Another Showbiz Divorce Another Mansion Sold

SELLERS: Patricia Arquette and Thomas Jane
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,775,000
SIZE: 6,082 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While out and about we happened to run into a little birdie acquaintance the other day—let's call him Ben Theredonethat—who asked Your Mama if we'd heard about how Emmy-winning actress Patricia Arquette and her handsome ex-husband—that would be beau-hunky actor Thomas Jane, the chisel-chinned, hairy-chested and fine-fannied star of Hung—had quietly sold their historic mansion in Los Angeles' hoity-toity Hancock Park 'hood.

We had not heard a word, not a one and, after a momentary pause to harness what little dignity we have, screamed, "Spill it!"

Naturally, just as soon as Your Mama pulled our big BMW into the garage we took to the interweb and quickly sorted out the facts of the matter and, just as Ben Theredonethat tattled, Mister Jane and Miz Arquette did indeed sell their former family home in Hancock Park in early January 2012 for $2,775,000. The buyer, as per property records, was producer Fenton Bailey, one of the World of Wonder gentlemen responsible for television and silver screen fare such as (but not limited to) the budding Million Dollar Listing franchise, the catty yet heartwarming RuPaul's Drag Race, the sensitively done documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and all those Tori (Spelling) & Dean (McDermott) reality programs.

We know just about nil about Mister Jane except that he's not afraid to appear birthday suit nekkid and/or very realistically act out The Sex on the tee-vee but we do know that despite (and perhaps because of) their decidedly non-traditional upbringing Miz Arquette and all four of her siblings have gone on to Show Business notoriety of varying degrees and types. There's actor sister Rosanna Arquette (Suddenly Seeking Susan, Pulp Fiction franchise, The L Word), actor/producer brother David Arquette (Scream franchise, Eight Legged Freaks, Jake and the Never Land Pirates), dragster turned tranny actress sister Alexis Arquette, née Robert (Friends, Californication, The Surreal Life), and the lesser- but hardly un-known actor Richmond Arquette (Dirt, Se7en, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).

Like her red carpet walking brothers and sisters, Miz Arquette has toiled in Tinseltown for decades, in her case since the mid-1980s. She is best known, perhaps, for her Emmy-winning turn as the tee-vee version of real-life (and self-described) psychic medium Allison Dubois on the long-running but now-canceled supernatural drama Medium.

Reality television watchers may recall that the real life Allison Dubois appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills last year and acted a damn fool. No disrespect, Dolly Dubois, but even you have to admit you didn't come off looking like an innocent kitten what with your sinister grin, dire predictions, and that creepy vapor cigarette thing you kept puffing on. This year, according to her resume on the Internet Movie Data Base, Miz Arquette will soon be seen on the silver screen in Girl in Progress with Eva Mendes and A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III with Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwarzman and Bill Murray. But we digress.

On January 2003, just a month or so before she gave birth to a baby with now ex-husband Thomas Jane and more than three years before they were married—those free-loving Hollyweirdos—Miz Arquette and Mister Jane paid two and a quarter million clams for a sizable and heavily ornamented 1929 Mediterranean mansion on a corner lot with with long side frontage on one of the busier thoroughfares in Hancock Park.

We know some of you zip code smarty pants and parvenus are going to get all jiggy with real estate indignation and flabbergast about why it is anyone really rich would choose to live in Hancock Park where the crime rates are higher than in the Platinum Triangle. Well, that's just fine. Go on witcher bad selves. The fact is Hancock Park—not every corner of it but certainly most of it—has always been and remains an upscale neighborhood with postcard-perfect tree-lined streets lined with stately homes owned by a slew of rich and famous folks who include former Friend David Schwimmer, sit-com superstar Patricia Heaton, French clothing tycoon Christian Audigier, newly out of the closet actor Matt Bomer, Emmy-winning producer John Wells, Oscar winner Kathy Bates, celebrity gossip Janet Charlton and, arguably, the celebrity king and queen of Hancock Park Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas. And that, puppies, doesn't even scratch the surface of the long list of past residents who include the likes of Nat King Cole and Howard Hughes.

Anyhoo, Miz Arquette and Mister Jane, who were officially divorced in 2010, first listed their former family home in June 2011 with an asking price of $3,399,000. By November the price had dipped to $2,900,000 where it remained until Mister Bailey came along and scooped it up, according to the busy beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, for almost 20% less than it was originally priced.

Listing information shows the hulky and bulky house—dubbed in marketing materials as the romantic-sounding Villa Catalunya—sits on almost one-third an acre and measures a man-sized 6,082 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. Wide steps at the front of the vine-encrusted mansion lead to what listing information somewhat generously describes as "Gaudiesque."

Inside the arched, carved wood front door guests and the Dominos pizza delivery dude alike will no doubt be more than impressed with the voluminous and ornate, double height entry hall that reminds Your Mama more than a little of the legendary Limelight nightclub in New York City, now—horrors upon horrors—a kind of boo-teeq shopping mall. Having produced both the 1998 documentary Party Monster: The Shockumentary and the 2003 film Party Monster about club kid and Limelight employee turned drug addled murderer Michael Alig it seems almost inconceivable Mister Bailey didn't also make that visual connection but, of course, Your Mama don't know nuthin' about birthin' babies or, certainly, what goes on in Mister Bailey's brain.

The dizzying but ab-baf star burst pattern encaustic tiles under foot continue up the celeb-worthy center staircase to a wrap-around gallery girdled by a wrought iron banister where taffy-twisted Solomonic columns hold up a heavy-duty, hand-stenciled wood ceiling. We have no idea if Mister Bailey plans to host parties here but iffin he does, we might suggest at least once he replace the antique light fixture over the stairs with a great big sparkly disco ball so that everyone can swoop and swirl down that stunning staircase and have their own, private dancing queen moment.

The cocktail mixer-friendly step-down formal living room just off the entrance hall (above, top left) has gleaming variegated peg and groove wood floors, a monolithic wood-burning fireplace flanked by several pairs of arched (and probably original) stained glass windows, a classic Fortuny light fixture, and a full wall of built-in wood bookcases with carved pilasters and glass-fronted doors.

A wide opening in the built-in bookshelves connects to a library/den/media room (above, top right) where there's another Fortuny light fixture, a delectable and high hand painted wood-beamed ceiling, another bank of arched stained glass windows, and a pair of arched book cases on either side of a mysterious inset at the far end of the room. Listing photographs show the room equipped with projection equipment and a wide screen that scrolls down from the ceiling, hopefully at the easy press of a remote control button lest there always need to be a pesky foot stool at hand.

Across the entry hall opposite the formal living room, a properly baronial formal dining room (above, bottom left) is wrapped with three-quarter height wood paneling and has yet another Fortuny light fixture, partly parqueted wood floors, and extravagant hand-painted moldings and ceiling details. A double-wide, built-in carved wood buffet helps with food service and china and tchotchke storage. Undoubtedly the dining room set seen in listing photographs does not remain in situ since Miz Arquette sold to Mister Bailey, but the children will note that some nice-gay or lady decorator had the good sense to go the matchy-matchy route with the massive library-style dining room table with Solomonic column legs that echo the aforementioned spiral columns used around the second floor gallery in the entrance hall.

At the rear of the residence the compactly arranged if hardly small service areas include a large and well-maintained but heart wrenchingly banal eat-in kitchen with inlaid limestone tile floor, (too-)traditional raised-panel cabinetry (that may or may not be mahogany), perfectly ordinary white tile counter tops and back splashes, an L-shaped center island with snack counter, and a small adjoining breakfast area. The appliances are all probably top notch and la-di-dah but we suspect (and hope) Mister Bailey will replace all of this nonsense with something more appropriate, interesting, and hideously expensive.

The service wing also includes laundry facilities and a good-sized staff bedroom with private pooper done head to toe in vintage (and probably original) pixilated pink and jet black tilework.

Miz Arquette and/or Mister Jane could not, it seems, fit enough Fortuny light fixtures into their home and upstairs a small sitting room/office has a fourth Fortuny light fixture. Each of the upstairs guest/family bedrooms have an over-sized bathroom with eye-popping vintage (and probably original) tile work. One bathroom (above, bottom right) is an old-timey turqwahze and lemon yellow heaven while the other is turned out a little less vibrantly in sea foam green and fleshy-beige (above, bottom left). 

The expansive, multi-room master bedroom occupies the entire ass end of the upper second floor and looks to Your Mama like the sort of place the priest of a wealthy parish or a robber baron might like to live. More carved wood Solomonic columns divide an entry vestibule from a partly paneled sitting room with fireplace and built-in book cases. Beyond the sitting room, the bedroom area has a heavily articulated and painted coffered ceiling, and a row of stained glass windows on two walls, one of which, we have it on good authority, depicts Jesus Christ.

Imagine now, children, attempting to engage in non-procreational carnal relations with your loved one—or whomever—with a life-sized, stained glass Jesus Christ giving you the stare down. No thank you, hunties. Anyways, the attached master bathroom, with a curving wall of stained glass windows, looks like it was (at least partly) "updated" about the same time as the kitchen and, as far as we're concerned, could use a re-do to restore it back to its original glory. The highlight of the master suite is not, believe it or not, the stained glass Jesus but rather a pair of secret panels over and next to the fireplace in the sitting room that pop open to reveal a flat screen tee-vee and and an adjacent walk-in closet/dressing room.

A covered porch tucked into the base of the u-shaped rear of the residence provides a perfect, shady spot to spend an afternoon nibbling on leftover egg fu yung, sipping an ice cold gin & tonic or two (or three), and catching up on all the latest political brouhaha and celebrity snitchery on your favorite websites and blogs. The two arms of the u-shaped rear of the residence form a courtyard almost entirely devoted to an essentially rectangular swimming pool. On one side a long and deep covered porch has honeycomb-shaped Mexican paver tiles and on ground and a back wall tiled half way up with magnificent and fiery tiles. On the other side of the cement pond concrete pavers of various sizes are set into a grassy patch that wraps around the back of the house where there's a lounging/dining terrace and built-in barbecue center with sink and under-counter refrigerator. A limestone (or some other kind of stone) wall with fountain drops water into a semi-circular spa.

A covered porch connects through a locked doorway to a electronically gated motor court and detached three bay garage all of which is very nice but we just have an issue with houses oriented in such a way that all but ensure the owner never come through the front door but instead requires they shuffle across the back yard and get into the house through the service areas. Especially in a house like this were coming through the front door is an experience worth repeating over and over and over again.

Mister Bailey has long owned a charming 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom residence just above Hollywood he bought in 1994 for $480,000 and put on the market late last year with an asking price of $1,649,000. The price tag for the historic 1921 Arts and Crafts bungalow has since dropped to $1,459,000.

listing photos: Photos for Homes for Nourmand & Asssociates / Beverly Hills

Dance Break!

Katy Perry Dumps Husband and N.Y.C. Penthouse

SELLER: Katy Perry
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,750,000 (list); $2,625,000 (sale)
SIZE: 1,450 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It will come as no surprise to celebrity real estate watchers that soon-to-be divorced blue-haired pop star Katy Perry wants to unload the petite New York City penthouse she bought just before her extravagant wedding to English comedian Russell Brand in the fall of 2010.

No official listing for Perry's penthouse appears online—at least not one Your Mama could find in our two admittedly half-assed few minutes of looking—but recent reports out of New York City indicate the California Gurl wants $2,750,000 for the loft-like aerie in TriBeCa that records reveal she scooped up in September 2010 for $2,680,000.

Listing information from the time Miz Perry purchased the penthouse shows it measures about 1,500 square feet with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living room with exposed wood ceiling and built-in cherry wood cabinetry, a stainless steel kitchen open to the dining area, and a lower level limestone bathroom with radiant heated floor. A sculptural cherry wood staircase winds up to the penthouse's petite second floor master bedroom that does not appear in the floor plan to have a single closet but does offer a convenient if itty-bitty bathroom and direct access to a south facing terrace with open city views.

Your Mama discussed Miz Perry's penthouse pied a terre back in September 2010 when she added the penthouse to her property portfolio. The children will note that, as of this morning, the above listing photos and floor plan for Miz Perry's penthouse are from the time and show it as it was when she acquired it and, depending on any alterations they may have made, may not be a very good indication of the state of things today.

It's not clear if Miz Perry's soon-to-be ex-husband Mister Brand has any official/legal ownership of the penthouse but at the time of the purchase an anonymous source told the NY Post the couple purchased the property to help with their (no doubt) considerable tax burden. Make of that what you will.

The penthouse was sold at a small loss in July 2012 for $2,625,000.

Mister Brand and Miz Perry married in a lavish ceremony on a tiger preserve in India did not, for reasons unfathomable to Your Mama, sign a prenuptial agreement. Lucky for her Hello Kitty pocketbook, in a chivalrous (and probably good-for-publicity) move Mister Brand has allegedly declined the to accept the 50% portion of Miz Perry's earnings he's legally entitled to, which would be somewhere around twenty million clams.

That's all well and good but what Your Mama really wants to know is what's going to happen to the Los Angeles mansion the once happy couple picked up last summer for $6,500,000. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Did Twilight Stud Rob Pattinson Buy a House?

Ever since he catapulted to international super-stardom in 2008 as the pasty-faced, 200-ish year old vampire Edward Cullen in the supernaturally successful Twilight film franchise, real estate gossips like Your Mama have spent far too much time wondering if and where publicity shunning English actor Rob Pattinson might set down some real estate roots in Los Angeles.

All the gossip glossies and celebrity-based blogs went bug-eyed berserk in summer 2010 when it was revealed 25 year old Mister Pattinson and his on- and off-screen love interest, the usually glowering 21 year old actress Kristen Stewart, were quietly shacked up in a leased Bel Air love nest on a secluded property perched directly above the sensationally scenic Stone Canyon Reservoir. It's not known—at least not by Your Mama—what exactly the young celebs paid for the hush-hush hideaway but we have seen evidence the glassy and very contemporary two-story, 1 bedroom and 2 bathroom cottage had been listed earlier in the year at a whopping $22,500 per month.

Once Miss Stewart and Mister Pattinson packed their bags and hightailed it out of Bel Air their real estate trail went bone dry. Then—listen for the screeching tires—out of nowhere: Kablam! Two days ago Your Mama stumbled upon a meticulously restored and beautifully maintained Spanish Colonial-style residence in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles with a long celebrity provenance and quietly purchased through a mysterious trust last September (2011) for the very-celebrity price of $6,275,000.

Being a curious and industrious beaver, we dug and drilled around in property records and quickly queried a few of our better informed informants, sources and resources who included a leg up by The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial. Several of our contacts determined the house in question was purchased through a trust with various and very direct connections to Rob Pattinson. One of the numerous clues, noticed by Your Mama and pointed out by two of our little helpers, is the purchasing trust's trustee is none other than Nicholas "Nick" Frenkel, the Twittering, long-time manager of Mister Pattinson who is often seen in photographs standing behind his professional charge.

The walled, gated, and no doubt heavily secured house, all but invisible from the street, was originally built in 1921 for an insurance executive by architect Stiles O. Clements. In 1993 the house, then in a sad state of neglect, was purchased for about $650,000 by English actor Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) who fixed it up but good and had it photographed for the November 1998 issue of Architectural Digest. Mister Curry told Los Angeles magazine in 2000 that the extensive xeriscaped gardens, various terraces, amphitheater, and swimming pool situated at the top of the property, required the services of a full time gardener plus a garden consultant on retainer.
Mister Curry listed the house sometime around the turn of the last century for just under three million dollars and sold it in July 2000 for exactly $3,000,000 to a non-celebrity who quickly flipped it at a substantial loss to E.R. actor Noah Wylie who records (and previous reports) reveal scooped it up in October 2001 for $2,600,000.

Mister Wylie held on to the house for about three years when he sold it for $3,325,000 to Oscar winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (JFK, The Aviator, Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and II) who flipped the property in less than two years with a significant profit for $5,200,000. Are y'all following along? At the time it was sold to Mister Richardson, it was described in the L.A. Times by celebrity real estate column pioneer Ruth Ryon as having 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in just over 4,000 square feet of interior space with hand carved and hand stenciled ceilings.

We're not exactly sure who purchased the property from Mister Richardson in 2006 but property records are clear that in early September 2011 a trust our (re)sources, including the always impeccably informed Lucy Spillerguts, can link to Mister Pattinson—or at least Mister Pattinson's people—swooped in and scooped up the celebrity-style property for $6,275,000. We find no evidence the house was listed on the open market.

Now listen, chickens, let's use them noodles for a moment, shall we? Even though all signs (and sources) point to Mister Pattinson as the new man of the house, Your Mama has no direct knowledge him ever setting foot on this property. That means it's all just rumor and gossip at this point, just rumor and gossip. Plus, the property seems, at least to Your Mama, a bit extravagant and high maintenance for such a young (and unmarried) man. But, then again, the real estate ways of the rich and/or famous are often so baffling and inexplicable to those on the outside looking in.

None of nearby famous neighbors may currently cope with the same level of global popularity as Mister Pattinson does but they are certainly no strangers to the klieg lights of Tinseltown. Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale used to live a few doors down before they bought Jennifer Lopez's old house off Mulholland Drive and Kirstie Alley has been a long time resident of the immediate vicinity. Michael Balzary, otherwise known as Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is also a new resident of the low-key but very posh 'hood that butts up against Griffith Park; He dropped $4,550,000 last July acquire a gated mini-compound with a long, serpentine driveway.

One more thing, butter beans: Any of you people who have the wild notion to hop in your hoopdie and head on out to Los Feliz to see if you can catch a glimpse of Mister Pattinson setting out his trashcans or pulling out the gated driveway would be wise to just stay at home. Not only is that a damn fool thing to do, the house ain't visible from the street and we imagine Mister Pattinson employs a small army of voraciously choleric security men who would sooner chop your block off than let you roll slowly by or—heaven forfend—stand around in the street with your smart phones gawking and screaming like school girls. Okaaay?

aerial photo: Pacific Coast News

Afternoon Delight: Petra Ecclestone

In case any of y'all ain't seen it yet, the fashion industry bible known as W recently published a lengthy article pun-ishly entitled Lady of the Manor about Formula One racing heiress Petra Ecclestone and the newly overhauled 56,500 square foot Los Angeles, CA mega-mansion she snatched up last summer from wealthy Tinseltown widow Candy Spelling for a throat-tightening $85,000,000.

We're gonna discuss the article a bit here because we thought it was high-larious and just can't resist. However, Your Mama suggests all y'all scoot on over to W and read the entire thing because it'll be damn delicious to anyone who has any interest at all in the lifestyle of an exceptionally pampered 23-year old heiress with seemingly unlimited access to a multi-billion dollar fortune.

Out, the article's writer Dana Goodyear reveals, went all Miz Spelling's chintz-y, Rich-But-Boring-Grandma day-core and replaced with "dark velvets" and "little crystals." Gone is the gift wrapping room, now an office for Miss Ecclestone's assistant. And away went Miz Spellings (in)famous and—let's be honest—freaky-deaky doll museum, replaced by a fully-equipped spa facility outfitted with massage parlor, three hair stations, and two mani-pedi chairs.

Upstairs there remain six "enormous" family/guest suites and a master suite Miz Goodyear pegs at an astonishing and all but unfathomable 7,000 square feet. The mansion-sized master suite contains, as per the article, a living room, bedroom, kitchen, his and her bathrooms and his and her walk-in closet/dressing rooms, the hers of which is described by Miz Goodyear as having a pair of glass-topped center islands, a second floor accessible by not one, children, but two staircases, and plenty of shelf space for Miss Ecclestone's epic, multi-colored collection of 25 Birkin bags.

Miss Ecclestone, now toiling as a handbag designer for her own label, shares her newly redone Holmby Hills residence, described by Miz Goodyear as all dolled up like a "massive VIP lounge," with a pack of pure bred dogs and her 30-year old husband of six months James Stunt. Mister Stunt, Miss Ecclestone told Miz Goodyear, "owns gold mines," which, she went on to say, is "very random."

Only about a year before dropping 85 million big ones on her Los Angeles residence Miss Ecclestone plunked down a staggering $87 million (or thereabouts) on a 20,000 square foot Grade II listed spread in London's Cheslea 'hood.

Now then, with that as an appetizer, get on over to W and get the rest of the juicy details that will surely make any number of the children drool with envy, foam with righteous anger, or both.

Actor's Actor Gary Oldman Settles In Los Feliz

BUYER: Gary Oldman
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,869,000
SIZE: 3,168 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms (total)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last August (2011) Brit actor Gary Oldman quietly sold his gated residence tucked into a hairpin curve in the hills above Studio City, CA. Property records (and other online resources) show the 2012 Oscar nominee sold the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom French Country traditional for $1,645,500, just a sliver shy of fifty grand less than the $1,695,000 he paid for the approximately 2,400 square foot single story residence not quite three years earlier.

We've recently learned from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that about a month after Mister Oldman and his much younger fourth missus—British jazz and electronica singer Alexandra Edenborough (a.k.a. Alex Eden)—sold their May-December love nest and acquired, through the same trust as owned their previous home in Studio City, a bigger and better spread over in the star-stocked Los Feliz area of Los Angeles that cost, as per property records, $2,869,000.

Mister Oldman, nominated for an Academy Award this year for his star turn in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy—a film adaptation of John le Carré's spy novel of the same (but differently punctuated) name—is an actor's actor of the highest order. Mister Oldman is oft cited as a much admired actor by other film and television actors, both those who possess actual acting chops as well as those who do not but succeed anyways because they're just so damned good looking. Yes, hunties. We said it. And each and every one of y'all know exactly the sort of Tinseltown fellas we're talkin' about.

Anyhoo, a thespian's life in the theatre turned into a movie star's (semi) wild ride in the mid-1980s when Mister Oldman appeared on celluloid to great critical acclaim as Sid in Sid and Nancy (1986) and gay playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987). A slew of roles in fine films followed (JFK, Dracula, Léon, The Fifth Element). In more recent years Mister Oldman has found himself in recurring (and undoubtedly very lucrative) roles in the supernaturally successful Batman and Harry Potter film franchises. He has at least a half dozen additional projects either in the hopper or in pre-production according to his resume on the Internet Movie Data Base. They include Guns, Girls and Gambling with Christian Slater and Wettest County with fellow 2012 Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain who earned her place on the Oscar red carpet this year as a troubled but sweet and racially compassionate Marilyn Monroe-esque bimbette in The Help.

The property does not appear to have been listed on the open market at the time Mister and Fourth Missus Oldman snatched it up last year but with the help of Our Fairy Godmother in Los Feliz Your Mama managed to turn up listing information and photographs from 2010 when the walled, gated and stately (if not particularly large) abode was put up for lease at a rate of $10,000 per month.

The house, a boxy, two-story Southern Plantation-inspired Colonial completely sheathed in fastidiously clipped vines, was built in 1922 according to listing information, sits on a double-wide lot that spans nearly half an acre, and measures in at a relatively modest 3,168 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. An additional bedroom and bathroom atop the detached two car garage works well as a guest house, home office space, music studio, live-in domestic quarters or almost off-site housing for a moody teenager.

A basket weave patterned brick walkway lined with low boxwood hedges forms a doughnut shape as it wraps around a two-tiered fountain and approaches the front door set into a shallow, arched portico. We don't know a pigeon from a vitamin, of course, so we can't say if anything has been altered but in 2010 the center hall foyer had random-width wood floors stained a dark espresso color, heavy-duty white moldings, and a tray ceiling that shimmered with some sort of metallic leafing that injects the otherwise architecturally and decoratively homey (and even humble) space with a wee tetch of glitz and glam.

The dark wood floors continue into a wonderfully ample living room that stretches the full depth of the house from front to back and features a wood-burning fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves with a unique (and maybe decoratively over-played) honeycomb detail. The room has a series of French doors on two walls that reach almost all the way to the ceiling and and the butt-end a deep bay window that overlooks the backyard and swimming pool.

An old-timey and perfectly charming swinging door separates the kitchen from the formal dining room, all done up in 2010 listing photos with a high-contrast Hollywood Regency meets Versace Home sort of situation. The upscale country-style kitchen has—or at least did in 2010—a few rough hewn wood beams that stretch across the ceiling, some sort of stone tile flooring, white Shaker-style cabinetry topped with grey-veined white marble, a handful of multi-paned windows for light and ventilation, a couple of stainless steel sinks, and all the high-grade commercial-style appliances that can be expected in a house that cost its newest owner nearly three million clams. The children will note a series of windows replace overhead cabinets but that food and dishes (and etc.) get stashed in a bank of floor-to-ceiling pantry cabinets opposite long counter with the sinks.

Given that a sizable separate breakfast room with built-in banquette and wall of floor-to-ceiling sliding windows adjoins the kitchen, Your Mama is of the (perfectly meaningless) opinion that the kitchen itself might function better for a person who cooks if it were equipped with a chunky, free-standing work island—maybe something like this 19th century (and probably shockingly expensive) Belgian chocolatiers table with 3-inch blue stone slab—rather than the cute table for four that stood in the open center of the room back in 2010 when the house was put up for lease by the previous owner.

The dark wood floors extend up the stairs and throughout the second floor where two family/guest bedrooms share a windowed Jack 'n Jill-type facility with marble counter tops and white tile shower/tub combination. Like the rest of the house, the master bedroom retains original (or vintage or retro-style) fixtures and hardware such as glass door knobs and twin pedestal sinks in the haphazardly updated and upgraded master bathroom that features very long-looking soaking tub with elegant (if narrow) marble surround, outré square white tile floors, and a separate shower stall with a very Less Than Zero glass block detail.

The kitchen and breakfast room open out to fenced blue stone terrace that steps down to the swimmer friendly swimming pool. Beyond the pool a vine draped pergola structure all but hides—we think—an above ground hot tub. On the other side of the driveway from the house, planted terraces and stone stairways connect to an undulating and very English-y lawn area with large, rectangular koi pond, a serene-looking water feature that would more likely serve as a swimming pool for Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter's water-loving long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly were we to occupy the premises, which of course we will not.

The double-sized lot, entirely hedges ringed by mature trees for privacy, allows for multiple entertaining areas, broad lawns, and extensive gardens that include and a small but very-California citrus fruit orchard.

Some of the luxury residences around Mister and Fourth Missus Oldman's new residence include Katy Perry and Russell Brand's old house, the one they bought in November 2009 for $3,250,000 and quickly flipped in July 2011 for $3,300,000. Even the most lackadaisical celebrity real estate watchers know that only months before splitting up Miss Perry and Mister Brand decamped about 6.5 miles east to an historic and much larger (and kinda spooky) 7 bedroom and 9 bathroom estate perched just above the mouth to West Hollywood's Laurel Canyon they picked up in June 2011 for $6,500,000. Due to their impending and not very amicable-sounding dee-vorce, Your Mama imagines the estate will wind up on the market before too long if it's not already being quietly shopped around to qualified clients.

If anyone actually walked anywhere in L.A.—it may be a cliché, children, but it's a true, if somewhat exaggerated one—they could quickly stroll from Mister and Fourth Missus Oldman's mini-estate to the much more grand compound of David Hyde Pierce and his husband Brian Hargrove who recently heaved their house on to the (open) market with an asking price of $7,500,000.

Also in the vicinity are well maintained (and seriously fortified) homes owned by the divinely kooky yo-yo dieter, Emmy-winning actress and Dancing With the Stars runner up Kirstie Alley, musician Michael Balzary (a.k.a. Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers), Weeds creator/writer/producer Jenji Kohan, comedian Jamie Kennedy and, we hear through the celebrity gossip grapevine, Twilight superstar Rob Pattinson, a slender man-boy of epic fame whose name alone can make girls of a certain age and gays of a certain ilk wet their pants with carnal desire.

listing photos: Extraordinary Real Estate

Frasier's David Hyde Pierce Puts Los Feliz Estate on the Block

SELLER: David Hyde Pierce and Brian Hargrove
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $7,500,00
SIZE: 8,184 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES:Yesterday the ever-industrious kids over at Curbed took some time out of their no-doubt flower- and chocolate-filled Valentines Day to gush over and discuss an historic Spanish Colonial Revival-style mansion in Los Angeles' celebrity-friendly Los Feliz area that popped up on the (open) market this week with an asking price of $7,500,000.

What the Curbed kids did not reveal is, according to multiple of Your Mama's most reliable sources including the freakishly well-informed Lucy Spillerguts, the painstakingly restored and fully renovated three story residence—built in the days before the stock market crashed in 1929 for auto and transportation industry executive O.R. Fuller—has been owned since March 2003 by 4-time Emmy-winning actor David Hyde Pierce and his sitcom writer/producer husband of 25-plus years Brian Hargrove (Caroline in the City, Titus).

Misters Hyde Pierce and Hargrove, married in California during the brief window in 2008 when the state government permitted The Gays to legally tie their romantic knots, paid, as per property records, $3,625,000 for the properly gated, wonderfully private, and prominently positioned near-one acre hillside property blessed with sweeping views over the the tree tops, strip malls and twinkling lights of Tinseltown.

Mister Hyde Pierce trained as a thespian at Yale, barked around the theater in New York City a bit and appeared in a number of small roles on both the tee-vee and silver screen  (Bright Lights, Big City, Addams Family Values) before he rocketed to his professional pinnacle as the fastidious, fussy and surprisingly heterosexual effete Dr. Niles Crane on the now (very profitably) syndicated sit-com Frasier.

The children will note that as Dr. Niles Crane, Mister Hyde Pierce was nominated or won an Emmy Award every year from 1994 to 2004. He also earned five Golden Globe nominations (but no wins), and 19 Screen Actors Guild award nominations that resulted in two wins. During its long run and after the lights went down on Frasier, Mister Hyde Pierce lent his voice to several animated films including A Bug's Life and Treasure Planet and several times trod the well-worn boards of Broadway in musical extravaganzas such as La Bête, Spamalot, and Curtain for which he won a Tony Award in 2007. In 2010 he was given the Isabelle Stevenson Award at the Tonys for his contribution to humanitarian, social service and charitable organizations, specifically his extensive work in the fight against Alzheimer's disease.

Listing information shows the 8,184 square foot mansion was "meticulously restored" after Misters Hyde Pierce and Hargove acquired it and includes a total of 7 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms, a count Your Mama is pretty sure (but not certain) includes the 1 bedroom and 2 bathrooms in the detached guest house situated well and privately above the main house on a grassy, pie-shaped terrace at the rear of the up-sloping .92 acre property.

Original architectural details abound in the decidedly grand but somehow not egregiously ostentatious, double-height rotunda entrance with gleaming Mexican paver tile floors underfoot and a stunner of a rustic wood ceiling with stained glass details overhead. The chandelier, while probably an antique of significant expense, does not appear to be original to the residence when current listing images are compared to the cache of spine tingling photographs of the house taken in 1930 and dug up by the peeps at Paradise Leased.

A curved staircase with vine-like scrolled wrought iron banister wraps around the room and begs, Your Mama feels, to have some painfully slender superstar or foul-mouthed drag queen swoop down in a bugle beaded gown and a cloud of narcissistic reverie into a chattering crowd of boozy well wishers and grinning ass kissers. A quick study of the mansion's original floor plan (above) that we snatched from Paradise Leased—we're not sure whey they got it—shows that, yes ma'am, this house was clearly designed for gracious and large-scale entertaining as evidenced by the over-sized his and hers—or in the case of Mister Hyde Pierce and Hargrove, perhaps, his and his—powder poopers that flank an arched doorway in the rotunda entry.

The primary public rooms on the main floor include a baronial-scaled step down living room with coffee-colored hardwood floors, French doors that lead to an awning-shaded balcony with city and swimming pool views, and a massive fireplace with carved stone mantelpiece. A banquet hall-sized formal dining room with hand-stenciled wood ceiling and tile floor opens through French doors to a pie-shaped lounging veranda with really very lovely city views.

At the front of the house, just off the cross-shaped vestibule that connects the rotunda entry to the elegantly rectilinear formal living room, a window-wrapped den/library has a corner fireplace, wet bar and what has to be one of the yummiest honeycomb coffered wood ceilings Your Mama has seen in a very long time.

The main floor service and family quarters appear to be mostly unaltered and as shown on the floor plan originally included a kitchen-sized butler's pantry, elongated octagonal breakfast room with wood beamed ceiling, a curving corridor that hugs the rotunda entry and connects to the attached 4-car garage, a large laundry facility (also with direct access to the garage), and a gigantic kitchen.

Current listing photos show the kitchen retains a wall of original (or re-incorporated vintage) ice boxes, a Subaru-sized center island, and a generous walk-in pantry. The walls and ceiling are entirely covered with glossy, pale yellow tiles with linear mint green accents. We don't know if the tile work is original (or a recreation of the original). Even though Your Mama feels the tile ceiling does give the room an uncomfortable pinch of surgical suite-ness, we're rather swooning for all that insane tile work. Who does that anymore? Who tiles the ceiling of their kitchen? Anyone?

Upstairs a knock-your-socks-off upper landing with a wide round hole in the floor that looks down into the entry leads to a cozy library/study plus a corridor lined with built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with actually books and the three guest/family bedroom suites with bathrooms renovated with original 1920 style. We're not sure if all, part or any of the almost entirely beigely decorated mansion has had the once-over by Staging Lady in Pink Toyota or if it's all the handiwork of Misters Hyde Pierce and Hargrove and their team on nice-gay and/or lady decorators but current listing photos show the star-sized, city view master suite, carpeted wall to wall with the most ordinary but probably punishingly expensive beige carpeting, inexplicably takes a surprisingly modern Art Deco turn with its furnishings. No doubt there is extensive closet space and the adjoining white marble bathroom has a luxe-retro-day spa sort thing happening with twin pedestal sinks, bathtub (that may or may not be jetted) set into an arched niche with stained glass window, and a separate marble-tile sheathed shower.

The lower level of the house, which opens to a charity event sized flagstone terrace that extends around the rectangular swimming pool and elevated circular spa, includes, as per listing information, a large wine vault, home theater warmed by an original brick fireplace, storage rooms, a home gym—natch—and a spa style bathroom equipped with changing room and steam/sauna facilities.

It may be a cliché but living in southern California comes with the benefit of easy-peasy indoor-outdoor living and where better to live outside than on the pie-shaped covered veranda that connects and softens the exterior articulation between the formal living formal living and dining rooms and features an outdoor fireplace for taking the edge of chilly evenings and nippy mornings, polished Mexican paver tile flooring, and a wood beamed ceiling supported by carved wood pillars that frame an enviably long vista over the the monotonous by day but glittery by night flat lands that stretch for miles and miles and miles towards the Pacific Ocean.

The lushly landscaped grounds include a stately, gated drive that curves up to a motor court with parking for at least four cars, a number of tree-ringed terraced lawns plenty large enough to have multiple Slip 'n Slides going at the same time, and all around the house extensively planted and expensively maintained gardens crossed and girdled by stepping stones and flagstone paths.

A free-standing second outdoor fireplace anchors one long side of the swimming pool and a pair of identical curving staircases wend gracefully up to a gate that opens to the motor court at the front of the house. This configuration, of course, allows Misters Hyde Pierce and Hargrove to host pool parties without being subjected to the scantily clad pool party goers traipsing through the house. And also of course, the lower level spa bathroom, gym and steam/sauna only sweeten the pool party pot, if you know what we're saying. Oh, please. We tease. Use yer noggins. Your Mama has no direct knowledge whatsoever that Misters Hyde Pierce and Hargrove have ever even swam in that cement pond let alone invited a cadre of well-formed friends and acquaintances to paddle in their pool.

We do not, y'all understand, know a sow from a sunflower seed so we can't say with any validity whatsoever why these two gentlemen might wish to unload their very elegant yet still manly (or "manly") and almost entirely beige mansion in Los Angeles. Perhaps they want to downsize, upsize, or supersize. Or maybe they plan to spend more time in New York City where they own a penthouse apartment near Lincoln Square that property records show they scooped up in May 2005 for $2,500,000. A bit over a year later in September 2006 they spent another $772,000 on a 3.5 room apartment one floor below that includes 1 bedrooms and 1 bathroom but we, it should come as no surprise, have no idea if they combined the penthouse with the 1 bedroom.

The couple also maintain an ocean front house in Amagansett—that's out in the hoity toity Hamptons—property records and previous reports reveal they picked up in spring 2010 for $6,300,000.

listing photos: Engel & Völkers
floor plan: Paradise Leased