Howard Gordon Shows a Little Modesty

SELLER: Howard Gordon
LOCATION: Dickens Street, Studio City, CA
PRICE: $1,499,000
SIZE: 2,826 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: 1 level architectural contemporary showplace. Ligne Roset designed interiors w/open flowing volume space incl LR, Media Rm & expanded Dining areas. Carrara marble Kit w/Miele & Gaggenau SS appl. FDR w/ blt in 600 bottle wine storage. All BA's are beige hand cut limestone incl Master w/ dual sinks and over sized marble shower. French drs open to spectacular yrd w/ Brazilian walnut deck, heated dining pergola, fire pit, outdr Kit, sep glass walled artist's studio. Sep alarmed custom 2800 bottle wine house.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama needed to consult the web to figure out just who this Howard Gordon person is. He may not be a household name in Kentucky, but he's clearly a heavy hitter in the television bizness who plies his trade as a writer/executive producer for the incredibly successful Keifer Sutherland vehicle 24. Previous to that program, which Your Mama admits we have never watched, Mister Gordon wrote and produced numerous episodes of Angel, the cult favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the show that perhaps started the trend for funky sci-fi type television programs, The X-Files. Those are just the big name shows in which he's been involved, there have also been several less successful programs such as Strange World and The Inside which of course Your Mama has never heard of.

If this man has even a teeny tiny piece of the syndication rights for the programs one which he's toiled, he will have big, BIG, money flowing into and swelling his pocketbook the rest of his life.

We are not surprised to see a man so successful selling off his house. We presume he's looking for bigger, better, gated, etc. But we were surprised to find so successful an industry type living in such a modest house in Studio City. Aren't you?

Anyhoo, Mister Gordon and wifey purchased this house in 2000 for $725,000. Remember the good ol' days when you could by a house in a good part of LA for under a million? We imagine the renovations were done in the ensuing years and Your Mama thinks the place looks terrific.

We like how the front facade is a little forbidding and sinister while the inside is open, colorful and light filled. We are appreciative of the Ligne Roset interior which makes the place look like an Italian fashion designers house, but there are a couple of questionable choices in the decor. Yes, that's right, it's the dining room set we are concerned about. We're sure the table and chairs cost more than our BMW, but it looks like something you might see in the executive conference room at MicroSoft.

Even though it's not the most practical surface for day to day cooking as it easily stains and citric acid wreaks havoc on the stuff, Your Mama LOVES a kitchen slathered in Carrara marble. The dark cabinets create an excellent juxtaposition to the counters and the light colored wood floor. We can only hope there is a large pantry somewhere to make up for the lack of overhead cabinets. We are also a wee bit concerned with the location of the dishwasher, which appears to make it difficult if not impossible to stand at the sink and load the dishwasher at the same time.

We're not always fond of monster master bedrooms, particularly when they're big and wide just to be big and wide. This one looks nice and we dig the relative sparsity of furnishings, but we'd prefer a full wall separating those two spaces. It's just a preference for sleeping in a room that feels like it's embracing us rather than one where we feel like we're floating in space. Does that make sense? If this were our bedroom, we'd commission one of our artist pals to make a large abstract landscape for behind the bed. We like spare, but plain is a different story, and it's looking a little plain back there.

Imagine the backyard bbqs that have gone on here with Kiefer getting a little loud after imbibing one too many and Sarah Michelle getting lewd with Freddie on the sofa in the living room. All the while smarty pants David Duchovny and wifey Tea Leoni are looking down their perfect noses at the shenanigans while poor Gillian Anderson sits there forlorn and alone because no one in Hollywood pays any attention to her since she began starring on British television.

The backyard is gorgeous and modern, and that funky pergola was a bold and daring selection for which we'd like to applaud the Gordons. We love it. Of course, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would prefer a swimming pool, but we'll take that catwalk like dining platform which we are quite certain our friends Falsetta Knockers and Fiona Trambeau could work and work and work making that backyard worth ev-er-ee penny of the purchase price.

Sources: The Superficial, Internet Movie Data Base