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- Fri, 24 May 2013 23:26:00 +0000: Did Meryl Streep Snatch Up a Sunset Strip Pied A Terre? - The Real Estalker
BUYER: Meryl Streep and Don Gummer
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,500,000
SIZE: 3,700 square feet,
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While Your Mama has it on good authority—that would be the dishy, well-connected Yolanda Yakketyyak—that it's actually Henry Gummer—that would be Meryl Streep's singer/songwriter son—who currently occupies the premises, property records show a clean-lined contemporary crib just a few blocks off the Sunset Strip was quietly acquired in early February (2013) for exactly $4.5 million through the very same trust associated with both the New York City penthouse condo and the Connecticut country spread owned by Miz Streep and her sculptor husband Don Gummer.
So, puppies, was it the younger Mister Gummer—also known as Henry Wolfe—or was it Mama and Daddy Gummer—that would be Miz Streep and the older Mister Gummer—would paid for the posh, organically modern pad with it's front-loaded swimming pool? Well, it probably doesn't really matter that much and it certainly isn't any of our silly beeswax so, for the sake of acknowledging the not known, let's just say it was likely acquired by the Gummer family for use by one or more member of the Gummer family. Okay?
Listing details and other digitized resources Your Mama managed to scrounge up show the multi-level wood, concrete and glass residence strikes a distinct and private, bunker-ish vibe from the street. There's about 3,700 square feet of airy interior space intimately connected to various outdoor living spaces through wide expanses of wall-to-wall windows and floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. There are four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, according to listing details.
Heavily striated marble tile floors run throughout the interconnected, open concept main living spaces that include a secured access foyer anchored and elevated by a muscular, open tread staircase crafted from solid walnut.
A formal dining area hides from the foyer behind a floating wall (with magnificent flush floor boards) and adjoins a large living room divided into two separate but equal spaces. To one side, a t.v. watching lounge has direct access to the swimming pool and, on the other, a slightly more buttoned up conversation lounge with a monolithic textured stone fireplace, a dramatic double height ceiling, and an even more dramatic two-story wall of glass that looks out onto a small, courtyard type garden with boxy, concrete and stone water feature.
The dining area and the entrance hall connect through to a combination kitchen, informal dining area, and family room. The sleek, center island kitchen has flat-fronted cabinets crafted of some sort of linear-grained wood that may or may not be walnut, minimalist hardware, and chunky slab stone or solid surface counter tops. Top quality Euro-style appliances include double wall ovens, a pair of integrated side by side fridge/freezers, and a full-height wine fridge. A banister-free half flight of steps in the family room climbs up to an office perched above the garage with an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that looks over the swimming pool and beyond.
At least one of the three guest/family bedrooms opens through a wide glass slider to a small private deck and the master suite has a long wall of glass that overlooks the double-height sitting area below. Over sized windows on two other walls provide a through-the-tree-tops city and horizon views.
Although there are a couple of wee outdoor areas located around the house but the bulk of outdoor living spaces is accommodated in an elevated, gated and high-walled front yard that listing photos show has lush and well-lit landscaping, a plunge-sized swimming pool and spa and plenty of sunbathing space on the stone tile terrace. At the opposite end of the yard from the house a palm-tree ringed patio has a fire pit encircled by clean-lined, low-profile and probably very expensive sofas.
Other notable amenities and luxuries include a specially ventilated direct entry two-car garage and extensive security and home automation systems that can be remotely controlled from a computer or smart phone.
Property records and previous reports reveal the magnificent Miz Streep—no one does faux humility more genuinely than Miz Streep—and Mister Gummer paid $10,131,587 in early 2006 for a 6,174 square foot penthouse at the River Lofts complex in lower Manhattan, the same full-service building where the loved and loathed Gwyneth Paltrow also owns a substantial pied-a-terre she had done up in marble and pastels by the people at Roman and Williams. Since at least the mid-1980s Mister and Missus Gummer have owned an 89-plus acre multi-residence compound in Connecticut's historic and scenic Litchfield County that encompasses a small lake—or maybe it's a large pond—in its entirety.
listing photos: John Aaroe Group via Angelino Living - Fri, 24 May 2013 18:35:00 +0000: Al Pacino Sells Palisades Guest House - The Real Estalker
SELLER Al Pacino
BUYER: Curt and Sabelle Frasca
LOCATION: Palisades, NY
PRICE: $3,300,000
SIZE: 4,340 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to The ever-busy Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial it's come to Your Mama's attention that legendary Showbiz veteran Al Pacino has quietly sold off a significant portion of his Hudson River view compound in Palisades, NY, the prosperous, postage stamp-sized enclave also and formerly known as the Snedens Landing. The existing residence on the multi-acre spread functioned as the guesthouse to Mister Pacino's primary residence next door. More on that in a minute.
Although Mister Pacino first listed his guesthouse property in April 2012 with a $4,499,000 asking price, records show the bluff-top property was sold in mid-March 2013 for $3,300,000 to successful songwriters and music producers Curt and Sabelle Frasca. Missus Frasca, whose father is the venerable avant garde artist Robert Breer, has worked with folks like Madonna, Avril Lavigne and Ryan Cabrera. Mister Frasca's clientele is a virtual who's who of music industry: Shep Pettibone, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Michael and Janet Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Patti Labelle, Cyndi Lauper, the Spice Girls, Prince, Moby and k.d. lang. The couple currently own and operate Verse Music Group.
Mister Al Pacino is, well, he's goddamn Al Pacino, a famously intense, virile and still working actor of international acclaim with one Oscar statuette under his septuagenarian belt for the magnificent film Scent of a Woman plus seven more nominations (Glengarry Glen Ross, Dick Tracy, ...And Justice for All, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather, and The Godfather: Part II). In addition to his silver screen accolades the method actor has also received a couple of Tony Awards (Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel) and in 1996 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in the well-received Shakespeare-oriented documentary Looking for Richard.
Listing details Your Mama dug up out of the depth of the internets show the property sprawls "over 3 magnificent private acres." However and vexingly the same listing also puts the lot size at 108,900, an amount that's equal to exactly 2.5 acres. Make of that discrepancy what you will. However large the property it formed the bulk of Mister Pacino's Palisades roughly 3.5 acre compound and in addition to a soccer pitch-sized lawn, a large gravel motor court and a couple of outbuildings of undetermined function, the river view property has a 4,340 square foot clapboard-sided house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. We learned this morning from our occasional aide de camp B.S. Beaverman that way back in 2002 an accidental fire broke out in one of the upstairs bedrooms that resulted in "heavy smoke and water damage to the second floor of the guesthouse." We love the bit about how Mister Pacino's publicist and the fire chief both declined to identify the guests. Anyways...
The residence was originally built in 1941, according to listing details, and sits at the top of steep slope that tumbles down to the shore of the mighty Hudson River. As best as we can tell from a quick study of the plat map, the property does not have any direct frontage on the river.
A tightly curved stairway in the residence's upper level foyer descends to the main living and entertaining spaces on the lower level. The rustic, wide plank wood floors in the spacious dining room continue into but change direction in the voluminous adjoining sunken living room that's warmed by a fireplace and light flooded through over-sized windows and French doors on three sides.
Listing photographs don't show the kitchen but it's described in listing details as "immaculate" with an eat-in capability and "modern conveniences." The master suite, also not depicted in listing photos, "sparkles with sunlight from beautiful picture windows." One or more of the upper level bedrooms—one hopes it's the master, right?—opens to a perfectly charming veranda that hangs over the lower level terrace off the living room and provides a bird's nest vantage for viewing the river.
As it turns out, this is second time Mister Pacino has sold a house in Palisades in the last few years. In November 2010 he dumped a much more modest but still fully fenced and electronically gated 1,578 square foot house with three bedrooms and 1.5 bathroom for $580,000.
Teeny-tiny Snedens Landing/Palisades is or has been home to a slew of high-profile Tinseltown types. Emmy-nominated actor Aiden Quinn owns one of the more modest homes in Palisades and Oscar-nominated actor Bill Murray owns a sprawling 15,000+ square foot river view mansion with a dozen bathrooms on more than 8 acres. Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy nominated actress Lorraine Bracco sold her riverfront residence in August 2009 for $2.7 million to Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio and delightfully quirky Icelandic singer Björk sold her Palisdes pad in early 2010 for $1,325,000.
In September 2011, ballet icon Mikhail Baryshnikov sold two the four parcels that comprised his Palisades compound for $3,485,000 to a New York City-based hedge fund fat cat. Property records show Mister B. still owns just over two acres of the original compound where there's a two bedroom and two bathroom cottage that he had up for lease back in 2009 for $4,500 per month. Mister B. and his ballerina wife, Lisa Rinehart, own another property in Palisades formerly owned by Oscar winning actor William Hurt.
Some of Mister Pacino and now Mister and Missus Frasca's nearest neighbors include distinguished journalist Joan Konner and and sick-rich and low-profile Mellon family heiress Andrea Currier whose fabulously wealthy parents vanished into thin air in 1967 while en route via a small chartered airplane from San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas on the U.S. Virgin Islands.listing photos: Keller Williams Hudson Valley - Thu, 23 May 2013 19:33:00 +0000: Peri Gilpin Says Bye-Bye to the Bu - The Real Estalker
SELLERS: Peri Gilpin and Christian Vincent
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $4,700,000
SIZE: 1,783 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Not quite three years ago television actress Peri Gilpin and her fine art painter husband Christian Vincent paid $3,550,000 for Shabby Chic queen Rachel Ashwell's single-story cottage inside the guarded gates of the illustrious Colony enclave in Malibu. Yesterday the Gilpin-Vincents hoisted the still Shabby Chic Colony crib back on the market for $4.7 million.
Current listing details show the low-slung 1,783 square foot main house—it isn't on the ocean but rather backs up to billionaire Jerry Perenchio's private golf course—has three bedrooms and three bathrooms plus a separate guest house with another (narrow) bedroom and puny private bathroom that looks to Your Mama to be a little long in the tooth, if you know what we mean.
A turquoise entry gate just to the side of the detached two car garage opens into a verdant courtyard where a red brick path cuts a graphic line up the middle to the chandelier lit front porch. There are two main living areas that both join through to the backyard. The front door all but opens directly into a white-tiled "formal" living/dining room where a fireplace is surmounted by a large, inset flat screen television and surrounded by book filled built-in bookcases.
A panel hung on a barn door track in the dining area slides open to the second main living space, a combination kitchen and family room. A quick comparison of current listing photos and those from the time Miz Gilpin acquired the property indicate very few if any alterations were made in the kitchen that has ever so humble white raised panel cabinets, winter white counter tops, a white porcelain apron front sink, open upper shelving for the daily dishes, and high-quality commercial style stainless steel appliances.
The back of the house opens through wide banks of wood-framed and striped awning shaded sliding glass doors to a reasonably roomy back yard all decked out with an above-ground spa, bulky river rock fireplace and a built-in barbecue station. There are numerous areas for dining and lounging and, should one like, room for a pool. Deeded beach access, according to listing details, is just across the lane.
Your Mama knows that Miz Gilpin and Mister Vincent previously owned at least two other homes in Los Angeles. The more substantial of their previous properties is a mini-estate with a nearly five thousand square foot Spanish style estate perched high on a promontory above Beverly Hills that they sold back in 2007 for $5.6 million.
When Miz Ashwell owned the Colony micro-compound she repeated rented it to high profile people including Law & Order superstar and Tinseltown royal Mariska Hargitay, blond bomber Pam Anderson—while she was renovating her own house in the Colony, and Britney Spears—right after she left ex-husband Kevin Whatshisface and was palling around with Paris Hilton.
Since Miz Gilpin's to date seminal professional gig on the long ago cancelled sitcom series Frasier she's popped up in a slew of television programs including the police procedural CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the teen drama Make It or Break It. For six years in the mid-Aughts she did a variety of voices for the erstwhile Emmy-winning animated sitcom King of the Hill.
listing photos: Pritchitt-Rapf & Associates - Thu, 23 May 2013 17:59:00 +0000: Judge Judy Buys in Beverly Hills - The Real Estalker
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 - Wed, 22 May 2013 19:25:00 +0000: Hump Day Hodgepodge: Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi - The Real Estalker
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
