Ellen and Portia Do It Again in the Hollywood Hills

SELLER: Ellen Degeneres and Portia Di Rossi
LOCATION: Zorada Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,300,000
SIZE: 2,755 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.75 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Classic 1956 post & beam. Exceptional mid-century modern home, constructed in a U-shape around a sun-drenched pool w mountain/city views. Walled/gated with long private drive, perfect for celebrity. Classic open floor plan, loft-like feel, handsome concrete floors. Remodeled to showcase art & classic furniture. Walls of glass open to pool & adj. areas. Sunny master opens to pool. 2 other BRs. The best of mid-century post & beam design, amplified by long private drive & excellent view lot.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few weeks ago Your Mama got an email from someone we do not know who asked us if we had heard anything about talk show queen Ellen Degeneres and her actress girlyfriend Portia Di Rossi getting ready to sell their Hollywood Hills properties. We hadn't heard a whisper or a peep. But we kept our ear to the ground and our eyes glued to the mls until this afternoon when our eyes just about popped out of our head.

Ellen and the Missus own two properties up on Zorada Drive. One is a long low Cliff May style ranch style that one of our readers says bigwig architects Marmol and Radziner did up before the ladies purchased the place. The other sits just next door and down the hill and is described in the listing as a classic mid-century modern post and beam, which has been listed for $2,300,000.

All the celebrity real estate nuts out there are well aware of the prolific buying and selling of this lezbian couple. Most recently the happy couple put their flaw-less weekend retreat in Montecito on the market for a blistering $24,000,000. Previous to that the Sapphic couple had sold their ranch in the sticks of the Santa Ynez Valley, which is the same general vicinity of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

And previous to that, Ellen sold off her compound of houses over on Woodrow Wilson Drive and Woodstock Road including a property called "The Treehouse" that was eventually purchased in June 0f 2006 by the straight, but homo friendly actor Heath Ledger.

The property the gurls are selling sits at the top of Nichols Canyon and is accessed down a long gated drive. So don't any of you crazies get any ideas about driving your cars up and down Zorada Drive. Your Mama happens to know that neither this house, nor the big ranch house can be seen from the road. So the chance that you might spot this couple spreading suntan lotion on each other or playing in the sprinklers on a hot summer's day is none.

We expect this house was given a work over by Ellen's team of architects and designers. And their efforts have paid off. We LOVE this house. The house has been done up in the modern and comfortable style we've come to expect from Ellen.

The house was purchased in March of 2006 for $1,868,018 according to property records. So it would seem that after the renovations and the fat commissions are paid the the real estate agents, there won't be much money made. Maybe just enough that they can buy themselves a first class cabin on one of Rosie's lezbian family cruises.

There's little Your Mama does not like about this house including the furniture. Our bliss begins at the foot of the gated drive. Your Mama feels a long gated drive provides a level of privacy that is necessary if you're famous our just a person who likes privacy. We are drawn to the front door with its soaring glass facade that is set apart of the rest of the house with it's plain, windowless concrete walls. Gorgeous.

The living room pleasantly opens to the pool deck through a wall of glass sliders. Sliders can feel a little old fashioned and dated, but in this case we think they were the perfect solution. We can't see all of the room, but we hope there is a fireplace at the end of the room we are unable to eyeball. Your Mama might suggest a spikey plant in here to give it a little extra life...perhaps a mother in law tongue would look scrumptious.

The kitchen has been wonderfully pared down to it's fundamental uses, and works perfectly on the level that it does not try to impress anyone with fancy cabinetry and a million feet of expensive and imported granite. We are completely in love with the picnic table for the dining room, as well as the fact that this room opens to the outside on two opposite walls, creating a large porch like space that is more outside than inside when the sliders are all pulled open.

Ordinarily we're not big on big bedrooms, but this one is plucking all our happy nerves. Dig the fireplace, love the barely there furniture and, again, the wall of sliders give us goose bumps. Imagine being able to sleep in the that big bed with the Santa Anas blowing lightly through the sliders. Loverly.

Your Mama expects this house will be sold next week, so if you're in the market and liking what you see, call your people and get over there lickety-split.

We sit on pins and needles waiting to see if the big Marmol and Radziner ranch house is going to be sold as well, and also what lucky properties will be getting the Ellen and Portia treatment next.