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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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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Does Martha Stewart Want Huguette Clark's Spread?

Your Mama isn't sure why this little nugget of celebrity real estate scuttlebutt didn't find longer legs because it's 49 kinds of juicy even though it probably doesn't have a lick of truth to it.

According to a September 13th (2010) report on the something called Times of the Internet (via the not always reliable National Enquirer), billionaire domestic diva and trophy property collector Martha Stewart "covets" the 42-room Fifth Avenue spread of reclusive centenarian billion-heiress Huguette Clark.

As the children know, there has been quite a bit of brouhaha and ink spilled the last few months regarding the mysterious copper heiress Huguette Clark, her vast fortune estimated to be around half a billion bucks, and her three residences located in three of the country's ritziest zip codes. It's been reported that Miz Clark has not been inside her titanic apartment New York City at 907 Fifth Avenue at for more than 20 years, visited her vast estate overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, CA since sometime in the 1960s and, despite having added an entire wing, never even stepped foot on the secluded New Canaan, CT estate she purchased during the 1950s as a kind of real estate security blanket in the event that the cold war got hot and she wanted to get out of New York City.

According to the National Enquirer's so-called "insider," Miz Stewart, who we hear from several sources already owns a smaller unit in the building with a kitchen that looks like a damn science lab, has "got the whole apartment redecorated in her mind. The deal seems to be all she can think about."

This "insider" also claims that Miz Stewart, a gal who makes other women (and gay men) feel totally and completely inadequate in their crafting and baking skills, is so intent on buying Huguette's 42-room beast on Fifth Avenue that she once sent a plate of her famous cream puffs up to Miz Clark's apartment as a kind of Trojan Horse. But alas, by that point Miz Clark had long been sequestered in a New York City hospital and the cream puffs were returned tout de suite by her staff.

Sometime after her cream puffs were rebuffed, according to this "insider," Miz Stewart went to the doorman of the undistinguished white glove building and "angrily demanded" that he tell her where Miz Clark was. But alas, the doorman did not know and once again Big Bad Martha, allegedly, was thwarted in her attempt to buy the epic-sized crib even before she really got started. Now chickens, please keep in mind that we don't know if these cream puff and doorman stories have a shred of veracity. However, iffin the stories were true it chills Your Mama to the core to ponder the icy resolve and quiet anger that we imagine would have slowly crept across Miz Stewart's face and into the marrow of her 68-year old bones. She is, after all and as we all know (or think we know), not used to not getting what she wants.

What's interesting about this report in the National Enquirer?which we are unable to find online?is that it does not include the most important detail regarding Huguette's 42-room "apartment." In actually Huguette's 42-room digs are two unconnected units on two different floors of the building. One is a full floor prairie like spread and the other a half-floor apartment where it has been reported Huguette keeps her extensive collection of dolls and dollhouses. Getting from one apartment to the other requires a short but inconvenient elevator ride.
A typical 14-room half floor apartment at 907 Fifth Avenue?as it was originally laid out (above)?would have included a 4-5 bedrooms, a 46-foot long entrance gallery, a 31-foot long living room with fireplace, formal dining room with fireplace, small library, and a kitchen with large butlers pantry. Live in staff would be accommodated in 3 cell-sized rooms that share just one pooper and a small servant's hall is where the live-ins would take their meals and quietly complain and gossip about the demands and proclivities of their wildly wealthy employers. According to the materials sent to Your Mama by one of The Children whom we'll call Hamilton Hasthefloorplan the fourteen room half floor units at 907 Fifth were first marketed with yearly lease prices of?are y'all sitting down??$10,500.
Thanks to Hamilton Hasthefloorplan, Your Mama now has a seizure inducing floor plan for a 28-room full floor apartment at 907 Fifth Avenue that includes two 40-foot long drawing/living rooms, a 30-foot long library, dining room, colossal kitchen with pantry, six family bedrooms, and 5.5 poopers. The apartment's vast staff quarters include laundry facilities (with a drying porch), a maze of hallways, 9 punishingly small staff bedrooms that share 2 poopers, a small servant's hall, and a decent sized bedroom with private pooper for the housekeeper. The full floor apartments at 907 Fifth Avenue, according to marketing materials, were first offered with a yearly lease price of?sit down again and grab a nerve pill, puppies?$30,000. Lo-ward have mercy children that's a damn fraction of what Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter payed in annual rent for a much smaller 3 bedroom and 3 pooper downtown doo-plex.

Listen chickens, Your Mama does not know a peg leg from pin cushion so we haven't any idea whether either of these floor plans reflects an accurate layout of either of Huguette Clark's Fifth Avenue apartment(s). What they do reflect is how the apartments were laid out early in the building's history. Let's be honest though, whether they represent the layout of Huguette's two apartments or not, they are fascinating and jaw dropping bits of floor plan porn to pour over while sipping on an early afternoon gin and tonic.

floor plan image (half floor): Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library

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Let's Talk About Paul Allen...Again, Shall We?

Even though Your Mama spent two days and way too much time discussing and poring over the residential property holdings of multi-billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, it seems that we managed to miss at least three very significant pieces of his vast real estate puzzle.

The previously discussed Beverly Hills estate and the gleaming new beach house on Carbon Beach in Malibu are not, as it turns out the only residential real estate holdings in southern California that take up space in Mister Allen's porcine property portfolio.

In 1997 Mister Allen dumped $20,000,000 on The Enchanted Hill, a near mythic estate perched along a ridge at the tippy-top of Angelo Drive above Benedict Canyon. Much to the chagrin and anger of just about everyone, Mister Allen razed the legendary Wallace Neff designed house (above) that was built in the early 1920s for prolific screenwriter actress Frances Marion and her silent screen star husband Fred Thomson.

The original estate contained about 24 acres and included a sprawling Spanish Colonial style main house, horse stables with mahogany floors, a riding ring or two, tennis court, swimming pool, and acres of formal gardens. Miz Marion and Mister Thomson dubbed the estate The Enchanted Hill, a name that became a bit of an inside joke between two-time Oscar winner Miz Marion and her media mogul boss William Randolph Heart who named his colossal castle confection in San Simeon, CA the same name only in español: La Cuesta Encantada.

In 1929, not long after Mister Thomson stepped on a rusty nail and died of the tetanus, the estate as sold for $540,000 to Texas oil and mining magnate Lejeune Barnes. Paul Kollsman, who made a fortune from his invention of altimeters, barometers and other instruments and doo-dads used in flying airplanes, purchased the property 1945. Over the years that Mister Kollsman and his wife Baroness Julie Dorothea Baronin von Bodenhausen owned the property it ballooned to about 120 acres.

Mister Kollman went to meet the great inventor in the sky in 1982 and his widow, that would be Baroness Julie Dorothea Baronin von Bodenhausen, sold the property in 1997 to our man Paul Allen. Your Mama read somewhere?we no longer recall where?that Mister Allen spent some effort and money revitalizing the residence. Whatever the case, by 2000 the somewhat eccentric Mister Allen decided to tear the Wallace Neff beehawtcha down to make way for, according to one of Your Mama's better connected sources, a steroidal 50,000 square foot mansion.

Not surprisingly, Mister Allen's decision to bull doze all that was beloved up on The Enchanted Hill worked the nerves and the fired up the wrath of architectural buffs and historians. Yes puppies, it was and is his property to do with as he pleases. None the less, in Your Mama's humble and utterly meaningless opinion it was a crying damn shame for Mister Allen to tear down the rambling, multi-winged mansion that defined a particular sort of California architectural dream.
Making matters worse is that Mister Allen?perhaps as a result of his architectural vilification or perhaps due to a case of The Real Estate Fickle?has done little but clear the property, improve the road that winds through the hilltops and canyons and connects Angelo Drive to Benedict Canyon Drive, terrace a few hillsides, and clear what appear to be a number of potential home sites.

We are, it could probably go without saying, thrilled that Mister Allen has not proceeded to build a hotel-sized house but it's devastating to think he got rid of something so extraordinary for what, 10 years later, seems like no reason at all. That said, better that he razed The Enchanted Hill and did nothing with the property than developed it into a gated enclave of monster mansions that would probably appear as ornate pimples on an otherwise unspoiled terrain.

There are many online references that make it no secret that in 1993 Mister Allen bought a former sheep ranching operation outside of Tetonia, ID known as Teton Ridge Ranch. The 4,000+ acre spread located on the rugged western flank of the Grand Teton National Park near Yellowstone and Jackson Hole is, as far as Your Mama is concerned, pretty much the middle of freaking nowhere near the border of Idaho and Wyoming.

For many years after Mister Allen purchased Teton Ridge Ranch, it was operated as an exclusive resort style property with 10,000 square foot luxury lodge and just five suites each kitted out with wood burning stove, spa, and private porch. Guest could choose from indoor activities such as eating, drinking, reading and playing pool on an antique billiard table or they could head out of doors where options included hiking, horse riding, and mountain biking trails as well as fishing and skiing. As of March of 2009, according to the answering machine that picks up the phone at the ranch, Teton Ridge Ranch is no longer open to the public. Presumably Mister Allen wants free and unfettered access to the ranch without those pesky vacationers hanging about.
The property records for Teton Ridge Ranch in Idaho lead Your Mama's wandering eye to the Big Island of Hawai'i where records and online sources reveal that Mister Allen owns an historic Hawaiian hideaway behind the gates of an exclusive oceanfront community in Kailua-Kona, HI. Although they have been somewhat scrubbed clean, public property records indicate that Mister Allen shelled out $7,500,000 to scoop up what is (or was) known as the Thurston Estate in Kailua-Kona, HI.

Whatever he may have paid for the place and when might not be entirely clear, what does not seem to be in question, according to a June 30, 2009 hearing transcript of the Leeward Planning Commission in the County of Hawai'i, is that Mister Allen owns and occupies the 10+ acre former Thurston Estate.

Thanks to materials sent to Your Mama by the ever intrepid and resourceful Lil' Gay BOy, we've learned that the Thurston Estate was formerly owned by Lorrin P. Thurston, former owner and publisher of the Honolulu Advertiser and the one-time Chairman of the Hawai'i Statehood Commission. Mr. Thurston, a direct descendant of missionaries Asa and Lucy Thurston who arrived on the shores of Hawai'i in 1820 to inform all the natives they were a sinful lot and going straight to hell without a handbasket if they didn't quickly repent and convert to Christianity, purchased the property in the 1930s and spent the next 50 years building and landscaping the magnificent property.

At the time Mister Thurston owned the property it was called Lanihau-iki which translates, according to an old Kona Properties brochure, as "The place where the forces of heavens and and of the earth meet and all is quiet and peaceful." Your Mama, who does not have a tongue for the languages marvels at how such a extensive description comes out of one hyphenated and not very word. Sometimes these rich folks like to put their own stamp and name on their properties and Your Mama does not know if Mister Allen has maintained the Lanihau-iki moniker.

Prior to the property being purchased by Mister Allen there was, in addition to the long and low 12,000 square foot main house, an employee residence, garage space, a beach house, a boat shed and boat launch that dropped watercraft into the amoebic private boat harbor. A short bridge connects the grounds to a small island that sits in the wee harbor. At the ocean's edge are a couple of tiny private beaches, dramatic lava outcroppings, and several tide pools. Lo-werd hunnies, this island wonderland makes that place in Kailua-Kona that Cher built and sold at auction in late 2009 look like a damn dump.

In addition to cataloging?or attempting to catalog?the full extent of Mister Allen's residential property portfolio we also discussed some of his toys such as his airplanes and his yachts, the jaw dropping 414-foot Octopus and the 301-foot Tatoosh which Mister Allen currently has up for sale with a price tag of about $163,000,000. As it turns out Mister Allen owns?or owned until recently?a third yacht, a 199-foot long sea-mansion called Méduse, equipped with a helicopter, movie theater, and a recording studio. There are reports from 2005 that indicate that Mister Allen wanted to sell the boat for $52,500,0000, but it's unclear if the big boat was indeed sold or remains in Mister Allen's armada of floating mega-mansions.

photo (The Enchanted Hill, top): Wikimapia
photo (The Enchanted Hill, bottom): Bing
photo (Teton Ridge Ranch): Robb Report
photo (Kona Kailua): Bing

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