Oprah Wants To Lease Never Lived In Chicago Co-op

OWNER: Oprah Winfrey
LOCATION: Chicago, IL
PRICE: $15,000/month
SIZE: 4,607 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This afternoon we happily ride on the coat tails of reporter (and venerable real estate gossip) Bob Goldsborough at the Chicago Tribune who discovered and revealed this week that billionaire chat show host turned magazine tycoon turned television network owning mega-mogul Oprah Winfrey recently put a swank Chicago, IL co-operative apartment she owns up for lease at $15,000 per month.

Miz Winfrey reportedly purchased the posh apartment in the urban-upscale Streeterville neighborhood in 2006 for $5,600,000. Despite securing the approval of the co-op board with a promise to make it her full-time residence, Miz Winfrey quickly had a real estate change of heart and never moved in to the 4,607 square foot apartment. From June 2008 until January 2009 Miz Winfrey had the mansion-sized apartment on the market for $6,000,000 but it did not, as far as we can tell, sell.

Entered though a private elevator landing and a series of squeezy vestibules, the chunky floor-through apartment cleaves dramatically along a central spine, an enfilade that extends more than 80 feet from the bowed bay window in the lake-view formal living room clan through the reception gallery, formal dining room and solarium at the rear of the residence.


The living room opens into a cozy wood-paneled and wood-floored library with fireplace wide bank of windows that afford of view through the tree tops to Lake Michigan and the popular Oak Street Beach. Extensive service quarters, tucked discreetly behind the elevator and formal dining room, include a well-equipped, galley style kitchen with antiqued white cabinetry, granite counter tops and breakfast area, separate laundry room, access to the service elevator, and a kitchen-size butler's pantry with dark cabinets and granite counter tops. There's also an oddly shaped home office with built-in desk and a separate wine/booze storage room with brick walls, floor-to-ceiling built-in bottle racks and a full height wine refrigerator.

A guest suite has an enviably large walk-in closet, fireplace, private bathroom with window, and French doors access to a small terrace shared with the master bedroom. The approximately 1,300 square foot master suite wraps around the guest suite and stretches from the front of the apartment clear through to the back. In addition to three walk-in closets there are additional built-in storage cabinets and a substantial entertainment unit. The master includes not just one or even two but 2.5 bathrooms. Up front there is both a full bath–well, a three-quarter bathroom anyway–plus a completely separate bedside half bathroom. At the rear of the house-sized suite, in an area that was probably originally designed as a third bedroom with private bathroom, there's another and significantly larger bathroom with jetted tub for two, separate party-sized steam shower for two or more, a private cubby for the crapper, double sinks and–harumph!–gold-plated fixtures. French doors open out to the small terrace shared with the guest suite.

As far as we know, when in the Windy City, Miz Winfrey continues to occupy in her 15,000(-ish) square foot 4-unit combination duplex condominium at the mixed-use Water Tower Place complex in downtown Chicago where she's lived since, well, we don't know but a long time.

Since she closed up shop on her long-running, hugely-successful and frighteningly-influential talk show–the eponymous Oprah Winfrey Show–Miz Winfrey has all but permanently relocated to the West Coast where her also eponymous Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) offices are located. Of course we don't know a turnip truck from a fire hose but we none-the-less presume the still busy businesswoman and philanthropist now spends a considerable amount of time at her manicured 42-acre estate in the low key but eye-poppingly affluent coastal resort community of Montecito, CA.

The OWN offices are located in Los Angeles Miracle Mile district, far to far to comfortably commute on a daily basis even by helicopter. We recently had lunch at the SoHo House in West Hollywood with gabby tattletale we'll call Knelly Knowsathingortwo who swore to Your Mama on her seared Ahi tuna salad that Miz Winfrey is actively on the hunt for a bolt hole in Tinseltown. We have no specific intel but it makes sense. Iffin we were the betting type–and we're not–we'd wager our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly she'll gravitate towards a multi-million dollar condominium. She has a long history of owning apartments in urban and semi-urban locations, after all, but has she considered Ellen Degeneres' house nestled privately into the rugged mountains above Beverly Hills? Just a thought.

listing photos and floor plan:VHT Studios for  Prudential Realty / Rubloff Properties

Your Mama Hears...

...through the Celebrity Real Estate Gossip Grapevine that property mad and famously peripatetic comedienne/chat show host Ellen Degeneres has set her real estate sights on ex-pat American actor Brad Pitt's bluff-clinging beach crib in Malibu, CA, currently listed at $13,750,000.

We first heard this both surprising and not so surprising celebrity real estate rumor from the self-monikered Ms. Malibooya who yesterday sent Your Mama a covert communique that said little more than "Ellen is buying Brad's PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] home this week."

Natch, our real estate interests prodded and piqued, Your Mama snatched up our bedraggled princess phone and dialed a few of our snitchy sources who sometimes know a thing or two about Miz Degeneres' relentlessly ceaseless case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle.

A trusted and well-connected informant we'll call Sassy Sassandfrass told us she had not heard that particular rumor but did go on to whisper that Miz Degeneres is "getting nutsy kooko" to sell the sprawling Beverly Hills, CA compound she shares with wife Portia de Rossi and currently has on the open market with a saber-rattling $49,000,000 price tag.

A third little birdie, a very successful Bev Hills real estate insider we'll call Donald Doesalotofbigdeals, quickly returned our query on the matter and confided that the same rumor had rolled down his pike.

Make of all that what you will children but do try to keep in mind this ain't nuthin' but a little celebrity real estate scuttlebutt at this point, just some rumor and gossip. Okay?

Mister Pitt purchased the 1.26-acre ocean front estate in March 2005 for $8,410,000 and, although quietly available long before, Mister Pitt officially put the property on the open market in mid-August (2011) with an asking price of $13,750,000.

Listing information shows Mister Pitt's glassy beach front pad sits on 1.26 very private bluff top acres, measures 4,088 square feet and includes a total of 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms. Electronic gates open to a long, tree-lined driveway that slopes downward as it passes a tennis court and lap lane swimming pool. The angular and updated mid-century modern house hugs a grassy courtyard with outdoor fireplace and opens on the ocean side of the house to a wide, glass-railed deck thrillingly cantilevered over the rugged bluff.

The property mad Sapphic sisters have owned so many residences over the years it would take Melvil Dewey himself to sort out and catalog their numerous transactions. In a rare moment of brevity, instead of prattling on about all the many previously owned properties, we'll simply say that addition to their current compound in Beverly Hills, the one listed at $49,000,000, the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi own a couple of other properties but most notably a 26.29-acre horse farm and residential compound in the Hidden Valley area near Thousand Oaks (CA). Deeds and docs we peeped show they bought the fully-loaded equestrian facility in May 2009 for $8,500,000 and flipped it back on the open market almost exactly two years later in May 2011 with an asking price of $16,500,000. The farm property was taken off the open market in October.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Malibu West

The Pricey House of (Zang) Toi

SELLER: Zang Toi
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,800,000
SIZE: 1,300 square feet (give or take), 1 bedroom, 1.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It isn't all that often Your Mama runs across a one bedroom apartment with a multi-million dollar price tag so when we do our pits sweat up with a cold mixture of financial flabbergast and residential real estate awe. They are, these multi-million dollar one bedroom apartments, real estate freak shows of a certain sort.

For some ballers (and wannabe ballers) a 35,000 square foot mega-mansion with a dozen bedrooms and a 2-lane bowling alley signifies the very apex of real estate hedonism. Others have a differently nuanced definition of luxury and instead regard preposterously pricey one bedroom apartments as the true zenith of (arguably unjustified) real estate extravagance. Your Mama, for what it's worth and for better and worse, sits squarely in the latter camp.

Last night, a bee in our real estate bonnet about such rarefied one bedroom residences, we perused the newest New York City listings to see what we could see and find what we could find. Within minutes we ran across an exceedingly opulent 1 bedroom apartment located just steps from Fifth Avenue and Central Park, tucked discreetly into the quiet rear of a breathtaking turn of the century Beaux-Arts townhouse, owned according to property records by flamboyant fashion designer Zang Toi, and recently heaved on to the market with an haute and haughty $2,800,000 price tag.

Mister Toi, a kilt-wearing, 50-something year old Malaysia-born and Big Apple-based sartorial superstar, creates sometimes beautifully minimal, sometimes elegantly ethereal or gorgeously gossamer, and sometimes seriously showboat-y fashions favored by high society mavens and other statement making red carpet walkers such as Patti Labelle, Ivana Trump, Eva Longoria and–natch–Sharon Stone. In addition to designing expensive clothing Mister Toi has also got a knack for generating cheap publicity. He has more than once appeared on one of Bravo's many reality programs and in March 2011 Real Housewives of New York City's Jill Zarin twirled down Mister Toi's runway in a black strapless dress with intricate gold beadwoark. For his Spring 2010 show in September (2011) Mister Toi sent newly svelte Fat Actress Kirstie Alley out on the catwalk in a cobalt blue coat dress with wide beaded trim and a big ol' bouffant hair-do only an old-school drag queen could love.

Anyhoo, property records show Mister Toi scooped up his decidedly decadent 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom digs back in August 2004 for $1,225,500. Current listing information shows the simply but sumptuously decorated north- and east-facing apartment includes lofty 12'4" ceilings, elaborate original moldings and two wood-burning fireplaces with carved marble mantels, one in the living room the other in the bedroom.

Mister Toi had the apartment photographed for the March 2007 issue of Elle Decor in which it was revealed the walls and ceilings throughout the approximately 1,300 square foot co-operative crib shimmer with half a dozen coats of high-gloss white lacquer. The original wood floors also have a vapory gleam from three layers of jet black enamel so mirror-like shiny a person could probably see the reflection of Mister Toi's naughty bits under his kilt.

Reached by elevator or a grand staircase, the apartment's front door opens in to wee vestibule that provides an intimate entrée to the baronial 28-foot long and 18-foot wide living room, an undeniably compelling space furnished in a manner not likely to appeal to anyone who thinks of comfortable as a place to curl up on a cozy couch with a good book or a bad reality television program. Oh, no dearies. Actual comfort, corporeal comfort, seems almost inconsequential to Mister Toi when it comes to the furnishing of his inner residential sanctum.

Mister Toi's living room instead exudes a self-consciously high-brow, pleasantly quirky and unapologetically forbidding Francophile brand of extreme luxury described in Elle Decor as–and we paraphrase–Marie Antoinette minimalism, a not entirely surprising decorative result given that Mister Toi claims in the article to loathe clutter and be "fascinated" by Marie Antoinette.

A gigantic, custom-made silver fox fur rug makes a rather wanton decorative statement in the living room furnished with a Louis XVI cane-backed salon suite and another cluster of silver-leafed Neoclassical-style pieces upholstered in charcoal-colored cashmere and trimmed in whisper soft mink. The chandelier overhead is late 19th century Baccarat, as per Elle Decor, and Mister Toi has flanked the magnificent marble and mirror fireplace with two life-sized portraits of–you got it–the guillotined queen Marie Antoinette.

Folding doors opposite the two over-sized windows in the living room glide open to reveal a petite but well-equipped, all-white kitchen outfitted with marble floors and counter tops, white lacquered cabinets, custom polished nickel hardware, and an antique crystal chandelier. The Viking brand range is, as to be expected, also snow white although we suspect Mister Toi is one of those New Yorkers who–like Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter were when we were New Yorkers–more likely to store linens and out of season clothes in the oven than to use it to cook food.

A wide pocket door joins the living room to the spare but still pompously furnished bedroom where Mister Toi had what is described in Elle Decor as a museum quality mahogany bed made by a noted Belle Epoque cabinet maker lacquered black and the original gold ormolu trim replaced with silver plating. The floor plan shows two east facing windows for capturing morning light, two walk-in closets for all Mister Toi's kilts and accoutrement, and an attached 5-star hotel worthy (windowed) bathroom bathed in gray-veined white marble.

A door in the entry vestibule opens to a short corridor girdled by a (windowless) marble powder pooper, a compact coat closet, and a small (windowless) room marked on the floor plan as a "Den/Home Office." In the Elle Decor article Mister Toi explains–and we paraphrase again–he had the small space, a potential second bedroom, kitted out as a "madly mirrored" massage room. He said he detests the concept of overnight guests and did not care to devote any of his limited square footage to the comfort of unwanted overnight guests. He went on in the article to say–and we're paraphrasing yet again–when he's forced to allow someone to spend that night in his apartment he, bless his pampered wittle heart, checks himself in to the impossibly swank Carlyle hotel around the corner where even the most basic (if still ritzy) rooms run more than four hundred clams a night.

Mister Toi's 8-unit townhouse building is filled top to bottom and stem to stern with hoity-toity types who include Maya Polsky, a Chicago-based art dealer who reportedly received a stupendous $184,000,000 settlement when she divorced her energy magnate ex-husband Michael Polsky in 2008. Iffin any of the children think Mister Toi's $2,800,000 asking price is crazy talk keep in mind that in June 2010 ex-Missus Polsky splashed out a ravenous $6,000,000 for an exceedingly opulent 1 bedroom and 1.5 bathroom apartment that encompasses the entire piano nobile of the grand limestone mansion. That's right, six million clams for a one bedroom apartment. A 2,000-plus square foot apartment, but still a six million dollar one bedroom apartment. Now that, children, is enough to make a person need a mood stabilizer.

For what it's worth and for anyone who might be interested, Mister Polsky went on to acquire 5-floor townhouse on Chicago's Gold Coast sold by JPMorgan Chase's exuberantly compensated CEO and chairman Jamie Dimon who initially wanted $13,500,000 for his 8 bedroom and 9 full and 2 half bathroom Chicago townhouse but eventually sold to Mister Polsky, as per property records, in November 2010 for $6,800,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Real Housewife Alexis Bellino Gets a New House

WHO: Alexis and Jim Bellino
WHAT: New house in Dana Point, CA
SIZE: 7,146 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
PRICE: Unknown

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen here my little property-lovin' ponies. Iffin yer too high fallutin' for or simply uninterested in the (sometimes schadenfreude-ian) real estate doings of one or any of those boobtastic, blinged-out beehawtchas from The Real Housewives of Orange County then spare yourselves the agony of such quasi-celebrity real estate drivel and git along little doggies. Your Mama will be back at y'all with the real estate activities of someone y'all might deem more deservedly famous soon enough.

Many of the high-on-the-hog living housewives–and "housewives"–from Orange County have suffered through very public real estate issues and woes. Bentley- and Hummer-driving housewife Peggy Tanous, who will not return for the 7th season of the flash-and-trash must see reality program, reportedly stared into the gaping maw of foreclosure earlier this year; Tamara Barney and her tightly-wound ex-husband Simon had to short sell their mock-Med mcmansion in some planned development in some planned community in inland Orange County where all the houses look suspiciously alike; Jewelry designing former housewife Lynn Curtin, the too tan wee lamb, has been evicted from not one but several rented homes in Orange County.

Like many highly-leveraged real estate entrepreneurs in Orange County whose new-found fortunes declined drastically and/or were entirely reversed due to the existence and eventual meltdown of the sub-prime mortgage market, man jewelry-wearing metrosexual Jim Bellino and his sexy-dressing subordinate Christian real housewife Alexis Bellino found themselves between a rock and a financial hard place too and, as a result, dealt with their own very public real estate traumas and melodramas. As with some of their cast mates in Orange County and elsewhere, their (alleged) money troubles and ugly real estate matters played out as part of her/their storyline on the sixth season of the mega-hit show.

Deeds and documents Your Mama dug up out of the interweb reveal that by the fall 2010 Mister and Missus Bellino had failed to make the payments on a four and some million dollar mortgage secured by their Newport Beach mansion. Their lender initiated but did not complete foreclosure proceedings on a couple of occasions.

In early May, while the sixth season aired and they grappled with rampant rumors of their real estate demise, Missus Bellino told the peeps at Radar Online that she and the Mister had identified but not yet secured their next "dream home." She is quoted as saying, "We're going to be buying it" and described it as "amazing" with "a huge long driveway," and "one of those houses that I feel I will never grow out of."

During the June (2011) season 6 reunion show for The Real Housewives of Orange County cross-eyed host Andy Cohen asked Missus Bellino about the rumored and much reported foreclosure of her Newport Beach mansion and she was (understandably) adamant about setting the record straight that she and her man did not lose their home to foreclosure but unloaded it as a short sale.

Missus Bellino later broke it all down for the fans (or whomever) on her blog on Bravo–and we paraphrase–that she and the mister bought their big house in Newport Beach at the tip-top of the recent real estate bubble and like so many others, due to the crap economy, found themselves so significantly upside down on the the value of their home they thought they'd never again see the day it was worth what they paid for it. She goes on to explain they attempted to get a loan modification but eventually sold it as a short sale. She wrote, "we definitely lost a lot of money."

Sure enough, online documentation shows the 6,400 square foot, gray-shingled pile had been sold in mid-March (2011) for $3,000,000. To be honest puppies, we're not sure exactly how much Mister and Missus Bellino shelled out for the house in August 2007 but records do indicate they carried a $4,500,000-plus mortgage on the property and online listing information from the time they sold it stated they had sunk a total of "more than $6 Million" into the property.

Back on the reunion show Missus Bellino went on to declare that her money matters are no body's bizness–and, really, they aren't–but then none-the less went on to make it our beeswax when she announced on national television that she and the mister planned to pay cash–cash!–for their next home. Now, children, how exactly it is that a person who (allegedly) can not afford to keep one multi-million dollar high-maintenance mansion and lose an ass-load of money–maybe even millions–on the short sale of said multi-million dollar high-maintenance mansion but still acquire their next home with cold hard cash is a perplexing puzzle we do not even pretend to know how to begin to comprehend.

As soon as Missus Bellino's meticulously made-up mug was off the air, Your Mama promptly forgot all about her and her husband Whatshisface who struts his stuff for the tee-vee cameras like he thinks he's working with stuff to strut. Then, yesterday, we got an unexpected email from a gal we'll call Layona Davenport, a tipster with a proven track record for knowing a thing or two about the real estate whereabouts of various Bravolebrities such as Missus Bellino.

Our Miss Davenport whispered that Mister and Missus Bellino had recently settled into a substantial mock-Med mansion with an ocean view in Dana Point, CA. It does not, y'all will note, have a "huge long driveway" and, according to Miss Davenport, the big-talking Bellinos have not purchased the 7,146 square foot mansion but rather leased it for an unknown amount of money for an an unspecified amount of time.

Interestingly, in a short profile in the November/December 2011 issue of Ocean Home Magazine Missus Bellino, mother of three youngins who fancies herself a bit of a clothing designer, was asked, "What drew you to buy a house on the beach?" Miss Bellino went on about ocean breezes and blah blah blah. She did not speak to or clarify if she actually bought the house or not.

Ultimately, we freely admit, we don't know for sure whether she and the mister bought or leased the big house in Dana Point. What we do know is that property records available online–which may or may not be fully updated–show the property in question, located in the ritzy, guard-gated Ritz Cove enclave, last changed hands in April of 2009 for $4,650,000 when it was snatched up by an obviously very successful Orange County-based gynecologist.

Whether they bought it or leased it, there isn't much question that Mister and Missus Bellino and their three baby Bellinos occupy the Dana Point mansion in question. Not only does the Ocean Home Magazine include a photo of the Pacific taken from one of the upper level balconies, Missus Bellino's own Facebook page includes a photograph of one of her children snapped in the master bathroom of the mansion in question.

We did not readily find any evidence online that the house was on the rental market–which isn't that surprising since many high-end rental properties never appear in online listings–but we did turn up a number of sales listings that show the three story, 5 bedroom and 5.5 bathroom mansion listed with asking prices as high as $5,400,000 and as low as $4,999,000.

Listing information and various photographs from the various (expired) listings depict a rotunda entrance hall, formal living area plus an open plan living/family/dining area with fireplace and French doors to ocean view terrace. The adjacent eat-in kitchen sports a Suburu-sized center island, granite counter tops, custom cabinetry, walk-in pantry, high-grade stainless steel appliances and a breakfast nook tucked into an ocean view bay. The kitchen installation probably cost far more than Your Mama earns in a whole year but it looks like about a zillion other expensively equipped but oddly generic kitchens in newly built mock-Med mcmansions all across the good ol' U.S. of A.

Other living and entertaining areas include a wood-paneled library with fireplace, and and office with built in desk and book cases. On the full finished lower level there's a windowless media room with rounded wall and a massive subterranean parking garage capable of holding 8 or more cars. An elevator serves all three levels of the house, a luxury Your Mama often finds a little unnerving a private home–is it really such a physical burden to haul one's fat ass up a flight or two of stairs every now and then?–but makes our rough-talking and stair-hating house gurl Svetlana purr with desire and envy.

There are, as per listing information we espied, dual master suites including one that offers home owners (or tenants) a private ocean view balcony with stone balustrade and a walk-in closet with simple, built-in shelves and hanging racks. A large but very beige attached master bathroom has a separate all-glass shower stall and jetted tub that juts out like a peninsula between the his and her sinks and vanities.

In addition to the private balcony off the master suite, there are several additional balconies and patios plus a sizable roof terrace with stone balustrade and ocean views over the mostly tiled roof tops of the neighboring mansions. A broad, tiled terrace extends off the rear main living level and provides plenty of room for grillin' and chillin' by the built-in circular fire pit but nary a patch of grass or safe spot for a swing set. Residents of Ritz Cove whose cheek-to-jowl mansion do not sit directly above and have direct access to the (public) beach below can easily reach the beach by a private walk way and locked gate that opens on to the (public) pathway that runs along the beach.

listing photos: Ivy Realty Company via Movoto

k.d. lang lists long time laurel canyon crib

SELLER: k.d. lang
LOCATION: los angeles, ca
PRICE: $1,975,000
SIZE: 2,968 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: much to your mama's surprise, much lauded and deservedly applauded 4-time grammy-winning canadian-born crooner k.d. lang has long lived in a modest, rustic-modern, quasi-craftsman ranch-style residence above los angeles' laurel canyon. it seems, however, she's ready to move on because the thickly-treed and privately situated hillside property was listed this week with an asking price of $1,975,000.

property records we peeped are a bit unclear but it appears to your mama that miz lang, an out lesbian, staunch animal right activist, and practicing buddhist who often but not always articulates the spelling of her name in all lower case letters à la idiosyncratic poet e.e. cummings, acquired her laurel canyon crib in early 1999 for an unknown amount of money. miz lang occupies the premises, as far as we know, with her also buddhist lady-mate of 10 or so years jamie price.

after buying the .36 acre spread miz lang had the interiors of the cabin-ish crib worked over in the late 1990s by then l.a.- now new york- and paris-based interior designer valerie pasquiou who has also done up day-core for other tinseltowners and high profile peeps such as sitcom star lisa kudrow (web therapy, friends), her hollywood highness sharon stone, fashion photographer turned handbag and shoe designer monica botkier, fashion executive serge azria, design writer and editrix extraordinaire sue hostetler, well-connected french comedienne and movie star michèle laroque, and motion picture literary agent robert bookman who lives in a roland coate-designed spanish hacienda-style mansion once owned by reclusive billionaire howard hughes in los angeles' affluent hancock park 'hood. miz pasquiou's own chic, cozy and all but undecorated tin-roofed loft apartment in new york city's soho neighborhood was photographed for loft life in early 2009.

miz lang's laurel canyon hideaway was photographed for metropolitan home magazine in 2001 but listing photos suggest to your mama that some of miz pasquiou's dee-voonly uncomplicated, kick-up-your-feet contempo-cozy day-core has since been altered or replaced, possibly but not necessarily with the assistance of miz pasquiou.

listing information shows the single-level residence was originally built in 1940, measures 2,968 square feet and includes a total of 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

a row of high hedges, mature trees and other jumbled foliage comes together in a thick kerfuffle of leaves to completely shield the house from the prying eyes of paps and other passers by. A simple swinging wooden gate opens to the tree-shaded front yard where flagstone pathways criss-cross a rather anemic lawn and connect the entry gate to the front door and the gated flagstone driveway.

inside the the day-core is decidedly simple and even spare but abundant natural materials used in the architecture keep it from feeling overly spartan, bare or coldly minimal. a trio of boxy, low-slung seal gray sofas sit on a rich red carpet the living room area warmed by wood floors, a massive stone fireplace and hand-hewn wood beams, doorway frames and lintels. a second stone fireplace anchors the voluminous dining room where cushioned built-in benches line one wall and a long row of wood-framed french doors open the room to the rustling tree tops and small deck peppered with clusters of potted plants.

the simple but fully-equipped eat-in kitchen has mexican paver tile floor, wood-beamed ceiling, at least two dutch doors–and who does not l.o.v.e. a dutch door?–tile counter tops, and raised panel wood cabinetry with glass uppers.

the surprisingly spacious master suite boasts a third, massive stacked stone fireplace, a heavy-beamed wood ceiling, and a wide bank of french doors that lead out to a secluded cobblestone terrace laid in a zen-like pattern of concentric circles. the attached bathroom has concrete walls, double sinks, wood-beams across the ceiling, a jetted tub and an over-sized shower stall with built-in bench, barrel vaulted ceiling and we, four-pane window for proper moisture ventilation.

in addition to the master bedroom, two small but adequately sized guest rooms–one with deep window seat and the other with knotty pine paneled walls and ceiling–share a single bathroom.

a shrubbery shrouded stone staircase leads down from the house to a free-form swimming pool and raised spa surrounded by flagstone terracing and a wide wood deck that sets sunbathers into the tree tops. tree shaded lounging areas offer respite from the almost always shining and often scorching southern california sunshine.

the house was reportedly once owned by hunky (and closeted) homosexual matinee idol rock hudson and later by oscar-nominated lyricist gerry goffin (the loco-motion, (you make be feel like) a natural woman, one fine day, saving all my love for you, theme from mahogany: do you know where you're going to?).

miz lang's current celebrity (and "celebrity) neighbors are many: nepotistic young actress rumer willis bought the house next door in june 2010 for $971,500, soo-blime stockard channing is a couple doors down from there, musician paul doucette (matchbox 20) and the original valley girl moon unit zappa live across the street, and box office superstar comedian will ferrell owns a sprawling hillside compound just down the road he bought back in 2006 from comedienne/chat show host ellen degeneres

listing photos: prudential california realty

Charlie Sheen Sells to Simon Helberg*

BUYER: Simon Helberg and Jocelyn Towne
SELLER: Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,900,000
SIZE: 4,179 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Exactly one week ago today–on the dreaded All Hallows Eve, when children don elaborate costumes and roam around in droves to beg their neighbors for free sweet treats–Your Mama (somewhat) briefly discussed a Los Angeles, CA residence located in the un-celebrified Koreatown neighborhood, listed at $849,000 and owned through a trust by actor Simon Helberg and his dancer turned thespian wife Jocelyn Towne.

Mister Helberg grew up up "in the business," as they say. His father Sandy Helberg is and actor and his mother Harriet Helberg a noted casting director. In the early Noughts Mister Helberg the Younger began to snag small and recurring roles in various television projects that eventually came to include Popular, MADtv, Joey and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Thanks to his current long-running and lucrative gig on the geek-fest sitcom The Big Bang Theory, Mister Helberg earned himself 2010 Teen Choice Award nominee.

Last week when we (sort of briefly) discussed Mister Helberg's house in Koreatown Your Mama had no idea to where Mister Helberg Miz Towne planned to decamp. Then, as we sometimes do, we received an unexpected and short missive from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that revealed Mister Helberg and his missus, through the same unusually named trust named on the deeds and docs for their Craftsman-style Koreatown crib, spent $2,900,000 to buy a walled and gated Mediterranean style residence tucked into the hills below Griffith Park Observatory in a low-key but upscale section of the star-stocked Los Feliz neighborhood.

Mister Helberg and Miz Towne purchased their new nestfrom none other than that wacky, "winning" actor Charlie Sheen and his third ex-wife Brooke Mueller, the also troubled-seeming mother of the youngest two of Mister Sheen's five children.*

*An anonymous tipster (Frick) and a kindly commenter (Frack) both tell us now that Mister Sheen had no financial stake in the house. The house was owned, according to Frick and Frack, by Miz Mueller and her very wealthy Palm Beach-based family who sometimes invest in real estate together.

This is not, the children should keep in mind, Mister Sheen's House of Bat Shit Crazy up in the Mulholland Estates enclave above Sherman Oaks (CA), but rather a lovely 1927 Mediterranean mini-mansion purchased for $2,575,000 and unknown purposes in November 2007, about half a year before Miss Mueller became third Missus Sheen. Much moolah was put into updating and upgrading the property. Your Mama does not know a bee knee from a camel toe so we really haven't any idea just how much they spent on the renovations but we have seen the before pictures and it's quite obvious from those photos that a significant amount of cash to have the place nipped, tucked and neatly worked over while retaining much of the original architectural ambiance.

By June 2009 Mister Sheen and Miz Mueller were married and the the fully over-hauled Los Feliz residence was flipped back on the market with an asking price of $3,697,000. At that time the renovated residence appeared to Your Mama from the listing photos (seen above) as pristine, expensively staged and all but unoccupied. By March 2010 the asking price had been changed at least four times and at some point Miz Mueller and the two toddler boys she made with Mister Sheen moved into the house. All Staging Lady With a Pink Toyota's decorative handiwork was removed and replaced with a cluttery hodgepodge of animal patterned upholstered pieces and area rugs, numerous wall-mounted televisions, boat loads of over-sized pillows and sofa cushions strewn around on the floor, and more toys and stuffed animals probably than have all the little children in all of Zambia.

In May 2011, not long after Mister Sheen completely lost his shit in early 2011, was fired from Two and a Half Men and replaced by Twittering actor Ashton Kutcher, the Los Feliz property was taken off the (open) market. Eventually Mister Helberg and Missus Helberg came sniffing around and property records show they purchased the house in mid-October (2011) for $2,900,000.

Listing information Your Mama teased out of out of the interweb shows the two-story house was built in 1927, measures a generous but not bloated 4,179 square feet and includes a total of 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms that include a powder pooper where at least one wall and the floor are covered in poo-colored crocodile skin or perhaps poo-colored leather stamped with a crocodile skin pattern.

Anyhoo, a double-height entrance hall with magnificent antique wood ceiling steps down to the formal living room with fireplace, wood-beamed ceiling and raised library/reading nook. Later listing photos (top) show Miz Mueller utilized the elevated reading nook/library as an ad hoc play space for her children with a zebra striped carpet, copious amounts of toys and, instead of actual sofas, scads of sofa cushions propped up against the walls. Other rooms include a formal dining room with gold patterned bordello worthy wall coverings, a sun porch/office with tree top views through a series of high arched windows, and a second floor family room with decorative tiles set into the floor like a built-in area rug.

The eat-in kitchen has a flag stone floor, large center work island with snack counter, top-grade commercial-style stainless steel appliances, and an adjoining butler's pantry/utility room. In the part of the kitchen probably intended and best suited to a breakfast table, Miz Mueller fashioned a zoo-like enclosure to contain her children and filled it with (another) zebra-print rug and a flotilla of stuffed animals.

The back of the house opens to a number terraces, patios and balconies, at least one of them covered. The terraced yard steps down to a substantial (and almost flat) lawn and a plunge-sized swimming pool surrounded by a tree-shaded sunbathing terrace and outfitted with stacked stone wall down which a thin drizzle of water trickles and simulates, we imagine, the sound of a person using the potty.

Your Mama applauds Mister Helberg's fine taste in real estate–we find the the house a smart merger between the old and the new–and we wish he and the missus a happy first holiday season in there new digs.

We really have no idea where Miz Mueller moved–she's got the dough to move just about anywhere she likes–but we certainly wouldn't be surprised to learn it was right on back up to the Mulholland Estates community where her ex-hubby and baby daddy still owns not one but two manicured mansions in the guard-gated yet oddly crime-plagued enclave. The children will recall that at bout the same time Mister Sheen took the house in Los Feliz off the market in May 2011 he bought a second mansion in Mulholland Estates for $6,999,999. Shortly thereafter put his long-time Warlock Lair down the street (above) on the market with a $7,200,000 price tag but was officially taken off the open market in September even though does still appear somewhat discreetly on the listing agent's website. Make of that what you will.

listing photos (Los Feliz, not staged): Sotheby's International Realty
listing photos (Los Feliz, staged ): Everett Fenton Gidley for Sotheby's International Realty
listing photo (Sherman Oaks exterior shot): Teles Properties

Friday Floor Plan Porn: Sanford "Sandy" Weill

SELLER: Sanford "Sandy" and Joan Weill
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $88,000,000
SIZE: 6,744 square feet, 3-4 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Today we offer the children a mouth-watering snippet of New York City floor plan porn courtesy of Josh Barbanel who yesterday presented a juicy real estate report in The Wall Street Journal about the filthy rich former chairman and chief executive of Citigroup Sanford "Sandy" Weill who has officially listed his full-floor penthouse spread at the swish and swank 15 Central Park West building with a bone rattling asking price of–are y'all sitting down?–$88,000,000.

Mister Weill and his wife Joan shelled out $43,687,750–or $42,405,000 depending on where one looks–for the the deluxe 6,744 square foot penthouse back in August 2007. At the time it was one of the highest amounts paid per square foot for a private residence in Manhattan. The single-level, mansion-sized penthouse carries, according to listing information we peeped, monthly maintenance fees and taxes that total $13,824.

The 10-room aerie–perched atop the shorter of 15 Central Park West's two towers limestone-clad towers–has ceilings that soar to 12.5 feet; 19 French doors that open to a park- and city-view terraces that wraps around three sides of the apartment; a cavernous 825-plus square foot living room with fireplace; an adjacent and far more cozy library–also with fireplace–paneled in high-contrast Brazilian rosewood; a formal dining room; den/family room with wet bar; and an eat-in kitchen larger than the entire apartments of most Manhattanites.

Two family/guest rooms, each private windowed facility and small closet, open off the long rear hall and a third family or guest bedroom with private bath and walk-in closet has been, as indicated on the floor plan, incorporated into the sprawling corner master suite complete with three walk-in closets, a lavish windowed bathroom, and an elliptical bedroom with elaborate ribbed plaster walls and an unobstructed easterly view of the sunrise over Central Park.

Mister and Missus Weill had the building's much lauded and applauded architect Robert A.M. Stern do up the interior spaces that appear, but for a few quirks, very livable and well resolved. We're not thrilled that food servers must pass through the den/family room to get from the kitchen to the butler's pantry and formal dining room and we were utterly perplexed by the rather large walk-in wet bar stashed in to the rear hall opposite the bedrooms until we realized the set up is conveniently perfect for over-nighting booze hounds like Your Mama who sometimes require a little nip of gin in the middle of the night.

Once Mister Stern competed his work with the architecture, the Weill's had the day-core done up and did over in high (and very expensive) style by the eminent (and agéd) New York-based interior designer Mica Ertegun of MAC II and subsequently photographed by snapper Durston Saylor in all it's glossy glory for the April 2010 issue of Architectural Digest (as show in the above two pictures).

Mister Weill told The Wall Street Journal that he and the Missus '"are not leaving the city and giving up the wonderful opportunity to be New York City residents and New York City taxpayers."' He went on to tell Mister Barbanel that they've decided to sell their impossibly posh penthouse–at least in part–because it's '"a pretty good time" for wealthy Americans "to be quiet"" and are '"downsizing a little bit"' into another significantly smaller apartment they own in the building that the kids at Curbed long ago dubbed "The Limestone Jesus."

Far be it from Your Mama to toss an ugly wrench in things but we just find it a little difficult to believe that Mister and Missus Weill actually plan to decamp their nearly 7,000 square foot art-filled penthouse at 15 Central Park West to the comparatively minuscule 1,084 square foot one-bedroom apartment property records show they picked up in October 2007 for $978,737. Then again, what do we really know about anything?

It seems people of Mister and Missus Weill's extreme financial clout downsize and live quietly a wee bit differently than the average multi-millionaire or minimum wage worker. As far as Your Mama can tell based on property records and previous reports, the high-flying Weills continue to own a number of other luxury residences that include a substantial estate in a prime section of sleepy but oh-so-swank Greenwich, CT, a luxe-rustic camp in the Adirondacks region of Upstate New York, and a 392-acre spread with an 11,605 square foot mansion in Sonoma, CA they bought last year for a not very quiet $31,000,000.

It probably won't make a bit of difference to many if any of the 99-percenters who revile Mister Weill and insanely wealthy Wall Street plutocrats like him, but it should be (re-)reported he and his wife told Mister Barbanel they plans to donate the proceeds from the sale of the penthouse, which could stretch into the tens of million, to unspecified charitable organizations.

Other well-heeled owners of apartments at 15 Central Park West include celebs like Denzel Washington,  and Sting and Trudy Styler as well as a slew of Wall Street fat cats likeGoldman Sachs CEO and chairman Lloyd Blankfein who paid $27,000,000 for his roost and hedge hog Daniel Loeb (who paid $45,000,000 for his 10,700 square foot two-unit combo crib) and Goldman Sachs CEO and chairman Lloyd Blankfein

listing photo and floor plan (top): Brown Harris Stevens
interior photos: Durston Saylor for Architectural Digest