In Other Restaurateur Related Real Estate News...

It was a week or more ago now that Your Mama received a brief and covert communique from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air who relayed to Your Mama that scuttlebutt on the Platinum Triangle real estate street is that high-profile, Los Angeles-based (former) restaurateur and hotelier Peter Morton dropped just shy of $25,000,000 for an off-market fixer-upper perched prominently on a long promontory high above the back fairways and greens of the Bel-Air Country Club.

Mister Morton, of course, co-founded the heavily merchandised Hard Rock Café chain (sold in the mid-1990s for $410 million), opened the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas (sold to Morgans Hotel Group in 2006 for $770 million) and, for nearly 3 decades, owned one of Tinseltown's most popular and difficult to get in to power lunch hot spots, Morton's (shuttered in 2007).

Property records, at least the ones we peeped, do not yet reflect a transfer of ownership of the Bel Air estate in question but they do show the 1.5 story, many-dormered mansion—it might (or might not) be French Provincial—was originally built in 1936, measures 7,692 square feet and contains 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. Those numbers may (or may not) accurately reflect the current size and configuration of the existing residence.

Other bits and pieces of information about the property we gleaned during our interweb research shows the house has a double-gated, parking lot sized motor court; a flat lawn that wraps around three sides of the house; various covered and open-air stone terraces and walkways; a swimming pool with adjacent cabana; and a waterfall of terraced gardens and sterling views over Los Angeles from downtown to the ocean. 

Some of the nearby mansions are owned by smoldering-eyed fashion designer Tom Ford, Tinseltown legend Clint Eastwood, boo-toob bigwig Darren Star (Sex and the City, Beverly Hills, 90210—the original one—and Melrose Place), and former rom-com queen Meg Ryan who has—so the story goes—just about sold her rambling Spanish-style mansion she's on the market for some time.

Again, children, property records do not yet reflect a transfer of ownership so for now this is just some high end real estate rumor and gossip. There isn't, however, a dedicated Platinum Triangle property watcher who should be the least be surprised by the alleged purchase since Mister Morton regularly shakes up his property portfolio, and with all that shaking he's hardly a been stranger to the property gossip columns.

The children may recall that in February 2010 Mister Morton—not to be confused with his son Harry who owns a couple of epic-sized Mexican eateries luridly-named Pink Taco and also trades expensive Los Angeles area properties at a whiplash pace—sold a dour and musty-looking Tudor-style pile in Beverly Hills for $22,950,000 to superstar actress Sandra Bullock. He bought the hilltop spread in September of 2006 for $18,500,000 and was said to have big plans to do it up big but, as far as we know, never moved in.

Since early 1996, Mister Morton's in-town residence has been a rather spacious and spectacular, gated estate in the north-of-Sunset heart of Holmby Hills bought from entertainment industry exec Robert A. Daly for $9,250,000, according to property records. The 1.3+ acre estate has a main house originally erected in the mid-1930s that measures, as per tax records, 13,423 square feet with 8 bedroom, 8 bathrooms, and 5 fireplaces. He scooped up the next door neighboring property (for unknown reasons) in August 2010 for $3,750,000.

More recently, in February 2012, he sold an ocean front house on Malibu's star-lined La Costa Beach for an unknown amount of money to a couple from Phoenix. Lest anyone worry Mister Morton might be without a beach house this coming summer should know that in addition to at least one other ocean front residence in Malibu (near Big Rock), records show he continues to own a downright incredible, very contemporary, custom-built Richard Meier-designed compound situated on a double (or maybe triple-) wide lot on Malibu's billionaire-strewn Carbon Beach.

As it turns out, a 1930s, Paul Williams-esque residence in the quietly swank Little Holmby 'hood (near Westwood) owned by Mister Morton—and long occupied, according to Our Fairy Godmother in the Holmby Hills, by his ex-wife Tarlton—is up for sale with an asking price of $4,495,000, recently lowered from $4,795,000. Property records we perused show Mister Morton bought the property (shown above in listing photos) from Hollywood scion and Vanity Fair contributing editor Wendy Stark Morrissey in January 1998 for an undisclosed amount of dough. The purchase appears to have been part of their (famously acrimonious) divorce.

Much to our surprise Your Mama uncovered and discovered evidence during our rudimentary and unscientific pore though digital property records that in mid-March of this year (2012) Mister Morton shelled out $4,100,000 for a dated but dynamic and potentially spectacular mid-century modern in the trendy Trousdale Estates neighborhood.

Of course we don't know a pin prick from a bullet hole but it seems to Your Mama that Mister Morton thought he saw an opportunity to make some easy money, or maybe he just caught an almost-immediate case of The Real Estate Fickle. Thirteen days after the property transfer documentation and deed was recorded the property (shown above in listing photos) popped back up on the open market with an asking price of $4,395,000. As of yesterday, the property was in escrow.

Current listing information shows the swinging-sixties single story pad has 4,110 square feet with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, vaulted ceilings, vast walls of glass, over-the-rooftops city and sky view, dark bottom free-form swimming pool and really porn-y spa set upset into an raised deck over the hillside to take best advantage of the city views.

Will Mister Morton decide to flip the Bel Air spread he (allegedly) just acquired? Could be. Would anyone be surprised? No. Such are the mysterious and sometimes wacky real estate ways of the rich and/or famous, right?

listing photos (Little Holmby): Westside Estate Agency
listing photos (Trousdale Estates): Coldwell Banker / Beverly Hills North

Restaurateur Keith McNally Rents Out Village Townhouse

OWNER: Keith McNally
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $25,000 per month
SIZE: (approximately( 3,600 square feet, 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms (plus separate studio apartment)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: For reasons and purposes beyond our purview, celebrities and other high profile people seem to be in the mood to lease out their luxury homes on both the west and east coasts. Did you know Martin Lawrence wants two hundred grand a month for his Beverly Hills Pile? What about former 007 stud Pierce Brosnan? He and the missus Keely Shaye want a cool quarter million a month for their Malibu beach house, but just for the months of July and August.

The ever-industrious kids at Curbed revealed yesterday (via The Standard hotel blog) that literary Brat Packer Bret Easton Ellis wants five grand a month for his 950-square foot open-plan studio apartment at the American Felt Building in New York City's fully strollerfied East Village 'hood. The apartment claims amenities much desired by urbanites like 14-foot ceilings, a private washer/dryer set up, and a 400 square foot private terrace for dog running and summertime shindigs. This is the same building, incidentally and for anyone who might care, where Tom and Katie Cruise are rumored and reported to maintain a shy handful of apartments.

There was even some scuttlebutt this week about actress Claire Danes (and hubby Hugh Dancy) finding a renter for their sizable SoHo loft they recently had on the market for nearly six million clams and today comes celebrity real estate word, via our unofficial aide de camp Hot Chocolate, that British-born, New York City restaurateur Keith McNally has hoisted his unsurprisingly boîte-like, 19th century townhouse in New York's Greenwich Village on the rental market with a monthy asking price of $25,000.

Boob-toob watchers, gossip glossy readers and the majority of people in the world not familiar or concerned with the most haute of the au courant eating and drinking establishments frequented by New York City's downtown demimonde probably don't know who Mister McNally is and we're sure we'll get some gripes about how we should talk about actual famous people. Fair enough. However, in our defense, in his boozy, gastronomic milieu of foodies and famous folks plus a diverse array of globe trotting scenesters, taste makers and uptown slummers, Keith Mcnally is a gaw-damn rock star.

Mister McNally—not to be confused with his also very successful, Saigon-based restaurateur brother Brian—is usually described as unassuming, low key and limelight eschewing. His bustling eateries, on the other hand, may be low key and unassuming by design like their creator, but they are typically and stratospherically high-profile long before they're even open for business. Certainly he's had greater and lesser triumphs and even a few failures but even cassoulet haters and demimonde despisers must give credit where credit is due: The man clearly understands how to create restaurants and night spots instantly and frequently jammed with expensively dressed spendy types who like to be seen on the Big Apple scene.

In 1980 Mister McNally (with his brother and another lady) opened the impossibly chic Odeon restaurant and bar, a still-hopping (if long past its dernier cri) Parisian-style diner improbably located on what was in the early 1980s still a pretty bleak stretch of West Broadway, way below Canal Street in TriBeCa. Believe it or not pretty ponies, back then TriBeCa was not a neighborhood uptown (or downtown) people with money, class and town cars had even heard of let along been to for dinner. Nowadays of course, TriBeCa is one of the most expensive zip codes in Manhattan where warehouses and loft buildings are now inhabited by a lot celebrities, Wall Streeters and foreign-born nannies. Mister McNally is, for better or worse, at least partially responsible for the radical gentrification of the area. Indeed, the Old Grey Lady herself once called him "The Restaurateur Who Invented Downtown."

After The Odeon, where anyone who was anybody or wanted to be somebody among the New York City glitterati gathered like lemurs to gnash their gleaming teeth on steak frites and niçoise salad, Mister McNally (and various partners) went on to open a string of mostly downtown boîtes, brasseries and bistros that instantly became (and often remained) wildly popular with anyone who was anybody or wanted to be somebody among the New York City glitterati.

Mister McNally's Manhattan eatery empire currently includes (but ain't limited to) Lucky Strike in the East Village where, back in the Dark Ages, Your Mama used to occasionally booze it up with a gaggle of lesbian ladies, some of whom went on to film making fame and fortune; Café Luxembourg on the Upper West Side. Anybody else remember the adverts for Café Lux in Interview with the trio of butt-nekkid Rubenesque ladies bellied up to the bar?; Nell's, the original, beyond fabulous, velvet rope one on West 14th Street; the glammed-up, Soviet-style bar Pravda on Lafayette Street on the edge of SoHo; and the almost mawkishly Francophilic (and wildly successful) brasserie Balthazar in the commercial heart of SoHo.

There's also Schiller's Liquor Bar on the Lower East Side, a haven for hipster who haven't fled Manhattan for Brooklyn; the louche and intimate speakasy-ish redux of Minetta Tavern in Greenwich Village; and the kinda pricey, pizza-centric Pulino's on The Bowery. There's more but we'll spare you.

Property records show Mister McNally and his second Missus Alina picked up their brick and brownstone townhouse in Greenwich Village in October 2002 for $2,496,000. At that time, according to online documentation we dug up, the four floor (plus basement) townhouse, originally built in 1842 for a man named Peter McLaughlin according to The Greenwich Village Historic District Report, was divided into four separate apartments of about 700 or, maybe, 800 square feet apiece.

Current listing information (and the floor plan included with it) shows the townhouse has since been reconfigured with just two units: a characteristically cramped garden level studio with 1 bathroom and direct backyard access and a 3-plus floor owner's unit with a total of 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. A wine cellar and the building's laundry facilities (as well as various other mechanical equipment and storage space) are down in the full basement.

The townhouse, a modified Greek Revival on the outside all done up like a peasant-y yet sophisticated French country farmhouse on the inside, seems to have changed little since Mister and Missus McNally had their house photographed for New York magazine in the fall of 2002. The day-core then as now presents about as one might expect from a British-born, Francophilic restaurateur in New York City: The floors are wood and worn but well preserved; paintings are hung salon style of walls that look (faux) stained with tobacco; there's an gleaming upright piano near the dining area for after-dinner sing-a-longs; the upholstered pieces are (mostly) slip covered for convenience and the various cabinets and tables are (mostly) painted and/or distressed to look salvaged and probably bought, as suggested in the New York magazine article, at flea markets in Paris or Montpelier on on 26th Street. Oh dear. Remember the old flea markets on 26th and 6th? Memories...but we digress.

The parlor level front door no longer open into a vestibule or proper foyer like they probably originally did but directly in to an expansive, positively loft-like living/dining/kitchen space that extends from the front of the house clear through to the back where it opens to a small private deck with stair access to the garden. The various sitting, dining and food preparing areas are well defined but stitched together with continuous, antique-looking wide plank wood floors, rugged wood ceiling beams and columns—not original to the house as per New York magazine—and two antique brick fireplaces, the one in the kitchen downright huge and the one in the living area fronted by a carved wood mantelpiece.

The colossal kitchen space is an almost Disneyland-like fantasia with a gigantic industrial stove; subway tiled back splashes that reach all the way to the ceiling; an over-sized, vintage porcelain farmhouse sink; open shelving for easy spice access and an old-school plate drying/storage rack; a Cadillac-sized sky light that floods the room with light; and—we know y'all see it too—a beat up island work table over which dangles an iron pot rack dripping with a potentially dangerous array of hair-pulling and noggin-knocking pots and pans.

The tea-stained buttercup yellow-colored walls continue up from the main living space on the parlor floor to the the spacious master suite that sweeps across the entire third floor with a good-sized bedroom with (apparently functional) fireplace; a private office or dressing room; and closet-lined dressing hall. The worn and restored wide-plank wood floors—they may or may not be original to the house, we don't know—continue from the bedroom through the dressing hall and in to an adjoining, bedroom-sized bathroom outfitted with a linen and toiletry storage closet; (possibly decorative) antique brick fireplace; over-sized shower stall with huge window; and a soaking tub that juts out at a 45-degree angle from the corner of the room next to a painted wicker settee.

Two additional guest/family bedrooms on the top floor each have a private (windowless) pooper and there's an additional, separate windowed room suitable for use as an office, Pilates studio, too-cozy poker parlor, model making room and/or etc. The fourth bedroom is privately but somewhat inconveniently situated just off the public hall on the garden level. This is a great set up for a live-in domestic like Your Mama's privacy requiring house gurl Svetlana but not so great for house guests like our usually drunk and lascivious b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau who would no doubt install a revolving door on the private street entrance to better facilitate the constant flow of "friends" and paramours that shows up wherever she goes.

Current listing information indicates Mister McNally would be willing to lease the townhouse without the garden apartment for a slightly lower $23,000 per month and old listing information reveals this isn't the first time they've recently put the townhouse up for rent. The price, either one, is a hell of a lot less than Martin Lawrence wants for his big ol' beast of a mansion in Beverly Hills but, still, you basically have to want or agree to live in a residential version of one of Mister McNally's restaurants. That said, given how popular his eateries are we imagine he'll have little trouble finding a tenant. We shall see.

A quick perusal of property records also shows Mister McNally (and his Missus) also maintain a 4.3 acre, fairly well secluded or at least sequestered spread with a 6 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom house on Martha's Vineyard they acquired way back in 1993 for $485,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Martin Lawrence To Let Bev Hills Mansion

OWNER: Martin Lawrence
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $200,000 per month
SIZE: 16,178 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama was in the throes of getting this big of celebrity real estate bizness together when it was revealed to us that the sassy, long-legged blond at Trulia already did a little ditty about it. We press forward even still...

There seems to be a celebrity property trend afoot. First former 007 star Pierce Brosnan put his Bali-Thai-inspired ocean front mansion in Malibu up for lease at $250,000 per month (July and August only) and today comedian Martin Lawrence put his beast of a mansion in the guard-gated and architecturally steroidal Beverly Park community in Beverly Hills, CA out for lease at a substantially lower but still sky high $200,000 per month.

Listing information shows Mister Martin's X-shaped mansion sits on 2.2 gated and manicured acres, measures 16,178—on the wee side compared to many of the other monstrous manses in Beverly Park— and includes a total of 7 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms. Listing information goes on to parse the bedroom count into 4 family/guest suites; a master suite with private office and his and her bathrooms; and two additional downstairs bedrooms suitable for live in domestic staff (or less favored family members).

In addition to all the usual rooms a (mc)mansion usually has—including a marble-floored foyer with floating curved staircase, double height ceiling fitted a series of Salvatore Polizzi-designed stained glass sky lights—some of the extra special amenities at Mister Lawrence's contemporized faux-French pile include, according to current listing information, a game room, wine room, state-of-the-art movie theater with concession stand, and  "1,000 sq ft gym or guest suite."

A few of the exterior features $200,000 a month buys include (but are not limited to) a cobblestone motor court in front of the house plus second and also huge side motor court with garage access; sunken and lighted tennis court; swimming pool and elevated spa; octagonal pool house; outdoor kitchen; and meandering lawns lined with thickets of mature landscaping.

We'll prolly take a few swipes for saying this, but it's all so positively Floridian and self-consciously desperate to be elegant that we can't bear to stare at it for more than a minute or two at a time. And that pink and gold lady's bathroom in the master bedroom? Jeezis, Mary and Jehosephat, that is a posh pooper few besides Jayne Mansfield, Paris Hilton, Alex Madonna or a sun-damaged, senior citizen version of Barbie could love. Seriously.

Then again, what do we know? Mister Lawrence will most assuredly laugh his way all the to the bank when the pink-adoring and gilt-loving wife (or mistress) of some filty rich potentate, pasha or super-tycoon with a customized 747 goes ape-shit crazy for that bathroom and agrees to cough up a couple hundred grand a month for the privilege of stepping out of an over-sized soaking tub set in a pink marble platform on to plush expanse of toe-wiggling, wall-to-wall rose-colored carpeting. Believe it or not, puppies, that is the very picture of über-luxury for some people. Not Your Mama but, of course, we're not shopping for a $200,000 a month rental mansion either.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

Carolyn Murphy On The Move...Again: Part 2

Earlier today Your Mama discussed a tastefully put together, boho-sheek Spanish-style house in Los Angeles, CA listed for $2,995,000 and owned by still-posing supermodel Carolyn Murphy who, we repeatedly noted, suffers from a classic and ongoing case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle.

Our rudimentary research shows that in addition to the L.A. property she's currently got up for sale, over the last six (or so) years Miz Murphy has owned (at least) four other homes including a two-story contemporary squeezed on to a tight lot in Venice (CA) and a spectacular, swimming pool-free Spanish style in the comparatively staid flats of Brentwood in Los Angeles (CA).

Just before moving to her current crib—the one in Brentwood now up for grabs—Miz Murphy very briefly owned and occupied a 19th century, Greek Revival-style red-brick townhouse on a leafy street just a couple blocks from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (a.k.a the BQE) in New York City's (mostly) dignified and historic Brooklyn Heights 'hood.

Property records reveal she bought the four-floor, two-unit townhouse in August 2010 for $3,600,000 but quickly succumbed to her incurable case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and sold the property just about nine months later, in June 2011, for $3,920,000.

A quick study of the floor plan included with listing information from the time of the sale, which Your Mama managed to haul up out of the murky deep of the interweb, shows the floor-through garden level apartment has 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom and a couple of (possibly decorative) fireplaces. Depending on what gets counted and/or used as a bedroom, the triplex owner's unit has 4-6 bedrooms and two fairly small but thankfully windowed bathrooms, both somewhat inconveniently located off the stair landings.

Tall pocket doors divide the parlor floor living room, with original floor-to-ceiling windows, a decorative fireplace, and (unpainted) wood floors, from the dining room, with almost identical fireplace and painted wood floors. The kitchen, wedged tightly into a tall and model-thin space behind the dining room, has—or at least had at the time Miz Murphy sold it—Euro-style appliances, open shelving, extra-big farmhouse sink, through-the-wall a/c unit, and a room-wide row of large, six-over-six windows that overlook the back garden. The kitchen looks like it was bought from IKEA but we have no knowledge whatsoever whether it actually was or was not.

Anyhoo, the second and third floors each have two good-sized bedrooms and one squeezer-of-a-bedroom that—in Your Mama's humble and utterly meaningless opinion—might both better be utilized as a home office, dressing room, toy storage closet, meditation lounge, play space and/or what-have-you.

Miz Murphy and her current crib—the one in Brentwood now on the market—were featured in all their tawny and glossy-rustic glory in the March 2012 issue of Vogue. She told the fashion-obsessed peeps at Vogue—we have a copy of it thoughtfully provided by an aide de camp we'll call Rhonda Rainyday—that she left Brooklyn and hightailed it back to Cali because '"having the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway outside my door was too much for me."'

Before briefly alighting in Brooklyn Miz Murphy (and child) spent a few years in a rather dynamite 1907 Craftsman bungalow on a bucolic 3-ish acre estate in Ojai, CA she bought in December 2007 from Wrigley gum heir Paxson "Packy" Offield for $3,500,500.

Our online research turned up an archived listing for the gated estate in Ojai that shows the updated and upgraded bungalow measures around 3,400 square feet and contains 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. A separate guest house offers additional living and slumbering space plus a private pooper.

The large living room has a lots of multi-pane windows, a wood-beamed ceiling and imposing (but still cozy) river rock fireplace. The country kitchen has a yummy walk-in pantry, commercial-style appliances, open shelving for the dishes, butcher block counter tops and an adjoining dining area with river rock walls.

Upstairs the living room-sized master bedroom has a high wood ceiling, hardwood floors, a second imposing (but still cozy) river rock fireplace and an attached, two-chamber bathroom with twin pedestal sinks and a claw footed tub.

We're not sure who is responsible for the day-core of her Ojai house but it all leaned and veered heavily towards a more East Coast Americana than French Provençal. Then again, we don't know a decorative donkey from a goat, so...

Although she did not sell her Ojai estate until September 2010 Miz Murphy was, as usual, bitten by the bug of her incurable case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle way back in May 2008, just five months after signing on the deed's dotted line. Between May 2008 and September 2010, according to the fine folks at Redfin, Miz Murphy de- and re-listed the property a number of times at a variety of prices until, according to property records, it finally got snatched up, at a quarter million dollar-plus loss to her, for $3,250,000.

So, she went from Venice to Brentwood to Ojai to Brooklyn, back to Brentwood and now where? Where, oh where shall Miz Murphy next set down some (if history tells us anything, probably temporary) real estate roots? Ironically—or annoyingly, depending on your point of view—Miz Murphy also told the Vogue people (in the March 2012 issue), '"I don't see us staying in Los Angeles...I Don't think it feeds you in the way the East Coast does."' First of all, hunny, pleeze. Secondly, we suggest you beware the chanting hordes of Buddha statue owning Tinseltown New Agers who migrated from the East Coast to rub magic crystals all over their co-dependant inner children while the sun set over the fiery Pacific Ocean. Trust Your Mama when we tell you those people can get ugly when dissed and (probably unintentionally) dissed they were. And, thirdly, does all this soul feeding nonsense mean the model's packing up and moving cross-country, again? Could be. Or not. Who knows?

Heaven's to Betsy, children, this bracingly beautiful beehawtcha moves house so frequently she probably has to keep a moving company on retainer so they're ready the very moment her feet get itchy. But that's really calling the kettle black since Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter have had two apartments, three houses and three offices in the last 10 years. Good grief. When we're not packing or unpacking, we're making plans for our next pack and unpack. But that's another story for another day in another place with an bottomless mid-morning cocktail in hand.

listing photos and floor plan (Brooklyn): Brown Harris Stevens via StreetEasy
listing photos (Ojai): Village Properties via Redfin

Model Carolyn Murphy On The Move....Again: Part 1

SELLER: Carolyn Murphy
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Brentwood)
PRICE: $2,995,000
SIZE: 2,361 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama regrets to inform the children that still fresh-faced and drop-dead gorgeous 38-year old supermodel Carolyn Murphy has long been stricken with a (seemingly) incurable case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle. That's right, puppies, this American-born globetrotter and her impossibly high cheekbones and flawless, perpetually bronzed skin flips pricey properties like a good Morman or an old-school Catholic makes babies, one after another in rapid succession.

In late-November 2006 the still-strutting her stuff 5-foot-9-inch blond single mother of one—is there a catwalk or a cover she hasn't worked it on?—sold an almost brand-new, two-story contemporary in the hip and trendy but still rough around the edges beach community of Venice CA for $2,375,000. That was, as per property records we peeped, twenty thousand clams less than she paid for the place just 9 short months earlier.

Since she sold up in Venice, the long-time and current face of Estee Lauder has owned at least four other multi-million dollar residences including her current crib, a compassionately remodeled and picture perfect Spanish-style casa in Los Angeles's upscale Brentwood area that she bought in September 2011 for $2,625,000 and—thanks to Rhonda Rainyday we recently learned—put on the market last week with a $2,995,000 price tag.

A few quick and unscientific clicks and clacks of the hard-working beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals the opening asking price amounts to a $41,111.11 monthly increase in value over the 9 short months (to date) she's owned the property.

The Los Angeles County Tax Man puts the two-story domicile at a decidedly modest-by-celeb standards 2,361 square feet, a number that may (or may not) reflect the current and actual size of the house given that current listing information shows the structure was originally built in 1927 and has 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms in an undisclosed amount of square footage.

Soon after she purchased the property Miz Murphy, according to a gushy, photo-thick article in the March 2012 issue of Vogue, hired skilled L.A.-based lady decorator Schuyler Samperton to do it all up in what Your Mama might (probably inaccurately and definitely awkwardly) describe as a sophisticated but quite cozy, modern-classic manner that merges and marries a plum example of quintessential SoCal Spanish-style architecture with a casually chic and pared down French country meets East Coast Americana type of day-core. (Yes? No?)

The step down living room has (antique looking) variable-width oak floors, wood-beams on the ceiling, and at least two arched niches for books, photos, mementos and hoozymagoozys. Windows on three sides include two sets of French doors that open directly to the front garden. Miz Murphy and Miz Samperton the lady decorator kept things bright and airy in the living room with matte but none-the-less lustrous white plaster walls. They furnished the space simply and somewhat symmetrically with a masculine pair of burnt caramel-colored leather wing back chairs that square off over a low-profile wood and iron coffee table with a curvy, more feminine slip-covered sofa all set conversationally on a textural sisal rug in front of a protruding white-stucco fireplace on which are mounted with a quartet of small-antlered animal skulls.

The (antique-looking) oak floors in the living room continue into the dining room furnished with a lot of rustic, (antique-looking) distressed wood pieces, simple cloth panels over the windows, a upside-down bowl-shaped woven wicker pendant light and a bunch of linen slip-covered chairs.

The floors switch from oak to antique terra cotta in the eat-in, galley-style kitchen equipped with both butcher block and baker-friendly marble counter tops; a high-grade, stainless steel commercial-style range and hood and an adjoining laundry nook with poured concrete slop sink and poured concrete folding counter where simple, biscuit-colored cotton canvas curtains hide the no-doubt top end but still unsightly washer and dryer machines.

Between the living and dining rooms just off the front entrance, there's a small den/family room where, according to the Vogue article, Miz Murphy (and child) do not watch television.

The upstairs master suite has more oak wood floors, a window-wrapped nook and an over-sized, stone-floored bathroom with claw-footed soaking tube, separate glass and marble shower enclosure, double sinks set into an antique-looking breakfront and French doors that connect the airy and pale pooper to a private terrace.

The all-but perfect Pamela Burton-designed gardens look and feel more like they might surround a sun bleached farmhouse on the Côte d'Azur than a white-stucco Spanish in Brentwood. A river rock wall defines the long, crushed granite driveway that runs up the side of the property, olive (or olive-like) trees, crushed granite driveway and terraces for dining and lounging, a spa set into a geometric grid of lavender bushes, and a simple, rectangular plunge-sized swimming pool.

Although in between she owned photo-friendly properties in both Ojai (CA) and Brooklyn (NY), this isn't the first time Miz Murphy has owned a beautifully (re)done Spanish-style residence in Brentwood. In fact, about 4.5 years ago she sold—and we discussed—a similarly-decorated but larger Spanish-style residence on the very same street in the flats of Brentwood for $3,600,000 to a tech exec and his wife who appears to have once been in the television business.

Anyhoo, as we've already many times said already, Miz Murphy has long been in the expensive grip of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and before moving to the beautiful house in Brentwood she's now trying to sell Miz Murphy lived briefly in Brooklyn, NY and for a few years before that in pretty-damn-fab, early 20th century bungalow on a well-located multi-acre estate in low-key but still swanky Ojai, CA. Interested parties can stay tuned (or check back) for more details and discussion of those real estate cast offs as well as some speculation on where she might be moving her slender, peripatetic boo-tox next.

listing photos: Prudential California Realty

Babyface Edmonds 'Anxious' to Thin Portfolio

SELLER: Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds
LOCATION: Incline Village, NV
PRICE: $2,950,000
SIZE: 7,344 square feet, 7 bedroooms, 6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama would bet the damn farm we're going to get a few bitter moans and groans from the architecturally and decoratively sensitive over the relative (un)worthiness of this particular celebrity-owned property but onward we press in the face of the expected exasperated hisses.

The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial recently tattled to Your Mama that impressively prolific, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/producer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds is eager to unload a huge and ho-hum house on a wooded hillside above Lake Tahoe in Incline Village, NV. A few minutes additional research on the internets revealed the asking price for Mister Babyface's indisputably luxurious and nicely sited but woefully generic-looking Incline Village manse was recently dropped to $2,950,000.

Mister Babyface doesn't cut the same wide swathe of celebrity that he used to but back in the day, children, he was a music industry tour de force who wrote and/or produced more than two dozen #1 hit songs. He was given three consecutive Grammys for Producer of the Year (1995-1997). In the 1980s, 1990s and into the 2000s he earned fame, fortune and respect writing and/or producing radio-friendly ditties for a glittery list of music industry heavy hitters who include (but are not limited to) Bobby Brown, Pebbles, Paula Abdul, Sheena Easton Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Brandy, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, Céline Dion and Pink.

In 1989 he and music industry muckety-muck L.A. Reid formed LaFace Records (now part of Sony Music Entertainment) whose roster of clients included Toni Braxton, TLC, Cee-Lo Green, OutKast and Usher, to name a few. In the mid-1990s he and now ex-wife Tracey Edmonds started a film and television production operation with credits that include Soul Food, Josie and the Pussycats, and College Hill.


His multi-pronged Showbiz efforts, needless to say, had Mister Babyface rolling in clover and living high on the real estate hog. In the mid-80s he dropped—according to property records—$3,375,000 on a massive manse in the hoity-toity Holmby Hills 'hood. The mansion was the last home of Jack Benny and is located across the street from The Playboy Mansion. He sold the superstar-style estate in May 2004 for a spine-straightening $21,500,000 to now bitterly divorced former L.A. Dodger's owners Frank and Jamie McCourt. As far as we know, based on press reports of their ugly (and public) split, lap-swimming ex-missus McCourt retains ownership of the 2.58 acre spread that now has an outdoor swimming pool and an even bigger, Olympic length indoor one.

Anyways...In March 1995 Mister Babyface and then-wife Tracey splashed out $1,900,000 to acquire the sizable Incline Village residence in question, now listed at $2,950,000.

Current listing information shows the two story house—let's call it a muted, Rocky Mountain Chalet-style affair since we can't conjure any other apt architectural genre—was built in 1992, spans 7,344 square feet and includes a total of 7 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces and a 3-car attached garage. Listing details are somewhat slim but do indicate the rather banal-looking and barely decorated brown and beige interiors are finished with top-grade materials including lots of cherry wood, marble, granite, mahogany and travertine.

The double height foyer with curving staircase and black crystal chandelier gives way to a large living room with vaulted ceiling and marble-faced fireplace flanked by over-sized windows that offer a sparkling, through-the-tree-tops view of Lake Tahoe. A built-in, pass-through wet bar (with dishwasher) separates the living room from the spacious dining room defined by gleaming (possibly mahogany) wood floors that continue in to the colossal eat-in kitchen outfitted with center work island and all the expected materials...granite, cherry, blah, blah, blah. A small, adjoining family room has a corner fireplace, (partially) paneled walls, a built-in entertainment center and a couple of painfully puny windows set uncomfortably high.

The master suite has a third fireplace, wall-to-wall carpeting, a private balcony with lake views, and an attached bathroom/dressing area equipped with double vanity and super-sized jetted tub surrounded by—you got it—swirly beige-on tan marble. A separate room somewhere in the house—we're not sure where—houses a tan-colored Jacuzzi tub also surrounded by swirly beige-on tan marble.

The downstairs living room open through a pair of French doors to a small deck and a wrap-around balcony on the second floor hangs partly over a shrubbery-enshrouded dining and entertainment terrace that extends off the back of the house. Rolling lawns, landscaped planting beds and stately trees surround the residence.

No doubt much to his chagrin and frustration and Mister Babyface, his scenically situated mansion has been for sale since March 2010 when it was first hoisted on the (open) market with an in-hindsight optimistic $3,500,000 asking price. Current listing information indicates Mister Babyface is open to a rental situation or lease with option to buy type of thing. The listing goes on to state the "Owner anxious" to sell and that (bargain hunting) interested parties should "submit all offers." Make of that, children, what y'all will. We're keeping our nose outta that fire.

A quick perusal of property records indicates that in addition to his Incline Village albatross Mister Babyface also owns a number of other houses and mansions in California and Nevada including a 7,508 square foot (mc)mansion in L.A.'s guard-gated Bel Air Crest neighborhood picked up in May 2004 for $4,100,000, a 3,614 square foot mock-Med tract house in a gated development in Rancho Cucamonga, CA bought in February 2008 for $780,000, and a non-descript tract house in Las Vegas, NV acquired way back in June 1996 for $255,000.

In April 2004, just before he and then-missus Tracey announced their split, Mister Babyface shelled out $5,150,000 for an 8,245 square foot (mc)mansion in the star-stocked guard-gated Mulholland Estates community. The hulking house—just down the street from Paris Hilton's pad and Charlie Sheen's lair—is now owned by his Stanford educated entertainment industry executive ex-wife Tracey Edmonds who—in case anyone might be curious—fake-married comedian Eddie Murphy on Bora Bora in 2008 and now runs around with not-quite-divorced former professional footballer Deion Sanders. Does the lady know how to pick 'em or does the lady know how to pick 'em?

Anyhoo...

listing photos: Coldwell Banker Select Real Estate

In Other Malibu Celebrity Property News...

...Long-time Malibu, CA residents and vocal environmentalists Pierce Brosnan and Keely Shaye have (somewhat surprisingly) put their recently-completed ocean-front compound on Malibu's (quickly disappearing) Broad Beach up for lease at $250,000 per month for July and August (2012). They will be away, it seems, while the Irish 007 star makes his next picture.

Mister Brosnan and Miz Shaye purchased the extra-wide property way back in 2000. Rather than remodel they knocked down the existing residence to make way for a massive, U-shaped mansion—done up in a Thai-Bali-inspired-style and dubbed Orchid House—that commands a 120-foot wide ocean front lot, spans around 13,000 square feet and includes a total of 4 bedrooms and a dozen full bathrooms. No puppies, Your Mama did not make a silly, boozy mistake. Marketing materials do indeed show Orchid House contains twelve, presumably low-flow terlits, a bloated number sufficiently high enough to require the Brosnan-Shaye family employ a part-time, minimum-wage gal whose sole responsibility is to clean crappers with a myriad of chemical-free cleaning products.

Besides all the expected public and less-public rooms that connect through walls of glass to scads of courtyards, terraces and decks, Orchid House's extra-added interior amenities include a chef-style kitchen, library, art studio, music room, private screening room with bar, full-sized fitness facility and an indoor Japanese spa with soaking tub, infrared or traditional sauna, steam room and cold plunge.

Outdoor amenities include a gated driveway and motor court capable of parking 10 cars; a wind-protected entry courtyard around which the house wraps; expansive, multi-level stone terraces and decks that extend off the side and back of the mansion; an algae-green but not-doubt meticulously maintained saltwater swimming pool and spa with nearby cabana; lush, tropical landscaping; raised sunbathing deck; and an ocean-side dining terrace with full-height glass wind shield.

Avid celebrity property watchers will recall that back in June 2010 Mister B. and Miz S. put their previous and much-more-modestly-scaled Malibu home on the market with an in-hind-sight-optimistic asking price of $3,900,000. The gated Mediterranean, which backs up to and borders busy and often traffic-chocked Pacific Coast Highway finally sold in December 2011 for $2,600,000.

If a quarter million a month for the Brosnan-Shaye's Orchid House comes in a bit too steep for your pinched pocketbook, all-but-retired sitcom star Paul Reiser's ocean front getaway in Malibu Colony is also up for lease with a much lower but—let's be honest—still sky-high price tag of $95,000 per month. But, of course, it only has 3.5 bathrooms.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Malibu West