Matthew Wilder Lists Malibu Estate

SELLER: Matthew Wilder and Tamara Dunn
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $6,850,000
SIZE: 1,980 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As far as this property gossip is concerned there's no better time to go to the beach than early October, after the summer crowds have traded their bathing suits for scarves and before the moody and damp coastal winter really sets in. Last night, in a dreamy seaside state of mind, Your Mama stayed up late with a (third) gin & tonic and took a slow wander through a few newly listed properties in the bare-footed and boho but hideously expensive ocean-side community of Malibu (CA). It wasn't long before we came across a fetching multi-acre mini-compound recently put on the open market for $6,850,000 and owned, as per property records, by singer/songwriters Matthew Wilder and Tamara Dunn.*

In the late 1970s and early '80s Mister Wilder (née Weiner) sung back up for legendary ladies like Rickie Lee Jones and Bette Midler and in 1983 he rocketed to one-hit-wonder fame with the Reggae-inspired synth-pop hit Break My Stride, a catchy and upbeat ditty that remains in rotation on many retro-themed radio stations. (Here he is, children, back in the day on Solid Gold, kinky-haired, mustachioed, and all decked out in a layered, Flashdance-y sweatshirt situation and skin-tight leather pants.) 

His career as a recording artist quickly ebbed but Mister Wilder, who (still) sports creative facial hair configurations and corkscrew curled locks, eventually secured a solid and (presumably) lucrative foothold in the music industry as a song writer and music producer for a variety of movies and television programs including Dawson's Creek, and Pretty Woman as well as a slew of Disney productions like The Lizzie Maguire Movie. In 1995 he produced No Doubt's diamond-, gold- and platinum-certified third album, Tragic Kingdom, and over the years wrote and/or produced tracks and records for a slew of young pop stars who include Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Selena Gomez, and Miley Cyrus...in her pre-twerking Hannah Montana days. In the late 1990s Mister Wilder wrote and produced the score to the Disney animated feature Mulan, an effort that earned him Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Award nominations.

As far as our brief and unscientific research can tell, Tamara Dunn is most often identified on the internets as a songwriter. We did find evidence she co-penned—with Mister Wilder—the 2009 Billy Ray Cyrus song Back to Tennesee but otherwise Your Mama dug up up little specific professional information.

Anyways, Mister Wilder and Miz Dunn own two separate but contiguous parcels that were purchased from the same seller in two separate transactions in October 2004. The larger, 7.39-acre property—the one that's for sale for $6,850,000—cost them $2,375,000. The smaller, 4.57 acre spread next door was purchased for $1.2 million and remains unimproved open space. Online marketing materials show it's available for separate purchase at $1,250,000.

A long gated driveway passes over a rugged, river rock-lined stream bed and cuts sinuously through a manicured swathe of rolling lawn before it makes a sweeping rise to a motor court at the front of the partly stone-faced board and batten-sided ranch-style residence that listing information shows has three bedrooms and three bathrooms in 1,980 square feet. For the record, we think the house seems much larger than two thousand square feet but 1,980 is what the listing says and what do we know anyways, right? Digital marketing materials show that in addition to the fully updated and upgraded 1950's era ranch house, the compound-like property has a concrete pool-side structure, a professional recording studio, and, situated for optimal privacy near the head of the driveway, a self-contained guest house.

The front of the house wraps around three sides of an otherwise walled and gated red brick entry courtyard where a giant carved stone bust of Buddha** that sits in a shallow water-filled trough is but a hint of many, many, many statues and figurines of Buddhist and Hindu deities, not to mention a mountain of New Age-y crystals and geodes, to be found throughout the house and grounds. Clearly Mister Wilder and Miz Dunn feel the need to attract a lot of spiritual energy to their residential surroundings. Be that as it may...

Steel-framed glass front doors open from the courtyard in to a unusually roomy entrance gallery with polished concrete floors under foot and an exposed wood ceiling pierced by a couple of sky lights over head and, on the back wall, a raised and slightly off-center white brick fireplace filled with candles. Narrow doorways on either side of the fireplace connect to a combination living and dining room with (downright yummy) wide-plank reclaimed oak floors and crisp white paint on the walls and the vaulted exposed wood beam ceiling. A white brick fireplace anchors the living room area while three walls of floor-to-ceiling steel-framed glass windows and doors surround the dining area in an undeniably dramatic fashion and open out to a large deck that over looks over the backyard towards the house dotted canyon.

A sliding, steel-framed glass door separates the living/dining room from a large kitchen where, at one end, in front of a wall of windows, there's a cozy lounge and at the other end an expensively equipped kitchen with a double-sided six-stool snack counter integrated in to the center island. The top-quality appliances, the eagle eyed amongst us will have already noted, include a glass-doored walk-in chiller very similar if not identical to the one The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member Yolanda Foster has in her kitchen.

Listing photographs indicate there are two den-type rooms, one a loungey, window-lined yet still dark and brooding room just off the living/dining room and the other a lighter-brighter one off the entrance gallery with polished concrete floors, a vaulted ceiling, a third white brick fireplace (this one surmounted by one of the many flat-screen televisions to be be found throughout), and an attached bathroom.

There are two guest/family bedrooms, both with direct outdoor access, and a sizable master suite with a spacious sitting area and a wall-mounted television with integrated speaker system. The attached master bathroom is a spare but luxuriously earthy spa-like space with a egg-shaped soaking tub, a super-sized open shower area and a cantilevered vanity crafted from a thick and rugged slab of wood.

A multi-purpose deck that runs the full width of the house has, at one end, a rough-hewn but high style picnic-type table, some uncomfortable looking stools and a fire pit in the middle, and, at the far end, a comfy-looking collection cushioned sofas and lounges.

Surrounding the rigorously rectilinear swimming pool and inset spa are several sunbathing terraces and a pergola-shaded outdoor living room with linear built-in fire pit. Other structures sprinkled about the years near the pool include a enclosed garden—enclosed to keep the deer and critters out, an open-air pavilion, and a barn-like pool house/party lounge with steel-framed glass windows and doors, rugged concrete walls, and a vaulted exposed wood beam ceiling.

Some of Mister Wilder and Miz Dunn's nearest neighbors include German radio and television host Thomas Gottschalk and a handful of Tinseltown power players like three-time Emmy-winning writer/producer Richard Appel, sick rich, philanthropic and terminally ill nine-time Emmy-winning comedy writer/producer Sam Simon,*** and Emmy-winning television super-producer Marcy Carsey who also owns a much more fabulous ocean-front spread nearby on the bluffs above Escondido Beach. At the tail end of the road, tucked into a rugged but verdant canyon is the by-appointment-only Ramirez Canyon Park, the 22.5-acre former compound of long-time Malibu resident Barbra Streisand who donated the property in 1993 to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.****

*To be honest, we're not really sure if Miz Dunn and Mister Wilder are married and/or if they have any children, together and/or with other people, and, to be even more honest, we're not really sure those details are particularly important in today's celebrity (-related) real estate tale.

**Identification of religious iconography really isn't a strong suit for Your Mama so we really can't say for sure if the giant carved stone bust in the courtyard is Buddha or—as it very well may be—some other eastern deity. 

***Sam Simon, a regular on Howard Stern's radio program, was one of the original creators of the ground-breaking, award-winning, and money-minting animated series The Simpsons. He left in 1993 over creative differences with co-creators Matt Groening and James Brooks but, lucky for him, retains an executive producer title and an income that he himself told the Stanford alumni magazine in 2009 amounts to "tens of millions" of dollar per year. 

****(In 2011 Governor Jerry Brown suggested the state sell the property to help close a gaping budget gap but, as far as we know, no real action has been taken to unload the property.)

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

Olympic Freestyler Ian Thorpe Lists Laurel Canyon Cottage

SELLER: Ian Thorpe
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $999,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: An unexpected communique from a veteran Tinseltown chronicler directed Your Mama's celebrity real estate attention to a recently listed hillside cottage in L.A.'s rock-n-roll history infused Laurel Canyon listed for $999,000 and billed in digital marketing materials as having been built in 1961 by an unnamed "successful actor" and later "inhabited" by John Lennon who—so the scuttlebutt goes—may have written some of "the world's most beloved songs" whilst in residence. Marketing materials go on to proudly reveal that the tree house-like abode was—is, actuallly—most recently owned by "a celebrated Olympic athlete with multiple golds to his name."

Well, children, Your Mama freely confesses that we don't the least clue who the successful actor was—or is since maybe he's still alive—and we really have no idea if Mister Lennon ever occupied the premises. We do know, as per public property records, the current owner is five-time Olympic gold medal-winning freestyle swimmer Ian Thorpe who picked up the property in May 2006 for $879,000.

In addition to his five Olympic gold medals, the six-foot-five Aussie also has three silver medals and one bronze. He also broke nearly two dozen world records and took home eleven gold, one silver, and one bronze World Championship medals. He was the shit in the swimming pool to be sure. Since officially (but not permanently) hanging up his Speedo in 2006, Mister Thorpe, among many other sponsorship relationships, developed a line of unisex jewelry, launched an eponymous underwear brand, wrote a cook book (Cook For Your Life, 2011) and penned a memoir (This Is Me, 2012).

Current listing information shows the Thorpedo's house, set high on a steep, sylvan hillside in a shady ravine, has 2-3 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms in an unspecified amount of square footage that the L.A. County Tax Man puts at a compact 960 square feet, a figure that may or may not be accurate to the true square footage of the house.

The kitchen is, clearly, woefully dated and a bit, uhm, bachelor with its twelve dollar range and the bathroom situation is unpleasant to the point requiring a nerve pill to settle our decorative nerves; Not only can Your Mama not imagine how a person can bathe or shower surrounded by flesh colored tile, it's entirely beyond our comprehension that someone thought it a pursuable notion to convert a Victorian buffet in to a bathroom vanity. The half bathroom isn't much better due to it's silvery, faux-glam tropical pattern wall paper that's a little like putting a disco ball in an ice fishing shanty.

Although the stained glass accents here and there are totally in keeping with the groovy 1960s and '70s authenticity of the original residence, they're simply too hippy-dippy for this property gossip's window aesthetics. Ditto with the shoji screens that slide back and forth over the windows and sliding glass doors in the master bedroom. No thank you, ma'am.

Otherwise, believe it or not, we sort of appreciate the rustic simplicity of the place—the heavily distressed wood floors are of particular interest—and, despite the PETA-unfriendly furnishings, we get a not entirely unwelcome feeling of sexed up comfort from the louche masculinity of the living room day-core that includes a leather sling chair next to the fireplace, a patchwork leather rug, and slightly bulbous caramel colored leather sofa. A full wall of glass peers out on a covered veranda from which there appears to be a limited but charming canyon view.

Boozy types and/or those with vertigo might not care for the bridge and stairs access to the roof and view terraces but Your Mama sees great possibility here. First thing we'd do is replace the horrid lattice wall with something a little less pedestrian—like say, a patchwork fence of reclaimed wood pieces that apes the patchwork of the leather rug in the living room—and screen in that covered section and build in a humble plywood mattress platform to create sleeping porch because—truth be told—Your Mama much prefers to slumber in the open air than in an enclosed room.

Who knows where Mister Thorpe is headed next? Perhaps back to Sydney? Perhaps to greener, or at least less bohemian pastures? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

listing photos: Brock Real Estate

Buffy and her Prinze Buy Big New Digs

BUYERS: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr.
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,100,000
SIZE: 7,318 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little more year ago, television and movie actors Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr. produced a second child and, just as so many rich and/or famous folk feel they must do when they issue forth with an heir, the veteran Showbizzers bought a big new house in which to bring up new baby. Although the property records Your Mama peeped are pretty opaque, the industrious impeccably connected real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak swears on her heavily fortified French-made undergarments that the Gellar-Prinze's shelled out $6,100,000 for a three-story East Coast-y Colonial deep in Los Angeles's low key and semi-rustic but most assuredly swank Mandeville Canyon area.

Property records are quite clear when it comes to the sellers: powerhouse entertainment attorney Ernest Del and his talent agent wife, Danielle Del, who Yolanda described to Your Mama as "part of the Tinseltown 'Ladies Who Lunch' crowd and is b.f.f. with Hollywood hostess du jour Alexandra Dwek" who—some of the children whose brains aren't ruined by booze and television—lives in a Georgian mansion in Bel Air she bought a few years ago from Giannulli Mossimo and Lori Laughlin for almost $20 million. But we digress...

In 1995, a teen-aged Miss Gellar won a Daytime Emmy for her make-believe work the soap story All My Children before she trampolined to sci-fi superstardom the following year as the star of the cult-favorite television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since her seven season run on B.V.S. Miz Gellar—a.k.a. Missus Prinze—has worked almost constantly, often in overlapping television and movie gigs and most notably, perhaps, in a series of horror film franchises (I Know What Your Did Last Summer, The Grudge, Scream).

Mister Prinze, Jr., the son of late comedian/actor Freddie Prinze of the 70s sitcom Chico and the Man, shot to teen flick stardom in the She's All That, I Know What Your Did Last Summer, and Scooby-Doo movie franchises, all of which he co-starred opposite his wife. He very briefly starred in an eponymous sitcom, popped up several times on Boston Legal and 24, and, like his wife and dozens of other Hollywood stars, has done occasional voice over work on the animated sci-fi comedy Robot Chicken. Much to Your Mama's surprise—and, we'll be honest, flabbergast—Mister Prinze has twice taken steady gigs as a director and producer for the WWE, short for World Wresting Entertainment. That's right, children, Mister Prinze is waist deep in the low-brow and high-camp professional wrestling world. Who knew? Not Your Mama, that's who. Anyhoo...

Listing details show the Gellar-Prinze's new, many-gabled center hall Colonial was built in 2006, clad in classic clapboard siding, and accessorized with black shutters and a columned portico. The six bedroom and five bathroom house sits tightly on a wedge-shaped parcel of just over a third of an acre and measures in at an ample but not embarrassingly bloated 7,318 square feet.

Invited guests and the Chinese food delivery man are meant to be impressed by the voluminous double-height entrance hall where light from a drippy cluster of crystal chandeliers is reflected and refracted in lustrous, medium brown-toned wood floors. An over-sized formal dining room and a cozier-scaled library flank the foyer that stretches deep in to the house before it opens into a formal living room large enough to accommodate a baby grand piano and a sizable seating arrangement in front of a fireplace. Multi-pane windows and French doors stretch luxuriously from floor to ceiling and provide a wide view of the (surprisingly compact) backyard entertainment and recreation areas.

A less formal, open-concept kitchen/family room, conveniently located behind the direct entry two car garage, orbits around a commodious kitchen finished with white, glass-fronted cabinetry and glossy black counter tops and equipped with a three-seat snack counter and a full suite of industrial-minded stainless steel appliances including two refrigerators. The sellers hung an iconic Slim Aarons photograph of the Kaufmann House in Palm Springs over the corner fireplace in the dining area and the lounge area is anchored by a built-in entertainment center with open shelving and closed storage for board games, table cloths, and media equipment.

Front and back stairs ascend to the second floor where, in addition to a handful of guest/family bedrooms and an unknown number of bathrooms, the roomy master bedroom has a vaulted and dormered ceiling, a sitting area with fireplace, a large bathroom, and two sets of French doors that open to a small terrace with backyard overview.

Speaking of the backyard, it appears to Your Mama to be a fairly compact situation compared to what many might expect in a six-plus million dollar property but it is none-the-less jam-packed with a decent list of amenities and luxuries that include a pergola-shaded flag stone terrace with retractable canvas awnings, a built-in barbecue/kitchenette, lots of mature foliage, and a wee patch of grass. Tucked in to the verdant hillside that rises steeply at the rear of the property, a dark-bottomed swimming pool and spa and additional flagstone terracing for sunbathing and horse playing.

Since October of 2001, Mister and Missus Prinze, Jr. have shacked up in a 7,300+ square foot house with seven bedrooms and 7 bathrooms in the very same guard-gated community in L.A.'s Bel Air area where reality television royal Kimmy Kardashian and her humorously arrogant baby daddy Yeezus apparently plan to shack up in a $9 million mock-Med macmansion with their directionally-named baby, a four gold-plated toilets, and a million dollars worth of custom-made mattresses.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

Afternoon Delight: Joe Dahan

 SELLER: Joseph "Joe" Dahan
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $9,995,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We feel like indulging in a little afternoon pretty in the form of a gated and photogenic mini-compound in the Hollywood Hills with a main house originally designed in the late 1960s by en vogue mid-century modern architect Hal Leavitt and listed on the open market with an asking price of $9,995,000.

Property records show the current owner as Joseph "Joe" Dahan, a muckety-muck in the premium denim industry who scooped up the nearly one acre spread in October 2005 for $4,650,000.

A long curved driveway almost passes under a slightly cantilevered corner of the main house that current digital marketing materials show has five bedrooms and five bathrooms in an unspecified amount of square footage.  (For the record, the L.A. County Tax Man shows 3,726.) Copious amounts of travertine flooring and long walls of floor-to-ceiling glass panels and sliding doors make for a barely-there transition between the inside areas and outdoor spaces ringed by dense, privacy-ensuring foliage.

The property is lushly planted with what listing details call "period landscaping" and offers its cosseted occupants a private enclave of meandering paths, an organic vegetable garden, a couple of greenhouse, and a flat patch of lawn dotted with a couple of clean-lined play structures.

Perched on a verdant, stepped hillside above a narrow flat strip of lawn and and and a perpendicularly arranged water feature are two glass pavilions set on a muscular concrete foundation. One pavilion has a tree growing right through the middle that's encased in a frameless glass shaft and both appear to be equipped with a sparse but high quality collection of bodily fitness equipment.

If any of you Hal Leavitt freak-fans think this might be you're opportunity to stroll through the house during a public open house, we suggest you think again. Listing details make a point to to say "Private showings to qualified Buyers only."

P.S. As far as this opinionated property gossip is concerned, the silver tile that lines the guest bathroom shower is glitzy, glam, and flagrantly conspicuous in all the best ways.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

Remix Master Adam Anders Lists Television-Filled House In Hidden Hills

SELLERS: Adam and Nikki Anders
LOCATION: Hidden Hills, CA
PRICE: $5,450,000
SIZE: 5,677 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Celebrity real estate rumor has it that reality television royal Kourtney Kardashian and her weirdly ostentatious baby-daddy boyfriend, Whatshisface, are on the hunt for big new digs in the Calabasas and Hidden Hills areas of the western suburbs of Los Angeles, CA, and Your Mama wonders if they checked out the recently remodeled and expanded Hidden Hills home of married music producers and songwriters Adam and Nikki Anders, currently on the market for $5,450,000.

In addition to his work with a slew of young stars such as Miley Cyrus, Clay Aiken, CeCe Winans, the Backstreet Boys and the Jonas Brothers, the Sweden-born Mister Ander taught Tom Cruise how to sing for the Rock of Ages, an unfortunate movie for which he also wrote the score. His real claim to Showbiz fame and fortune, however and perhaps, would most certainly be for his efforts as the fecund executive music producer/remix master for the socially-conscious and high-camp televised musical extravaganza Glee. In addition to writing a number of chart-making original songs for the mega-hit show it was Mister Anders who—just to name just a few examples—Glee-a-fied iconic songs by the Beatles, Madonna, and Lady Gaga, not to mention the soundtrack for Grease as well as the Belgian-born Australian singer Gotye's Grammy-winning song Somebody That I Used to Know. 

In her youth, Missus Anders (née Hassman) trained be an Olympic gymnast before she switched to music and was briefly, in the late 1990s, a member of the Christian band Avalon. Nowadays the Iowa-born blond often works side-by-side with her husband; She served as a judge on the only two season of the reality show spin off The Glee Project and together they own and operate a nascent record label with a growing stable of fresh-faced and squeaky clean wannabe pop-stars, none of whom Your Mama has ever heard of before.

A peep into the property records reveals Mister and Missus Anders acquired the property in June 2010 for $2,200,000 and current listing details show the 1.3 acre estate was redone in 2012 and now spans 5,677 square feet with five bedrooms, six bathrooms, three interior fireplaces plus at least one more outside, and a dozen high-quality wall-mounted flat-screen televisions.*

Other finishes and features of note include wide plank oak flooring, extensive mill work throughout, generous use of Carrera [sp] and Calcutta [sp] marbles, and oodles of custom built-ins. There are also newly installed high-tech audio and video systems throughout the house and yard, a water conditioning system, a 9-zone heating and cooling system, and a state-of-the-art security system that includes exterior and hidden interior cameras.

A vaulted, exposed beam wood ceiling with ridge line clerestory windows lends an airy-fairy sort of grandeur to the open-plan Great Room that includes a small but proper foyer and a buttoned up but easy-breezy living room/den area where a window-flanked fireplace is surmounted by a frameless flat-screen television and a full-wall of back-lit floor-to-ceiling shelving provides plenty of space to display books, knick-knacks, and industry awards. (In addition to his three Grammy nominations, Mister Anders has won, according to his own website, two People's Choice and two Golden Globe awards.)

The adjoining dining area stretches such a distance it comfortably accommodates a small sitting area at one end, a table that seats twelve in the middle, and a high-gloss baby grand piano at the far end. A twelve-foot stretch of windows in the dining area fold open and link to a roomy outdoor living area shaded by a pergola with retractable canvas awnings and anchored at one end by a monolithic, eight-foot long concrete fireplace wall.

The ceilings are equally vaulted and also sky-lit in the adjoining kitchen complex that encompasses an all-white and stainless steel center island kitchen, a breakfast area set in to a giant wall of windows, and a small sitting area with just two wing back chairs, a built-in media center (with integrated flat screen television), and a raised corner fireplace. In the vicinity are a back entrance, a kitchen-sized laundry room with dishwasher, and a children's play room that's easily converted to a home office, a Zumba studio or maybe even a staff suite.

There's another fireplace (surmounted by television, of course) and even higher, 16-foot vaulted ceilings with exposed beams in the master suite where French doors open to a semi-private terrace with a direct and unimpeded view of an elaborate children's play structure. The attached master bathroom has a double-sink vanity lit by glammy light fixtures, a free-standing soaking tub in front of a window that's far to high for someone bathing to see out, a separate, and marble-lined and glass-enclosed steam shower with multiple shower heads and built-in bench seating. Digital marketing materials also point out that the master bathroom has a flat-screen television with built-in speakers.

A newly-added second level with exterior access has a sun-bathed landing lounge, a separate sitting room with kitchenette (surmounted by another giant flat-screen television), and a multi-room recording studio that does double duty as a home theater with a drop down screen and projection equipment.

The backyard has, according to marketing materials, custom LED lighting and a million dollars worth of exterior landscaping that includes sweeping lawns, a French side garden with citrus trees, a redwood constructed vegetable house, more than 150 rose bushes, and a variety of fruit trees (apple, peach pomegranate, apricot, and more) all kept from thirst by an automatic 32-zone irrigation system.

Exterior recreational amenities include copious terraces, a swimming pool and spa, a sport court, a cedar-chip playground with elaborate play structure, a tricycle path, a fire pit with built-in broken concrete bench, a giant-sized chess board punched in to a flat spot on the lawn, and an open air cabana—with flat screen television—that listing details (regrettably) call a "covered man cave."

The circular gravel drive at the front of the house curves around the side to a rear motor court for accesses to an over-sized two-car attached garage and a newly-added detached carriage house with a third garage that's currently outfitted with a smattering of fitness equipment and—you got it—another wall-mounted flat-screen television.

We really have no idea why Mister and Missus Anders would spend a couple years and a whole lotta cheddar to completely customize their house in Hidden Hills only to put it up for sale. Could be they desire even more impressive digs or perhaps they feel they've outgrown the the estate-sized property. Maybe it just makes good financial sense. Whatever the reason(s), let's just call it a classic case of The Real Estate Fickle, a malady that seems afflict so many rich and/or famous folk.

*Digital marketing materials that Your Mama scared up from the time of the Anders' 2010 purchase show the then single-story residence, described as a "California ranch" that "exudes rustic simplicity," had five bedrooms and four bathrooms in 4,207 square feet.

listing photos: Shawn Cordon for Berkshire Hathaway Home Service

Josh Altman Buys Ass-Ugly Sunset Strip Wart

BUYER: Josh Altman
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,300,000
SIZE: 2,436 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little celebrity real estate birdie we'll call Hedda D. Class chirped to Your Mama via covert communique—and then we confirmed with property records—that the always dapperly dressed and hard-charging Beverly Hills-based real estate agent and Million Dollar Listing star Josh Altman dropped $2.3 million on a very truly ass-ugly wart of a house just above West Hollywood's bustling Sunset Strip.

Digital marketing materials describe the existing dwelling as an "ARCHITECTURAL GEM" but anybody with functional eyeballs can plainly see from even the most cursory of glance over listing images that that's nothing but insincere (and even slightly cynical) real estate hyperbole because—all T no shade, buttercups—this house is hideously deformed. You know it is. We know it is. And so does Mister Altman who may be many things but he ain't no real estate fool. Fer chrissakes, children, the immaculately-groomed man drives a Fisker* and probably puts on a designer suit just to go to the damn bathroom in the middle of the night so it's highly unlikely he's going to shack up in this revolting little residence without, at the very least, giving the place a comprehensive re-do that renders it otherwise unrecognizable from its current, sad state of affairs.

Listing materials show the existing house, built in 1962 and situated down a long gated driveway, is conveniently located a short distance—a easily walked distance, for anyone so inclined—to the many designer boutiques and upscale eateries in the perennially trendy Sunset Plaza shopping and dining district. Your Mama, who does not know a damn thing about a damn thing, happens to be of the mind that Mister Altman's $2.3 million outlay for the beastly abode is wholly justified by the easy-access central location, commodious half acre-plus lot, and sweeping city view. While it may come as a surprise to some and the self-righteous chagrin of others, a half an acre lot is whole lotta land to own just above the Sunset Strip where houses are often tightly packed on minuscule lots carved out of steep hillsides on impossibly narrow and dangerously windy roads.

The two-story residence as it stands, according to listing details, has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in just over 2,400 square feet. At the foot of the driveway there's a detached two-car garage and in between the garage and the house there's a walled and gated courtyard with a swimming pool and a disturbing lattice-encased elevated view terrace. The listing description goes on to state that the kitchen was remodeled with "STAINLESS STEEL AND STONE" but that the rest of the house is "SOMEWHAT DATED." Somewhat dated? Seriously? Pleeze.

We know that taste and fashion in architectural style change over time but, still, it just gets Your Mama's blood all worked up to think that somebody designed that house and, when it was all done, looked at it and thought—and we paraphrase imaginatively, of course—"That looks exactly like what I wanted." Somebody really wanted and actually paid for all that decorative wrought-iron that looks like the sort of affectation you might find in an affluent trailer park in Romania and the rectangular windows with the inset arches are perplexingly perplexing. The hulking, herringbone patterned brick masses on the front façade, especially that one that looks like it's floating mysteriously over the corner of the house, are beyond wrong and the striped awnings over some of the upper level windows along with the totally fucked-up wrought iron cornice on both the garage and the house only enhance the utter absurdity of the whole thing.

Anyhoodles, poodles, as part of our research in to the matter Your Mama made a couple of queries with a few of the people we know whom we thought might know a little something about the situation and it wasn't too long before we heard back from a well-placed contact we'll call Wanda Gitterdone who told us that scuttlebutt on the Platinum Triangle real estate street is that Mister Altman plans to raze the existing house and replace it with a 7,500 square foot über-contemporary crib that will be worth $9 million when it's finished. When we asked Wanda if Mister Altman planned to sell the new house or move in with his real estate agent fiancée, Heather Bilyeu, she huffed and clucked and said, "Who knows? But, you know, baby, he's a real estate agent. Everything is an investment and everything is for sale."

*Just because we can identify our own BMW in a parking lot doesn't mean this boozy property gossip knows diddly squat between a Tesla and a Fisker and, indeed, the children in the comments are correct, Mister Altman drives a Fisker and not, as we first "reported," at Tesla.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker Gene Armstrong

Todd Phillips Lists on La Costa

SELLER: Todd Phillips
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $8,995,000
SIZE: 3,159 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A late night missive from The Rolling Stone let Your Mama know that Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, producer and occasional actor Todd Phillips has his hideaway house on Malibu's La Costa beach on the open market with a freshly reduced $8,995,000 asking price.* Property records show Mister Phillips bought his beach house in February 2010 from high-flying movie producer—and newly minted billionaire—Ryan Kavanaugh for exactly $9,000,000.

Mister Phillips earned his Oscar nod as screenwriter for the polemical and over-cumbersomely titled 2007 spoof Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan but the NYU film school drop out's real rocket to Tinseltown fame and fortune as the writer, directer and producer of the freakishly popular and preposterously profitable Hangover franchise; The three bro-mancy movies have hauled in an astonishing 1.4 billion bucks in gross worldwide box office receipts. (If any of the children had any question how this Todd Phillips person, who you might never have heard of before qualifies for our saucy celebrity real estate online endeavor and/or how this fella can afford a nine million dollar house at the beach, well, now you know.)

Current listing information shows the 1938 Spanish-ish style residence has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms—plus four fireplaces and garage parking for two cars—in 3,159 square feet of newly remodeled and updated interior space with state-of-the-art electronic and lighting systems. A locked and gated entry opens to a supermodel slender courtyard—a corridor really—that leads to the wrought iron and glass front door.

There are textured stone tiles the color of wet sand throughout the main floor open plan living/dining space that spans the full width of the lower level and spills out through three sets of French doors to a bench-lined beach front deck. The re-done kitchen has dark chocolate Shaker style cabinetry, some sort of solid surface counter top—no doubt of costly quality, a white tile backsplash behind the range that (unfortunately) makes use of three differently sized and shaped tiles, and a full suite of commercial-style appliances.

A cozy, second floor den/media lounge has hardwood floors, a fireplace over-mounted by a flat-screen television, a built-in media equipment niche, and a pitched and beamed ceiling pierced by numerous sky lights that fill the room with natural light.

A short enfilade of archways links the media lounge/den to the master suite. Like the living/dining room directly below it, the master bedroom stretches the full width of the house and easily accommodates a television-centric sitting area. There are more wood floors, more sky lights in the pitched and beamed ceiling, and an entire wall of wood-framed doors that slide open to a private, wrought iron railed terrace. The attached master bathroom is an all-white affair with over-sized walk-in steam shower and louvered panels behind the separate soaking tub that, when open, facilitate an ocean view for teeth brushers and tub loungers.

Avid celebrity real estate watchers will recall that not-divorcing rock-n-roll royals Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne used to have a house on La Costa that they unloaded after a long slog in April 2012 for $7,925,000. Sitcom actor (and ladies man) David Space sold his beach house that's just a few doors down from Mister Phillip's seaside shack this last June (2013) for $10,225,000 and a few doors down in the other direction is the itty-bitty but smartly dressed 1930s cottage that Charlize Theron sold it in May 2011 for $6,562,500 to Glee creator Ryan Murphy who quickly flipped it (at a bit of a loss) in October 2012 for $6.5 million to text prep tycoon Robert Feinberg who, as it turns out, shoveled the property back on the market in early August (2013) with a higher price tag of $7,950,000.

It doesn't take a genius (or a snarky property gossip) to figure out that even though the current asking price is only five grand less than his $9 million purchase price Mister Phillips none-the-less faces a substantial punishment to his pocketbook when upkeep, improvements, carrying costs and real estate fees are subtracted from the final sale price. As it turns out, this isn't the first ocean front house in Malibu owned by Mister Phillips and it's not, funnily enough, the first one he's likely to take a hit on. In September 2005 the money-minting Showbiz superstar shelled out $3,950,000 for an approximately 1,800 square foot contemporary on a rocky stretch of Las Tunas State Beach that he sold at a $700,000 loss (not counting upkeep, improvements, carrying costs and real estate fees ) in July 2010 for $3,250,000.

Property records also suggest Mister Phillips continues to own a fairly modest (if hardly inexpensive) house on a little-trafficked street right on the border between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills that he scooped up way back in March 2002 for $1,935,000 even though last year, as we had forgotten but once floated a blind item about, last year Mister Phillips traded up to a double-lot estate in the flats of Beverly Hills for which he paid a very A-list $17,250,000. Last August (2012), property records indicate the Hollywood mover and shaker coughed up almost $4.3 million for a three bedroom and 2.5 bathroom mid-floor condo at the celebrified Robert A.M. Stern-designed Superior Ink building in New York City's far West Village.

*Mister Phillips first put his La Costa beach front house on the market in early September for $9.4 million and lowered the price by $405,000 just a few weeks later.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

Annie Liebovitz Re-Lists Urban Compound

SELLER: Annie Leibovitz
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $29,900,000
SIZE: 10,200 square feet

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After failing to sell at when it was listed in December 2012 for $33 million, celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz has re-listed her townhouse compound in the heart of New York City's West Village, as was first reported by the peeps at Luxury Listings NYC (via The Real Deal), with a new photographs, previously unseen floor plans, and much lower $29.9 million price tag.

Property records show Miz Leibovitz acquired the larger of the two townhouses for $4.15 million in 2002 and the next year shelled out another $1.87 million for the smaller, wedge shaped townhouse that that's attached but, according to our interpretation of the floor plans now included with digital marketing materials, remains otherwise separate from the larger residence.

Listing details show the entire urban compound spans roughly 10,200 square feet and has been meticulously renovated and restored with all new plumbing and electrical systems, original stoops and doors, and more than 70 new landmark-approved wooden windows.

The smaller, wedge shaped townhouse, according to Your Mama's read of the floor plan, has a private entrance, a combination living/dining/kitchen with fireplace, a windowless basement, a bedroom (with fireplace) and hall bathroom on the second floor and another, larger bedroom on the third floor, also with fireplace.

The larger, 40-foot wide townhouse appears to Your Mama to once have been two separate townhouses and also appears to only be connected down in the sub-basement and up on the top level by a wide, sky-lit corridor. We counted seven bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms plus staff bedroom in the basement and a self-contained two story guest house with one more bedroom, another bathroom, a kitchenette, and two fireplaces.

The larger townhouse also two forty-foot long loft-like living and dining rooms, each with two fireplaces, a small but expensively equipped kitchen with stainless steel cabinetry and a built-in banquette, a second floor library, two laundry rooms—one in the basement the other on the top floor, at least 10 fireplaces—although we have no idea how many of them remain functional, and way down in the sub-basement, a handful of walk-in storage closets and a separate, walk-in safe.

The commodious master suite is complete with bedroom and sitting room—both with fireplaces, an adjoining office, several closets and loads of built-ins, and, finally, a compact but well outfitted bathroom with a street-facing window.

As far as Your Mama's research shows, Miz Leibovitz still owns a 200-ish acre country spread in Rhinebeck, NY.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Rockstar's Russ Weiner Flipping Out in Hermosa Beach

SELLER: Russ Weiner
LOCATION: Hermosa Beach, CA
PRICE: $13,900,000
SIZE: 6,200 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In July (2013), luxe-living (and unfortunately named) RockStar energy drink mogul Russ Goldencloud Weiner—yeppers, puppies, that's really his middle name—shelled out exactly $10 million for a modern, beach front residence in Hermosa Beach, CA. Just a month later, we first learned from the ever-vigilant real estate yenta Yolanda Yakkeyyak, the 30-something year old orange-haired entrepreneur flipped the property back on the market with a substantially higher $13.9 million price tag.

Listing details show Mister Weiner's four-floor beach house sits cheek to jowl with the neighboring houses and was built brand new about six years ago with has a total of six bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in about 6,200 square feet of interior space.

A bi-level, marble-floored entry with sinuous stainless steel stair railings and a huge circular skylight that floods the space with natural light leads to the also marble-floored main floor living spaces that includes a formal dining room and a compact den with stainless-steel fireplace surround. The main living space is a spacious, open-plan space with more marble floors, a fireplace, and a clean-lined kitchen outfitted with walnut cabinetry, four-stool breakfast bar, and sleek stainless steel Euro-style appliances that include a built-in coffee maker. A wide, curved wall of glass doors fold open to a slender (and marble-floored) patio with panoramic beach and ocean views.

Three of the six bedrooms are located in the basement along with a kitchenette-equipped family room and a home theater with newly installed 3-D projection equipment. There are two more bedrooms on the second floor, including a spacious master suite with walk-in closet, ocean-side terrace, and a fireplace surmounted by a grotesquely-sized 90-in flat screen television. The attached master bathroom, slathered in marble, has twin sinks, a glass-enclosed steam shower, a separate sauna, and a jetted tub set in front of some sort of mural of jellyfish. A sixth bedroom—currently set up as a work-out room, according to marketing materials, perches up on the uppermost third level where there's a crowded-looking roof terrace with outdoor fireplace and free-standing spa.

Other amenities and luxuries, as per listing details, include a state-of-the-art home automation system with integrated tough panel controls, three-car garage plus additional guest parking, and a five-stop elevator.

Mister Weiner, the Las Vegas-based politically active son of vitriolic right wing radio host Michael Savage, has a long history of purchasing high-priced properties and quickly putting them back on the market with with large mark-ups.

In early 2010 Mister Weiner paid $6.75 million for a 19,000 square water front monster mansion on Palm Island in Miami Beach (FL). The property was formerly owned by high-flying hip-hop music producer turned bankrupt cocaine addict Scott Storch who, like Icarus, flew to close to the sun lost the mansion to foreclosure. Mister Weiner quickly turned around and listed the property in late 2010 for an incredulously optimistic $20,000,000 but didn't manage to unload it until September 2012 when rapper and Cash Money Records founder Bryan "Birdman" Williams came along and shelled out $14.5 million dollars for the super-sized spread.

Your Mama's research shows Mister Weiner continues to own an almost 10,000 square foot mansion in the Beverly Park enclave that he scooped up for $15 million in 2007 and had on and off the market between March 2009 and February 2011 at a variety of rose-tinted prices that went as high as $28,000,000. Property records also show that in March 2009 the real estate mad Mister Weiner dropped $11,600,000 for a gated, 1.48 acre ocean front spread in Delray Beach, FL with a 14-ish thousand square foot mansion with, according to listing details from the time of the purchase, seven bedrooms, seven full and three half bathrooms, an 8-car air-conditioned garage, a separate guest house, swimming pool, and tennis court. In typical fashion, Mister Weiner flipped the property back on the market just a month later for $17,500,000 but failed to sell it and took it off the market in March 2010.

listing photos: Shorewood Realtors

Bunny Mellon's Former Mansion Up For Grabs Again

Although it's 72% smaller than the 62,000 square foot Residence at River House and currently listed for a whole lot less money—$46 million, to be exact—a super-duper rich person with a yen for a New York City trophy property could do a whole lot worse than the downright aristocratic, double-wide townhouse mansion that was custom built in the mid-1960s for sick-rich American banking heir Paul Mellon and his second wife, Rachel Lambert Mellon, herself an heiress to a mouthwash fortune—her grandfather invented Listerine—who is otherwise known in her upper class social circles as as Bunny.

The 40-foot wide, mid-block mansion—current listing details describe the house as "NeoFrench classic style" and 2006 listings called "Paris in New York:—on a particularly tony stretch of tree-lined East 70th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, stands five stories above ground and measures in at a considerable 11,100-ish square feet.

The Mellon mansion's current owners, Irish businessman Tony White and his wife Clare according to property records, purchased the property directly from Miz Mellon in July 2006 for $22,500,000. Miz Mellon, a high-cultured philanthropist and accomplished horticulturist who presides over a bucolic estate in Upperville, VA that encompasses thousands of acres, is now more than 100 years old and over the last few years has divested herself of much of her private real estate portfolio. In 2009 she sold an Manhattan townhouse, also on East 70th Street, for $13.5 million to former Morgan Stanley CEO John J. Mack and this year, the children may recall, Miz Mellon sold a 26-acre water-front Cape Cod compound to multi-billionaire mining magnate William "Bill" Koch for $19.5 million. Anyways...

Using the floor plan provided with digital marketing materials Your Mama counted six bedrooms, eight full and four half bathrooms (plus a w/c in the basement), three kitchens, at least five fireplaces, two laundry rooms, and more than three dozen closets and half a dozen walk-in storage rooms. We calculated nearly 2,500 square feet of private outdoor space, all designed once upon a time by Miz Mellon who, don't cha know, also re-designed the Rose Garden at the White House for her long-time gal pal Jackie Kennedy. (For the record: 2006 listings indicate there are five staff bedrooms but we didn't see them marked on the floor plan included with current online marketing materials.)

Mister and Missus Mellon's Big Apple mansion replaced a pair of mid-19th century townhouses and was—as was and remains the expensive custom of the very rich—custom-built to their own specifications, which may explain the huge house's somewhat idiosyncratic configuration.

Although as large as a suburban macmansion, it appears to Your Mama that the townhouse lacks a proper, guest-impressing staircase. It's almost rare as a unicorn for a house of this stature not to have a grand staircase that, at the very least, links the piano nobile to the floor above and/or below, but alas. Certainly the mansion's main staircase is expertly crafted and finely finished with exquisite materials that only rich people can afford but it is, none-the-less, practically hidden in the far back corner of the residence where it can not be easily ogled at by the Chinese food delivery man. Only slightly more conveniently located next to the main stair case is an elevator that serves all six floors of living space.

Also peculiar compared to more standard Manhattan townhouse layouts is that the informal family quarters—kitchen, family room, study, and one of the two laundry rooms—were settled on the second floor while the grandly dressed public rooms—drawing room and dining room connected by a couple of vestibules—were placed high up on the third floor where they spill out through numerous French doors to an elevated courtyard garden. There's also a formally arranged garden off the back of the ground floor where, in addition to a decent-sized staff bedroom and bathroom, there's also a library/office with fireplace and direct access to the rear garden, an adjoining study nook, a small secondary kitchen, and two powder rooms.

The fourth floor is devoted entirely to adjoining double master suites and there are three more moderately-sized en suite guest/family bedroom on the fifth. The Mellons, as y'all may have noticed from your own perusals of the floor plan including with current marketing materials, did up the master suite up in manner Your Mama might call Old School High Wasp wherein the Mister and Missus of the house maintain completely separate—if adjoining—suites with individual bedrooms and, preferably—as is the case in the Mellon manse, with separate dressing areas and separate en-suite facilities.

If $130 million for 62,000 square feet of raw space at River House is financially out of the question and $46 million for a pedigreed townhouse on what is arguably one of the best (and most expensive) residential blocks in all of Manhattan is still too rich for your trophy property seeking pocketbook, low-profile but obviously prodigiously wealthy financier Peter C. R. Huang as re-listed his titanic, palatial 14-room duplex apartment at the preposterously posh 740 Park Avenue for $29,500,000 after failing to sell it back in 2008 with it popped up for sale with a much higher $38,000,000 price tag. Almost seems like a bargain, don't it?

listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty