Emmy Winning Writer/Producer Terence Winter Lists Beverly Hills Abode

SELLER: Terence Winter
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,650,000
SIZE: 5,688 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen chickens, we're going to be brief here today—or at least as brief as a long-winded ol' windbag like Your Mama can be—because our much adored gal pal Sheila Sinn is down from the currently freezing state of Alaska and we've got sights to see, kebabs to nosh, and a great big flask of gin & tonics to start in on.

Anyhoo, the other day, while doing our best to ignore the extreme hoopla that surrounds the Superbowl, Your Mama ran across a white stucco residence in Beverly Hills, CA listed at $6,650,000 and owned, as per property records, by Emmy-winning screenwriter and producer Terence Winter and his wife Rachel

Brooklyn-born Mister Winter started up his ladder of entertainment industry fame and fortune in the 1990s writing for a variety of series that include (but are not limited to) Sister, Sister, Xena: Warrior Princess and Diagnosis: Murder. His big Showbiz break came at the turn of the 21st century when he signed on to write for (and later produce) the HBO mega-hit The Sopranos, which was canceled (or brought to a close or whatever) in 2007. A few dry years followed The Sopranos until Mister Winter created, wrote and produced Boardwalk Empire, the much lauded, very violent and labyrinthine Martin Scorsese-directed crime drama set in prohibition-era Atlantic City, NJ.

Property records indicate Mister and Missus Winter purchased their Bev Hills digs in February 2008 when they shelled out $4,062,500 for the desirably-located 1929 Mediterranean manse that sits on a tight-for-the-zip-code .29 acre Utah-shaped parcel in the same Platinum Triangle pocket as billionaires David Geffen and Ron Burkle, well-divorced couture queen Suzanne Saperstein, action flick star Jackie Chan, and rock star Bruce Springsteen, just to name a few. The Winters bought the property from recently departed Emmy-winning screenwriter, producer and Mad Libs co-creator Leonard Stern (The Honeymooners, Get Smart, Operation Petticoat, and etc.).

A high-walled and gated courtyard with original working fountain and deep covered porch makes a peaceful and private transition from the street to the front door that opens into a long entrance hall that stretches gracefully clear though to the rear of the residence. The impressive but reasonably scaled foyer opens to the formal living room finished with coffee-colored wood floors, wood coffered barrel vaulted ceiling, a carved stone fireplace and banks of French doors that open the room to both the front courtyard and the backyard.

The formal dining room, across the entrance hall from the formal living room, does double duty as a library with a full wall of built-in wood bookshelves. A pair of arched French doors allow for easy flow to an outdoor dining/lounging terrace.

Less formal quarters include a family room with beamed ceiling, built-in entertainment center, wet bar, and a separate temperature-controlled wine room lined floor to ceiling with booze bottle cubbies. The family room adjoins the eat-in kitchen with cozy built-in breakfast banquette, high-gloss black cabinetry with glass-fronted uppers, snow white counter tops and breakfast bar, sizable center work island and a complete suite of commercial-style Viking brand appliances.

The adjacent service wing includes a play room with direct backyard access, a guest or staff suite with full (hall) bathroom, a sky lit laundry room, and an office where Mister Winter displays his quartet of gleaming Emmy statuettes. Listing information states the office could be utilized as a "classic 'man-cave,'" but all the children surely know that Rule #14 in Your Mama's Big Book of Decoratin' Dos and Don'ts emphatically declares that, "A private home that aspires to even a shred of style, taste, or dignity can not, by definition and under any circumstances, contain a space referred to as a 'man-cave' or, worse, a 'mantuary.'"

In addition to the grand staircase in the entrance hall, a curving carved wood rear staircases leads to the the second floor comprised of 3 family bedrooms—two share a Jack & Jill style bathroom, one makes use of a hall bathroom,  plus a fourth so-called "junior master" with vaulted ceiling, sitting area and private facility.

The actual master suite has a high vaulted ceiling, sitting area and vintage-inspired spa-style bathroom with high-gloss black cabinetry, emerald green subway tile accents, grey-veined white marble counter tops and tub surround, heated black and white checked marble floor and party-sized steam shower with built-in tiled bench. A super-sized, boo-teek-style walk-in closet and dressing room (plus additional closet space) will make an average clothes horse blind with envy.

We don't, of course, know a coffee filter from a wooden spoon so we don't know if Mister and Missus Winter plan to buy another west coast abode but we do recall reading somewhere recently—we can't recall just where—that the Winter family has decamped for New York, nearer where Mister Winter's Boardwalk Empire tapes.

listing photos: Prudential California / Beverly Hills

Murphy Brown Actress Faith Ford Lists Mandeville Canyon Mini-Compound

SELLER: Faith Ford and Campion Murphy
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,950,000
SIZE: 3,467 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.25 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although invited to a boozy bash at Cuzzin Aunt Poo's crib to view the Superbowl—ugh!—and marvel at Madonna's continued ability to lip sync and turn cartwheels in high heels—more ugh!—we forewent the festivities and instead spent some time napping, working the New York Times crossword puzzle on our iPhone, and absentmindedly combing through a few of the newer listings around Los Angeles. It wasn't long into our property perusing we came across an architecturally eclectic but essentially traditional board-and-batten residence in the bucolic and upscale Brentwood area of Los Angeles listed at $4,950,000 and owned, as per property records, by sitcom actress Faith Ford and her (second) husband Campion Murphy.

It may be that many of the younger children will not have any idea who Miz Ford is but she's been floating successfully around Tinseltown since the early 1980s when, like many actresses, she started up her ladder of fame and fortune with brief stints on day time soap stories, first on One Life to Life and later on Another World. A five-episode arc on the almost cult-like, yuppie-lauding evening-time drama thirtysomething in 1987-8 led to a career-defining 9 year stint as the impossibly perky and frustratingly naive Corky Sherwood on Murphy Brown where—always a bridemaid never a bride—Miz Ford earned five Emmy nominations in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series category.

Since her professional salad days on Murphy Brown Miz Ford has worked her funny stuff on a couple seasons the now-defunct Norm and co-starred with Kelly Ripa on the sitcom Hope & Faith which was canceled in 2006 after just three seasons. In 2011 she appeared on the silver screen in Escapee, a little heard of horror/thriller written and directed by Miz Ford's hubby of almost 15 years who in addition to his not particularly successful Showbidness endeavors is (or was) a personal trainer and a former junior reporter at the Hollywood Reporter.

Property records show Mister Campion and Miz Ford scooped up their long-time Mandeville Canyon-area mini-compound om November 2005 for an undisclosed amount of money—or at least an amount we weren't able to easily tease out of the interweb. Listing information shows the Ford-Murphy property encompasses just over half an acre of thickly-treed and mostly hillside land and includes a two-story, 3,467 square foot main house with 4 bedrooms and 4.25 bathrooms plus a fully detached structure with two-car garage and especially spacious two-story guest house.

Listing information states that oak and walnut wood floors "grace" both the main and guest houses that combined five fireplaces and describes the property as "extremely private & emotional." We j'adore an extremely private property, of course, but Your Mama always feels squeamish and on edge when we come across a home characterized as emotional. Call us crazy—and we've been called far worse—we just get wicked nervous a so-called emotional house will burst in to tears or want to process it's feelings of inadequacy and unresolved pangs of envy and we just could not have such a shenanigan.

The house, set behind a tall fence and high hedge, sits hard up on the street with but a slender brick terrace and gravel courtyard (with fountain) for a front yard. A shallow porch and towering windowed turret both humbly and dramatically signifies entrance to the house.

A carved and curving wood staircase divides the foyer from the formal living room with shallow vaulted wood ceiling and direct access to the dining and lounging terrace(s) that runs along the canyon side of the house. The adjoining tee-vee den skews cozy with a stacked stone wood-burning fireplace, flat-screen tee-vee mounted above the rough-hewn wood mantelpiece and uncomfortably close to the ceiling, walls entirely covered in steely blue-toned wood paneling we're not entirely comfortable with, and the first of several artworks that depict the American flag.

The kitchen, all snow white Shaker-style cabinetry, winter white counter-tops and top-grade commercial-style stainless steel appliances, opens to a adjacent breakfast area with custom-fitted built-in banquette outfitted with the exact sort of very easily stained white-white-white cushions and pillows that would unquestionably drive our persnickety and sometimes tempestuous house gurl Svetlana into convulsing conniptions of frustration. Beyond the breakfast banquette, the intimately-scaled family room features another stacked stone fireplace with flat-screen tee-vee mounted on the breast.

The airy master suite has lustrous, espresso-colored wood floors, a vaulted and beamed ceiling, awkwardly off-center fireplace, a wide bank of French doors to open to a private deck with canyon view, bedroom-sized bathroom with two sinks and soaking tub for two. Dual closets are, as per listing information, "a fashionista's dream."

The multi-level backyard areas include a plunge-sized swimming pool and pie-shaped elevated spa, a koi pond, fruit and vegetable gardens, a natural rock waterfall, meandering pathways, a tree house-like gazebo and a shaded brick terrace that spills out to a deck with built-in bench seating and long views over the treetops across Mandeville Canyon.

The detached guest house offers an unknown amount of bedrooms and bathrooms but does have an unexpectedly cavernous double-height living space with bleached knotty-pine floors, bleached wood paneled walls, a few bits of rustic wood and manly leather furniture pieces, a complete kitchen (with stainless steel appliances, natch), and another framed artwork that depicts a vintage American flag, or maybe it is an actual vintage American flag. Mister Murphy and Miz Ford appear to be very patriotic people.

Listing information states the current price of $4,950,000 includes the furniture. We're not sure why someone would sell their house with all the furniture or, even more puzzling, who would buy a five million dollar house furnished with someone else's things? It would seem to Your Mama's pea brain that anyone who can afford four or five million dollar digs can probably afford another hundred grand to properly furnish the house with sofas, side tables and commodes of their own choosing. But then again, we're never really surprised by the needs, wants and inexplicable real estate activities of the rich and/or famous.

listing photos: Nourmand & Associates

Vincent Gallo Lists Multi-Level Downtown L.A. Loft

SELLER: Vincent Gallo
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,599,000
SIZE: 4,300 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last night while watching those designing dervishes on Project Runway run around and snatch (or pay for) the clothes off the backs and asses of regular folks roaming around Central Park minding their own damn bizness, we received a brief missive from amiga and informant Babbling Babette who let us know that wild-eyed indie film actor, artist, musician, avant garde self promoter, and somewhat freaky-creepy bon vivant Vincent Gallo (Buffalo 66, The Brown Bunny) hoisted a soaring penthouse loft in a nitty-gritty industrial area east of downtown Los Angeles, CA on the market with an asking price of $2,599,000. The penthouse has been on and off the market since February 2011.

Quixotic, exotic and erotic-minded Mister Gallo, a man who makes himself available through his website "to fulfill the wish, dream, or fantasy of any naturally born female" for a fee of $50,000 plus expenses per night (and to "couples of the lesbian persuasion" at $100,000 per night), purchased the the 4-floor penthouse in October 2009 for $2,340,000.

Despite that wacky (if oddly gripping) photo studio tableau with the naked male mannequin torso it was clear at first glance that Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota had been all up in there where her Wand of Decorative Generica. And indeed, according to a well-positioned little birdie, Mister Gallo never inhabited the 2 bedroom and 2.5 building topper, which had previously been leased to Nic Cage, and the furniture does not belong to him. Mister Gallo, we understand, has much less conventional (and far more interesting) taste in comestibles and day-core.

The main entrance to the penthouse, as seen in the above floor plan (lowest level on top), is on the lowest level where wide entrance hall opens into giant, window lined flexi-space suitable for use as a work/office space, art studio, indoor roller rink, Pilates studio or any just about other purpose a person could think of. It could also very easily be carved up into two decent-sized bedrooms with a shared hall bathroom. Experienced and eagle-eyed floor plan will note—and the lazy and the infirm with appreciate—the penthouse conveniently offers residents and guests a physical exertion saving private elevator that serves all four floors of the penthouse. 

The first flight of stairs, a rather prosaic affair compared to the cacophony of floating M.C. Escher-esque staircases that wrap around and cut across the soaring upper levels, leads up to the main living/dining area where over-sized copper-framed windows with long city views punctuate two walls of the schoolyard-scaled room. Both the living/dining room and the adjacent separate kitchen open to an unusually ample if not entirely private wrap around terrace, part of which listing photos shows gussied up as an outdoor movie theater, a fun idea that we imagine might easily annoy the neighbors.

A momentary elevator ride or a long cantilevered flight of floating stairs brings us to the lofted master suite, a sprawling balcony that hangs over the primary living space below. The spacious room has lots of romance and drama but it does not offer so much as a lick of privacy, not even in the attached bathroom where a clear glass panel is all that divides the bedroom area from the shower. This set up is absolutely fine if you don't have children or house guests who could probably hear every whisper and creak in the bedroom from below not to mention would need to traipse through the bedroom to access the stairs that climb up to the roof top terrace. Of course, all the domestic traffic could just take the elevator up to the roof terrace, but still.... Call Your Mama a secretish prude if you like, but we just prefer more rather than less privacy when it comes to the boo-dwar.

Anyhoo, an all-glass pavilion on the roof opens to a large square terrace with all but unobstructed 360-degree views. Mister Gallo, his nice, gay or lady decorator or Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota furnished the roof terrace with a comfy-looking super-sized sectional sofa with nearly two dozen pillows but nary an umbrella in sight to keep the fair-skinned and sun averse from baking like potatoes in the searing southern California sunshine.

We do not, of course, know a cow teat from a tit mouse but an unscientific perusal of public property records suggest to Your Mama that Mister Gallo may (or may not) have had some sort of working relationship with the developer of the Biscuit Company Lofts, a direct hand in developing the downtown building, and/or an uncontrollable real estate urge to invest in the project. Our interpretation of the property records show Mister Gallo has owned a total of six units in the Biscuit Company Lofts complex as well as a lofty 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom condo in the building across the street he bought in February 2009 for $350,000. In addition to the for sale quadruplex penthouse that now encompasses and an adjacent 626 square foot unit on the seventh floor he bought separately from but at the same time as the penthouse for $300,000 Mister Gallo owned a ground floor space he sold for $510,000 to musician Eric Erlandson, co-founder of Courtney Love's old band Hole, a fifth floor unit bought in October 2008 for $280,000 and sold two months later for the exact same price, a second fifth floor unit bought in April 2007 for $675,000 and sold at a substantial loss in February 2011 for $380,000 and, finally, a 2,926 square foot seventh floor duplex spread he sold in July 2010 for $1,300,000.

Mister Gallo has in the past also owned a wide variety of architecturally significant homes and apartments on both the east and west coasts including a couple condos at the star-studded Sierra Towers complex in West Hollywood (one he sold to Cher!), the soo-blime John Lautner-designed Wolff House tucked dramatically into the hills just above the Sunset Strip, and at least one condo in Richard Meier's exhibitionist-friendly (and celebrity-stocked) green glass and white steel towers that lord over the busy West Side Highway in New York City's far West Village and have dead on views up and down the Hudson and across to New Jersey.

listing photos: Keller Williams / Hollywood Hills
floor plan: Biscuit Company Lofts

Sofia Coppola Lists NoLita Loft and Buys West Village Townhouse

SELLER: Sofia Coppola
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,750,000
SIZE: 1,771 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In late August last year (2011), after two shorties born our of wedlock, French rocker Thomas Mars—the front man for the band Phoenix—finally made an honest woman of Oscar-winning American filmmaker Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Somewhere) in a low-key but high fashion ceremony at Palazzo Margherita, her famous father Francis Ford Coppola's 19th century mansion in southern Italy. Although the couple and their couple of  enfants live primarily in Paris Miz Coppola has maintained the same downtown New York City condo for the last ten (or so) years but, as we learned late last night, recently decided to let it go and put it up for sale with an asking price of $2,750,000.

Property records show Miz Coppolla purchased the mid-floor corner residence on the once gritty now fashionable border between SoHo, NoLiTa and Little Italy in September 2002, towards the tail end of her marriage to film, television, commercial and music video director Spike Jonze who was born with the far less edgy and arty sounding Adam Spiegel.

Listing information shows the vaguely L-shaped, loft-like residence measures a modest for a gal of her means 1,771 square feet with two bedroom suites situated for maximum privacy at opposite corners of the mid-floor condo.

A key-lock elevator offers direct entry into a wide foyer that funnels into an window-wrapped open plan main living space with 11-plus foot ceilings, 10 over-sized windows that offer a stunningly direct view of the ornate cupola atop the famed Police Building, medium brown wide-plank hardwood floors, and white-white walls perfect for displaying artwork.

The kitchen revolves around a large center island with snack counter and includes white Shaker-style cabinetry topped with honed black marble counter tops, white subway tile back splash, a complete suite of high-grade, commercial-style stainless steel appliances including a wine cooler, an enviable walk-in pantry, and separate laundry room.

Miz Coppola's master boo-dwar offers a long entrance hall off which open a windowed marble bathroom with separate tub and shower, a custom-fitted walk-in closet larger than some Manhattan studio apartments, and an east-facing bedroom with wide bank of windows and a capiz shell chandelier that we happen to know was custom made for Miz Coppola by the hardworking hands of Bespoke Global designer and internet entrepreneur Gwen Carlton.

Property records indicate Miz Coppola owns a number of other properties in the U.S., including but not limited to the building where Café Zoetrope is housed in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood and a condo she scooped up in June 2007 for $500,000 located on a particularly busy and loud strip of Ocean Drive in Miami's South Beach.

As it turns out, as reported by both Curbed and the Wall Street Journal Miz Coppola and Mister Mars just dropped a very-celebrity $9,895,000—more than a million bucks over the $8,800,000 asking price—on a wedge-shaped, five-story, three-unit West Village townhouse. As currently configured, according to listing information, there's a 4 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom triplex garden unit with three fireplaces and gigantic backyard plus two additional full-floor flats on the upper levels. It's not clear if Miz Coppola and Mister Mars plan to reconfigure and recombine the three apartments back into one nearly 6,000 square foot single family house.

 listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Thursday Catch Up: Daphne Guinness

SELLER: Daphne Guinness
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $14,000,000
SIZE: 4,118 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Settle down children, we are well aware we are well beyond fashionably late to this particular real estate party. Howevuh, Your Mama can't resist us a nervy, couture-clad iconoclast heiress like Daphne Guinness, a deliciously outlandish woman who stands out like a peacock in pig sty amongst the more staid upper echelons of international high society in which she orbits and who pushed her chi-chi half-floor spread on New York City's Fifth Avenue on the market in early January (2012) with a jet-setting $15,000,000 asking price. Miz Guinness subsequently and quickly dropped the price for her high floor residence at the hoity-toity Stanhope to $14,000,000.

The listing may not surprise glossy shelter publication readers who surely recall Miz Guinness had her New York nest photographed in all it's colorful glory for the March 2011 issue of Architectural Digest.

The famously skunk-haired and gorgeous globe-trotter was born into great privilege as an heiress to the eponymous beer fortune and grew up in grand homes in England, Ireland and Spain. As a teenager—she was nineteen—she married wildly rich Greek shipping heir Spyros Niarchos with whom she has three all but grown children and as of a year ago, as confirmed by her fashion reporter friend Derek Blasberg in a February 2011 interview in Harper's Bazaar, the adventuresome sartorialist was the lover of (very married) French philosopher Bernard Henri Lévy.

Anyhoodles poodles, her complicated sounding romantic life aside, property records show Miz Guinness acquired her Manhattan digs in late April 2008 for $11,459,000. Current listing information shows the common charges, which in this case include the taxes, run Miz Guinness $17,950 per month, an amount the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus calculate total a downright intimidating $215,400 per year. At the same time she bought the half-floor apartment she also picked up a small ground floor apartment—possibly a guest room, art studio or staff suite—that comes with $1,677.28 monthly fees and that she also has on the market with a $1,500,000 asking price.

The Stanhope, a stately if somber limestone and brick edifice designed by preeminent New York architect Rosario Candela in 1926 stands directly across from the southern flank of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The building was converted to 26 (or so) luxury residences in the early- to mid-Aughts and offers its well-heeled residents white glove services (doormen, porters, valet parkers, etc.), a private library/conference room, access to the on-site (and very posh) La Palestra spa and fitness center, 24-7 concierge services accessible through a touch panel/video intercom, and wine storage space (plus sommelier recommendations and free delivery) at Acker, Merrill and Condit, a swank wine shop on the Upper West Side.

The floor plan included with current listing information (above) and on a still active website specifically designed to market the building's apartments shows the 7-room residence measures a spacious but hardly gargantuan 4,118 square feet and includes a shared elevator landing that opens to an entrance gallery with discreetly located powder pooper and a near thirty foot long formal living room blessed with direct Central Park views and a wood-burning fireplace. The formal dining room connects to an eat-in center island kitchen through a butler's pantry with walk-in wine closet and the small-ish three guest/family bedrooms each open off a 35-foot long, fully-mirrored corridor and include a private (windowless) bathroom.

The master suite, at the tail end of the corridor at the extreme rear of the residence, has an entry vestibule that promotes elegance and privacy, an almost square 350-plus square foot bedroom, and an infamous (and windowless) bathroom outfitted with double sinks, separate soaking tub and shower, and a completely enclosed (and hopefully well ventilated) cubby for the terlit and bee-day. The floor plan for the apartment shows the master suite was designed with two walk-in closets plus a separate linen closet. It would not surprise Your Mama in the least to learn that fashion obsessed Miss Thing converted the linen closet to a shoe closet and took over an adjacent bedroom and bathroom as a dressing room and additional closet space.

The aforementioned Architectural Digest article reveals Miz Guinness chose the apartment because of its high floor location and the natural light brought in from north- and west-facing windows. "North for drawing, west for sunsets," she elucidated. On the recommendation of the building's manager she met with and immediately hired smart and prodigiously talented Philippines-born architect Daniel Romualdez whose client list contains high brow, fortuitously born and accomplished women like Tory Burch, Marina Rust, and Aerin Lauder as well as maturing morning chat show hunk Matt Lauer and James de Givenchy, the gemstone loving jeweler nephew of venerated fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy.

Mister Romualdez was brought in to work over and neutralize some of the apartments stuffier interior elements and add in, as she esoterically spelled out in A.D., "...the shine of Metropolis, the modernity that should have happened, with the lush flora of Suddenly, Last Summer. But I didn’t want it to tip into English decadence. It had to be contained, controlled—intelligent decadence. What I wanted was sort of a savage modernism."

This rejection of "English decadence" and re-injection of "modernity" and "intelligent decadence" to achieve "savage modernism" manifested in shimmering, explosive and decoratively dilettantish rooms hung thick with name brand contemporary artworks. High gloss ebony floors in the entry reflect a kaleidoscopic butterfly painting by Damien Hirst and extend down an improbably lengthy, fun house-like mirrored corridor where the cherry red color of the rugs was matched to the exact same shade of polish Miz Guinness has custom mixed for her nails.

The glossy, coal black floors continue into the capacious park facing corner living room where scads of orchids and other house plants in terra cotta and Chinese pots and urns somehow make unexpected nice-nice with a boxy, blood red velvet sofa, a trio of sculptural light objects on the floor, a pair of mirrored Deco cocktail tables, and a variety of saturated and sometimes surreal photographs by blue chip picture takers like Gregory Crewdson, David LaChapelle and Bert Stern.

The original floor plan for Miz Guinness' apartment did not call for a library but it appears Miz Guinnes either re-purposed the dining room or re-fashioned one of the bedrooms to include floor to ceiling bookcases filled with shadow-boxed insects, actual books, and a wall-mounted flat screen tee-vee, although we can hardly imagine Miz Guinness doing anything as mundane as watching the boob-toob. Propped up in the corner, there's a giant photograph of herself snapped by her avant-minded friend David LaChapelle.

At least one of the guest bedrooms makes a courageous (if expensively kitchy) statement with the unlikely (and not entirely holy) marriage between some unusual but de rigueur Chinoiserie this and thats, walls sheathed in shimmering, high-glam silver mylar, dainty white linens on the bed and a cherry red rug on the luminous black wood floors.

Miz Guinness made all the real estate gossip columns back in the fall of 2010 when her downstairs neighbor—hedge hog Karim Samii and wife Tina—complained and sued over water damage caused by the frequent over-flowing of the Miz Guinness' bathtub in the master bedroom. The Samiis reportedly sued for over a million bucks for repairs and "mental anguish." We're not sure of the status of the lawsuit but Miz Guinness told the folks at Arch. Digest last year she was "mending" the matter and we'll just let the children speculate if all the legal ugliness has anything to do (or not) with her decision to sell so soon after settling in.

Miz Guinness reportedly maintains a flat in London. Probably she maintains or has access to homes in any number of other fabulous locales popular with the beau monde, places like St. Moritz, Mozambique and/or St. Barts. But to be honest, kittens, we don't have any direct knowledge of such.

photos (interior): Thomas Loof for Architectural Digest
exterior rendering and floor plan: Corcoran

Thursday Catch Up: Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson

Several days ago Your Mama discussed The Wong House, a low-slung, Buff & Hensman-designed mid-century modern residence in Los Angeles that recently divorced Tinseltowners Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson purchased for $2,900,000 just a few short months before they split in late 2010 and just this week flipped back on the market with a $3,650,000 price tag. It was whispered to Your Mama this morning by trusted informant Mirakle Mike that ex-Missus Reynolds lived in—or, more accurately, stayed at—the house after the couple busted up.

Newly released listing photographs—snapped in a glittering, city-view twilight—show the 2 bedroom and 3 bathroom post and beam abode has been altered little (if at all) since the former couple bought it in August 2010. The long sweep of glass-walled and sparsely furnished rooms along the back of the house—the living room, kitchen, dining area and family room—contain a smattering of not particularly impressive but no doubt punishingly pricey mid-century modern(ish) things that include a teak credenza or two, a couple of classic Barcelona lounge chairs, a glass topped dining table surrounded by some Danish-looking teak chairs with black leather seats, and a pair of tufted leather bar stools in the kitchen area that look to Your Mama like they could have come straight out of The Dresden Room, an old school restaurant/bar-lounge in Los Feliz where the dee-voon sequin-clad duo Marty and Elayne have been warbling and working their high-camp stuff since the dawn of time.

Anyhoo, we were told by an informant we call Mirakle Mike that it was ex-Missus Reynolds who lived in the house after the couple split up although he thinks she's not there much

listing photos: Keller Williams Realty / Beverly Hills

Fallen Financier and Politico Jon Corzine Lists Hoboken Penthouse at a Loss

SELLER: Jon Corzine
LOCATION: Hoboken, NJ
PRICE: $2,900,000
SIZE: 2,400 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Shaggy bearded and publicly beleaguered Wall Street financier cum New Jersey politico Jon Corzine, the much in the news subject of a recent profile in Vanity Fair, married for the second time in late 2010 to Sharon Elghanayan, a 60-something year old twice-divorced New York City-based psychotherapist (and "avid kickboxer") who happens to be the wealthy ex-wife of Thomas Elghanayan, scion to a serious New York City real estate fortune. Mister Corzine and Miz Elghanayan wed, according to a November 2010 announcement in the New York Times, in a small ceremony in Mister Corzine's Hoboken apartment, the very same penthouse it turns out he put on the market this week with a $2,900,000 asking price.

Mister Corzine hails from a farm in Illinois but his out sized and unfettered ambitions pushed him up through the ranks to eventually become the Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs before he was unceremoniously ousted in 1999 by long-time rival Hank Paulson, who himself went on to become the controversial 74th Secretary of the Treasury who presided over the credit crisis and subsequent economic bailout in 2008 brought about by the implosion of the sub-prime mortgage business. But we digress. After leaving Goldman Sachs Mister Corzine, a long-time resident of New Jersey, quickly shifted gears from Wall Street to Capital Hill. He famously spent tens of millions of his own dollars to snag a seat as a senator for The Garden State. He served five of his six year term before he resigned to make a successful run at the governorship of New Jersey in 2006, a hard-fought election that cost him several more tens of millions of his own substantial (if diminishing) fortune.

Mister Corzine wasn't the most popular governor and was defeated in his (brutally expensive) 2009 bid for re-election. Much to the surprise of many who follow the financial markets he returned bullish and bulldog-like to his Wall Street roots in March 2010 as the CEO and Chairman of MF Global, a struggling financial services concern that went belly up in October 2011. Mister Corzine resigned a month later and reportedly declined his twelve million dollar-plus severance package. That expression of largesse—or whatever it was—may or may not soften the sharp edge of reality that over a billion dollars of MF Global clients' money remains unaccounted for and was determined in late 2011 by a committee convened by the U.S. Gubbamint to be unrecoverable. Ouch.

Mister Corzine may be in the dog house both professionally and in the eyes of the public but he's also a fat cat with nine lives and Your Mama expects we haven't seen or heard the last of Mister Corzine's topsy-turvy adventures through the sometimes cruel arenas of politics and high finance.

Fascinatin' as it all is, kittens, Mister Corzine's roller coaster professional life isn't exactly what bring us here together today but rather his recent residential real estate activities. For years Mister Corzine lived relatively modestly—at least modestly for a man of his monetary means—in and around the upscale New York City bedroom community of Summit, NJ. At some point he and his first wife Joanna, who together have 3 grown children, purchased a mansion on more than six ocean front acres in the impossibly pricey, farm-glam enclave of Sagaponack in the Hamptons. A bit more on that beach house later.

Property records indicate Mister Corzine owns (or owned) a large ski condo near Telluride, CO and in early 1998 he and his then-wife Joanne paid around $15,000,000 for a spacious duplex condominium (plus a small storage space and a private wine cellar) at the 43-story pre-war minded post-war tower at 515 Park Avenue. The quickly caught a case of The Real Estate Fickle and flipped the 4,897 square foot duplex back on the market and sold it (and a small storage space and a private wine cellar) in August 2001 for $18,800,000 to music industry mogul Alan Meltzer who also quickly flipped the condo (and the wine cellar and the storage space) four months later at an $550,000 loss, not counting real estate fees and carrying costs.

We're not sure where exactly Mister Corzine decamped after he divorced First Missuss Corzine (at great expense) in 2003 but there are scads of reports of him living in a rental apartment in the same Hoboken, NJ building as a woman named Carla Katz who would eventually become his live-in lady-pal and who would eventually receive a reported six million dollar-plus settlement after they split up in 2004.

Property records show that in November 2008, in the middle of his tenure as the governor of New Jersey, Mister Corzine coughed up $3,263,581 to acquire a penthouse condo in Hoboken, NJ, the one currently listed at $2,900,000 and occupying a prime, south and east facing corner atop the massive, multi-building Maxwell Place on the Hudson complex on the shore of the Hudson River.

A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that even if Mister Corzine's Real Estates manage to pull a real estate rabbit out of a hat and snag a full price sale, the former governor still stands to lose a whopping $363,581 not counting real estate fees, improvement expenses, and carrying costs that include just over $38,000 a year in taxes and another $1,700 per month—$20,400 per year according to our calculations—in common charges.

The Maxwell Place complex, just north of Hoboken's main (and cute) commercial drag Washington Street, offers residents access to a grassy riverfront park and walkway, a landscaped roof top terrace with Manhattan view, swimming pool and spa, extensive fitness facilities, 24-hour concierge services, a free shuttle to the PATH station, and a private resident's only club with game room, screening room, business center and lounge with plasma tee-vee and fireplace.

 Listing information shows Mister Corzine's Hoboken crib spans about 2,400 square feet and as it's currently configured contains 2 bedrooms—one of which appears to be wee and windowless—and 3.5 bathrooms.

The main living/dining room has delish, dark stained walnut floors, 10-foot ceilings, pale creamy beige walls, two long walls of floor-to-ceiling windows with wide river and New York City views, and a Manhattan-side balcony just big enough for an Hibachi, a lawn chair or two, and a cocktail table. What was probably once a bedroom is now a fully-outfitted if compact media room with built-in entertainment center/system with bar, a full wall of south-facing windows, and a slippery-looking brown leather sectional sofa. The smaller, windowless room next door does have (an also windowless) attached bathroom and makes, we imagine, a not a particularly gracious guest bedroom.

The butch-y galley-style kitchen, situated just behind the living/dining room with direct access from the breakfast area and entrance hall, has dark espresso-colored full-height Shaker-style cabinets, manly brown (or black) marble counter tops, fancy fixtures, and a complete suite of stainless steel Viking brand appliances.

What was once a guest/family bedroom with en-suite bathroom was incorporated by Mister Corzine into the master suite and utilized, as per listing photos, as large office/den with head on Empire State Building view and direct access to both the bedroom and the closet-lined dressing hall that in turn provides access to a pair of small but luxuriously fitted bathrooms with more espresso-colored cabinetry and black marble counter tops.

Some of the penthouse's extra added amenities, according to listing information, include a stacked stainless steel washer/dryer set, one deeded parking space in the building's indoor garage, and Lutron dimmer switches and a pre-installed Bose sound system throughout.

We, of course, don't know a bell pepper from a police raid, but Mister Corzine's decision to sell his Hoboken bachelor pad may have something to do with his new wife Sharon Elghanayan's rather impressive real estate portfolio. In addition to a full-floor apartment on New York City's fancy-pants Fifth Avenue—located, coincidentally, just downstairs from financier turned hot shot art dealer Bob Mnuchin who, back in the day, was one of Mister Corzine's mentors Goldman Sachs—property records show in August 2006 New Missus Corzine dropped $7,000,000 to buy a 1.72 acre estate with swimming pool and tennis court on the same scenic seaside lane in East Hampton, NY where a number of other high profile high flyers own houses including the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor Candice Bergen, Starbucks honcho Howard Schultz, billionaire Mort Zuckerman, financier Carl Icahn, and domestic diva turned media mogul Martha Stewart, just to name just a few.

Now then, let's circle back to that major estate in Sagaponack (shown above) that Mister Corzine and First ex-Missus Corzine Joanne bought sometime in the 1990s. The mostly flat 6.64 acre estate sits at the bottom of Gibson Lane—that same Gibson Lane on which Billy Joel used to own a couple of houses and where, when we still lived in New York, Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter sometimes took our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly to frolic in the sand and surf.

Anyhoo, their divorce settlement granted ex-Missus Corzine deed and title to the lavish and gated estate that then encompassed 6.64 landscaped acres and included a 6,165 square foot main house with 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, separate guest house, tennis court and beach side swimming pool.

Ex-Missus Corzine famously (and with much publicity) leased the estate from Memorial Day to Labor Day 2009 for a stroke inducing $900,000 to billionaire Henry Silverman and sold the property in a private deal the following June (2010) to billionaire Wall Streeter David A. Tepper who shelled out $43,500,000 for the property. Mister Tepper, bless his heart, felt the view from the lower level of the house was not adequate so proceeded to knock down every stick of the various structures and dig up almost every inch of landscaping except for the high hedges and shrubbery that rings the perimeter of the property in order to replace it with a custom-built 15,000 square foot cedar-shingled two-story Georgian beach house with sunken tennis court and better views. If we've said it once we've said it 89 times: Such are the gravy train real estate ways of the super-rich.

listing photos and floor plan: Halliburton Homes