Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Kate Moss Selling London House

SELLER: Kate Moss
LOCATION: Melina Place, London, UK
PRICE: $6,600,000 (3,250,000 pounds)
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Hidden behind a walled garden lies this enchanting but deceptively spacious freehold house. With real character and offered in beautiful decorative condition, the accommodation is configured as 2 bedrooms but could easily be rearranged. Further accommodation includes an L-shaped reception room leading to a study/tv room and a lovely, bright and airy kitchen/breakfast room.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Strangely, Your Mama has almost nothing to say about Kate Moss. We are perplexed and bewildered that we draw a blank when thinking about her. But we'll try to discuss her London home none the less. Lest the children think Your Mama scours the London real estate pages, we would like to thank our tipster Mister Smiley for directing Your Mama to Miss Moss' London residence.

Soon after super slim multi-millionaire model and single mommy Kate Moss has dumped drugged out and bisexual Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty, she quickly went and engaged herself to The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince and put her London house on the market for a fat $6,600,000. Perhaps there are too many memories of pasty faced Pete on Melina Place?

Your Mama doesn't have a clue how to search property records for London properties, so we can't tell the children when Miss Moss purchased this house, or how much she paid for the place. Although Your Mama as been to London many times, we typically become impossibly turned around and frequently lost navigating the jumbled criss-cross of roads and lanes and can only place Miss Moss' house after consulting a map. Melina place is a small dead end lane just off Abbey Road (the Abbey Road made famous by the Beatles, we presume) in the area just north of Marylebone and west of Regents Park. We're certain the neighborhood has a name and distinct character, but Your Mama regrets to inform that we don't know what they are. If any of our British compatriots would like to chime in, we're happy to sit for a geography lesson on London neighborhoods.

What we do know about Miss Moss' house comes from the listing information provided by the estate agents. According to the listing, the residence is currently arranged with two bedrooms, but can easily be reconfigured to a three bedroom. The estate agents have thoughtfully included a floor plan which shows a three floor layout with 2.5 bathrooms.

Most of the photos of the property are painfully small, and Your Mama's eyes aren't what they used to be, so it's rather difficult for us to comment on the interior decor other than to say it does not appear that the stylish mannequin consulted one of London's numerous and talented nice gay decorators who surely would not have approved those awful black curtains in the kitchen. Nor do we think the too-girlish pink paint in the lady's bedroom would have been green lighted by any sensible decorator, gay or straight.

In the absence of large and juicy photos, we can at least discuss the floor plan which reveals a home well suited for a single person about town or perhaps a couple on the go who likes to have a few friends round for cocktails. Given the garret style rooms on the third floor (or second floor if you're a Brit), it does not however, lend itself well to a hipster mommy of a small child with a live in nanny and a rotating cast of daddy figures. Honestly children, we don't have any idea if the wonderfully photogenic Miss Moss has a live in nanny, but we don't know how a gurl can dash off to Ibiza on a moments notice and stay up all night with her musician boyfriend without one.

Anyhoo, Your Mama rather likes the floor plan, at least on the ground floor. The upstairs configuration is an utter mess. The large window and French doors in the ground floor sitting room help to maintain a visual relationship with the pretty little green and walled garden at the front of the property, and it appears there is a fireplace for warming the footsies and tootsies on the cold and damp London nights, both excellent features in Your Mama's book.

Like we find at Miss Moss' house, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter prefer a separate kitchen over one of those "great room" set ups so popular in Middle American tract homes where one is forced to look at the dirty dishes and kitchen appliances while trying to relax in front of the boob tube watching reruns of Style with Elsa Klensch.

We dig the back hall/utility area which allows one to whisk dinner directly from the kitchen to the dining room without risk of spilling soup on the funky couture Angela Adams rug we'd lay down in the sitting room. Tucking the powder room back there was genius, because there is nothing worse than having to listen to your guests tinkle while you're cutting the cheese appetizer in the sitting room.

Our floor plan love ends as we ascend the curving staircase to the second floor which has been given over entirely to the master suite. Your Mama digs the large bedroom which provides enough square footage for a sitting area, and the custom fitted dressing room is lovely. But note that the bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room are all separated by a public hall. Who wants to spend more than $6,000,000 clams for a house that requires you to trek across the hall stark nekkid in the middle of the night to use the terlit? As the children might imagine we're also troubled by the location of the shower. It does appear to be roomy, which is a plus, but what's it doing in the dressing room? Surely a clever architect could have resolved this program better than this.

Up into the third floor and we find two smallish rooms and a bathroom. Note that one of the rooms is oddly shaped, ridiculously tiny and must be passed through to access the bathroom. Not exactly a swell layout unless the rooms are configured as a guest suite with bedroom, sitting room and bath. It would seem almost cruel to stick the kids up there in that jigsaw puzzle like suite of rooms where the only closet or storage space appears to be tucked into eaves in the bathroom.

We know London real estate is freakishly and frightfully expensive, so perhaps this house, even with its upsetting bedroom configuration, is a bargain at $6,600,000. Miss Moss has not returned out calls so we haven't a clue where to pin thin and moe-dell is planning on moving, but wherever it is, we can only hope the new place has a more accommodating and free flowing layout.

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