Saturday, October 27, 2007

Jane Pratt Sells Townhouse

SELLER: Jane Pratt
LOCATION: 58 Downing Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $3,800,000 (sale)
SIZE: 2,560 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: 58 Downing Street is an extremely rare, single family private home to come to the marketplace. Decorated by one of the world's top designers, lose yourself in informal, sophisticated luxury. 58 Downing provides the once-in-a-lifetime fantasy to own your own home in the village; resplendent with original stoop, wood-burning fireplaces, turn-of-the-century woodwork and details, and a sun-filled garden.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Children, Your Mama has been stricken with a flu which is why we did not feed the children any good real estate porn yesterday. And as usual, the children just about killed each other in our absence. Honestly babies can't Your Mama leave you alone for even one day without you turning on each other like a couple of tranny crack hos fighting over the last married man trawling Hollywood Boulevard?

We're still feeling pukey and under the weather, but in the interest of keeping the children from verbally slaughtering each other, Your Mama is going to pop up a little something about a lady named Jane Pratt. Some of you may recognize Miz Pratt's name because of her loose lips which revealed that she had a lesbian fling with Drew Barrymore back in the mid 1990s. Bet Drew was THRILLED to have that bit of news flashed about the radio.

Others of you might recognize Miz Pratt's name because for many years she sat at the top of the heap of the magazine publishing world. Back in the early 1990s, 24 year old Miz Pratt, an upper class hipster with a blue blood education, tapped into the zeitgeist of the burgeoning pre-teen gurl publishing marketplace when she created Sassy, one of the first and arguably best of the pre-teen gurl glossies which aimed at teaching young gurls just getting their mosquito bite boobies how to dress, what music to listen to, and how to innocently flirt with pimply-faced boys.

When that went belly-up, she teamed up with the Condé Nast, the Cadillac of magazine publishers. Her eponymous Jane Magazine, aimed at stylish and hip young women never quite achieved the cult following or street-cred success of Sassy, but the job paid her enough money to buy a downtown townhouse in 2001 for around $2,200,000.

Time rolls on and Jane Magazine is now defunct and Miz Pratt has a Sirius Satellite radio program. The mother of one with a longtime male companion recently sold her Manhattan townhouse for $3,800,000. Lest anyone be under the impression that the mortgage crisis is having much effect on the current Manhattan real estate market, you should know that the the not very well located four floor house was purchased for $150,000 MORE than it's asking price. Lucky Jane.

Listing information for the house says it was decorated by one of the world's top designers. And perhaps it was. We're certainly feeling okay about the parlor floor living room space, but the family room on the fourth floor is making us queasy. Let's hope the pinky/fleshy color is the result of a bad camera because Your Mama could not stomach living up in a room the color of tongue.

Although Your Mama finds the less than desirable Downing Street location is only good for its proximity to the Film Forum theater and the 1/9 subway, we happen to like the layout of the petite house. The English basement includes a large eat in kitchen with a street entrance which is perfect for getting the food deliveries from Fresh Direct right into the kitchen without having to schlep them through the house. The Parlor floor, while narrow is nicely laid our for entertaining. The lack of a terlit on this floor is a minor inconvenience unless you're a mobility impaired dinner guess, then it's a tremendous inconvenience to have to climb a flight of stairs just to relieve oneself.

The third floor, devoted entirely to the master suite is nicely laid out except for that bathtub in the dressing room. Honestly, that's just silly. Who needs to bathe while looking at the Jimmy Choos and Prada suits? We'd rip that water barrel out right away and replace it with more custom fitted closets.

The two bedrooms on the third floor are rather small, but how much room do children really need? None the less, if this house were to belong to Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter we'd combine those two bedrooms into one nicely sized suite for guests...well at least guests that have the lung power and leg strength to get up and down all the stairs to the kitchen.

According to records on file with the city, the skinny 16 ft wide 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house was purchased by political risk management guru Ian Bremmer, a youngish intellectual and brilliant political scientist who heads up the Eurasia Group. We imagine these rooms will soon be filled with all sorts of chatter about global finance, proliferation treaties and the potential positive and negative implications of a senator's pork barrel requests.

According to Media Bistro (via Curbed), Miz Pratt is rumored to be starting a magazine with Gwen Stefani. So does this mean that the Pratt clan is headed to the west coast?

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