Mario Lopez Gets a New Crib to Go With His New Crib

BUYER: Mario Lopez
LOCATION: Glendale, CA
PRICE: $1,940,000
SIZE: 4,430 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 6 bathroom

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Strap on your safety belts butter beans because Your Mama is on a bit of a tear this morning.

Child actor turned tee-vee presenter, book writer, and spokesperson Mario Lopez is the next in a too long list of celebrities and quasi-celebrities to get a reality show simply because they're having a damn baby. Lo-word have mercy childrne, it's as if having a baby were some sort of rare occurrence even though millions of women do it every damn day without a television crew filming it for national tee-vee.

See puppies, apparently the politically conservative Mister Lopez is making babies out of wedlock with his long time ladee-friend, a Broadway dancer named Courtney Mazza, and they're going to get paid the medium bucks to let the VH1 cameras follow them around while they change dirty diapers, make stoopid faces at their infant, and fret over every little hiccup the thing makes.

Oh, yippee! That sounds just thrilling, don't it? Why do people think the details of their infant childrens' lives are so interesting to other people? News flash: They aren't. People just pretend to be interested in your baby's crap schedules and feeding habits and then go home and complain about it to anyone who will listen about how boring y'all have become since you've had a damn baby. And don't even think about showing your gawd damn birth video to anyone. We get it, a child is a kind of miracle and all that, but your friends don't really want to see that. Seriously. For reals. They don't. Think about it. Do you really want to see your co-worker or sister pass a bloody, bowling ball sized thing through her cho-chuh? No, of course you don't. Jeezis, Mary and Jehosephat we need a nerve pill just thinking of that.

In all fairness to Mister Mario Lopez, who seems like a nice enough guy even though he's (allegedly) had trouble keeping his wing-wang in his pants in the past, he's said he intends to to the right thing and make an honest woman of his baby momma and that?surprise!?the wedding may be a part of his new reality show.

Smooth chested Mister Mario Lopez?who, thank y'all very much, has the ripped out body of a gay porn star?played the ethnic hunk on Saved by the Bell in the early 1990s and graduated to a lead role in 1997 as Olympic diver Greg Louganis in his television movie life story. Even before appearing on Dancing With the Stars in 2006 where he began a two year romance with his partner Karina Smirnoff or taking on the full time hosting duties of the celebrity gossip fest Extra in 2008, the very congenial and smiley Mister Mario Lopez was a much sought after host for programs such as The Other Half with Danny Bonaduce?a depressing display meant to be the testosterone fueled version of the estrogen party that is The View?and a slew of those mortifying and embarrassing Miss Teen USA and Miss America pageants.

In 2008 Mister Mario Lopez made his Broadway debut in the revival of Chorus Line and currently, in addition to his hosting duties on Extra, he hosts America's Best Dance Crew, MTV's Top Pop Group, and Sí TV's Dating Factory. He also writes books about fitness and diet and gets paid to be the spokesperson for some drink we've never heard of that claims to burn calories. When Mister Mario Lopez had time to knock up his ladee-friend we don't know, but knock her up he did.

Anyhoodles poodles, in anticipation of baby and reality show, Mister Mario Lopez recently splashed out $1,940,000 for new crib in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, CA where he and his baby momma Miss Mazza can put their baby's new crib. According to property records (and previous reports), Mister Mario Lopez and Miss Mazza will be raising their love child in a very privately situated and historically landmarked 12-room Spanish style house in the foothills of Glendale, CA. The tax man's records and listing information Your Mama teased out of the interweb shows the Lopez/Mazza digs measure 4,430 square feet and include 4 bedrooms and 6 poopers.

A long driveway leads from the street down to an electronically controlled gate that swings open to a tight motor court where there is three car garage. A courtyard with gurgling fountain separates the motor court from the front door of the fully renovated house that was originally built in 1929 and sprawls across 5 tax parcels that total just under an acre of land.

Listen butter beans, listing photos show the out-dated and uninspired day-core of the previous owner so we're not going to discuss all that and just cross our fingers that Mister Mario Lopez has the good damn sense to hire a nice, gay decorator to do up his new digs in an appropriate and tasteful manner and not, heaven help us all, like one of those tacky all-beige hot messes that so many people seem to like to install in their multi-million dollar suburban houses.

The interior spaces of Mister Mario Lopez's new home includes a formal living room with ebonized hardwood floors, arched windows and doorways, fireplace, and city lights views towards the small cluster of towers in downtown Glendale. Decorative wrought iron gates with a snail spiral pattern separate the formal living room from the oval shaped formal dining room that has a decorative tile baseboard, a trio of arched leaded glass windows and a large chandelier constructed of a tangle of twigs. Those windows, we hope, are original to the house, but Your Mama, who can get wild with claustrophobia, would much prefer to be able to see through those windows.

Listing information indicates the adjacent and somewhat oddly shaped eat-in kitchen was recently remodeled and appears to Your Mama to include travertine floors, granite counter tops, chestnut colored cabinetry with simple raised panel doors, and a full suite of black fronted Viking brand appliances. One entire, dizzying, and visually complicated wall in the kitchen is fitted with two refrigerators, three ovens, a warming drawer and a microwave, or what we think is a microwave. Additional rooms in this old house include an office/den and a family room with fireplace and arched French doors that open out into the extensive patios are gardens.

In addition to the master bedroom that has a brand new pooper and a balcony overlooking a courtyard, there are 3 additional family bedrooms, a newly remodeled guest house tucked back behind the garage with kitchen and bath, and a separate pool house.

Mexican paver tiled terraces with lovely views wrap around the "U" shaped house and surround the free form swimming pool located on a large flat area tucked into the hillside. The land below the swimming poll and pool house is terraced like rice paddy fields and should provide for some secluded spots where Mister Mario Lopez and his baby momma Miss Mazza can escape the prying eyes of the camera crews they've invited to be in their home day after day after day.

According to property records Mister Mario Lopez has owned a 4,387 square foot house in the foothills of Burbank, CA since June of 2004 when he forked over $1,350,000 for the 5 bedroom and 5 pooper property. Records also show that he also owns a second house in Burbank, not so far from the other, with 3 bedrooms and 3 poopers that he bought way back in 1994 for $238,000. Your Mama does not know who occupies this house but since Mister Lopez is a man who loves his family, we would not be the least bit surprised to learn that his parents live there. Or maybe he just rents it out for income. Who knows?

Although we don't expect that we'll watch more than once, we do plan on tuning in this fall to Mister Lopez's upcoming reality show in order to check out how he and the not-yet Missus Lopez do up the day-core. We are hoping for the best but, for some reason that we can't explain, expecting the worst.

listing photos: Arbitrage Real Estate Group via Redfin

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Michael Jordan Picks Up Penthouse Pad

As anyone who knows Your Mama knows, we know next to nothing about grown men who earn outrageous amounts of cheddar dribbling little orange balls up and down gigantic arenas with exceedingly shiny wood floors and netted bottomless baskets at either end. None the less, we're going to do the best we can here with this bit of celebrity real estate bizness that involves a man named Michael Jordan who, according to our ball crazy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau, is one of the if not the greatest basketball player the world has ever seen.

Listen children, before we begin we must say that although Your Mama finds zip, zero and zilch in public property records that indicates Mister Jordan did anything of the kind, according to Charlotte Chitchatter and a number of real estate rumors and recent reports making their way down the sports gossip grapevine Mister Michael Jordan recently scooped up a penthouse pad in Uptown section of downtown Charlotte, NC.

After a spin through the interweb and a quick consult with Fiona Trambeau?who gave us a verbal blistering for waking her trampy ass up before noon?we learned that Mister Jordan began his professional career as a ball dribbler in 1984 with the Chicago Bulls team. After three consecutive NBA championships, His Airness retired his basketball jersey in 1993?or maybe in 1994, we don't really know?in order to pursue a career in baseball. That endeavor did not, apparently, go very well because by 1995 Mister Jordan was back to the Chicago Bulls getting paid the big bucks. After signing at least one one-year contract that promised him an income of well over $30,000,000 (not counting endorsement deals) and three more consecutive NBA championships Mister Jordan retired for the second time in 1999. He reappeared for a couple of lackluster seasons, according to ol' Fiona Trambeau, in the early 2000s with the ridiculously named Washington Wizards.

Mister Jordan's accolades, awards and professional achievements are far too many for Your Mama to adequately detail. Suffice to say he's a much lauded and applauded fellow with records and accomplishments coming out his wazoo, including playing on two gold medal winning Olympic basketball teams. He was also, of course, enormously fortunate to have all manner of exceedingly?some might say excessively?lucrative endorsement deals thrown at him from deep pocketed multi-national corporations such as (but not limited to) Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and the underwear maker Hanes.

To his credit, even well after his retirement from the b-ball, the charitable Mister Jordan still rakes in a fat fortune on endorsement deals and other business interests that include a majority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats professional basketball team, which brings us back to the real estate ma">real estate matter at hand and the penthouse Mister Jordan allegedly purchased in the Uptown area of downtown Charlotte, NC.

According to all the reports, Mister Jordan recently snatched up the entire 7th floor of The Trust building (below) on N. Tryon Street that looks out over on and is walking distance from the Time Warner Cable Arena where Mister Jordan's Bobcats people do their dribbling and shooting.
According to the developer's website, the 7-story Trust building, a modernist affair with wisps of traditional Japanese timber architecture, was put up in 1967 as the Home Federal Savings and Loan Building. The developers who took on the project of converting the bizness building to private residences maintained the architectural spirit and integrity of the building's exterior but transformed the interior spaces into eight luxuriously appointed condos of various sizes and layouts. They also, according to the website, added a residents only roof terrace partially shaded by an glass canopy that includes a private sunbathing area, an outdoor kitchen, dog run, patch of grass, a water wall?whatever that is?various seating areas, and 360 degree views of the surrounding towers of downtown Charlotte's Uptown neighborhood. The building also offers residents access to a wine vault, secure parking, extensive private storage space and an on-site restaurant.

As best as Your Mama can tell, the 7th floor of The Trust was offered as two separate loft style apartments that total about 6,800 square feet of interior space plus recessed terraces with gas grills. We know nothing about the approximately 3,500 square foot "B" side of the 7th floor other than it was originally designed with 2 bedrooms and listed, according to listing information, at $1,650,000.

The "A" side of the 7th floor, according to the developer's website and listing information, spreads across about 3,300 square feet of luxe loft-style space and was designed with 2 bedrooms, 2.5 "spa style" poopers, a large den, a small office area, and a huge pantry/laundry room behind the gourmet kitchen equipped with Viking brand appliances. The listing photos for the unit, last listed at $1,750,000 show medium brown hardwood floors, exposed concrete beam ceilings, and large windows that wrap around the entire apartment.

There are photos floating around of the "A" unit but they're really of little consequence because recent reports indicate that Mister Jordan?whose people, the children will keep, have not publicly confirmed he purchased?has embarked on a major million dollar renovation to combine the two condo units into one 7,250 square foot penthouse aerie with private elevator landing, two large recessed terraces, and 360 degree views.

Mister Jordan will not be the only person connected to the Charlotte Bobcats living up in The Trust. The Bobcat's forward Boris Diaw reportedly also owns a condo at The Trust.

Until 2007, when he got a dee-vorce from his wife Juanita that reportedly cost him a blood curdling $168,000,000, Mister Jordan made his primary home in the suburbs of Chicago where he and the family lived on an sprawling and fully landscaped 8.39 acre spread in Highland Park that the Lake County tax man's records shows measures a beastly, boo-teek hotel sized 27,648 square feet and includes at least 12 terlits and garage parking for at least 14 automobiles. It's not entirely clear to Your Mama if ex-Missus Jordan got the multi-winged pile with indoor basketball court in the dee-vorce, but that does appear to be the case. In truth, the very contemporary suburban crib is so damn big Mister and ex-Missus Jordan could easily divide up the house and both live there and rarely run in to each other. We suspect that's not, however, what happened.

Records and previous reports reveal that in November of 2008, Mister Jordan and his younger Cuban ladee friend Yvette Prieto?a "model" who knows how to pick 'em and was previously hooked up with Julio Inglesias, Jr.?paid $281,000 for a very modest 3 bedroom and 2 pooper house in the surburban Highlands of Kendall community in Miami, FL. Property records show both of their names on the deed for the 2,235 square foot house.

Listen chickens, despite having to cough up a couple hundred million clams for the ex-wife, Mister Jordan is about as far from broke as one can get. It's estimated the basketball legend and athletic icon still rakes in more than $40,000,000 per year so it's unlikely that Mister Jordan purchased the petite pad because he can't afford anything more expensive or lavish. Of course we don't know nuthin' from nuthin' about anything but Your Mama suspects this house in a lackluster area at the south western edge of Miami is one of Miss Pietro's consolation prizes in the event her relationship with the big man swirls down the terlit of love.

Before any of y'all get all righteous and start going to town about how far Mister Jordan has fallen off of his real estate high horse, recognize that the unreformed real estate size queen has far larger real estate dreams and plans than a little house on the edge of the Everglades. Multiple reports reveal that in the spring of 2008 Mister Jordan paid $2,400,000 each for two adjacent lots that total just over 3 acres inside the guarded gates of the super swank Bears Club community in Jupiter FL. The Bears Club, an über upscale golf community, was developed in the late 1990s by former professional golf legend Jack Nicklaus and his wife Barbara.
Subsequent reports indicate that plans have been approved for Mister Jordan to build a big ol' mansion at the Bears Club described as "contemporary" with "a limestone-and-stucco exterior and Spanish tile roof." The approved plans call for a beast of a residence that measures around 26,000 square feet and includes 10 bedrooms and 10 poopers, 4 staircases connecting the first and second floors, 1 elevator, and garaging for 8 automobiles and 3 golf carts.

Additional planned amenities of the humongous house include an 11 foot- fireplace in the great room, kitchen with eating area and adjacent family room, library/study with wet bar, media room, a large game or card room on the second floor, and a glass lanai that stretches across the back of the house that looks over the home's spa pool and summer kitchen area.

As if that all were not enough, approved plans for Mister Jordan's new digs also include a guest cottage, pool house, and two-story guard house even though the estate is located in a guard gated community that offers residents private security.

According to the bizzy boys over at Celebrity Address Aerial, Mister Jordan also owns a a big house within the private Glenwild Golf Club community in Park City, UT, the same hoity-toity golf community where, scuttlebutt has it, Tiger Woods has peeped at property. Property records are a bit vague but it appears that the 7,994 square foot house sits on 3.93 acre lot and includes 2 full and 2 half poopers and an unknown number of bedrooms. It looks to Your Mama like he purchased the golf and snow ski getaway in posh Park City in September of 2007.

photo (Charlotte): Bobs Blitz
photo (Highland Park): Bing
photo: Jupiter): Bing

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Leeza Gibbons Gets a New Crib in the 90210

BUYER: Leeza Gibbons
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $6,600,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Once upon a time, celebrity gossip program presenter (Entertainment Tonight and Extra), radio personality (Hollywood Confidential), and bizness ladee (Sheer Cover make-up line) Leeza Gibbons owned a compound on Los Angeles' Courtney Avenue that once belonged to Tinseltown's favorite wicked mommy Joan Crawford.

According to property records, Miz Gibbons and her then architect/actor/artist/Parabounce inventor huzband Stephen Meadows picked up the 8 bedroom and 6.5 pooper compound in September of 1991 for $1,995,000. Mister Meadows proceeded to do an architectural hocus-pocus on the historic hillside property that includes a 1926 Mediterranean mansion, matching but newer 2.5 story guest house, and private swimming pool complex with sauna room and a Playboy mansion style spa situated a grotto.

After making a couple shorties and nearly 15 years, Miz Gibbons and Mister Meadows went splitsville in 2005. Their bust up triggered a real estate saga of near epic proportions, or at least one that lasted more than half a decade. Soon after going their separate ways the erstwhile couple attempted to sell their 1+ acre spread located near the bottom celebrity packed Nichols Canyon. The property was listed and relisted several times including in late 2006 when it hit the market with an asking price of $7,995,000. By September of 2008 and with at least two dead deals in the water, the asking price had dipped to $7,395,000. Although we have no idea if it's true or not, it was around this period of time that Your Mama heard through the real estate grapevine that Miz Gibbons was occupying the main house and Mister Meadows was inhabiting the guest house. Can you say awk-ward in a high-pitched sing-song manner?

By October of 2009 the price had sank to $6,850,000. Three months later it plummeted to $5,850,000 and another month later the Gibbons/Meadows shaved another half a million clams off the price tag. In early June of 2010 the property was ripped from the market and in late June it was sold for?are y'all sitting down??$4,795,000. That is by any standard an ass-load of money but it is also a full 40% less than the former couple had originally hoped to get for it when they listed the property at the tippy-top of the market when properties were trading at inflated prices like they were the last cup of ice water in the desert.

According to the bizzy boys at Celebrity Address Aerial and confirmed with property records, just days after she closed on her one time love nest in Nichols Canyon Miz Gibbons also closed on a mock-Mediterranean style pile in the same swank neck of the 90210 as David Geffen, Mike Ovitz, and David and Victoria Beckham who do not, it seems, spend much time in LaLa Land anymore. Records show the entrepreneurial Miz Gibbons forked over $6,600,000 for her new Bev Hills house.

Miz Gibbons' new digs, which sits hard, hard, hard up on the street with just a sliver of lushly landscaped front yard, measures 6,579 square feet according to listing information and includes 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers.

The front door opens into a dramatic impress the pizza man style double height entry that includes walnut wood floors and a tightly curved staircase with a wrought iron balusters and hand-painted tile risers. The walnut floors continue into the small formal living room that features a faux-beamed ceiling, fireplace with limestone surround, and a quartet of gently arched dark wood French doors, two that open to the front of the house and two that open to the back yard.

Since listing photos depict the day-core of the seller?or, taking note of all the way too many orchids throughout the house, more likely that of a stager with an orchid fetish?and not the style of Miz Gibbons it really would not be fair to say that the day-core of the formal dining room so depressing and upsetting and utterly banal that it has driven Your Mama to the drink even before 9 in the a.m. But there, we said it anyway.

The "epicurean" kitchen, a sort of faux-Tuscan/mock-Mediterranean/French-farmhouse hybrid, is all fake-aged cabinetry, carved corbels, and florid chingaderos and includes, we regret to inform, a tawdry tile mural located behind the mac-daddy sized Viking brand range that shows a cornucopian crush of flowers and fruit. Your Mama isn't sure what kind of person thinks that a tile mural behind the range is a good idea, but it is not. Ever. These things are really nothing more than a silly and over-done decorative flourish and we sincerely hope that Miz Gibbons and her nice, gay decorator have the good sense to chip that thing out and replace it with the same sort of ordinary but expensive tumbled stone tiles that comprise the rest of the back splash. None the less, the kitchen, while a bit of a horror show in Your Mama's mind, is well equipped with three copper farmhouse style sinks, two side by side stainless steel fridge and freezers, two dishwashers, a breakfast counter and a breakfast table.

There are a number of less formal living spaces in Miz Gibbons' new crib that include a family room with stone fireplace flanked by arched niches with built in cabinets for hiding the electronic equipment, a study/office, billiard room with a wall of built in cabinetry fitted with ice maker, dishwasher, wine fridge and several shelves full of booze, and a home theater that has the smallest home theater screen known to man. There is also a fitness room and upstairs sitting room that opens to a small sunbathing terrace.

Miz Gibbons' new back yard is only just slightly less slim than her cramped new front yard, but the developer of the property has managed to pack in a lot into the wee space including a covered outdoor living room area with fireplace, faux-beamed ceiling, and flat screen tee-vee. The back yard is also fitted and kitted with a built in barbecue cabana with long eating and drinking counter, and itty bitty heated swimming pool, raised spa with hand painted tile work.

Additional amenities include a small gated motor court and 3-car garage, a total of 4 fireplaces, laundry facilities, staff quarters, central vacuum, and a Crestron home technology system so that Miz Gibbons can shut the drapes in her bedroom while having a nightcap in the kitchen. The property is also equipped with a serious state of the art security system that includes surveillance cameras. That means iffin anyone wants to be a twit and roll on by Miz Gibbon's house they'll be filmed for posterity.

To where Mister Meadows decamped is unknown but given that he requested spousal support in their dee-vorce?as was reportedly agreed upon in a 2002 post-nuptial contract?Your Mama has a sneaking suspicion it's not anywhere nearly as expensive as his ex-wife's new mansion.

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Malibu Modern in The Rockaways...That's Right, the Rockaways

SELLER: Brett Morgen and Debra Eisenstadt
LOCATION: The Rockaways, Queens, NY
PRICE: $4,495,000
SIZE: 5,600 square feet, 3 bedrooms 2 full and 3 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama knows some people?a lot of people, actually?who have lived in New York City their entire adult lives and never made the trip down Brooklyn's fantastically diverse Flatbush Avenue to The Rockaways, a collection of mostly working class communities in Queens that line up along a narrow spit of sand barely three blocks wide at some points. For many, Manhattanites in particular, The Rockaways might as well be the moon since it seems terribly far away not to mention an entirely different socio-cultural world. Pity that. Besides having about 4-miles of gorgeous ocean frontage with wide sandy beaches?some of which are, believe it or not, pristine?The Rockaways are a fascinating slice of the amazing pie that makes up New York City.

There are basically three parts of the Rockaways: Breezy Point, the Far Rockaways, and everything in between. The Far Rockaways, at the eastern end directly south and in the flight path of J.F.K. International Airport, was once a summertime getaway for rich and famous types like W.C. Fields and Mae West. It also happens to be where big bad Bernie Madoff and his wifey Ruth grew up. Time hasn't been kind to the once chic Far Rockaways which today is a pretty rough and tumble jumble of neighborhoods that range from pretty nice to downright scary.

At the far western end of the Rockaways is Breezy Point, a small gated cooperative enclave that in 2001 the New York Times called "the whitest place in New York" due to its 98% Caucasian population. The Rockaways?and Breezy Point in particular?have long attracted a large number of members of the New York City police and fire departments and heaps and hordes of people of Irish descent, which has led to The Rockaways sometimes being referred to as the "Irish Riviera."

In between Breezy Point and the Far Rockaways are a collection of neighborhoods that range from the gang infested Hammel Houses to working class Rockaway Park to the upscale Belle Harbor made famous in November of 2001 when American Airlines flight 587 crashed into the neighborhood resulting in the deaths of more than 260 people.

Nowadays, mixed in with all the fire people, po-po, Irish, and working class locals who flock to the beach in the summertime to escape the crushing humidity are city folks and scads of arty farty hipster types who have discovered that it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to get to The Rockaways on the A-train than it is to get to the Hamptons, Fire Island, or even Robert Moses State Park on Long Island.

Straddling the border between the upscale Belle Harbor and the even more upscale Neponsit neighborhoods at the western end of The Rockaways, a somewhat out of its element ocean front glass and cedar sided contemporary is currently on the market with an asking price of $4,495,000. The owners of the house, which was designed and completed in 2008 by New York City architect Edward Mills, is Oscar nominated (documentary) filmmaker Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture, Chicago 10, Say It Loud: A Celebration of Black Music in America, On the Ropes) and his wife Debra Eisenstadt who in addition to being an actor, director, producer, and writer (Oleanna, The Limbo Room) also happens to be the granddaughter Benjamin Eisenstadt, the food condiment packaging tycoon who developed the formula for and designed the pink packet for the sugar substitute Sweet & Low.

The movie making couple picked up their Belle Harbor house in September of 2006 for $3,400,000 according to property records. The Morgen-Eisenstadts are the peeps responsible for the current contemporary architectural iteration of the residence that stylistically speaking could be picked up and happily plunked down in Malibu, CA or the gay gay gay Pines community on Fire Island, NY. Listing information indicates the modern house, a collection of solid masses, transparent planes and unexpected voids fitted together like an intricate puzzle, measures around 5,600 square feet spread over 4 floors and includes 3-4 bedrooms?depending on what one considers a bedroom?and 2 full and 3 half poopers.

The home is entered via an exterior staircase that climbs up to the first floor from the street level. Just beyond the front door is a small but proper entrance hall with coat closet and powder pooper. Several steps down from the entrance hall a long and sort of narrow living/dining room has over-sized windows that looks out onto dune, beach and ocean views. The floors are bee-yoo-tee-fully distressed French oak and the fireplace is a mass of sand colored stacked stone. Since the view is the undisputed star of the show here, artworks in the room are nil and furnishings include little more than a charcoal colored sectional sofa, that like the house is a collection of masses and voids in furniture form, and sculptural rough-edged wooden coffee and dining tables in the stunning style of master woodworker George Nakashima.

The clean lined kitchen/family room has stainless steel counter tops and back splash, concrete floors, and high grade stainless steel appliances wisely juxtaposed against more organic feeling wood cabinetry with flat fronts, visually textured exposed grain, and an ashy/bleached finish. A work island with Wolf range and raised breakfast counter separates the kitchen from the small family room area where a second fireplace with sand colored stacked stone surround is flanked by wood-framed glass doors that slide open to a blue stone terrace with outdoor fireplace and a small but heated ocean view swimming pool.

The lower level of the home, a basement sort of space that's actually on grade with the street, is comprised of a single car garage, large play room, half-pooper, a trio of large storage rooms and a small but state of the art media room with blood red walls, a titanic 12' x 7' screen, and cozy, red velvet covered sectional sofas.

A steep stair rises from behind the kitchen to an airy and light infused second floor hall where there hangs a portrait of Edward Kennedy by Andy Warhol and off of which open the three primary bedrooms. There are two smaller ocean view bedrooms that share a Jack and Jill style pooper with an ocean side window, and a master suite with vaulted ceiling, fireplace, huge walk in closet, and small but dee-luxe sky lit and ocean view pooper with separate tub and frameless glass shower. A wall of sliders opens the bedroom to a semi-private ocean side deck with glass railing.

Another steep stair case with glass rail and open treads leads to the third and top floor where a narrow "L" shaped room opens to a small terrace, the floor of which is punched by two sky lights that look directly down into the master pooper, a situation that could get a little ugly and embarrassing. The top level also includes another half-pooper and glassed in office area that gives way to a large roof terrace where the Morgen-Eisenstadt's managed?no doubt at considerable expense?to hoist up a free standing hot tub. While this hot tub on the roof is making the ocean and hot tub loving Dr. Cooter wet his pants with glee and envy, Your Mama would like to have seen the sellers spend a few more clams enclosing the hot tub in materials more in line with the gray cedar vertical that clads the exterior of the house. None the less, the roof deck has 360 degree views that in addition to unobstructed and mesmerizing vista of the Atlantic Ocean there are great views of the twinkling lights of New York City, planes landing at J.F.K., and the Verrazano Bridge.

When the house was renovated, the current owners, that would be Mister Morgen and Miz Eisenstadt, spent big to install a 9-zone central air and radiant heat system, a security system that includes six surveillance cameras, and a 13-zone Crestron home automation system through which discreet panels on the walls of each room control the home's lighting, audio and video systems, as well as the iPod and Sirius radio set ups.

Perhaps Mister Morgan and Miz Eisenstadt have realistically responded to a still sagging real estate ma">real estate market, or maybe because they recognize that in this stiff market the financially qualified buying pool for a house like this in a location like The Rockaways is slim at best, or possibly just because they're eager to move on to wherever they're going next, the asking price was recently chopped a couple of times from $5,379,000 to it's current price tag of $4,995,000.

No offense to the fire, po-po, and hipster people who love it there, but we're not convinced that for 4 and some million clams The Rockaways is the location of our ocean front dreams. Plus we're certain our imperious house gurl Svetlana would sooner slit our wrists than contend with the fingerprints and pooch nose juice that stainless steel and exterior glass railings tend to attract in Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's home. But dah-uhm children, this house is right up Your Mama's architectural alley. We're a bit iffy on a few things such as the tee-vee mounted above the sliders in the master and the switch to a different kind of wood floor in the upstairs poopers is awkward at best, but we're swooning over the glittering white walls that provide a barely there backdrop for the mix of hard edged and organic elements that play themselves out throughout the house and, of course, that speck-tack-u-lar view of the ocean across the undulating grassy dunes.

listing photos: Corcoran

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Candy Spelling's Candyland Hits the Open Market

All the real estate gossips and others who care about such silly things already know that Tinseltown's most famous widow Candy Spelling is fixin' to move to a 16,500 square foot (give or take) dee-luxe doo-plex penthouse at the newly built Robert A.M. Stern designed tower in the Century City area of Los Angeles. It's widely whispered and reported she paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $47,000,000 for her new crib in the sky.

As the custom build-out of her still gigantic but comparatively downsized digs nears completion, Miz Spelling must be getting eager and antsy to unload her famous (and infamous) mega-mansion in the hoity-toity Holmby Hills neighborhood. Miz Spelling has long had her house, which she rather haughtily calls The Manor, quietly and not so quietly on and off the market for a number of years. There have long been pared down listings on the websites of the real estates handling the property but it's never been, as far as we can remember, on the wide open market. However, thanks to Wendell Whistleblower, we've learned that Miz Spelling has finally, at long last, and just yesterday put the listing for her titanic 56,500 square foot, 123 room faux-French chateau on the MLS.

Interestingly?and somewhat surprisingly to Your Mama?Miz Spelling has opted to stick with the same blood curdling $150,000,000 asking price she's been unsuccessfully shopping the property around at for years.

Back when The Widda Spelling first put her humongous house on the market and allowed some news cameras into The Manor, she giggled about how she really didn't know how many poopers there are in her convention hall sized house. Presumably the real estates of record?or more likely their assistants?spent an entire weekend schlepping through all 4 floors of the mansion counting bedrooms and terlits because listing information now shows there are 14 bedrooms and an astonishing 27 poopers. Have mercy! Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's tyrannical and theatrical house gurl Svetlana would fall over in hysterics and convulsions iffin we told her that she was going to be responsible for keeping 27 damn terlits polished.

Other interior comforts and frivolities include a billiard room, arcade room, doll museum, 2-lane bowling alley, a flower cutting hall with professional florist refrigerator, a gift wrapping room or two, silver and china storage rooms, an art studio, exercise room, music room, barber and beautician facilities, a service wing with staff quarters, at least 5 fireplaces, and garaging for 16 automobiles.

The grounds, which span 4.69 flat acres according to listing information and must require a full-time groundskeeping crew to maintain, include a circular football field sized motor court with a fountain in the center, formal gardens, expansive lawns, vast terraces, a koi pond, a l'orangerie, antique rose bushes, tennis court, and a swimming pool with adjacent pool house complete with full kitchen and bar.

It makes Your Mama's heart squeal with agony to think of Miz Spelling?who, as far as we know, lives alone but for her staff?coming home on a Friday night after a casual dinner with Tori at Koo Koo Roo and rambling around that big ol' hotel sized house all by her lonesome.

Making matters worse and driving Your Mama to the drink at nine in the damn morning is that we can't realistically conceive of just who might want to buy a house like this at a price like that in the shabby economy with which we're currently saddled. None the less, has anyone called real estate size queen Tyler Perry or Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko whose been bobbing around on his big boat off the coast of Venice, CA the last couple of days?

Of course, we don't know a book end from a tight end but since Miz Spelling seems reluctant to slash the asking price she just might have better luck getting the property re-zoned and selling her steroidal mansion as some sort of corporate retreat or maybe as a half-way house for Hollywood wives who get unceremoniously traded in for a younger and firmer version of themselves by their middle-aged and out of shape entertainment executive huzbands.

It's our understanding that Miz Spelling still owns and maintains an ocean front spread on Malee-boo's super swank Carbon Beach that's just a few doors down from David Spade. Now can y'all imagine those two having coffee and do-nuts on the deck on a summer morning?

photo: Pacific Coast News

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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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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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