Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Peter Guber's Hawaiian Tara Plantation


SELLER: Peter and Tara Guber
LOCATION: Papa'a Road, Anahola, Kauai, HI
PRICE: $46,500,000
SIZE: 171 acres, 15,000 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms (main house)
DESCRIPTION: ...Enter your gated compound and lazily drive down a country road to your spacious 15,000 square foot classic Hawaiian style main home with two 4,000 square foot guest bungalows all of which have been tastefully furnished by the famous California designer Waldo Fernandez. The main home has 6 bedrooms and 8.5 bathroom with his and her private living rooms. Exceptional wood finishes, a professional kitchen, and generous ocean view lanais allow for easy island living. A swimming pool, beach cabana, yoga studio, a 3 bedroom caretakers home, horse stables, numerous fenced corrals, super large workshop and barns add to this perfect estate...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: When Christmas comes, heaps and scores of rich and famous folks head for the islands, and according to one Hawaii bound source we'll all The Wicked Wahine, many pack their teeny bikinis and bee line for the island of Kauai where they shack up in fabulous estates and resorts around Kilauea on the rugged northeastern coast. Before she jetted off to her own ocean front rental, The Wicked Wahine whispered to Your Mama that this year the island locals can expect to wait hand and foot on such Hollywood luminaries as Ben and Christine Stiller, prolific novelist and television writer Michael Crichton, former Bond stud Pierce and wifey Kelly Brosnan, the Beastie Boys, and Sex and The City's "milk it for all she can" Sarah Jessica Parker, her Broadway baby huzband Matthew Broderick and their boy child.

And of course, the entire island of Kauai knows to expect fabulously rich producer Peter Guber and his yoga nut wifey Tara, who have spent the last several years trying to unload their massive Papa'a Bay Road estate called Tara Plantation for a blistering $46,500,000.

Mister and Missus Guber bought the 171 acre spread in 1998 for a reported $7,200,000 and proceeded to build their own version of a Hawaiian heaven that overlooks Papa'a Bay. The vast estate includes everything a media mogul might want or need for a few weeks winter getaway, including a monstrous 15,000 square foot plantation style main house with wide verandas and boatloads of bamboo furniture and flower printed fabrics. Although the main house provides 6 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms (including dual master baths and, strangely, his and her private living rooms in the master suite), two 4,000 square foot guest houses ensure the Gubers are not peeved by pesky holiday house guests who might fornicate and/or snore loudly in the guest bedrooms of the main house.

Anyone who is familiar with or has bothered to read anything about the Gubers know they were doing the downward facing dog and the warrior pose long before Yoga became ridiculously trendy with the Hollywood set. Missus Guber is such a devotee that she has developed her own somewhat sensual practice called Contact Yoga, where couples contort and pretzel each other into upsetting and uncomfortable looking shapes and poses. So naturally, Tara Plantation features a Yoga House where the Gubers and their guests can get centered and get in touch with their chakras before dressing up in their grass skirts and downing a few pitchers of mai-tais.

The Guber's getaway also features riding stables for the horsey house guests, a tennis court for the sporteef minded moochers, a long stretch of gorgeous sandy beach for those few in LaLa land who tan the old fashioned way, and naturally, a swimming pool is provided for all those fraidy-cat weekend whiners who won't swim in the bathtub warm waters of Papa'a Bay.

The Gubers have been trying to unload their impressive piece of Polynesian paradise for years, and Your Mama is hardly the first to discuss their lush and dee-luxe property. Not only was the high priced hideaway once (but no longer) near the top the list of the world's most expensive homes, much ink has been laid down over the long and bitter battle waged between the meditating magnates and local surfers and activists who were all kinds of pissed when the Gubers blocked an access road to the beach that ran across their property.

Oh lawhd have mercy children, the Hawaiian locals do NOT take kindly to some rich Hollywood haole cutting off their access to the waves. Oh no. As The Wicked Wahine explains it, "The local surfing rights never get fucked with," and in true American style, lawsuits were filed, much bitching and moaning ensued, and it all ended in Federal Court. Recent reports indicate that the Gubers won the war when the judge ruled the Gubers do indeed have clear title to the land, including the disputed roadway. Which of course means they're free and legal to prevent surfboard toting beach goers from trekking across their back lawn to get to the beach. Luckily for the locals, there is another access point to that particular beach, however it reportedly involves a potentially dangerous climb over slippery rocks.

Anyhoo, now that the lawsuits have been put to bed, perhaps a fabulously rich tycoon with a thing for swaying palm trees and extreme privacy will now feel free to scoop the place up for it's $46,500,000 asking price. As an added bonus to security conscious millionaires, Your Mama hears through the gossip grapevine that that the whole place is wired up like Fort Knox and that a super security system allows Mister Guber to know when a terlit flushes in Kauai while ensconced in the couples sprawling home base in Los Angeles, which sits privately and perfectly up behind the exclusive Hotel Bel Air.

So that the children get a full spectrum idea of the Guber's vast real estate wealth, in 2004 the Gubers divested themselves of another mammoth weekend ranch located just 10 minutes outside Aspen, the searingly expensive winter celebrity haven where gals like Mariah and Goldie strut the streets in full length fur coats and the airport is forever clogged with the shiny Gulfstream 550s of tycoons and honchos of all stripes. The karmic couple took in a reported $46,000,000 when they sold their 650 acre Mandalay Ranch, which included a 15,000 square foot main house with 7 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms, a screening room and an indoor gym and basketball court.

Your Mama is breathless thinking of the vast amount of money required to maintain a home of this scale and magnitude in Hawaii. Certainly it costs more each year to keep this place afloat than most of the well earning children make in a year. So y'all just think about that while Your Mama hooks ourself up to the oxygen tank, takes some nerve medication, and breathes.

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