shelves for daily dishes, a thick slab of butcher block on the super-sized work island that doubles as a snack bar, and top-quality appliances tucked discreetly behind the bead board cabinetry that someone had the chutzpah to paint a particularly fetching shade of tomato. Behind the kitchen, our own house girl Svetlana noticed with an angry kind of envy, there's a well-designed mud porch/laundry room with more tomato red cabinetry and a double-wide sliding louvered door that, when open, allows the laundress of the house to have a $17 million view of the ocean while folding up bathing suits and underthings.

A small sitting room furnished with a generous sectional seating lounge provides a buffer zone between the hustle-bustle of the main living space and the serenity and coziness of the master suite. A central walk-in closet that can be passed on either side separates the compact but adequate bedroom from the bathroom where there's a custom wood vanity, a free-standing soaking tub set in front of over-sized windows with moist, green mountain and garden views, and, for reasons we can't fathom, a pair of pea green Moroccan poufs. Maybe that's where the $200/hour house-calling manicurist sits when she comes to do an in-tub mani-pedi for the lady of the house?

Anyways, according to celebrity real estate scuttlebutt on the island and circumstantial evidence in various property record data bases and other online resources it appears that in November 2011 Miz Roberts and Mister Moder very well might have spent $13,375,000 to acquire a well-known and Hawaii historic, 3-ish acre beach front property on postcard perfect Hanalei Bay where the the shore is sandy rather than rocky and hence perfect for bare-footed shore strolling and surf frolicking.

The vintage estate has a sizable main house with an open plan main living area that opens on the beach side to a covered porch, six bedrooms and three bathrooms plus and outdoor shower. A separate detached but fully self-contained cottage has another beach view covered porch, an open plan living area, one bedroom, and one bathroom. The property was—and, oddly enough, still appears to be—available as a un-fussy but hardly inexpensive rental, $1,500 per night for the main house and either $350 per night for the cottage.

Kauai quietly attracts a slew of celebrities and other well-heeled Tinseltowners, often over and around the winter holidays. Most rent but a few of the high profile people who own luxury island getaways on the North Shore of Kauai include the aforementioned Ben Stiller and Pierce Brosnan as well as Honolulu-born Bette Midler, music industry mogul Irving Azoff, producer John Wells, and María del Roasario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza, a hip-poppin' and coochi-cooing ball of fire otherwise known as Charo.

Your Mama's brief and entirely unscientific research on the internets reveals that in addition to their substantial residential real estate holdings in Hawaii Miz Roberts and Mister Moder maintain a number of other private residences. There's the custom-built bluff-top estate in Malibu, a ranch about 10 miles north of Taos, NM, and several apartments in a dignified boutique building in the Gramercy Park area of New York City plus a penthouse pad in a full-service post-war building in the heart of Greenwich Village that she picked up in mid-2010 for $3,895,000. In 2010, presumably for use by staff or family, Miz Roberts and Mister Moder paid $1,332,300 for a fully updated and upgraded 1920s Spanish bungalow with two bedrooms and two bathrooms just a couple short blocks from the center of downtown Pacific Palisades and, until August 2010 when she sold it for $3,000,000, the couple maintained a gated micro-compound just off Abbott Kinney in in the city's increasingly pricey yet proudly gritty hipster-swarmed beach community of Venice.

*In the interest of full disclosure Your Mama would like the children (and etc.) to note that we have not been able to directly link Julia Roberts or Danny Moder to the property in question. What we have is a whole lotta circumstantial evidence. Several sources have told Your Mama that the Roberts-Moder family maintains not one but two residence on Kauai and one doesn't have to scour the internet for long before picking up snippets of gossip and rumor that say so. Also notable is that, technically, the property in question is owned by a vaguely named trust that links back to the same Beverly Hills office of an accountant long known by celebrity property gossips like Your Mama to be associated with Miz Roberts as the rest of her many residential properties. Make of the circumstantial evidence what you will. Let's be honest, though. Even if it's not Roberts' house, it's worth a gander anyways, don't you think?

listing photos: Hawaii Life

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Cotton T-Shirt King James Perse Snags Another

SELLER: Stefan Lessard
BUYER: James Perse
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $6,690,000
SIZE: 7,000 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama, followed by a number of our property gossip compadres, had to eat celebrity real estate crow in mid-February (2013) when we erroneously reported that money-minting musician Dave Matthews of his eponymous Dave Matthews Band had quietly dropped $6,575,000 for a recently re-did domicile in the celeb-saturated Point Dume area of Malibu, CA, that was described in listing information from the time of the purchase as a "European Country Home."

Within days of our digital discussion we heard from a paid representative of Mister Matthews who was appreciatively friendly but absolutely emphatic that her client did not buy the house in question and does not, in fact, own any property in Malibu or even in California. We added a note that stated such and we moved on.

Then, about a week or so ago, while—'tis true—Your Mama was shacked up in a tent the size of a downtown Manhattan studio apartment in Sister Woman's backyard, we received a covert communique from deliciously relentless real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak who snitched that she's quite certain—totally positive, she said—that the 1.78 acre estate in question was acquired by Mister Matthews' long-time bass player Stefan Lessard and his second wife, Jaclyn Burton. The seller was Maura Kaplan, the designer daughter of late actor Leslie Nielsen.

Mister Lessard, 39, has played bass in the wildly successful Dave Matthews Band since he was a wee lad of sixteen, which means he's plenty rich enough to buy a six and some million dollar house in Malibu. However, Mister and/or Missus was almost immediately stricken with buyer's remorse or caught a severe case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle or something because the couple quietly flipped the 7,000 square foot house in an off-market deal in early July (2013) for, according to property records, $6,690,000. The buyer, snitched Yolanda, is luxury cotton t-shirt king James Perse and his wife Brandi Briskman, a Beverly Hills -bred brunette who is sometimes described on the interweb as an interior decorator.

As it turns out, we also learned from Yolanda, the Lessard's unwanted white elephant isn't the only residential property in Malibu owned by Mister and Missus Perse. In fact, it's not even the most expensive house they own in the Point Dume area. In late 2010 the casually chic couple surreptitiously spent $16,000,000 to acquire an organically modern wood and glass pavilion on 1.28 plum acres with ocean views and direct, deeded access to a sensationally scenic private beach. Your Mama's research shows Mister and Missus Perse purchased the beach house from former Surfing magazine editor and X-Files creator Chris Carter and their nearest neighbor is none other that Miz Malibu Herself, Barbra Streisand, who presides over a sprawling, multi-acre, multi-residence bluff-top compound that includes an rustic water mill with a working wooden water wheel. Anyhoo...

Until recently Mister Perse owned a sleek and low-slung one bedroom and 1.5 bathroom abode in a much desired location above the Sunset Street that he had designed by the talented folk at Standard and first listed in 2009 with a sky-high $4,995,000 price tag. After a long slog at the real estate rodeo and a significant price drop to $3,750,000 in 2011, the property finally sold in April of this year (2013) in an off-market deal for $3,550,000. The buyer, as per property records and Yolanda Yakketyyak, was L.A.-based artist, writer and luxury eye wear entrepreneur Alex Israel who, incidentally, just sold his high-floor two bedroom and two bathroom condo-crib along the Wilshire Corridor for $875,000.

listing photos (Malibu, top): Prudential Malibu Realty
listing photos (Malibu, middle): Coldwell Banker
listing photos (Sunset Strip, bottom): Hilton & Hyland

Monday, September 9, 2013

Triple Whammy: Robin Quivers Shakes Up Property Portfolio

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In May 2012 radio shock-jock Howard Stern's long-time lady side kick Robin Quivers—the relative calm to his famously crude storm—announced that she was about to go under the knife to have a grapefruit-sized tumor removed from her bladder. The well-compensated co-host, a former nurse and Air Force captain who rakes in a reported $10 million per year, quickly returned to her post behind the microphone but, instead of being in the studio with Mister Stern and his ragtag band of lewd cohorts, for the last year or so has provided her generally more level headed two cents from home with a high-speed internet connection.

Earlier today Miz Quivers revealed on air that she's battled cancer over the last year or so and, after chemotherapy—and whatever other tactics they employed to beat back the cancer, her doctors recently declared her cancer free. Mavel tov, Miz Quivers, may you remain in remission in perpetuity.

With her new, cancer-free lease on life, the 61-year old Miz Quivers seems in the mood to turn her small property portfolio completely upside-down. Thanks to an informant we'll call Glenda Goodwitch it's come to Your Mama's attention that the coffee enema proponent not only put her her New York City apartment up for sale she also listed her canal-front house in the seaside Loveladies community on Long Beach Island on the (New) Jersey shore—for significantly less than she paid for it, mind you—and she already snatched up a bigger and more expensive bay-front residence less than two miles to the south.

LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,950,000
SIZE: 1,486 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

Property records reveal Miz Quivers picked up her 2 bedroom and 2.5 bathrooms pied-a-terre in the lower section of New York City's Upper West Side near Lincoln Center in May 2008 for $2,469,256—or $2,425,000, depending where you look. Current digital marketing materials show she first hoisted the 1,486 square foot high-floor corner crib on the open market in July 2013 with a $3,150,000 price tag. The asking price was quickly reduced to $2,950,000 and within a few weeks an unknown buyer came along and put the apartment in contract for an unknown amount.

Current listing details show a tiny, barely there foyer opens into a reasonably roomy, multi-purpose living/dining/kitchen space with medium brown hardwood floors and full walls of windows, some of which stretch from floor-to-ceiling and flood the room with natural light. The furnishings are mostly taupe and tan and, while probably of high quality and reasonably comfy-looking, fairly uninspired.

The adjoining, windowed kitchen may be Manhattan-sized, meaning it's barely bigger than a decent-sized walk-in closet, bu it's none-the-less well equipped with top-quality appliances including an under-counter wine fridge and commercial-style range, simple Shaker-style oak cabinetry with frosted glass fronted uppers, high gloss black granite counter tops and white marble back splash, and a two-seat breakfast bar.

The two bedrooms, situated at opposite ends of the apartment for maximum privacy, each has a private bathroom. The master bedroom isn't any bigger then the guest bedroom really but does have three (smallish) closets instead of one and a more spacious, windowed en suite bathroom with a two sink vanity, soaking tub, and separate, glassed-in stall shower.

Other features include nine-foot ceilings, a stacked washer/dryer in a closet just off the foyer, and three exposures that allow for city, park, river, and bridge views. Common charges and taxes, as per listing details, come to $2,668 and the building's full-service amenities include 24-hour doormen, concierge, health club, bike storage room and on-site parking garage. (No doubt additional fees apply to the latter feature.)

At this point Your Mama has no idea if Miz Quivers plans to replace her modestly sized if hardly inexpensive pied a terre with something another one of equal, less or greater scope and/or cost.

LOCATION: Loveladies, (Long Beach Island), NJ
PRICE: $2,450,000
SIZE: 3,500 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

As mentioned above, not only has Miz Quivers opted to sell her Manhattan pied-a-terre she's also put a $2,450,000 price tag on her canal front house in Loveladies (NJ) that property records show she acquired in October 2005 for $2,775,000. A few quick clicks and clacks on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that even if her real estate agent lady manages to pull down a full price buyer Miz Quivers faces an elephantine $325,000 loss on the sale of this house, not counting improvements, carrying costs, and real estate fees.

Current listing information shows the approximately 3,500 square foot house, dubbed—ahem—Amethyst Sea, had five bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. It was designed, so says the listing description, by local designer/builder Robert Musgnug and built in 2002 near the tail end of a long cul-de-sac with 135-feet of open, south facing canal frontage. The canal leads out to Manahawkin Bay, according to digital maps we consulted.

The main living areas doesn't look all that commodious in listing photographs but are open concept with beige tile flooring, a fireplace, and a curved wall of windows in the living room area. There's another curved wall of windows in the dining area that's open to the kitchen over a raised breakfast bar. The wrap-around kitchen is outfitted with high-grade stainless steel appliances, granite counter tops the color of wet sand, and perfectly ordinary raised panel cabinetry that doesn't quite reach the ceiling. Some of the eagle-eyed children may have already noted that Miz Quivers broke Rule Number 14 in Your Mama's Big Book of Decoratin' Dos and Don'ts by shoving copious amounts of faux-foliage and other knick-knacks and paddywacks in the narrow space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling where they do little besides collect dust.

At lease a couple of the guest/family bedrooms have water views and the master has a sitting area with an amethyst inlaid fireplace, a private water-side balcony, and an en suite bathroom where, according to digital marketing materials, there's more amethyst inlaid in the otherwise ho-hum beige tile work.

The main living area opens to an elevated veranda that, unfortunately for privacy seekers like Your Mama, a direct and essentially unimpeded view into the backyards of the across-the-canal neighbors. Wide steps descend a decent-sized backyard area with simple plantings, a boomerang-shaped swimming pool and generous if not exactly private sunbathing spaces. A large deck cantilevers over the bulk headed canal and a separate floating dock provides plenty or room for Miz Quivers throw her kayaks into the canal and/or park her funny little runabout boat.

Other rooms of note include a small, canal-view fitness room, a second level family room/den with yet another curved wall of windows, and an upper level wood-floored office with built-in bookcases that flank a large oculus-type window. Another upper level room, perhaps it was originally planned as a bedroom, is where, according to listing photos, Miz Quivers sits and does her thing on the radio.

LOCATION: Long Beach Island, NJ
PRICE: $3,388,800
SIZE: 7,627, 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

Listing details first forwarded to Your Mama by Glenda Goodwitch indicate Miz Quivers was in the mood to up size her residential circumstances along the famous—and infamous—Jersey shore. At 7,627 square feet with 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms, her 8-level mini-mansion, located on a heavily trafficked main thoroughfare but tucked behind that thicket of pine trees, is more than twice the size of her house in Loveladies.

We have no idea if Miz Quivers dabbled in the dark arts of numerology to come up with the odd $3,388,800 purchase price but we do know that the 1+ acre spread was last lised with an asking price of $3,649,000.

The multi-winged, clapboard-sided residence wraps around a large deck with a circular raised space that spills in to a compact kidney-shaped swimming pool. A long, boardwalk constructed of mahogany or maybe red cedar links the pool area to the water side amenities: a private white sand beach and a private deep water dock. Perhaps the most unique feature of the quirky and not especially attractive house is a widow's walk that allows for 360 degree views of the bay and beach.

listing photos and floor plan (New York City): Corcoran
listing photos (Loveladies): Joy Luedtke Real Estate
listing photos (Beach Haven): Joy Luedtke Real Estate

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Nate Berkus's Pedigreed West Coast Rental Goes Up for Sale

SELLER: Sean MacPherson
MOST RECENT RENTERS: Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,950,000
SIZE: 2,148 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Media savvy designer/decorator Nate Berkus and his man-friend/fiancée, much younger and far less successful fellow designer/decorator Jeremiah Brent, loved their architecturally pedigreed rental residence in the Hollywood Hills so much—you'll recall that Mister Brent confessed in the August 2013 issue of Harper's Bazaar that he "burst into tears" the first time he toured the house—that they opted not to buy the John Elgin Woolf-designed house and it's back up for sale with an asking price of $2,950,000.

The jewel box of a house is currently owned by Malibu-bred and New York-based boutique hotelier du jour Sean MacPherson—and his mother, Janet—who purchased the pedigreed pad, as per property records, in late 1995 for $415,000.

Current listing details show the 2,148 square foot single story mini-villa was built in 1939, sits on a generous, half acre-plus at the sylvan end of a short cul-de-sac, and has two bedrooms and two bathrooms including an oval-shaped master bathroom. The green and black kitchen has a wacky but wonderful mint-green vintage 1950s range and the bi-winged living room has marble inlaid parquet floors and a curved glass window divided by a marble mantled fireplace. Outdoor living spaces include trellis-shaded red brick terraces next to the pool, a sunbathing deck set just above the pool, and an open air pavilion with built-in bench seating and canyon views.

Some of the nearby neighbors include artist David Hockney, Tonight Show bandleader Ricky Minor (who lives in Katey Sagal's old house), and oil and gas scion Andrew Getty.

We claim no inside knowledge into the Misters Berkus and Brents' future real estate plans on the Left Coast but we do know—as was previously reported by a whole bunch of other property gossips—that in July (2013) Mister Berkus sold a terraced duplex penthouse in a walk-up co-operative building just off lower Fifth Avenue in New York City's Greenwich Village for $4,950,000* and a couple weeks later spent an even-steven five million dollars for another terraced duplex penthouse coop just a few blocks away in a elevator-equipped doorman building (above) that was designed by the venerated Emory Roth and built in 1922 by pre-war property developers Bing & Bing right on lower Fifth Avenue.**

Listing details show the six room duplex has two proper bedrooms and a third, awkwardly L-shaped room that would be downright indecent to actually call or utilize as a bedroom. There are 2.5 bathrooms, two fireplaces, and two fairly narrow terraces, one of which wraps around two sides of the upper level living, dining and kitchen areas.

Interior finishes at the time of Mister Berkus's purchase include original chevron pattern wood floors, lots of multi-pane sash windows and doors, miles and miles heavy duty moldings, a mural-walled formal dining room, and a law-library-ish center-island kitchen worked over with dark brown cabinets and chocolate brown granite counter tops. Presumably Misters Berkus and Brent will sprinkle their decorative fairy dust over ever square foot of the apartment and have it photographed for glossy posterity (and shameless self promotion) for one of the better fashion or shelter publications.

UPDATE (9/9/13): Thanks to one of the children, it's come to Your Mama's attention that in addition to the duplex penthouse on lower Fifth Avenue for which he coughed up five million big ones, Mister Berkus spent another $975,000 in an off-market deal to acquire the one bedroom apartment directly below. It's probably pretty safe to assume Mister Berkus plans to triplex the two apartments, right?

*Mister Berkus paid $3,350,000 for the spacious, 3,000 square foot spread in 2011, so even though he probably spend a pretty penny doing the place up, we'd guess he walked away with a substantial amount of moolah. The buyers were internet art auction entrepreneur Andrew Gilkes and fashion designer Misha Nonoo.

**For what it's worth and just in case anyone might care, Mister Brent's name does not appear on the public deeds and documents Your Mama perused.

photos (Los Angeles): Douglas Friedman for Harper's Bazaar
last two exterior listing photos (Los Angeles): The Agency
listing photos and floor plan (New York): Core

Friday, September 6, 2013

Matthew Perry Quietly Buys Beach Front Digs...Two Years Ago

BUYER: Matthew Perry
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $12,000,000
SIZE: 5,500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Veteran sit-com star Matthew Perry is well known amongst property gossips like Your Mama for his relatively fickle relationship with high-priced properties in Los Angeles and Malibu. The real estate activities of the four-time Emmy-nominated t.v.s star are usually discovered and discussed in short order in all the celebrity-related property gossip columns. However, children, it turns out Mister Perry has made at least one big ticket addition to his property portfolio in recent years that, until it was sorted out by the tireless real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and backed up by the mysterious but always reliable Lucy Spillerguts, has gone entirely under radar.

Back in October of 2011, Mister Perry, by way of an acronymic trust, surreptitiously shelled out $12,000,000 for a newly and fully rehabilitated beach front house on much-coveted stretch of sand in Malibu, CA. Iffin he was so inclined, lucky Mister Perry and his lucky beach going house guests could scramble across the often treacherously trafficked Pacific Coast Highway and quickly amble over to the no frills but deservedly popular Malibu Seafood market and cafe for a tuna burger and fries (or whatever).

Just in case any of y'all think it at all strange that Mister Perry can afford a twelve million dollar house at the beach not to mention the no-doubt exorbitant annual maintenance costs associated with owning a twelve million dollar house at the beach...It's not. Mister Perry and his Friends co-stars earned $1 million per episode for the last two, 22-episode seasons of the wildly popular program. That's $44 million in just two years, not counting an additional endorsements or appearance fees he may have earned. And that's not counting the $30+ million he took in the previous two seasons when he and his cast mates pulled down three-quarters of a million per episode. The five Friends stars also received syndication royalties for the last five of the show's ten seasons and even a person who doesn't know a damn thing about the ins and outs of Tinseltown knows that there's hardcore amounts of money to be made in the syndication of a unusually successful sit-com like Friends.

Sure, you might well say, his reasonably busy post-Friends career has lacked traction: The drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was canceled after just one season; The comedy Mister Sunshine lasted a measly two; And his most recent sit-com, Go On, was axed in May (2013) after a single, 22-episode season. However Your Mama thinks we can all be assured—or at least we assume without any proof whatsoever—that Mister Perry's post-Friends compensation packages, while only short-term, were reasonably substantial. Maybe not Friends substantial but still enough that when added to his still growing pile of Friends money allows him to buy and sell multi-million dollar residences—por ejemplo, a twelve million dollar house on the beach in Malibu—with an almost alarming alacrity.

Property records show Mister Perry's beach house was purchased in the latter days of 2009 for exactly six million clams by Malibu-based polymath entrepreneur Scott Gillen.* Cigar smoking Mister Gillen, who bills himself on his polished website as a "director, builder, thinker, creator," took the existing, rag-tag residence down to the studs and re-built the thing with his carefully calibrated signature industrial meets organically modern manner.

Listing details from the time of the most recent transaction show the two-story house, which presents to the casual passerby on the street-side as little more than a fairly nondescript row of garage bays and an un-fussy entry gate, has four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in about 5,500 square feet of space. Because, at higher tides, the surf sometimes washes up under the cantilevered structure, listing photographs were able to be shot in such a way that the house appears to almost float dreamily on the ocean like a well-appointed boat.

An extra-wide sandblasted glass and metal front door opens from a small entry courtyard into an airy, sun-bathed foyer with a steel-framed and wood-treaded staircase. The foyer melts into the loft-like main living/dining/cooking space where there are generous expanses of art-friendly gallery white walls, chatoyant golden brown wood floors under foot, and a muscular—if low seeming—exposed wood beam ceiling over head. A somewhat inconveniently located fireplace stands between the living/lounge area and the dining area that do, however, share an approximately 40-foot long wall of floor-to-ceiling glass panels that disappear in to the walls. When pushed open the entire living area merges seamlessly with the slender, glass-railed balcony and is quickly bathed in the relentless sound of the pounding surf and infused with the damp, salt-misted sea air.

The center island kitchen has solid, custom-crafted wood cabinetry that looks to Your Mama like teak or maybe walnut or some other wood that can stand up to the humidity of its sea side location. There are fresh white solid surface counter tops, a simple white subway tile back splash, and top-quality stainless steel appliances that include a glass-fronted—not to mention atrociously pricey—commercial-style fridge/freezer that makes Your Mama go all jelly-kneed with ice box desire and envy.

We're not sure how the three guest/family bedrooms are arranged or what amenities they might be fitted with but we do know that the master suite occupies prime position on the second floor where it takes full advantage of its situation with another forty-ish foot long bank of glass panels that smoothly slide back into the walls. When open the roomy full-width master suite, comprised of separate but adjoining sitting room and bedroom, is converted to a luxurious veranda/sleeping porch with a dreamy or, for some, potentially sea sickness producing prow-like view over the Pacific. The spacious attached master bathroom has a floating vanity, a glassed in shower stalled lined with (what appears to be) white subway-style tiles, and a separate egg-shaped soaking tub.

Of course, we don't know a shoe horn from spoon so Your Mama has no idea what, if any, alterations Mister Perry may have made to the house. For all we know—and we know nothing—this place has been radically re-realized since Mister Perry acquired it almost two years ago.

Such are the real estate customs of countless rich and famous Hollywooders, since he became a rich and famous sitcom star Mister Perry has bought and sold a slew of high-priced homes in Los Angeles and Malibu. Many of his purchases and sales overlap and it gets a little confusing so put on your thinking caps, butter beans, pour yourself a mind-clearing gin & tonic and see if you can follow along. If you think it might help, make a a ven diagram of overlapping transactions on some scratch paper.

In 1995, in the dewy dawn of his Friends fame, Mister Perry paid $590,000 for a not-quite-2,000 square foot house on a quiet cul-de-sac near the tippy-top of the celeb-saturated Outpost Estates 'hood in the Hollywood Hills. He unloaded the two bedroom and three bathroom house in 2001, according to property records, to an L.A.-based attorney for $820,000 but not before, in June 1999, at that apex of his Friends fame, he forked over $2,925,000 for a glassy, 8,000 square foot mid-1970s modern nestled discreetly into the tail end of another quiet culd-de-sac in the now terrifically trendy and ludicrously costly Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills. He hung on to the Trousdale Estates pad for more then five years when he sold it the fall of 2005 for $6,100,000. The sleek, city-view house has had several owners since then, the current owner being Fuze Beverage co-founder Lance Collins who, accoriding to property records, snatched the house up in October 2010 for $10,280,000.

A few months before Mister Perry sold his Trousdale Estates mansion in 2005 he made two, not quite simultaneous purchases that combined came to nearly ten millon dollars. In April (2005) he shelled out $3.2 million for a 1,600+ square foot high-floor condo crib at the star-studded Sierra Towers complex on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. He first attempted to rid himself of the glass and terrace wrapped 2 bedroom and 3 bathroom apartment in 2008 for $4.5 million but didn't actually manage to unload the place until September 2011 when property records show it was sold to a not-famous person for $2,850,000.

At just about the same time he bought the city-view in West Hollywood he forked over another $6,550,000 for a concrete and glass contemporary perched on a steeply sloped 2.5-ish acre hillside lot with a sweeping coastal view in Malibu's guard-gated Serra Retreat where some of the rustically swanky enclave's other famous former residents include Mel Gibson, Britney Spears, and Kelsey Grammer. In October 2011, Mister Perry pushed the four bedroom and 5.5 bathroom residence in the Serra Retreat on the open market with a rose-tinted $13.5 million price tag. In March of the following year (2012) the house was taken off the market and, much to Your Mama's surprise, is currently operated as Perry House, a seven-bed sober living facility for men with the dough to afford such luxurious recovery circumstances. In May (2013) Mister Perry, who long suffered from his own addiction issues and has been to rehab twice (that we know of), was awarded the Champion of Recovery award on the White House lawn for his efforts at bringing awareness to addiction. So bravo for that. Seriously. Anyways...

A few months before property mad Mister Perry paid $883,000 for a perfectly ordinary corner property just off Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Studio City (CA) in July 2008, he coughed up $4,475,000 for a boxy, two-story contemporary set on a ridge high above the Sunset Strip. He off-loaded this house just this last February (2013) for $4,685,000 to, as per the property records Your Mama peeped, long-haired e-commerce mogul Michel Mente.

In August 2011, about a year and half before he sold his house above the Sunset Strip to the e-commerce guy, Mister Perry laid out $8,650,000 for a sleek, sexy, and recently re-built residence on a short cul-de-sac near the top of the so-called Bird Streets neighborhood above the Sunset Strip where all the streets are named—you got it smarty pants—after birds. The  approximately 4,000 square foot residence, crisp and rigorously clean-lined yet fearlessly libertine and even a little bit louche, was described in marketing materials as inspired by the ground-breaking Pierre Koenig's iconic and still terrifically modern Case Study House #22 (a.k.a. the Stahl House). One feature that the iconic Stahl House doesn't have that sort of sums up Mister Perry's quintessentially Tinseltown bachelor pad in The Birds is the state-of-the-art nine seat cinema in the basement fitted with a two-inch thick Perspex window that peers into the underwater depths of the zero-edge swimming pool where a person can paddle privately—and preferably in the buff—with a mesmerizing carpet of twinkling lights laid out below.

Presently then, in quick summation, Mister Perry's $25 million-plus property portfolio currently contains the Case Study-inspired Sunset Strip house, the sober living facility in Malibu's exclusive Serra Retreat, and the twelve million dollar beach front house. What Your Mama thinks matters none but we still think Mister Perry's small but impressive collection of homes might benefit from a wee pied-a-terre in the New York City like, say, this sassy, 17th floor number in a full-service post-war building in the West Village.

*Mister Gillen has directed more than 100 commercials for the likes of Mercedes, Mini Cooper and the Viagra Racing Team. He executive producted and directed two seasons of a reality program called Build or Bust as well as a single, six episode season of Set Up. He's customized a handful of vintage cars and motor cycles and spec-built at least half a dozen luxury properties in Malibu and Pacific Palisades.

listing photos: The Levin Group

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Anne Hathaway Flips Out in Brooklyn

SELLER: Anne Hathaway
LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY
PRICE: $4,500,000
SIZE: 2,592 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In March, 2012, Oscar-winning actress Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables, Rachel Getting Married) and her then-fiancée, occasional actor and jewelry designer Adam Shulman, reportedly rented a six thousand dollar-plus apartment in the much ballyhooed Clocktower building in Brooklyn's Dumbo 'hood.*

Nine months later, in January, 2013, the newly-wedded couple shelled out $4.1 million for a much larger apartment a few floors higher but now, just eight months later, they've caught a quintessential case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and, as first revealed by the property gossips at the New York Post, have flipped the beotch back on the market with an asking price of $4.5 million.

An unidentified "insider" told the Post peeps that the Hathaway-Shulmans never actually moved in to the apartment because she felt it was "too big" and only used the nearly 2,600 square foot spread as a "crash pad" her clothes. Such are the weird, wacky, and sometimes inexplicable real estate shenanigans of the rich and famous.

Current listing details show the condo-loft had three en-suite bedrooms and 3.5 marble bathrooms in 2,598 square feet and carries common charges and taxes that total $2,701 per month with a tax abatement program scheduled to end sometime in 2013, which will likely increase the amount of property taxes paid by the next owner.

It's a long zig-zag from the front entry hall, past all three of the bedrooms plus a powder pooper, laundry room, and a windowless home office), to the lofty, open-concept main living/dining/cooking space that's more than 18 feet wide and 27 feet long. Windows wrap around one end and at the other there's an open, galley-style kitchen fitted and kitted with gun metal gray cabinetry, glossy black counter tops—probably granite—and high quality stainless steel appliances. We're not sure why the cabinet above the fridge is black but it really ought to be painted gray to match the others.

There are enviable 11-foot beamed concrete ceilings, a handful of exposed support columns, gleaming hardwood floors throughout, and sixteen warehouse-style windows filled with sweeping views from the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, and the Manhattan skyline all the way up to the Empire State Building.

The pet-friendly Clocktower building offers its well-heeled residents a live-in superintendent, a 24-hour attended lobby, a residents' only roof top deck, a 24-hour fitness center (included with common charges), and a bike storage area.

A slew of celebs including Jay-Z and Calvin Klein have trekked over to Brooklyn to take a gander at the epic penthouse apartment at the Clocktower building that Spike Lee used in the movie Bamboozled and Esquire magazine leased it in 2011 to use as an event space.** However, the building remains—as far as we know—somewhat slim on A-list celebrity residents. The only other (reasonably) high profile peeps Your Mama knows to own apartments at the Clocktower are Meryl Streep's singer/songwriter son Henry Gummer, writer/cultural commentator Cintra Wilson, and model Bridget Hall. A couple of months ago fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff and husband, actor/director Gavin Bellour dropped $1.82 million for a 2,100 square foot spread on a low floor with two bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and an bi-level open concept main living area.

Our research indicates Miz Hathaway also owns a West Coast abode, a secluded 1960s contemporary not so far from the Mulholland Tennis Club that she quietly acquired in May 2009 for $2.2 million.

*For non-New Yorkers Dumbo is an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Until fairly recently it was a dense and gritty pocket of warehouse buildings on cobble stone streets. Public transportation into and out of the neighborhood sucked and it was an undesirable place for rich and famous people to live. Nowadays there are a number of high-cost, full service buildings and trendy boites and boutiques favored by the sorts of people who can afford to pay four or six grand a month for a one or two bedroom apartment. 

**The triplex penthouse is currently for salehttp://www.corcoran.com/nyc/Listings/Display/2546956 with an $18 million price tag, reduced from it's original (and highly optimistic) $25 million asking price.

listing photos and floor plan: Warburg Realty

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Midweek Mish-Mash: Comedians, suicides, fashion designers, and a couple of Bradys...

Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated comedian turned talk show host turned game show host Wayne Brady shelled out $1.75 million for an recently refurbished three bedroom and 3.5 bathroom condo in Pacific Palisades (above).

For what it's worth—and it ain't worth a damn thing—the chevron pattern reclaimed white oak wood floors and the ocean view from the sky-lit great room and the sun-flooded terrace are pretty dang magnificent. (L.A. Times)

We learned from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that Mister Brady moved from Sherman Oaks (CA), where in late March (2013) he sold an architecturally mortifying mock-Med macmansion for $1.8 million. Unfortunately for Mister Brady, he paid $2.55 million for the five bedroom and five bathroom hillside pile back in December 2005.

listing photo (Pacific Palisades): Partners Trust
listing photo (Sherman Oaks): Rodeo Realty

Poor Olivia Newton-John. In May (2013) she and her nutritional supplement selling husband, John Easterling, listed their Jupiter Inlet (FL) house for $6.2 million. Along came frequent real estate buying and selling comedienne/actress/talk show host/magazine editor/etc. Rosie O'Donnell a who agreed to purchase the approximately 6,400 square foot water front residence (above) for around $5.5 million. A little birdie told Your Mama that Miz O'Donnell planned to raze the existing residence or, at the very least, give it a significant do over but we can't verify the veracity of that scuttlebutt. Anyways, before the deeds and documents were were signed, sealed and delivered a contractor hired to fix a few things shot himself on the property. Rosie got spooked and, despite an (alleged) spiritual cleansing organized by Miz Newton-John, has officially backed out of the purchase. It's back to square one one Miz Newton-John and Mister Easterling who put the house back on the market with a familiar $6.2 million price tag. (Gossip Extra)

listing photo: Seawind Realty

After an estimated $75 million dollars spent, Calvin Klein's brand, spanking new ocean front compound in Southampton, NY (above), is just about finished and it sounds pretty damn spectacular...if beach side glass pavilions and ocean side swimming pools  are your thing. (The New York Times)

photo: Doug Kuntz for The New York Times

Speaking of fashion designers, Phillip Lim took a short term lease at $11,000 per month for a beautifully appointed two bedroom and two bathroom apartment (above) in a boutique building in the West Village while he awaits renovations on the combination of two apartments in a boutique building in SoHo. Check the sublime leather wrapped door knobs. Yummy.

Property records show Mister Lim paid $2.285 million for one of his SoHo apartments in October 2007 and $1.85 million for the other one in December 2011. (The Real Deal)

listing photos and floor plan: Town Real Estate

The 2,500 square foot London flat that famously flamboyant fashion designer Alexander McQueen owned and was in the process of renovating when he hanged himself in 2010 has come up for sale with an asking price of £7.25 million.

The Mayfair area apartment was purchased the year after Mister McQueen's suicide by a property development company who completed the renovations, although not, it would seem, to the specifications of Mister McQueen who had much more risqué taste than the obviously high quality but somewhat generically sleek, five-star hotel-like interiors seen in listing photos.

The pedigreed property was reportedly once occupied by author P.G. Wodehouse as well as an un-named grandson of Queen Victoria. (The Daily Mail)

listing photo: Knight Frank via The Daily Mail

Country music star Brad Paisley and his actress wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, sold their three bedroom and three bathroom residence in Pacific Palisades residence for $2.5 million.

Mister and Missus Paisley also own several residences in the Nashville, TN area including a secluded mansion in the semi-rural Berrys Chapel area about half way between Nashville and Franklin. (Zillow)

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

Although a slew of juicy photographs of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen's Richard Landry-designed 14,000 square foot faux chateau in an exclusive gated enclave in Los Angeles were accidentally leaked by their A-list builder in early August (2013)—the photos have since been removed from the builder's website—Architectural Digest went ahead with a planned story about the deluxe, eco-minded mansion mansion. In the article the supermodel mother of two (and step-mother to another) states the jet-setting couple aimed for "simplicity and coziness." Simple? All due respect to Missus Brady but bitch, pleeze. Fer chrissakes, the driveway crosses over a small pond before it gets to motor court paved with reclaimed cobble stones and a koi-stocked moat that's crossed by a stone bridge. Simple. Right. (Architectural Digest via Curbed)

photo: Roger Davies for Architectural Digest