Sunday, April 15, 2007

Sue Ellen Selling South Fork


SELLER: Linda Gray
LOCATION: Knochaven Drive, Santa Clarita, CA
PRICE: $3,250,000
SIZE: 4,500 (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Nestled on approximately 3 acres of natural beauty, this luxury retreat with a Post Ranch Inn feel is a haven for serenity and privacy. It was built by the famous Los Angeles based architect, A. Quincy Jones, known for his modernistic green or eco-design architecture. The home features a Josh Schweitzer designed stainless steel prep kitchen with wood burning pizza oven and a Waldo Fernandez Great Room with high ceiling beams, antique wood paneling with floor-to-ceiling windows.

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: Children, Your Mama has spent the day outside in torrential rains desperately trying, and not succeeding mind you, to get our bitches Linda and Beverly to take a dump outside. Damn bitches hate the rain. Anyhoo, we have returned to find y'all some better photographs of Miz Gray's Santa Clarita hideaway as well as the floor plan for the main house and the guest house. Now hunnies, who would disagree with Your Mama when we say that Miz Gray's big ass master bedroom is purrfect for a former prime time boob tube diva?

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Actually, it's Emmy winning ack-tress Linda Gray selling her three acre Santa Clarita homestead. Now, children, Your Mama has always thought we would sooner stab needles into our eyeballs than live up in wilds of tract home heaven Santa Clarita. In the last 10 or 15 years, developers have ravaged the once lovely landscape of Santa Clarita with street after street of identical homes priced to lure middle income buyers out of the pricey West side of Los Angeles. Santa Clarita also happily plays host to every single brand of fast food and big box store that was ever foisted upon the suburbs.

So this morning when we read in Ruth Ryon's Hot Properties column in the LA Times that Linda Gray, the former diva of Dallas, was selling off her Santa Clarita getaway, we half expected it might be a large generic tract home in a gated (but not guarded) community a few blocks from a Wal-Mart and a Del Taco. But Miz Gray's house fools with our mind and impressions of this extreme Northern suburb of Los Angeles.

Instead of a clone home, we find a gorgeous and earthy contemporary designed in 1973 by famed architect Quincy Jones that is located in what Your Mama can only assume is the "good" part of Santa Clarita. Children, if you don't know who Quincy Jones the architect is, you should hop in your hoopdies and head on down to the public library and check out some picture books on architecture.

According to Miz Ryon, Sue Ellen, er, Linda Gray has called this mini-ranch home for the last 20 years. But the single lady whose children have long flown the coop would like to sell this place on so that she can move closer to friends. Does this means she's buying or already purchased something in Bev Hills? Or maybe in the hills of Malee-boo?

There are a couple features of the main house Your Mama would like to focus your attention. The first is that amazing living room. Quincy Jones designed a soaring but simple hip roof ceiling and used a wall of floor to ceiling glass to cut into the space which cleverly creates the entry way and front door. We love the way this both blurs the difference between inside and outside and also provides a sheltered and protected front porch.

The second feature is Miz Gray's excellent choice in dining room furniture. We imagine those chairs, hewn from massive pieces of solid timber, are so damn heavy that a full time muscle queen table valet is necessary to help diners tuck up to the table. However, we are in love with this dining room which manages to be totally modern and self-consciously organic all at the same time.

The third feature we seriously want the children to take note is that amazing master bathroom. Hunnies, this is exactly the sort of bathroom Your Mama expects an aging boob tube diva like Linda Gray would have. This bathroom is not simply a place to primp, pluck, and poop. No babies, this room multi-tasks and provides Miz Gray a retreat from her country retreat where she can luxuriate in a spa tub, warm her moist body by the groovy fireplace, and keep herself lean and mean on all that gym equipment.

In addition to the main house, the ranchette includes a two-story guest house with a screening room, an artist's studio, tennis court, swimming pool, a working stable with a groomsman shed, a chicken coop and an organic herb garden. All of which lead Your Mama to believe Miz Gray likes to putter about the house pulling weeds, petting horses, and making omelettes with eggs from her own chickens.

However, Your Mama hopes the flawless and iconic Miz Gray is preparing to get herself back on the television. And not in some Dallas reunion, hosting a reality show, or any more turns on The Bold and the Beautiful. We'd like to see her on something like that train wreck drama Brothers and Sisters (which the Dr. Cooter insists on watching), or maybe as Celia Hodes' mother on Weeds.

Your Mama wishes Miz Gray all the best as she begins the next phase of her life. Darlin', let us know when you get settled in the new place so we can bring you some organic carrots from our garden.

Source: LA Times

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