Monday, February 25, 2008

UPDATE: Veronica Hearst

Hold on to your britches children because Veronica Hearst's real estate shit has finally hit the fan and the Manhattan-based socialite is screwed six ways from Sunday as far as Your Mama can tell. Now puppies, before any of you get your moral panties in a bunch, we are not dancing on Miz Hearst's real estate grave. The ladee bleeds just like everyone else and her financial woes are nothing to be gleeful about. However, Your Mama has been following Miz Hearst's trail of foreclosure tears for quite some time and we need to see the story through to its inevitable and uglee climax.

According to the Palm Beach Post, the dirty deed has been done and the 28,000 square foot, 52 room Villa Venezia was auctioned off in a foreclosure sale for just $22,000,000. The children will recall from previous discussions that Villa Venezia is the palatial Palm Beach pile for which Miz Hearst plunked down a hefty $29,870,807 just a couple of months before her huzband and newspaper scion Randolph Hearst died in 2000.

Over the years Miz Hearst borrowed heavily against the property, presumably to pay its $375,000 yearly tax bill and to maintain her lavish lifestyle of private jets, Couture Dior and $100,000 tables at charity galas. The buyers of the estate that stretches gracefully from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Worth are New Stream Capital, the plaintiffs in the foreclosure proceedings who happen to be the very same outfit that holds more than $40,000,000 in mortgages owed by The Widow Hearst.

According to a recent and eye popping article in the New York Daily News, Miz Hearst has been very bizzy selling everything that isn't glued down or already mortgaged in an effort to scare up some cash. And it looks like she's gonna need all the pennies she can find in the sofa cushions because the ladee reportedly put up her full floor co-op in a swanky Fifth Avenue building and her 45-acre estate in New Castle, NY as collateral against the massive mortgages in the event the foreclosure sale of Villa Venezia did not produce enough to pay off New Stream, which of course, it did not.

Since Villa Venezia sold for just $22,000,000, Miz Hearst remains in deep financial doo-doo with New Stream for another $16,000,000 (or more), and as such they can force the sale of her other collateralized assets in order to recoup their money. Oh dear. So get ready children, because unless the bible scholar sells a boatload of baubles and rare books or finds a benefactor to loan her another $16,000,000, Your Mama expects we'll see New Stream go after at least one of Miz Hearst's other properties to pay off her still considerable debt. These people at New Stream are clearly done messing around and waiting for Miss Missy Socialite to restructure her debt, hawk her jewelry or find a rich huzband. They want their damn money and they're gonna do whatever it takes to get it.

Someone better tell the high fallutin' board at Miz Hearst's co-op because the big spending Widow Hearst reportedly did not get permission to pledge her unit as collateral. And you can't pull that shit with a co-op kids, at least not without stirring up all manner of uppity co-op board rage. Those are sure to be some angry-ass rich people up in 4 East 66th Street if they are forced to deal with a foreclosure and property auction that might allow an undesirable element to swoop in and scoop up Miz Hearst's 7,000 square feet (approx.) of dee-luxe Fifth Avenue dee-lishusness.

If Your Mama were the betting type we'd wager our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that that the high net worth residents are already meeting in secret to pool their resources in the event they need to purchase the full floor apartment at auction. In fact we would not be the least bit soo-prized if the co-op board's people have already approached Miz Hearst's people about quietly selling her shares back to the co-op at fair market value. We speculate kids, so don't go reporting that like we know what we're talking about.

Anyhoo, it must be some relief for Miz Hearst to finally unload that white elephant in Palm Beach even if she's still has a lot of hot financial coals to walk across before she can slip her feet comfortably back into a pair of 5 inch Louboutin heels. In the mean time we sincerely wish Miz Hearst fortitude and some good damn advice from her top notch attorneys who Your Mama hopes are telling her to sell everything, pay off New Stream, and buy herself an elegant little one bedroom at The Sherry Netherland with the left over cash. That is if she can get passed the board at The Sherry now that she's a financial hot potato.

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