Ellen Degeneres: Property Maven

BUYER: Adrian Bellani
SELLER: Ellen Degeneres
LOCATION: Woodrow Wilson Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,995,000
SIZE: 2,267 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Located on prestigious Woodrow Wilson Drive. The spacious, loft-life living/dining area features 20tf. ceilings, fireplace, sleek kitchen, hardwood floors & expansive windows that overlook the lush landscaping. Oversized sliding galss pocket doors open to a flat grassy yard. Master bedroom has a deck, walk-in closet & beatuiful bathroom opening onto another deck. There are 2 additional bedrooms, video security system & attached garage. Serenity & privacy yet minutes away from the Sunset Strip.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Before Ellen Degeneres bought up the properties that comprise her current Zorada Drive compound in the Hollywood Hills, she purchased another cluster of four houses that hugged the hills along Woodrow Wilson Drive and Woodstock Road above Laurel Canyon. She's unloaded two of those houses, including selling one of the properties, dubbed "The Treehouse," in June 2006 to Brokeback Mountain actor Heath Ledger and his blond, mousy wife Michelle Williams for $2,300,023.

Your Mama can barely keep up with the number of properties that residential real estate mogul currently owns, has on the market, recently purchased, or recently sold. With all the buying, selling, renovating, and decorating, it's a miracle the lesbian lady has the time to host her Emmy winning talk show.

Purchased in April of 2004 for an undisclosed sum of money, Miz Degeneres was said to have purchased this property–along with two others on Woodrow Wilson Drive–because it overlooked her primary residence on Woodstock Road. In the pre-Portia days, Your Mama remembers hearing grapevine gossip (gossip children, only gossip) that Miz Degeneres moved her ex-ladyfriend out of the Woodstock Road house and into one of the houses along Woodrow Wilson, possibly this one. Now, we have no idea if that's true or not, so don't go repeating that information as if it's the gospel.

Anyhoo, we see that this modestly sized house is every bit as well renovated and furnished as all the other Degeneres properties. Your Mama confesses: we are a sucker for a property that has been worked over by Miz Degeneres and her team of architects, designers, and gay interior decorators. We can't help but swoon over soaring ceilings, tall gallery white walls, a lovely art collection, and carefully chosen and sparsely placed furniture that successfully straddles the fine line between contemporary and warm.

The white box living room, with it's sky high ceiling, functions almost like a huge porch with a wall of windows on one side that overlooks the canyon, and a sliding wall of glass on the other that opens the house to a courtyard. The courtyard has been meticulously but simply landscaped to include an old-school cement dining patio and a small, well tended patch of grass. Your Mama would have preferred to see a wee plunge pool wedged into the courtyard, but alas.

In the dining area we find a picnic table which we're quite certain has some sort of pedigree that makes it cost $9,000 or some other large amount of money. It appears that the table top has been fitted with a delicious white Corian. Ya'll can skewer Your Mama for saying so, but we like the informality and social dynamic of a picnic table, and it warms the cockles of our cold heart to see a picnic table used so cleverly and effectively indoors. Miz Degeneres and her retinue of decorators put an identical picnic table in one of her houses on Zorada Drive, which we also raved over and then received an email box full of scoffs and guffaws about.

Into the kitchen and we find a small and immaculate cooking station that is appointed with butcher block counters, a small Viking range, and a gorgeous glass fronted SubZero refrigerator. We know many people do not like these fancy glass fronted cold boxes because they allow guests to see right into the cluttered shelves and notice the molding left overs that never got eaten. But Your Mama, an aficionado of well ordered and organized pantries and refrigerators, is not afraid. We spend far too much time standing in front of an open refrigerator and in our pantry removing price tags, turning all products face forward, grouping products by type, and tossing out anything that even looks remotely un-fresh. Call us crazy, but any one of you could walk into the pantry of Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's beach house and find what you need with almost no effort.

Please note that in the study, a painting that looks suspiciously like a Picasso hangs overs the the settee that is covered in a stunning caramel colored buttery leather. That can't really be a Picasso, can it? Any art history lovers out there want to weigh in on this one?

The back of the house hangs over the canyon and several decks provide quiet spots re-enact scenes from Rapunzel and Romeo and Juliet, or just sit and listen to the whisper of the wind through the eucalyptus trees. Of course, Your Mama would have to wrap those decks in chicken wire to keep keep our 8 pound long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly from accidentally falling over the edges, but even still, we like these dangerous for dogs decks.

In addition to this property, the Miz Degeneres and DiRossi's have placed one of their Zorada Drive houses on the market for $2,300,000.

UPDATE: This property was purchased by soap stud Adrian Bellani (Passions, Guiding Light, RPM Miami) in September 2007 for $1,995,000.