Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Hamish Linklater Lists His Nest in Eagle Rock

SELLER: Hamish Linklater
LOCATION: Mont Eagle Place, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $675,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: 1958 Traditional sited in prime Eagle Rock hills. Sweeping views, high ceilings, clean lines. Light and airy living room with panoramic mountain views. Large formal dining room offers awesome vista views. Entertainer’s delight. Three spacious bedrooms, 1.5 baths, renovated eat-in kitchen. Character, detail, beautiful hardwood floors throughout. Attached 2-car garage.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Sorry children, but there has been some sort of snafu with the internets this morning so we haven’t had any access to the online all morning. We struggled and dialed and shouted and pleaded. It took 5 hours and two and a half Bloody Marys to be restored. Needless to say, Your Mama is half crocked and it's barely past noon. Anyhoo, enough of our troubles...

Your Mama well understands that most of you probably haven’t got a clue who this Hamish Linklater person is and why his house would be included on our little online endeavor about celebrity real estate. Well, to be honest, Your Mama didn’t know a thimble full about Mister Linklater either when we were first contacted by East Side Edna about his modest and not particularly priddy house in Los Angeles’ Eagle Rock neighborhood which he recently put on the market with an asking price of $675,000.

As soon as we had access, Your Mama consulted the always informative interweb where we learned that thirty-something year old Mister Linklater is an actor–and new daddy–lucky enough to have a regular role on the usually funny and often under-rated Julia Louis Dreyfus driven boob toob program The New Adventures of Old Christine.

For those not intimate with the highways and bi-ways of at the northeastern end of Los Angeles, let Your Mama act as your tour guide. The Eagle Rock neighborhood, once a bit scrubby and some say dangerous, sits north and east of arty farty Silver Lake, south and east of Glendale, north of the somewhat revitalized downtown and southwest of polished Pasadena.

Some folks Your Mama knows appreciate Eagle Rock for its out of the way location, more modest than Silver Lake housing prices and great views. It’s basically a big hill of a ‘hood, after all. Others we fraternize with fear for their luxury automobiles when in the area and some of our snobbiest buddies and biddies think twice before going east of Western Avenue and would never even dream of going to Eagle Rock. Ever.

Anyhoo, Mister Linklater and his wifey Jennifer certainly goes to Eagle Rock and according to property records has been schlepping to his hilltop home since September of 2004 when he and his wifey Jessica purchased their 1,510 square foot house for $515,000.

Listing information for Mister and Missus Linklater’s non-celebrity style house shows it was constructed in 1958 and includes 3 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Other features includes a living room with peaked and beamed ceilings, a dated looking brick fireplace and a skinny red rug that Your Mama is 100% positive would be happier in a hallway somewhere. The dining room is the very definition of ordinary and like the living room has been "decorated" with a rug that is simply too small for the room. Do not even get Your Mama going on the laminate flooring or that tawdry twenty nine dollar Home Despot chandelier. Pleeze. There is not excuse for that shit. Seriously. Someone should have advised Mister and Missus Linklater to get themselves to Ikea where they could have purchased a five dollar paper shade that would have been a major improvement.

Clearly some misguided individual tried to add a little sparkle and panache to the (0ut)dated kitchen with the multi-colored tile back splash. But at the risk of sounding like an asshole (which we recognize we sometimes do), it's a little like putting lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig, children, and to make matters worse it's a pig with a befuddling beige tile floor.

The bathroom tile on the other hand is a lovely shade of tur-qwaze and Your Mama thinks we could probably work with that bit of retro bizness if it's in as good of shape as it appears to be in the photograph. Our online research turned up the information the Mister Linklater is an avid gardener. You certainly wouldn't know it from the easy maintenance and rat friendly ivy covered front yard, but it's clear someone has taken some time to lay out some bark and flagstones in the back yard areas in a thoughtful manneer.

Listen children, Your Mama knows that most of you will skewer this house like it was a dripping chunk of lamb on a shish-kabob, but Your Mama actually thinks that someone with a modest budget and an eye for style could work wonders on this house. Really, we do. Honestly! Your Mama would recommend starting with the kitchen, natch. If the bank account did not allow for a gut reno, we do believe we could make do with with a new floor (beige tile looks like a janitor's closet), some upgraded appliances (believe it or not Sears carries some nice looking mid-priced models), new cabinet hardware (something from Lowe's will suffice), some paint for the cabinets (let's try painting them black for fun) and a trip across town to Wertz Brothers in Santa Monica for a funky, fine and affordable table and chairs where guests can sip Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's while the hostess spins out some homemade hummus.

Until we hear di-rectly from Mister Linklater–and we don't expect we will–we can only guess at why he'd sell his unimproved house in a lagging market. But he's recently had a new baby and perhaps the Missus Linklater isn't interested in spending the next two years humping the Bugaboo stroller up and down the full flight of stairs leading to the front door. And maybe, just maybe, the last four years on the boob toob have put a fair number of pennies in his pocket that will allow him to move on to something a little, well, better. Both are good enough reasons for someone to want to move, don't the children agree?

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: Well lo and behold, Mister Big Time and Your Mama are mining the same part of town today and he also discussed Mister Linklater's Eagle Rock nest too. But good ol' Big Time also uncovered the $1,362,000 house in Los Feliz are of L.A. that Mister Linklater and his wifey Jessica bought. Bravo Mister Big Time!

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