Judge Judy Buys in Beverly Hills

BUYER: Judy and Jerry Sheindlin
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $10,700,000
SIZE: 4,680 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In case any of the children somehow didn't already know, daytime television judge Judy Sheindlin is rich. To be more exact, she's filthy stinking rich. In 2011 it was revealed the famously vituperative television bench warmer works only about 5 days per month and, for her scant effort, rakes in about $45 million per year.

A few quick tabulations on the well-worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that works out to a toe curling $123,287 and 67 damn cents per day...everyday. Although most online reports state she hoovers up a staggering $865,000 for each day she's on set, Your Mama calculates Judge Judy hauls in a much lower $750,000 for every day she spends in her faux-courtroom and barks her small claims court legalese to a pearl clutching parade of humanity who sue each other willy-nilly over things like bill money, fender benders and broken damn chop sticks. Let's be honest, though Either figure is plenty high enough to to make minimum wage workers and average multi-millionaires alike feel just a little bit suicidal, right? As our frequent informant Yolanda Yakketyyak more succinctly put it, "Judge Judge could buy and sell my life with the change she loses in the cushions of her private jet."

And, yes, butter beans, the fast-talking and exceedingly well compensated legal referee and her much less blustery second (and third) husband Jerry Sheindlin, who briefly presided over People's Court in the late 1990s and early 2000s, do indeed own a private jet. So the stories go, the East Coast-based judge climbs aboard her jet a couple times a month and wings her way to Los Angeles where her wildly popular courtroom reality t.v. freak show tapes at the Sunset Bronson Studios in the still somewhat gritty heart of Hollywood.

Your Mama doesn't know where Judge Judy shacked up the last number of years when she was in Tinseltown for her courtroom tapings. We like to imagine it was a hideously expensive multi-room suite at one of the pricier hotels around town. What we do know, however, thanks to a little birdie we'll call Kent Konfidential, is that Judge Judy can now hole up in her very own pied-a-terre at the new and swankily swish Montage Beverly Hills hotel and condo complex where property records confirm she's shelled $10,700,000 for a 4,680 square foot spread with five bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, four exposures, seven small balconies and four dedicated parking spots in the underground garage.

Avid celebrity real estate watchers may recall that there have been rampant and thus far unconfirmed rumors and reports—probably started by yours truly—that another high earning and large livin' Showbiz superstar, Oprah Winfrey, (allegedly) shelled out around $14,000,000 for one of the twenty spacious spreads at Montage Beverly Hills. Imagine those two running into each other in the elevator or in the dressing room of the hotel's spa.

While the actual layout may differ, the floor plan included with online marketing materials for the small number of lavish private apartments at Montage Beverly Hills shows Judge Judy's new upper floor West Coast bedsit is entered through a long, L-shaped foyer and gallery off of which open a puny coat closet, a powder pooper, a tiny library and a giant, temperature controlled walk-in wine cellar. If one walks long enough they'll finally arrive at a 42-plus foot long living room with fireplace that gives out to a narrow balcony with low-rise but still panoramic city, mountain and sky views.

The adjoining formal dining room also opens to a balcony—albeit an even more narrow one with a southerly vista—and connects through to a commodious kitchen well-equipped with a center work island/snack bar, a walk in pantry and all the usual bells and whistles to be expected in a five-star condo-hotel residence that costs nearly 11 million bucks.

One set of double doors in the living room opens to a bedroom/den with skinny south-side balcony and a second set of double doors lead to the bedroom wing where two bedrooms on opposite sides of a wide corridor share a sizable hall bathroom. There's also a convenient utility/laundry room off the bedroom corridor.

The master suite occupies a prime position at tail end of the hall and includes a pair of roomy walk-in closets and a spacious bedroom with direct access to private balcony with sweeping views over Beverly Hills and beyond. The attached master bathroom has a couple of sinks separated by a make-up vanity, separate tub and stall shower and his and her crapper cubbies, hers with a bidet and his without because, apparently, men don't care to wash their bums with a bidet.

A comfortably sized guest suite—or an unusually luxurious staff suite—is smartly and privately tucked into a quiet corner behind the kitchen and offers over-nighting occupants a minuscule balcony, a large walk in closet and a private bathroom that's bigger and better outfitted than most peoples' master bathrooms.

Montage Beverly Hills offers residents an army of discreet and pampering staff including attentive and well connected concierges, super deluxe amenities (i.e. spa and fitness facilities and a roof-top swimming pool), five-star hotel services (i.e. room service, laundry, and housekeeping), and exceedingly tight security circumstances. Although residents have a private, residents' only lobby and access to at-home dining services, they're certainly free to hang out in the hotel's lobby lounge and dine at the hotel's on-site restaurant Scarpetta.

It seems that Judges Judy and Jerry have been in the mood to shake up their real estate portfolio. Last week the legal eagles sold their deluxe (if decoratively quite staid) corner apartment on the 11th floor of the uncommonly posh and storied Sherry Netherland on Fifth Avenue in New York City to an unknown buyer for an as yet unrevealed amount. Your Mama (dissed and) discussed the two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom park view pied-a-terre that also includes a cell-sized staff room/office and bathroom on the 10th floor after it popped up on the open market in early 2013 with a $9,000,000 price tag.

In addition to a Gulf-front penthouse pad in Naples, FL, they picked up in 2005 for $6.9 million, the low-key but lavish living couple's residential property portfolio also includes—but may not be limited to their primary residence, a forbidding stone mansion on 12.54 manicured acres in hoity-toity Greenwich, CT. Property records show they bought the bucolic estate in September 2007 for $13,200,000 and various online reports reveal they proceeded to demolish the existing 11,623 square foot mansion and replace it with an approximately 20,000 square foot manor house.

Aerial imagery shows the gated estate has a substantial gate house—presumably for security, a carriage house, a massive motor court, vast lawns, extensive formal gardens, a swimming pool, and a poolside cabana with a deep, trellis-shaded patio. Your Mama didn't turn up too many details about the house itself but but one of the army of fellas and gals hired to do faux-paint finish work throughout the newly constructed house posted a few snaps of the place on his own blog that will give the children some idea of its scale and rather traditional interior appointments.

Just in case you're curious, the Sheindlins' 2012 property taxes in Greenwich, according to public records, ballooned to a mind-bending $230,660. Listing details indicate the fees for her new digs in Bev Hills chalk up to $5,366 per month but it's not clear to Your Mama if that includes the property taxes.

NOTE: Listing photos are representational and may or may not reflect that actual rooms in the mini-mansion-sized condo recently acquired by Miz Judge Judy.

listing photos and floor plan: Montage Residences

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi

Buckle yer celebrity real estate safety belts, butter beans, because famously property fickle Ellen Degeneres and wife Portia de Rossi are at it again. According to gossip juggernaut TMZ the acquired a $26.5 million dollar estate in the exceptionally prosperous California seaside enclave of Montecito.

What TMZ did not reveal is that the high-maintenance estate with its exceptional, stone built 1929 Italianate villa was previously owned by legendary decorator John Saladino. Your Mama discussed the elegant spread back in August 2010 when Mister Saladino first heaved the two pacel property—which he called his "opus"—on the open market with an asking price of $24,500,000.

Property records show Mister Saladino sold the 13-plus acre, two-parcel property in March 2012 at a steep discount off asking for $16,500,000 to American-born and New Zealand-based corporate businessman Tom Sturgess and his wife Heather. The Sturgesses sold the house and its 9.9 acre parcel to a trust connected to Missus Degeneres and de Rossi but—as of this instant—we haven't yet uncovered a recorded sale price.

A second, 3.18 acre lot that Mister Saladino sold to Mister and Missus Sturgess does not appear, according to the property record data bases we accessed, to have been transferred to the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi.*

Listing details from 2010 up show the 13 acre ocean view estate includes a completely updated and upgraded 10,522 square foot main house with six bedrooms, six full and two half bathrooms and nine fireplaces. The mansion oozes with earthy Tuscan character that's juxtaposed against sleek and modern, bathrooms, kitchen and laundry facilities. Numerous loggias and terraces extend the indoors to the out and the extensive, painstakingly groomed grounds include a swimming pool set into a flat lawn with a long view over the tree tops and mansions to the Pacific Ocean.

This is not, as avid celebrity real estate watchers well know, the Missus Degeneres-deRossi's first home in Montecito. In early 2006 they paid $15,750,000 for a downright impeccable George Washington Smith designed estate that—as they're prone to do—they flipped back on the market less than a year later for $24,000,000. They sold the property in November 2007 for $20,000,000 to multi-billionaire Eric Schmidt, currently the executive chairman of Google.

The Missus Degeneres-de Rossi's property portfolio currently includes—but may not be limited to—an iconic mid-century modern in the Trousdale Estates section of Beverly Hills and a 26-acre, multi-residence equestrian ranch near Thousand Oaks, CA that they've had on and off the market for years.

Miz Degeneres and Miz de Rossi have bought and sold a slew of properties including—but not limited to—a couple of ranches in the Santa Ynez Valley and a bluff-top beach house in Malibu they bought from Brad Pitt and quickly flipped for a million more than they paid. And, of course, they compiled the multi-residence compound above Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills that they sold at a staggering multi-million dollar loss last year for $39,500,000 to Ryan Seacrest.

NOTE TO THE CHILDREN: Listing photos here show the house as it was gussied up by Mister Saladino. It's not known—not to Your Mama, anyways—if Mister and Missus Sturgess purchased and/or retained Mister Saladino's decorating handiwork.

*That does not mean the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi did not also buy the smaller 3.18 parcel. It could be that the transfer records simply have not been recoreded. Or it could mean Mister and Missus Sturgess opted to keep it or sell it separately. Time will tell...

listing photos: Village Properties 

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Rupert Murdoch

Somehow Your Mama missed all the hullaballo and brouhaha about legally embattled bazillionaire Rupert Murdoch revealing via his Twitter feed that he'd snatched up Moraga Vineyards in the uppity L.A. community of Bel Air, one of the few commercial vineyards in the City of Los Angeles. It's not yet been revealed how much Mister Murdoch paid for the spread that was last listed for $29.5 millon.

The octogenarian media tycoon reportedly became interested in the vineyard estate that sprawls over rolling hillsides in the heart of an affluent enclave after reading about it in the Wall Street Journal, which, of course, he owns.

As was noted in Mister Murdoch's tweet, the approximately 16-acre estate and its 13-ish acres of grapevines has been owned since 1959 by Tom Jones. No, children, not the famously hirsute Welsh singer Tom Jones but rather the much more staid aeronautical engineer Tom Jones who, until the late 1980s, was the CEO of aircraft manufacturer Northrop Corporation for 30 years.

The vineyard property occupies a former horse ranch once owned by Victor Fleming, the stuntman turned Oscar winning director of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.

Although the gated estate includes a roomy 7,724 square foot single story residence with three bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, plus an additional two bedroom guest house and 4,400 square foot office building, it seems highly unlikely Mister Murdoch and his much younger, wickedly smart and fearsomely feisty wife Wendi Deng will move in since they already own an even more spectacular, horseshoe-shaped Wallace Neff-designed hacienda style mansion perched on a snaking ridge line high above Beverly Hills.

listing photos: Surterre Properties

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Mindy Kaling

As was first revealed this week by the long-legged blond at Trulia Luxe Living, sitcom star and comedic wunderkind Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project, The Office) coughed up $1.695 for a hardcore fixer upper on a winding cul-de-sac in the so-called Bird Streets 'hood above L.A.'s famed Sunset Strip.  Listing details we dug up on the internets show the property has "significant upside potential" and is blessed with bird's eye view all the way to—and on a clear day beyond—the small knot of sky scrapers that comprise Century City.

Listing details show the existing two-story residence has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms jam-packed in to a modest 1,599 square feet. Even more notable then the house—Your Mama has to assume Miss Kaling will significantly alter and expand if not entirely replace with something more suitably luxurious for a celebrity of her station—is the heart racing and glutially murderous amount of stairs required to get from the street level driveway and garage to the house itself that's perched high, high, high up a seriously steep hillside.

Miz Kaling continues to own a restored Spanish Revival bungalow with four bedrooms and three bathrooms near The Grove and Farmer's Market that property records show she picked up in 2007 for $1.575 million.

listing photos: Nicholas Property Group

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Michael C. Hall

Last June Your Mama discussed an architecturally pedigreed contemporary residence in the star-studded Outpost Estates neighborhood in Los Angeles owned by seven-time Emmy nominated actor Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Six Feet Under) and then listed on the open market for $1,995,000. The red-bearded star of stage and screen sold the four bedroom and four bathroom house in August (2012) for $1,837,500, according to property records, to globe-trotting British supper club queen Tamsin Lonsdale.

This week word slipped down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Mister Hall shelled out $3,825,000 for an fully rehabbed two story 1923 Spanish Colonial casa in the celebrity friendly Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.*

Listing details show the main house has four en suite bedrooms (plus a staff room) and six bathrooms. A separate, detached guesthouse provides at least one more bedroom, a living room and a bathroom.

Other creature comforts of the walled and gated mini-estate include spacious living and dining rooms, a high quality center island kitchen with adjoining eating and lounge areas, and a state-of-the-art media room with fireplace that appears to be in the basement.

The .35 acre spread offers numerous outdoor lounging areas both in the front and in the back plus a swimming pool and a recently constructed over-sized two car garage at the tail end of a long concrete driveway.

*Mister Hall's new house happens to be almost directly across the street from the double-gated mini-estate hospital drama queen Kate Walsh recently put (back) on the market two weeks ago for $4,750,000 and already has in escrow with an as-yet unidentified buyer.

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Sotheby's International Realty

UPDATE: Katy Perry

More than a month ago, based on intel from a few of our better-connected informants, Your Mama tattled to the children that international bubble gum pop superstar Katy Perry was fixin' to drop a serious wad of sawbucks to create a multi-residence celebrity-style compound high atop Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Yolanda Yakketyak it's come to Your Mama's attention that property records now indicate Miz Perry—by way of a generically named trust—paid a hair straightening $11.2 million for the two properties that combined have two houses on three separate but adjoining parcels that total 3.95 acres.

Property records reveal Miz Perry paid exactly $3,000,000 for the two-parcel property that includes an organically sleek single-story contemporary on 1.62 mostly au naturel acres with an only-in-Tinseltown provenance. Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal's (now acrimoniously divorced) parents Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Foner sold the house in 2009 to drummer/band leader Max Weinberg who flipped the gated two-parcel spread in January 2011. The buyer who paid $2.95 million was American oil heiress Aileen Getty who already owned the 2.33 acre spread next door that property records show she sold to Miz Perry for $8.2 million.

Like the Gyllenhaal/Weinberg residence, Miz Getty's house was not listed on the open market and also has an interesting provenance. Our research shows Miz Getty bought the property in April 2004 for $3.54 million from occasional film producer and Wal-Mart heiress Sybil Robson Orr. As best as we can tell from various digitally accessible resources the Robson Orr/Getty spread includes a nearly 4,000 square foot mock-Med main house, a semi-detached poolside guesthouse/cabana, and some sort of barn/equestrian facility. Vast stone terraces extend the living to the outdoors in classic California fashion and surround a slightly elevated swimming pool. Terraced gardens planted with fruit trees and laced with pathways make maximum use of the steep slope below the house.

Although the nine-time Grammy nominated singer unloaded a quirky downtown New York City duplex penthouse at a small loss last spring (2012) she still owns Park Hill, the nearly three acre Laurel Canyon estate she and ex-husband Russell Brand bought in mid-2011 for $6.5 million but never actually moved in to. Mister Brand reportedly granted Miss Perry full ownership of the historic estate in their divorce and after she unsuccessfully attempted to sell the multi-structure compound off market earlier in the year finally pushed the property on the open market in early April (2013) with an asking price of $6,925,000.

Drew Barrymore Lists Montecito Wedding Venue

SELLERS: Drew Barrymore (and Will Kopelman)
LOCATION: Montecito, CA
PRICE: $7,500,000
SIZE: 6,258 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Everybody knows when celebrities and other financially fortunate sorts get married, divorced, have a baby or change their damn underwear they typically trade in one perfectly good house for a new one deemed better and more suitable to their new circumstances. Hence, Drew Barrymore—married just a year ago and the mother of an 8 or 9 month old baby girl—has hoisted her low-key hideaway in the monied community of Montecito, CA on the market with a $7,500,000 asking price.

The Hollywood royal purchased the property in early June 2010 for $5,705,000, long before before she hooked up with her handsome third husband and baby daddy, art consultant Will Kopelman. The quirky and savvy couple were married on the property in June 2012 in a traditional Jewish ceremony attended by a slew of celebrity guests including Cameron Diaz, Busy Phillipps, Jimmy Fallon, Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson. The then-preggers bride and the groom both wore Chanel, but that's really neither here not there in terms of the real estate matter at hand, is it?*

Remote-controlled gates swing open to a gravel driveway. Imagine, children, the welcoming crunch of that gravel under the tires of a luxury automobile after a hectic, traffic-choked two hour drive up the 101 from Los Angeles. Heaven. Anyways, a wide circular drive wraps itself around a stately old tree in front of the multi-winged main house where a humble red brick apron stretches out in front of the front door. The traditional, vaguely Monterey Colonial was designed by Santa Barbara architect Chester Carjola and built in 1937, according to listing details, and is currently configured with six bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in a spacious but manageable 6,258 square feet.

The front entrance hall is certainly large enough to greet guests comfortably but small enough to do away with the stuffy formality and in-your-face grandiosity of an unnecessarily capacious foyer like those too often found in the mortifyingly steroidal faux-Tuscan and mock-Med macmansions built in upscale gated suburbs in every corner of the country.

Double doors connect through to an elegantly proportioned and fully paneled formal living room with dark-stained wood floors, a large fireplace, and deep set French doors with original wood shutters. Built-in bookcases on either end of the long room appear to be filled with actual books and other interesting looking knickknacks and paddy whacks that Your Mama could easily spend an afternoon perusing quietly. Miz Barrymore and Mister Kopelmen have sparely but boldly furnished the room with little more than a few armchairs around the perimeter, a cream colored baby grand piano in the corner, and grouped in front of the fireplace a pair of gusty, psychedelic print sofas set on a neutral toned and decoratively au courant Moroccan Beni Ourain carpet.

The dark wood floors extend into the adjacent library that is also fully wood paneled and also has a fireplace and built-in bookcases filled with more books and objet. On the floor there are two well-worn zebra hide rugs and, in a sun lit corner, an antique-looking chess table. We'd presume that this is the room where Mister and Missus Kopeman watch the boob-toob but we sort of imagine they're the sort of people who don't watch—or even own—a television. Then again, what do we know? Maybe they're avid fans of Preachers' Daughter and never miss a ballistically tawdry episode.

The long, dinner party-sized formal dining has over-sized multi-pane windows with long views over the backyard's vast rolling lawn and white wainscoting topped by celadon colored walls. An Old School antique chandelier glimmers above the table and, for some inexplicable reason, there are a whole bunch of fluffy sheep skin pelts scattered haphazardly around the room.

Wood and glass doors in the library and the dining room open into a bowling alley length sun porch that spills out to a large, sunken red brick terrace. At the time Miz Barrymore acquired the property this sun porch had red brick flooring that was, as per listing photographs, switched out for wide plank wood painted gleaming white.

Depending on one's point of view the kitchen is either loaded with vintage charm or a hot damn mess in desperate need of a redo. A Subaru-sized center island girdled by eight (or more) bent wood stools has a sunshine yellow counter top that just about but not quite matches the rather unusual yellow and white checkerboard linoleum flooring while the white cabinetry that runs around the room has heavily shellacked dark wood counter tops. Whatever one may think of the room's decorative style, listing information indicates the kitchen is supremely equipped for large parties with two vintage-style refrigerators (that for some reason are not the same color), two dishwashers and an identical pair of heavy duty commercial-style ranges. The kitchen complex also includes a separate breakfast room, a roomy butler's pantry, and laundry room according to online marketing materials.

A long gallery lined with built-in cabinets and an compact office nook lead to the secluded master suite where a cozy corner fireplace warms the fully carpeted bedroom. In addition to an attached bathroom with separate tub and stall shower the master suite offers its well-heeled home owners the sublime luxury of two large closet/dressing rooms.

A total of five guest and family bedrooms are contained in two separate wings of the main house. Two upstairs en suite bedrooms each have French doors that open to Juliet balconies and three more bedrooms, each with private bathroom, are grouped on the ground floor in a separate wing off the breakfast room.

A detached, two story guest house has a bedroom, bathroom and studio space on the upper level and, down below, a two car garage/storage space. Listing photos show the garage area is done up as a kind of half-assed arty-farty man-cave with a quartet of surf boards leaning up against the wall, an old timey soda dispenser, a bevy of bicycles and a mish-mosh of furniture that all looks like it was all dragged out of Grandma's attic. There's also a separate four car garage.

Rose beds and fruit trees surround the main house and outbuildings and mature trees ring the 2.03 acre estate that has a back lawn the size of a football field. As far as Your Mama knows there is neither a swimming pool nor a tennis court on the property and for seven and some million clams for a swank spread in Montecito, hunnies, Your Mama wants a swimming pool and a damn tennis court, too.

Since 2002, Miz Barrymore's primary residence has been a gated mini-compound perched atop a private promontory on a quiet cul-de-sac in the Hollywood Hills that she picked up in April 2002 for $4,350,000. Your Mama knows at least one person who has been inside Miz Barrymore's Hollywood Hill house and we hear it's rather spectacular. Some of her nearby neighbors include doctor turned medical thriller author Vladimir Lange and Nashville actress Hayden Panetierre.

Right about the time they were married Mister Kopelman sold his sleek and modern two bedroom and two bathroom art-filled West Hollywood bachelor pad condo for $885,000. He previously had the place photographed for Elle Decor.

*Natch because the groom's father, Arie Kopelman, is a former CEO and chairman of Chanel. Missus Kopelman—that would be Will's mother—is named Corinne but she goes by Coco. You can't make that shit up, puppies. Anyhoo...

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty