Friday, May 18, 2012

Live Just Exactly Like Celine Dion

SELLER: Celine Dion and René Angélil
LOCATION: Ile Gagon, Laval, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
PRICE: $29,655,500 (Canadian)
SIZE: approximately 24,000 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6 full and 3 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a kind Canuck we'll call Jeremy Justthoughtyoushouldknow Your Mama has come to understand that booming song stylist Celine Dion and her husband-manager René Angélil have put their unabashedly baronial private island estate on the suburban outskirts of Montreal on the market with an asking price of $29,655,500. That's $29,655,500, Canadian.

A quick few clicks on Your Mama's currency conversion contraption indicates that's $29,248,900 (American), £18,428,200, €22,995,700 and—just in case—₯7,835,790,000.

We're not sure when Mister and Missus Dion acquired the 19-ish acre island retreat, but listing information indicates the imposing, four-floor stone mega-hoose was, "custom built in 2001 by one of the worlds most illustrious entertainers and her family." Listing information goes on to show the approximately 24,000 square foot French Normandy-style chateau contains total of 6 bedrooms and 6 full and 3 half bathrooms, just enough terlits to require employment of a part-time terlit-gurl.

Miz Dion and Mister Angélil may not actually be members of the royal family but their aspirations to live like they are seem quite clear to Your Mama's boozy eyeballs from the downright palatial, high school gym-sized entrance hall complete with soaring, double-height ceiling; heavy-duty moldings and towering pilasters; inlaid marble floors; and a monumentally-scaled, high-drama staircase that wraps around the room and up to a second floor gallery.

Can any one else besides Your Mama perfectly envision Dolly Parton coming down that winding staircase in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and/or Celine Dion gliding down in a beaded frock, pounding on her chest and belting out that swooning and ballooning theme song to Titanic?

Public rooms are many and include, according to listing information, a large formal living room with floor-to-ceiling windows on two opposite walls and a ceiling partially and, in our meaningless opinion, unwisely painted like a cloudy sky; a banquet hall-like formal dining room that seats 18; wood-paneled library and family room with fireplaces and built-ins; a sun room; and elongated office completely paneled with some sort of expensive-looking burled wood and lined with built-in display cabinets where Miz Dion may (or may not) stash her 5 Grammys, 12 World Music Awards, 7 American Music Awards, 7 Billboard Music Awards and on and on and on....

The kitchen, colossal and decidedly dramatic, has dark wood cabinets with La Cornue insets and plenty of carved corbels and other details; three Chevy-sized, floating work islands; a pair of menacing pot racks dripping with copper pots; some sort of old-timey espresso making contraption that probably cost more than your car; a very chic and expensive La Cornue range; and beige marble floors set on the bias with black market insets. It looks like the sort of kitchen two chefs, three sous chefs and one minimum wage dish washer could concurrently and comfortably work.

The master suite—more aptly described perhaps as a multi-pronged complex—somewhat curiously comprises his and her master bedroom suites. We're not talking separate bathing and dressing facilities like in an ordinary mega-mansion, we're talking connected but completely separate his and her suites, each with "sumptuous ensuite bathrooms, spacious walk-in closets, Juliette balconies and oversized doors and windows overlooking the water."

The lady's suite—that would be C.D.'s innermost domestic sanctum—has a bedroom with canopy bed; separate, double-height boo-dwar; a "vaulted marble shower"; and a soaking tub set privately in a wrought iron railed loft overlooking the boo-dwar. We'd stake our fat ass that Miz Dion's "ultimate walk-in closet" is bigger than Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter's entire house.

The 2-bedroom children's wing contains a separate contempo-styled den (above, upper left) with "integrated media components and custom hi-lacquers built-ins." A "spacious guest suite" and fitness facility with state-of-the-art equipment are tucked up under the roof on the third floor and down in the basement there's a wood-paneled games room (above, upper right) with built-in wet bar and stone-vaulted wine cellar with tasting room (above, bottom left).

Stone terraces and balconies extend off all sides of multi-winged megamansion and most take advantage of the all-around water views and "natural forested environment." Set well away from the main house there's an in-ground swimming pool with nearby pool house "equipped with its own kitchen and built-in grill." Although listing information doesn't specify, we imagine (and hope) the pool house also has a changing room and bathroom or two otherwise you know at least some of the pool users would tuck behind a tree for a tinkle before they'd make the trek across the lawn to the main house.

The private island, accessible only by helicopter or gated bridge, is wired to the gills for sure with fully integrated sound, satellite and lighting systems and a high-tech "surveillance system throughout within and around the house."

Marketing materials state the price includes "almost all of its contents" including "all the furniture (most antiques); artwork; decorative accessories; Persian rugs; linens; china; glassware; flatware and more (a full list will be provided to the prospective purchasers)."

That means, of course, that some person with somewhere close to thirty million dollars can live out their fantasy of living exactly like Celine Dion. That's all fine and fantastic and we imagine there are bajillions of Celine Dion fans (and fanatics) that would choke a defenseless animal for the opportunity to touch her hem or own a tiny piece of Miz Dion's decorative opulence. But, seriously, how many people with thirty million to spend on a fully-furnished and high-maintenance mega-mansion in suburban Montreal do the children think there really are? We're not knocking Montreal. We think it's a fantastic city. We're just sayin'...


 Marketing materials also include a YouTube accessible video of the property appropriately set to operatic music. 

Mister and Missus Dion reportedly plan to look for another house in their native Canada but circumstances have them spending more time at their homes in the United States. Since the early 2000s Miz Dion has had a seriously lucrative gig singing her heart out at some casino-resort in Las Vegas where she and her Mister own a 2(ish)-acre, three-parcel estate that backs up to a golf course in an upscale, gated development in Henderson near Lake Las Vegas.

The first two parcels were purchased, according to property records we peeped, in two separate transactions in 2002 and 2003 for a combined $6,231,256. The slightly smaller .75 acre parcel has a gated, single-story mansion with 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms in just more than 6,600 square feet; swimming pool, and deep shaded terraces. The larger, .79-acre parcel has an almost 2,000 square foot structure of undetermined utility set in a large large area and a gated, tennis court-sized parking pad with 4-car carport. Just last month (April 2012) Miz Dion and Mister Angélil added to their desert spread with the $150,000 shelled out to buy an adjacent, .55 acre vacant lot.

It wasn't so long ago Miz Dion and Mister Angélil were cat nip with all the property gossips and mouthy real estate magpies over the water park-like swimming pool they installed on their multi-acre, ocean front compound in Hobe Sound, FL that also, baller style, has a separate, very simply rectangular swimming pool on the ocean side of the house.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty
aerial photo (Montreal): Bing 
aerial photo (Hobe Sound): Pacific Coast News