UPDATE: Let's Talk About Paul Allen, Shall We?

Yesterday Your Mama blew a gasket discussing many of the über posh properties and floating mansions of billionaire Microsoft co-founder turned investor and philanthropist Paul Allen. Thanks to some whispered words from a couple of The Children, Your Mama learned that our rundown, as exhaustive as it seemed, was incomplete. In addition to his colossal compound on Mercer Island, WA, the new $25,000,000 beach house in Malibu, a mansion in Beverly Hills, and the fantastical Villa Maryland in the South of France, Mister Allen also owns a number of other notable homes.

Although Your Mama missed every reference to it in our research, it's been widely reported over the years that Mister Allen owns a swank townhouse in London's hoity-toity Holland Park neighborhood, the same general vicinity as rich and famous folks like brash billionaire Richard Branson, chesty entertainment mogul Simon Cowell, and legendary musician Sir Paul McCartney.

In addition to his London digs and all his west coast abodes Mister Allen maintains an east coast outpost. In 1996, it was widely reported by all the New York City real estate gossips that Mister Allen paid real estate ma">real estate magnate Martin Raynor $14,000,000 for the 11th floor co-operative apartment at Manhattan's high nosed and stiff necked 4 East 66th Street. The children will recall that 4 East 66th Street is the very same white glove building that faces Fifth Avenue and Central Park where?with her feet firmly in a financial fire?socialite Veronica Hearst sold her 6th floor Renzo Mongiardino designed digs for a stunning $36,500,000 to 30-something year old hedge hog Chase Coleman III and his finance heiress wife Stephanie.

The children might be amused to know that Missus Coleman, née Ercklentz, appeared in Band-Aid heir Jamie Johnson's 2003 documentary Born Rich in which she dropped a number of revealing and bewildering bon mots like, "I love purses. They are so easy to buy. I have shelves and shelves of them...It's not a big deal. I want a Gucci purse, I buy it...I would have to marry within my [social group], because I couldn't have a husband who would freak out if I bought a $600 Gucci purse." Doesn't that just make y'all love her like the damn dickens?

Anyhoo, property records show other owners of apartments in the heinously expensive 4 East 66th Street include pharmaceutical honcho Howard Soloman, hedge hog Daniel Nir and his wife Jill Braufman, and Deutsche Bank director Kevin Parker and his wife Ulla. Our high society snitch, The Social Butterfly, told us ages ago that Texas based billionaires Sid and Mercedes Bass also maintain a residence in the buttoned up building.

Mister Allen owns a couple of very large properties in the scenic San Juan Islands just off the coast of Anacortes, WA. In 1988?some reports say it was in 1992?Mister Allen purchased an entire island in the San Juans known as Allan Island (above). The island, it should be noted, is not named after Paul Allen (with an "e") but rather it was named in 1841 after some dude in the Navy named Captain William H. Allan (with an "a").

Your Mama does not know how much Mister Allen paid for Allan Island, but we do know that in 2005 he heaved the rugged island on to the market with an optimistic asking price of $25,000,000. We also know that five years later Mister Allen is still trying to unload Allan Island, which remains available but with the much reduced asking price of $13,500,000 and steep 2010 annual taxes of $113,381.

Although Mister Allen reportedly had plans drawn up for a woodsy but contemporary family compound, the island remains virtually undeveloped except for a 1,212 square foot log-style contemporary caretaker's cabin that sits up above a dock that juts out into a small protected bay where boats and sea planes can be parked. According to listing information, the cabin is equipped with water, septic, and a generator plus, somewhat strangely, some sort of hot tub or spa located in or near the cabin.

As well as by water, Allan Island can be accessed by private plane on the grass airstrip that cuts a wide, ugly and angry scar across the otherwise nearly untouched landscape that includes rocky but pristine beaches and thick stands of trees that tower over rocky outcroppings that creep dramatically out into the water.

If Your Mama has said it once we've said it 17,000 times, rich and famous folks can be incredibly fickle about their real estate, quickly forsaking one property for another. It seems that before Mister Allen got very far with his plans to develop Allan Island, he set his real estate sights and family retreat dreams on another property in the San Juan Islands.

In the mid-1990s, amid a bit of brouhaha, Mister Allen paid around $8,000,000 to purchase the 387-acre Sperry Peninsula on Lopez Island. Since 1945, the property was the site of the popular Camp Nor'Wester. Many former campers and architecture aficionados mourned and beefed over the loss of the popular children's summer camp that had at least six buildings designed by Paul Hayden Kirk, a granddaddy of the modernism movement in the Pacific Northwest.

Regardless of the pedigree of some of the structures at Camp Nor'Wester, Mister Allen "dismantled and moved" several of the buildings to other locations on the peninsula in order to make way for a granite, glass, and cedar compound designed by another of the Pacific Northwest's well known modernists, Harold Moldstad.

According to a 1997 article in The Seattle Times, architectural plans filed with San Juan County showed five new buildings: a main mansion for Mister Allen, a beach house and a bunkhouse for his mother Faye, a third residence for his sister Jody Patton, and a 2 bedroom caretaker's cottage situated near the entrance to the property. All of the structures were to be completed by the turn of the century according to a spokesperson for Mister Allen and although we can not confirm, Your Mama assumes that the compound is indeed complete.

Mister Allen's main mansion, according to The Seattle Times, was designed to measure in at a sizable 13,000 square feet with 8 bedrooms, 5 poopers, 4 fireplaces and second floor den with its own kitchenette, fireplace, and deck.

A beach house, which plans label the Chapel Rock House, was designed to sit across the swimming pool from the main house and include 3,150 square feet with 2 changing rooms, 2 fireplaces, 1 pooper?and, for some reason, 4 terlits?and an outdoor barbecue area. This sounds, to an ignoramus like Your Mama more like a damn pool house than an actual residence. A nearby bunk house with 5,440 square feet was planned with a 32-foot high ceiling and a 9-foot wide granite fireplace in the main living space plus 9 bedrooms, most with private poopers and decks. Both the bunk house and the Chapel Rock House were, according to plans, designed for use by Mister Allen's mother Faye.

The house designed for Mister Allen's sister Jody Patton, at 3,160 square feet, was planned with 2 bedrooms, 2 poopers, a fireplace, and a mudroom. In order to skirt around certain legal technicalities and building permit issues and etc., plans called for both Sister Jody and Momma Allan to lease each of the buildings built for them at two grand a month apiece. Of course, Your Mama don't know a piece of driftwood from a car accident but we'd bet our long bodied bitches that both Sister and Momma are slipped a couple grand a month extra to pay for their so-called leases at the family's Sperry Peninsula compound.

When the article in The Seattle Times was published, architects had yet to decide where the tennis court complex with its barbecue pit and pooper were going to be built. We imagine that problem was solved long ago.

Yesterday, Your Mama also discussed Mister Allen's yachts, the 303-foot Tatoosh?currently for sale for $163,000,000?and the 414-foot money pit he dubbed Octopus that reportedly sucks up a truly shocking $384,000 per week to maintain. In addition to his big boats, Mister Allen also has a thing for luxury airplanes. Your Mama isn't sure exactly how many or what type of planes Mister Allen currently owns, but at one time, according to previous reports, his fleet included 2 Boeing 767s for long hauls and several smaller jets for shorter hops. Just to give the children an idea of just how big a 767 is, keep in mind that when used as a commercial craft it can seat upwards of 180 people. He reportedly keeps his fleet in a vast hangar at Seattle's Boeing Field.

Nothing like a long long long list of a billionaire's private real estate holdings and high-priced trinkets and toys to make a body feel financially deprived or morally indignant depending on your point of view.

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Let's Talk About Paul Allen, Shall We?

BUYER: Paul Allen
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $25,067,500
SIZE: 5,794 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In early June of 2010, multi-billionaire Microsoft co-founder turned investor and philanthropist Paul Allen dropped a chilling $25,0067,500 for a crisp and clean lined contemporary on Malibu's pretty, pricey, and prestigious Carbon Beach. The purchase was reported far and wide but Your Mama thought it might be fun to revisit the matter and have a little look-see into a few of the other high-octane properties that crowd Mister Allen's porcine real estate portfolio.

In the early 2000s, Mister Allen enjoyed a net worth above $25,000,000,000. Today, according to Forbes, his fortune has dipped to a substantially less but still staggeringly high 12 or 14 billion bucks. In addition to his ventures and successes in the high-tech and telecommunications industries, Mister Allen also owns three professional sports teams: the Seattle Seahawks, the Portland Trailblazers, and the Seattle Sounders. Do not any of the children even consider asking Your Mama to identify what sort of sport each of these teams plays because we do not know nor do we have any inclination to care.

In addition to collecting Jimi Hendrix memorabilia and his extensive philanthropic gifts in science and medicine, the quirky Mister Allen is also well known for his somewhat bizarre investments in whackadoodle endeavors such things as SpaceShipOne, a commercial piloted space rocket that would allow private citizens up into space. He also gave many millions to the SETI Institute to fund research to scan outer space for signs of intelligent life.

In 1983 Mister Allen was diagnosed with and successfully treated for Hodgkins lymphoma and in November of 2009 it was announced by Mister Allen's family that he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Along with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and 40 other billionaires in the United States, in July 0f 2010 Mister Allen pledged to give the majority of their vast fortune to philanthropic organizations and causes.

Whatever amount of his fortune Mister Allen decides to leave to pet causes and philanthropic concerns, and however troublesome the cancer may prove to be, his twenty five million dollar beach house buy in Malibu shows he still wants to live large and spend some of his immense riches snatching up high priced trophy properties to add to his already long list of über ritzy residences.

The architecturally striking gleaming glass and stucco structure on Carbon Beach, purchased through a corporation according to property records and previous reports, was sold by L.A.-based clothing manufacturing magnate Charles Perez who purchased the property in January of 1998 for $3,700,000. Although extensively remodeled, the original house was designed and built by architect Jerry Lomax. Your Mama isn't sure who handled the exterior overhaul or who did up Mister Perez's barely there interior day-core, but iffin any of the children know, be sure and give Your Mama a holler.

The 5,794 square foot house first appeared on the open market in January of 2010 with an asking price of $29,500,000. Listing information shows the house sits on 80-feet of oceanfront and includes 5 bedrooms and 7 poopers and the sort of ocean views that make rich people open their purse and happily pour out millions and millions and millions of dollars.

The front of the house, which faces bizzy and often traffic jammed Pacific Coast Highway, presents an opaque and angled collection of textured planes. While some will surely disagree in the most vehement manner, Your Mama thinks front façade stops short of feeling like a forbidding and unfriendly fortress due to the bright white walls and small patch of landscaping that includes itty-bitty sea grasses and a lovely line of Eucalyptus trees. Solid exterior doors set into a wall of horizontal frosted glass panels that mimic the horizontal lines pressed into the stucco walls open from the large driveway?large for an ocean front home on Carbon Beach, anyway?and into a secured and serene looking if not exactly quiet courtyard. A wide path of large square pavers that may or may not be limestone crosses the courtyard at an angle and passes through another small stand of fragrant Eucalyptus trees.

As one moves towards through the courtyard towards the glass front doors, the first mouth watering peek of the the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean comes into view. The front doors open into a generously scaled and sky-lit double height entrance hall that acts and the primary traffic hub for the house and reinforces the strong sight lines present throughout that house that direct and pull the eye towards the magnetically appealing view.

The U-shape of the house delineates and defines the use of interior space which puts the long living room, decent sized dining room and well equipped kitchen on the ocean side of the house for maximum visual impact and enjoyment. Dark hardwood floors, which Your Mama's impudent housekeeper Svetlana believes in her heart of hearts must be murder to keep from getting scratched all to hell by the sand that gets tracked in on flip flops and bare feet, ground the very airy rooms and allow the white walls to float and the ocean view to be the primary source of color in the house.

Long walls of floor to ceiling glazing in the living and dining rooms glide open, visually merge and successfully distort the distinction between and the interior and exterior spaces. The kitchen, directly behind the dining room, anchors one end of the long living room with the other anchored by a flat white wall pierced by a vertical row of open shelves that sits just to the left of the simple rectangular firebox that has no mantle or any hearth space to speak of. The bright yellow chairs ad a vibrant pop of bright color that Your Mama is positive perfectly complements the electric oranges, bright reds, and hot pinks of a classic California sunset.

The two legs of the U-shaped house extend away from the ocean and towards the street to create the courtyard entry. One leg stretches back from the kitchen and contains a sky-lit family room where a flat screen tee-vee is mounted above a long horizontal slit in the wall that divides the kitchen from the family room and creates a kind of snack bar. Although we imagine Mister Allen's nice, gay decorator will put his or her own stamp on the room, Your Mama rather likes the simplicity of the tone on tone putty and gray day-core. As in the living and dining rooms, the furnishings and artwork are kept simple at a minimum which keeps the focus on the view, which is the real star of the show here. Beyond the family room is a 2-car garage and?we think but can not confirm?laundry facilities and a staff suite.

The other leg of the U-shaped house contains a home gym, a couple of bedrooms and a media room with a large projection screen set into a wall of built in cabinets that hide the electronic equipment. No one loves a white slip-covered sofa more than Your Mama but we would most certainly have chosen versions without those country house rolled arms. They're just not cohesive with the simplicity of the architecture. In fact they kind of fight with it. While we would have preferred the cabinets in the media room be done much darker so that they would disappear in the dark while watching a movie, what Your Mama does j'adore about this room is that it provides a brief lesson and particularly nice example of the dee-voonly rigorous nature of the building's interior architecture. The children will note that from the media room there is an unobstructed and long, long, long sight line that continues all the way down the corridor, across the living room, out the windows, and past the rolling sea grass covered dunes to the ocean in the distance. No matter how deep into this house one is, a glimpse or a panoramic view of the ocean is just a short step or a quick head turn away.

There are two ocean side bedrooms upstairs, both with private poopers and open to large and private ocean side decks. The master bedroom occupies a long stretch at the center of the house with a long and tall strip of frameless glass that sucks in the view, and a fireplace over which a flat screen tee-vee is set into the wall and around which are sleek open shelves with enclosed cabinets along the bottom. We could do without the rust colored marble around the fireplace. It's pretty and probably cost as much as Your Mama's big BMW but it is our humble and meaningless opinion it would be appropriate in a more architecturally traditional setting. Tucked into the corner of the room a cute little desk provides a perfect spot for Mister Allen to check the balances on his bank accounts first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. There really is no rest for the wicked or the rich, is there?

The master pooper, a large space with separate jetted tub and glass enclosed shower that opens to the deck through a sliding glass window, has heinous, rustic and distressed wood cabinetry and accents that are incongruous and totally out of harmony with the otherwise uncluttered and unadorned rooms. We can only hope that Mister Allen has the good damn sense to hire a smart architect and/or nice, gay decorator to go in there and whip that pooper into shape.

The back of the house opens to a limestone terrace that surrounds a spectacular and spectacularly rare ocean side swimming pool and spa. At one end of the terrace a snug covered dining area has a tall wall of stacked stone with an outdoor fireplace. A frameless glass windscreen?that would surely be smudged and smeared with canine snot within 10 minutes of Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's arrival with our wet nosed and long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly?marks the edge of the tailored and manicured areas and the beginning of the natural environment. The house sits far enough back from the ocean to allow for an expanse of low dunes covered in beach grass between the beach and the house that we imagine makes a soothing rustling noise as the breeze blows through the reeds.

Information Your Mama managed to tease out of the interweb thanks to a helping hand from Babbling Babette shows that in addition to having the property on the sales market, the former owner?that would be the aforementioned Charles Perez?had the house out for lease during the summer of 2010 with breathtaking asking prices of $150,000 for the month of June and $200,000 for the months of July and August. We do know that the house was rented for at least part of the summer. We don't know to whom or for how much. Anyone?

Carbon Beach, as the children surely know, is often referred to as "Billionaire's Beach" due to the staggering number of billionaires (and other filthy stinking rich folks) who own ocean front homes on that particular strip of highly desired sand. Immediately next door to Mister Allen's new beach shack is the John Lautner designed dwelling currently owned by dueling and dee-vorcing duo Jame and Frank McCourt who bought the swooping and organic residence in July of 2007 for $27,300,000 from architectural aficionados Courtney Cox and David Arquette. The McCourts also own the house on the other side of the their Lautner that they bought for $19,000,000 as extra space for family and friends. Given the bitter state of affairs between the erstwhile McCourts, Your Mama would not be the least bit surprised if both of these houses were soon hoisted on the market.

Other denizens of coveted Carbon Beach includes Jeffrey Katzenberg who owns a Gwathmey Seigel designed compound, former Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel whose funky digs were done by Michael Graves, gay gajillionaire David Geffen who has a four-lot compound reminiscent of the Hamptons, prolific action film producer Joel Silver, and restaurant mogul Peter Morton who has relatively recently completed dee-voon domicile designed by architect Richard Meier. Other Carbon Beachers include Eli Broad, Lou Adler, Haim Saban, and tech tycoon Larry Ellison who owns at least 8 homes on Carbon Beach. The estate of deceased philanthropist Nancy Daly currently has her former Carbon Beach house listed at $47,000,000 (reduced from $57,000,000) and the hulking ocean front house of real estate financier William Chadwick was recently re-listed at $35,000,000 after first hoisting the property onto the open market in the summer of 2008 an improbably high $65,000,000 price tag.

By all accounts, Mister Allen calls a vast multi-parcel compound on Washington State's fancy-schmancy Mercer Island home. According to previous reports and property records, Mister Allen first began to assemble his compound on the western side of Mercer Island along the shore of Lake Washington in 1985. Your Mama spent some time peeping and poking around the public property records and counted at least 10 parcels, some on the water and some across the street on the land side. With the assistance of our trusty and bejeweled abacus Your Mama counted nearly 50,000 square feet of interior space spread through out 7 or 8 separate residences that combined cost Mister Allen almost $20,000,000 to purchase.

In the mid-2000s, the government of Mercer Island?or whatever entity makes these decisions?declined Mister Allen's request to put a helipad on one of his properties. Ever the problem solver, Mister Allen skirted around the matter and purchased a funky, flat-topped watercraft that on top of which a helicopter can land. The famous floating helipad chugs out into Lake Washington where the whirlygig sets down and then returns to the dock. Problem solved and, it seems, a big ol' fuck you to the people who declined his request for an onshore landing pad.

In Los Angeles, Mister Allen owns a 12,952 square foot Mediterranean style mansion in Beverly Hills, CA that is famous for the funicular that ferries folks from the pool deck the tennis court that sits lower on the hillside and atop, we hear through the real estate gossip grapevine, a massive underground garage. The mansion was built in the early 1990s on the property where closeted silver screen icon Rock Hudson died of AIDS in 1985.

Mister Allen, according to property records, purchased the property in April of 1997 through the same corporation through which he purchased his new home in Malibu. The seller was writer/producer/director John Landis who is perhaps best known for writing and directing Michael Jackson's Thriller video. He also directed The Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House, and The Blues Brothers just to name of few of the long list of films and tee-vee programs with his name on them. Nearby property owners include supermodel turned entertainment mogul Tyra Banks, horror film honcho Clive Barker, aqua-queen Esther Williams, and Greek shipping heir (and former Paris Hilton paramour) Paris Latsis.

Mister Allen's real estate portfolio bulges not only with notable stateside properties, he also owns the Villa Maryland in the South of France (Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat). The Florentine style hilltop villa, built in 1904 by British ship builder Arthur Wilson, was lent (or leased) to peripatetic superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and their ever increasing band of multi-culti celebutots who shacked up at the villa in the spring of 2008 while they awaited the birth of their twins.

Like all multi-billionaires in a seemingly endless and desperate race to keep up with the Joneses?and the Al Mahktoums and the Ellisons and the Abramovichs?Mister Allen owns a couple of floating mansions that rank among the longest and most luxurious on the planet. In the spring of 2010 it was reported that Mister Allen had put his smaller boat, the 303-foot Tatoosh, on the market with an asking price of ?125,000,00. At today's rates, according to Your Mama's currency conversion contraption, that is a face smacking $163,079,000 to all us American folk across the pond. The Tatoosh , according to marketing materials, has 5 decks and accommodates 24 guests in 12 staterooms plus crew of 35. The big boat's full width wood paneled main salon has hardwood floors and a carved limestone fireplace and there is a shaded swimming pool on the aft section of the main deck that's equipped with a floor that at the touch of a butten can be adjusted to a depth of six feet. Other luxuries, according to reports, include a movie theater, fitness center, two helicopter decks, a 40-foot launch, a 40-foot sail boat, and 5 Sea-doos.

Although there is some scuttlebutt among yacht gossips that due to the financial implosion of Charter Communications?the cable company that Mister Allen owns 51% of and which declared bankruptcy in 2009?may also want?or need?to sell his larger boat, the 414-foot long Octopus that reportedly costs Mister Allen a dumbfounding $384,000 per week to maintain. A few quick flicks of the well worn beads of our bejeweled abacus shows that comes to $19,968,000 per year just to keep the damn boat afloat, a number, the children should keep in mind, that does not as far as we can tell include the hundreds of thousands of clams it costs to fill the freaking gas tank. The super-sleek and midnight blue hulled Octopus reportedly requires a crew of 60, and includes necessities such as a swimming pool, music studio, basketball court, 7 launches, 2 submarines, and 2 helicopters.

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Westside Estate Agency

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Lulu's East Coast Place

SELLER: Lulu de Kwiatkowski
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $1,999,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: New York City is full of immigrants who came from little and wound up at the tippy top of the financial and social heaps along Fifth and Park Avenues. Just like at former cab driver turned property mogul Tamir Sapir who recently sold the Duke Semans mansion to Mexican telecom tycoon and multi-billionaire Carlos Slim for $44,000,000.

Another immigrant who went from rags to riches was Henryk de Kwiatkowski, a Polish fellow who escaped the Nazis in 1939 wound up at the British embassy in Tehran and eventually emigrated to Canada where he became an aeronautical engineer. Henryk, by all accounts a clever and cultured man, made a fortune primarily from the leasing and selling of used commercial airplanes. One story?one that may or may not be true?goes that while playing backgammon with the Shah of Iran at the royal palace in Tehran, Mister de Kwiatkowski made a $20,000,000 commission on the sale of nine 747s.

Although he came from extremely modest circumstances, Mister de Kwiatkowski, as the newly wealthy often do, quickly took up the habits and hobbies of the very rich; He collected impressive and expensive artworks, played polo, raised thoroughbreds, and purchased plum and pricey pieces of real estate. In the 1960s Mister de Kwiatkowski purchased a large doo-plex apartment at the particularly posh One Beekman Place building where other residents include tee-vee journalist Jane Pauley and political cartoonist Garry Trudeau, fashion queen Arnold Scaasi and his man-friend publishing executive Parker Ladd, and Broadway producer Candia Fisher. The sprawling apartment, which practically hangs over the East River, is?as far as Your Mama knows?still owned and occupied by Mister de Kwiatkowski's second wife and widow Barbara, an effervescent and somewhat eccentric former model who was once b.f.f. with Andy Warhol and, natch, a fixture at Studio 54.

Among Mister de Kwiatkowski's other real estate holdings was a dee-voon and luxurious 80-acre estate in Greenwich, CT's super swank Conyers Farm enclave which was sold in 2004 for a reported $50,000,000. It was, however, a compound bought in 1967 behind the guarded gates of the Lyford Cay community on New Providence Island in the Bahamas that was, arguably, the de Kwiatkowski's family seat. Past and present owners of property in Lyford Cay include several Greek shipping magnates with names like Niarchos and Livanos, The Aga Kahn (IV), Toys-R-Us founder Charles Lazurus, Ranier III (the Prince of Monaco), Oscar winning actor Sean Connery, and Canadian clothing tycoon Peter Nygård who owns a well known 150,000 square foot Mayan inspired compound known as Nygård Cay that was available for lease in 2008 at $42,000 per day. Part of Mister Nygård's crazy compound was destroyed by fire in late 2009 but it was recently announced that he plans a $50,000,000 renovation of the property.

Each of Mister de Kwiatkowski's ritzy residences were all done up and did over by the near mythic decorating diva Sister Parish. The relationship between Mister de K. and Sister P. was such that he named one of his horses after her and she one of her dogs after him. Make of that what y'all will.

In 1992, already a noted breeder of horses, Mister de Kwiatkowksi paid $17,000,000 for racing and breeding facilities of the famous and fabled Calumet Farm in Lexington, KY. Since his death in 2003, the renowned equine enterprise is operated through a trust controlled by Mister de Kwiatkowski's descendants.

All this brings us to the matter at hand which is the real estate of one of Mister de Kwiatkowski's seven children?six by the first marriage and one from the second?all of whom are known as arty-farty international trustafarians who grew up making the social scenes in New York City, Palm Beach, and anywhere else on the planet where the children of wildly rich, well connected, and highly social jet setting types gather and collect. The youngest of Mister de Kwiatkowski's six children from his first marriage is the super socialite and former Vanity Fair "It Girl" Alexandra "Lulu" de Kwiatkowski.

A young lassie, according to her website, Lulu de K. earned a fine arts degree at Parsons School of Design in New York before spending five years in Paris studying trompe l'oeil painting techniques. After completing her arts education, the artist-heiress packed her bags and spent a number of years traveling to exotic locales around the world. Since the late 1990s Lulu has become a well known and respected textile designer with a keen and easy ability to mix and match bright colors into bold geometric patterns that pay homage to decorative predecessors like David Hicks. Her fans include style mavens from Courtney Cox-Arquette to Diane von Furstenberg.

Since launching her successful line of textiles called Lulu DK, the color queen and pattern princess has expanded into wall coverings, bed linens, carpets, and leather do-dads. She also recently published LULU, an emotional and beyond bee-yoo-tee-ful book of collages and artworks that she told the folks at 1stdibs are based on, "the influences of my life, combining the memories and experiences of my childhood with the joys and heartaches of a 12-year romance."

The twelve year romance Miz de K. speaks of is with Alfredo Gilardini a suave Italian aristocrat, bon vivant and Jack of many trades whom she met while dancing the night away at Les Bains Douche, the former gay Turkish bathhouse turned disco in Paris. Together the comely couple have a set of twin boys.

Although for the last few years, Lulu de K. and Signore Gilardini have split their time between homes in Los Angeles and New York City, it seems that the couple have decided to put down more permanent roots in Lala Land and recently put their co-op apartment on New York City's Upper East Side on the market with an asking price of $1,999,000.

Property records are vague to non-existent on the second floor apartment but Lulu de K,'s own blog reveals that she bought the apartment some 14 years ago. Listing information shows that Lulu de K.'s 2 bedroom and 2 pooper apartment, located in a full service pre-war and pet friendly building was once featured on the cover of Elle Décor magazine. Although the apartment has an address on swanky E. 64th, all but one of the rooms face very bizzy, very commercial, and very pedestrian Lexington Avenue.

The walls of the generously sized foyer and the bedroom hallway are hand painted with a complex, puzzle-like geometric pattern of ochres, mustards, and ambers. Lulu de K. has brazenly and fearlessly played the earthy and somewhat 1970s tones on the walls against an over-sized orange and red painting with a similar but tighter pattern as the walls, a pair of vibrant vermilion table lamps, a pair of tangerine colored Chippendale armchairs, and an orange and red braided wool rug that she got at L.L. Bean.

The large, loft-like living room has a quartet of windows with tree top views, a beamed ceiling, hardwood floors, and two perfectly charming built-in reading alcoves with funky shaped doorways and built in chaises and books shelves. The children will note that Lulu de K. color coordinates her books, just like Your Mama does.

The kitchen and dining area be accessed from the foyer as well as through a set of full ceiling height French doors that separate the living room from the eat-in kitchen. Blessedly, no overly complex decorative punches were attempted in the small but well equipped kitchen that's outfitted with simple, white Shaker style cabinetry with glass fronted uppers, average grade stainless steel appliances, counter tops that appear to be some sort of honed stone, built-in display shelving and laundry facilities.

Your Mama really does not care to have the laundry facilities right in the kitchen. However, allowances for such things have to be given for Manhattan apartments particularly given that most people don't even have private washers and dryers and, at best, have a room in the basement where their house gurls have to squirrel themselves while washing their panties and things. Although we appreciate the effort not to install a heap of pot lights, we don't love the globular light fixtures. We do, however, love how Lulu de K. and Signore Gilardini have artfully hung a cluster of family photographs in what might otherwise be an awkward corner above the counter.

Another set of full ceiling height French doors open from the living room into the second bedroom where built in cabinets with open shelving surrounds one window and French doors open out to a large terrace. Since we're a sucker for mixy-matchy pattern use, we've become increasingly fond of the plaid rug on the narrow striped rug.

The short hallway from the foyer leads back to a pooper and the master bedroom that includes another private but very tiny pooper?with a window, thank jeezis?a couple of walk-in closets, and another set of French doors that open out to the 430+ square foot terrace. While Your Mama would have sold our loud nieces for nefarious purposes for even a sliver of outdoor space while we lived in New York City, it must be noted that Lulu de K.'s terrace is really little more than a wide and dark corridor between two buildings. It's not ideal, but it is someplace for guests to fart and smoke cigarettes during cocktail parties.

Recent reports and property records reveal that Lulu de K.'s older sister Arianne recently laid out $1,610,000 for a modest but wonderfully redone ranch style house with swimming pool and guest house that was sold by Oscar winning cinematographer Philippe Rousselet (A River Runs Through It).

As for Lulu de K. and Signore Gilardini, we're not sure, but Your Mama is somewhat certain the couple bought a renovated ranch style house at the tippy top of Laurel Canyon in the summer of 2007 for $2,130,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty

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To Let: Nicole Kidman's Starchitect Designed Digs in NYC

OWNER: Nicole Kidman
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $45,000 per month
SIZE: 3,785 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: For many years, Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman leased posh pied a terres in lower Manhattan. She lived for a bit in the London Terrace complex in Chelsea where Your Mama would see her lookin' all steely eyed and slim. She also spent some time in a SoHo penthouse then owned by Boris Becker now owned by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos and she shacked up in the SoHo doo-plex penthouse that her then lover Lenny Kravitz recently sold to Grammy queen Alicia Keys and her baby-daddy Swizz Beatz.

Now buckle up your safety belts, bunnies, because this is gonna blow your ever-luvin' minds: Even though ex-Missus Tom Cruise laid out oceans cash all over downtown Manhattan on high-priced rentals, she actually owned?and continues to own? a large and lavish apartment in one of the three green glass Richard Meier designed towers along the West Side Highway in the Far West Village.

Imagine for a moment, chickens, having the financial freedom to spend many millions on a pied a terre only to decide, "Meh, I don't like this place so much after all" and then go out and rent someone other famous person's gigantic and uncommonly expensive apartment. Lawrd, puppies, who does that?

Nicole Kidman, that's who.

Anyhoo, Miz Kidman is making waves on The Real Deal real estate website because?better get your check books, gurls?she's put her glassy crib in the Far West Village up for lease for a bone chilling $45,000 per month.

Miz Kidman snatched up the high-floor condo on the bizzy, bizzy, bizzy West Side Highway back in 2003 when The Meier Triplets were brand spanking new and creating an architectural stir in New York City and beyond. Unfortunately, Your Mama doesn't know exactly what Miz Kidman paid for the place, but we understand from previous reports it was around 8,000,000 U.S. clams and that the apartment was purchased in the name of her little sister Antonia Hawley. Since Miss Kidman only occupied the apartment for a short time?or if at all?it's quite possible the sleek residence was at some point occupied by the little sister. However, all us real estate gossips seem to think that whomever it was that put their panties away in the custom fitted closets, the posh pad was paid for by Big Sister Kidman.

Listing information shows the apartment, wrapped on three sides in floor to ceiling glass, has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers including a master suite with sitting area, Midtown Manhattan view, custom fitted closets. The en-suite marble and walnut facilities include a double vanity, steam shower, egg-shaped soaking tub, and a floor to ceiling interior window so a person could, in theory, sit in a vat of hot water with their own filth and at the same time look clean through the living room and see the Hudson River and the Hoboken skyline.

The living room stretches the full width of the building and has a small south-facing balcony which due to the traffic is probably a little loud to be peaceful. A dee-luxe cooker was tucked quietly around the corner where the counter tops are both marble and walnut and the appliances among the most expensive money can buy.

Like all successful and extravagantly wealthy actors homes should be, Miz Kidman's condo is smart wired to remotely operate the audio, visual and lighting systems plus control the sunshades that scroll down at the touch of a button. The blue of the Hudson River acts as a vibrant and shimmering color counterpoint to the severely restricted palette of the interior day-core, all crisp white, seal gray, luscious chocolate browns and a little black here and there to ground things a bit. Despite its fishbowl nature, it's really quite magnificent, both livable and bordering on sterile at the same time and that, buttons, is not an easy decorative combo to pull off.

The person who coughs up the cash to rent the residence will find themselves surrounded by big name neighbors including Alexis Stewart?that's Martha's daughter?who has a ginormous triplex in the complex, Calvin Klein who owns a penthouse doo-plex, hotelier Ian Schrager, celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Aussie actor Hugh Jackman who only bought his 11,000 square foot triplex earlier this year for the ungodly sum of $21,000,000.

Miz Kidman and her man-mate Keith Urban own homes all over the world including (but not limited to) a penthouse pad in Sydney and a 100+ acre spread a couple hours outside Sydney, a mansion in Nashville, TN, and a contemporary crib in a star-studded section of Beverly Hills (Post Office). The Kidman-Urbans recently acquired a ten million dollar doo-plex in a much ballyhooed newly completed Annabelle Selldorf designed West Chelsea building with so-called sky garages accessed by an industrial lift that raises cars to private parking bays located on the same floor as the apartment to which it is deeded.

listing photos: Halstead

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It's Sunny and Claus von Bülow's Clarendon Court, Y'all!

SELLER: Glenn and Patricia Randall
LOCATION: Newport, RI
PRICE: $14,800,000
SIZE: 11,878 square feet, 10 bedrooms, 8.5+ bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Before the Hamptons were the Hamp-toons and before all the wildly wealthy blue blooded snow birds began flocking to Palm Beach for the winter, the American aristocracy of the Gilded Age built monumental mansions along the rugged and rocky shore of Newport, RI. Starting in the mid-1800s, in order to escape the south's crushing summer heat, wealthy plantation owners began building large summer cottages overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It wasn't long before their pecunious Yankee counterparts followed suit and built bigger and preposterously ostentatious monuments to their money, power and vaunted position in high society.

The illustrious, sprawling and sick rich Vanderbilt family built a number of the more significant mansions in Newport including Marble House, a gargantuan and outrageously opulent monster completed in 1892 by William K. Vanderbilt as a 39th birthday gift to his then wife Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt. The not at all cottage-like mansion, modeled on the Petit Trianon in Versailles, was designed by William Morris Hunt, one of the bon ton's preferred and more prolific architects who not only designed a bunch of Newport's most palatial piles but also maintained a Newport cottage of his own called Hypotenuse.

Another of the Vanderbilt clan?Frederick William?also completed his summer cottage in 1892, the stoic Peabody and Stearns designed mansion known then and now as Rough Point. In 1922 Rough Point was purchased by tobacco tycoon James Buchanan Duke?that's the daddy of Doris?who hired high society architect Horace Trumbauer to renovate and expand the already huge house. Miss Duke inherited the property in 1925 at the tender age of twelve and although she used the ocean front estate very little in the 1940s and 50s, she reopened Rough Point in the early 1960s and occupied the house a good portion of each year until her death in 1993. Scandal seems to stick to society types like white on rice and in 1966 Miss Duke famously, accidentally, and tragically plowed her modest station wagon into her decorator Eduardo Tirella in the driveway of Rough Point. Somehow Miss Duke, no doubt in a serious panic, managed to drag Mister Tirella's body out the front gates of Rough Point, across the street and crush him to death against a tree. He died instantly and Miss Duke was not charged with any crime.

In 1894, a behemoth 60-room Louis XIII style hunting lodge, designed, natch, by Richard Morris Hunt, was erected for Oliver H.P. Belmont. Mister Belmont, who named his quirky cottage Belcourt, was an heir to a family of financiers who came to the United States from France as representatives of the ridiculously rich Rothschild family. As originally designed, Belcourt included just 1 bedroom and 1 pooper. There were, however, sleeping quarters for 33-full time staff. The entire ground floor of Belcourt was designed for use as carriage storage and 30-stall stable for Mister Belmont's horses. In 1895, Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt obtained a dee-vorce from William K. Vanderbilt and set all the high society tongues a-wagging when she quickly moved her summer trousseau down the block from Marble House and into Belcourt.

In 1895, yet another Vanderbilt?this time, Cornelius the Second?finished building The Breakers, the undisputed mac-daddy of all the Newport mansions that sits on 13+ acres of prime ocean front property. The hulking 5-story, Richard Morris Hunt designed Italian Renaissance confection measures 65,000 square feet with 70 rooms including a 50-foot square Great Hall with a 50 foot ceiling, 15 family bedrooms and more than 40 staff bedrooms.

The hoity toities continued to build their colossal "cottages" well into the 20th century. The Elms, designed by architect Horace Trumbauer as a near exact replica of the 18th century Château d'Asnières on the outskirts of Paris, was completed in 1901 for coal mining magnate Edward Berwind who engaged the legendary Jules Allard et Fils of Paris do up the day-core. In 1902, the Stanford White designed Rosecliff was completed for Nevada silver heiress Theresa "Tessie" Fair Oelrichs who modeled her not particularly humble summer "cottage" on the Grand Trianon at Versailles.

Although a number of the more celebrated houses in Newport are now operated as museums that can be toured and ogled by the hoi polloi, there remain a number of significant and historic estates in private hands including Clarendon Court, a spectacular 7+acre estate with a striking yet somber Palladian style mansion that was recently heaved on to the market with an asking price of of $14,800,000.

Clarendon Court, designed by architect Horace Trumbauer, was built in 1904 for Pennsylvania Railroad executive Edward C. Knight who originally named the house Claradon Court after his wife Clara. The name was altered to Clarendon Court by a subsequent owner.

Clarendon Court occupies a prime position on Newport's swankiest street, Bellevue Avenue. The mansion sits sandwiched between the 16-bedroom Beaulieu?built in 1859 for Peruvian fertilizer magnate Federico Barreda and later owned by one of the many Astors who sold it to Cornelius Vanderbilt III?and Miramar, a formal and formidable Neoclassical beast with 27 bedrooms completed in 1915 by Eleanor Elkins Widener, the widow of George Widener, an heir to a Philadelphia streetcar fortune who went down with the HMS Titanic in April of 1912. Beaulieu remains in private hands as does Miramar, which sold to an unknown buyer?or at least unknown to Your Mama?in 2006 for $17,150,000.

In 1970 the 20-room Clarendon Court was snatched up and extensively restored and renovated by its most renowned and fascinating owners, Sunny and Claus von Bülow. The Children all know the tragic and sordid story of Sunny and Claus von Bülow, right?

Mister von Bülow, formerly a personal assistant to oil baron J. Paul Getty, reportedly descends from a German noble family, but it was Sunny who had all the money; Her mother was an heiress to a shoe manufacturing fortune and her father, George Crawford, a utilities mogul who died in the mid-1930s, left Sunny?born Martha Sharp Crawford?a rumored and reported $100,000,000.

On the day after Christmas in 1979, amid whispers rumors of a dee-vorce, Sunny von Bülow was found unconscious and unresponsive at Clarendon Court. She was quickly rushed to the hospital where she slipped into a coma from which she was revived. She was diagnosed with something called reactive hypoglycemia. The following April, Sunny went all wonky and was again admitted to the hospital. The doctors declared the spell was another bout with this reactive hypoglycemia thing and released her with admonishments to control her sugar and booze intake.

Just before Christmas in 1980, Sunny von Bülow's maid Maria Schrallhammer found her passed out and unresponsive on the floor of the master pooper at Clarendon Court. She was taken to the hospital yet again where it quickly became clear that Missus von Bülow had suffered a serious brain injury that left her in a persistent vegetative state.

Sonny and Claus bore one child?Cosima?the younger half-sister of Sunny's two children?Ala and Alexander?produced during her first marriage to His Serene Highness Prince Alfred von Auersperg, an Austrian tennis instructor who, bizarrely and ironically, died in 1992 after hanging around in an irreversible coma for nine long years.

Soon after Sunny slipped into a coma, Ala and Alexander got real suspicious real fast of their step-daddy Mister von Bülow and his possible roll in bringing about their mother's incurable comatose state. Their worries and mistrust of Mister von Bülow?who had most certainly become accustomed to living in the lavish manner to which his wife's money allowed?instigated an investigation that lead to a July 1981 indictment of Mister von Bülow on two counts of attempted murder. A salacious trial followed by swells and socialites around the world resulted in a conviction. However, Mister von Bülow quickly hired superstar attorney and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz to handle an appeal. This was clearly a wise move on Mister von Bülow's part because after a long parade of medical experts and other witnesses, Mister von Bülow's conviction was overturned.

Cosima sided with her father, a choice that found her disinherited by Missus von Bülow's mother Annie Laurie Aitken who controlled the financial affairs of her comatose daughter. The two elder children, still deeply suspicious of their step-father, filed a civil complaint that was eventually settled out of court when Mister von Bülow agreed to a dee-vorce, the forfeiture of all claims to Sunny's fortune, and to leave the United States. In exchange, Cosima received her $30,000,000 cut of the her mother's estate.

Mister von Bülow, now in his 80s, currently lives in London where he hobnobs with European royalty and the other international glitterati types that collect there. Ala, Alexander and Cosima have, reportedly, patched up their relationships. Missus von Bülow was not, however, so lucky. Shockingly, Sunny von Bülow remained in a coma for 28 years until she finally passed in December of 2008. A 1996 University of Toronto classroom case study on the ethics of death revealed that, "she is dressed daily by round-the-clock attendants who also see to her hair, makeup and nails. A small stereo radio fills the room with her favorite music. At no time during this period [1982-96] has Sunny von Bülow ever given any sign of self-awareness. She cannot respond to stimuli?sights, sounds, touch. She is nourished via a food tube. Neurological experts declare that her loss of consciousness is irreversible. And yet: she is capable of breathing on her own, without a respirator. Her brain-waves show sleep-wake sequences. Now and then her lips curl into a smile. Her eyes open periodically and are said to tear when she is visited by her children Ala and Alexander Auersperg." Lo-werd children, that just sounds so creepy and sad it makes us need a damn nerve pill to get through the rest of the day. International jet set chronicler Dominick Dunne?a friend of Sunny but no admirer of Claus?described the scene a bit less harshly in Vanity Fair shortly after her death when he wrote: " Her Porthault sheets were on her hospital bed. Several paintings from her New York apartment hung on her hospital room?s walls. Manicurists and hairdressers tended to her nails and blond hair. She was like Sleeping Beauty."

In addition to Clarendon Court Mister and Missus von Bülow maintained several other homes including Tamerlane, an estate in Greenwich, CT owned by her mother, and a grand 14-room spread in the über exclusive and very posh building at 960 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The sedate 22-unit limestone building is, without question, one of Manhattan's most high nosed co-operative apartment houses and is filled with filthy rich and high profile residents such as philanthropist Patricia Altschul, Latin American media magnate Gustavo Cisneros and his social wife Patty, Edgar Bronfman Sr., billionaire Sid Bass' first ex-wife Anne Bass, Roy Zuckerberg (former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs who bought his apartment in July of 2006 for $16,900,000 from an heir to the Bic pen fortune), velvet king Loic De Kertanguy and his social wife Rebecca, and Emily Frick?widow of Dr. Henry Clay Frick II who died in 2007 and was a member of the steel fortune Fricks ?who scooped up a $3,900,000 place at 960 in the fall of 2006 not long after selling their Alpine, NJ estate for a blood curdling $58,000,000.

Although most reports indicate that Mister von Bülow "had the good taste to sell his eighth-floor apartment" at 960 Fifth Avenue shortly after his acquittal, a little poking around on the interweb and Your Mama turned up a first hand account of a writer who tells of having lunch at the von Bülow's Fifth Avenue apartment in 1997 with its then occupant Cosima von Bülow who had by then married an Italian count.

Anyhoo, property records show Clarendon Court was sold in 1988 to its current owners, Washington D.C. art dealer Glenn Randall and his wife Patricia for $4,200,000. The Randalls reportedly attempted to sell the property in the mid-1990s when it was listed for $5,950,000. But alas, nobody turned up to buy their (in)famous house and it remains in their property portfolio.

Listing information reveals that the symmetrical residence, which includes a fat main body and two slimmer wings that wrap around part of the gated motor court at the front of the house, measures 11,878 square feet and includes 5 main bedrooms (plus 5 more) and at least 8.5 poopers. Mahogany exterior doors open to a foyer with iron and glass inner doors that open directly into the gleaming white marble floored entrance way that has a sweeping staircase and a back door on a direct access from the front that provides a narrow but immediate and promising view of the Narrangansatt Bay.
Floor plans included with marketing materials (above) show equally sized 23-foot wide and 40-foot long drawing and dining rooms that flank the entry, each with 18th-century fireplace surrounds and windows that look out onto the loggia that runs along the back of the house and towards the sea. Beyond the dining room, a gigantic 29-foot long breakfast room has black and white marble floors, an arched ceiling, traditional?and fussy?lattice wall details, and towering arched windows and French doors that open out to terraces and the view. A powder pooper for guests is situated immediately off the breakfast room.

The service areas of Clarendon Hall, consist of a back stair hall, large kitchen, gigantic butler's pantry that connects large kitchen to the dining room, and staff and laundry facilities that, according to listing information, can easily be converted to less formal family quarters or such as a billiard or family room.

A paneled library off of the drawing room, with Siena yellow and white 18th-century marble fireplace surround, has arched windows and French doors that mirror those in the breakfast room. Also located off the drawing room is the first floor master suite comprised of a 32-foot, 600+ square foot bedroom with fireplace, private study, a long hallway lined with closets and two poopers.

Upstairs there are a total of four bedrooms, one with a private sitting room (with fireplace), two with water views, two with a view of the front courtyard, three with fireplaces, and all with private poopers. Five more bedrooms and two additional poopers located the third floor provide over-flow for over-night guests, children's rooms or staff quarters.

Just beyond the back of the house, a huge heated swimming pool sunk directly into the lawn with no surrounding terrace stretches an astounding 105-feet and a wide allee of mature trees carpeted with grass directs and draws the eye towards the rocky and irregular coastline that's bordered by formal and clipped hedges. The Newport Cliff walk, which winds and wraps along 3.5 miles of the water's edge, is tunneled under the back yard of Clarendon Court ensuring no touristing looky-loos catch a glimpse of the owners should they want to sunbathe or swing a croquet mallet in their birfday suits.

Unfortunately the dwindling fortunes of many "old" American families who once summered in Newport no longer allow for the excessive costs of maintaining a home of the magnitude of these super-sized "cottages." Certainly there are still any numbers of descendants of the Gilded Age industrialists who continue to own and occupy homes in Newport but their are slowly shrinking and being replaced by a whole bunch of the New American Aristocracy: Financial types whose money flows like water and who include folks like former Deutsche Bank distressed debt honcho Simon Mullally and his wife Melissa, former investment banker and sailing enthusiast Pietar Taselaar and his wife Nina.
As it turns out, the Randalls also have Clarendon Court's Horace Trumbauer designed carriage house, studio and stable complex on the market separately with an asking price of $4,800,000 (above). The unrestored 2-story structure built in 1910 and measuring 10,200 square feet and sits on 1.57 acres with 125 feet of waterfront. In addition to the stables and 4-car garage, the sprawling brick built structure, all hipped roof, decorative dormers and limestone quoins, includes 6 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers. A series of brick walled cutting gardens that no longer have anything planted to cut besides grass and a brick and glass pavilion extend from the house towards the shoreline. Iffin anyone were to ask Your Mama, which of course no one did, one of those cutting gardens is begging for a swimming pool.

UPDATE: It appears that listing information has been slightly altered to reflect a list price of $17,800,000, a number that includes both the main house and the carriage house.

listing photos and floor plan: Libby Kirwin Real Estate

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