Carolyn Murphy's Model Home in Brentwood

SELLER: Carolyn Murphy
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Brentwood)
PRICE: $3,650,000 (list); $3,600,000 (sale)
SIZE: 3,386 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Meticulously restored 1920s Spanish in the hrt fo Bwood. Completed w/ grt taste, quality & sensitivity to the orig architecture. Old World charm yet ideal for today's lifestyle. Fab chef's kitch & adjacent fam rm w/ vaulted beamed ceiling open to patios & lg pvt yard. Family flr plan w/ 4 br's, 3 ba, inc wful sin-filled master w/ beau bath & 2 walk-ins. Ofc/art studio bonus room. Hdwd flrs, orig tiles, iron work, & walled courtyard. A hidden jewel on over 10,000 sq. ft lot in Brentwood.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama already knows that we are going to get all sorts of angry and indignant phone calls and emails from all you righteous readers of recently defunct House & Garden magazine screaming about how you recently read an article about mega model Carolyn Murphy living up in her bohemian chic contemporary house in Venice Beach and not in this Spanish style house just east of swanky Brentwood Park. Ugh. We have two words for y'all: She moved.

According to a very, very reliable source, and buffeted by property records, big money making model and single mommy Miss Murphy, who was dee-vorced in 2002 from a gentleman named Jake and more recently was linked with and reportedly split from Incubus front man Brandon Boyd, purchased this house in September of 2006 for $3,420,000, probably shortly after the H&G people styled and snapped her previous home in arty farty Venice Beach, where records reveal she actually lived for just 6 or 8 months, depending on how one counts.

Your Mama can't fathom why the super successful model turned wannabe actress decamped from colorful Venice Beach to comparatively staid Brentwood just one year ago and is up and packing her Louis Vuitton cases and moving again so soon. However, we do know that unlike so many other rich and famous types who buy and (attempt to) flip at an exorbitant profit, Miss Murphy will barely sneak by with her initial investment if the house sells for its current asking price of $3,650,000.

Listing information indicates that the 3,386 square foot family friendly house was recently renovated with a sensitive hand retaining the integrity of the original architecture including maintaining at least some of the original tiles and iron work. All good stuff in Your Mama's book. In addition to the 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, listing information shows that the house, located just north of pretty San Vicente Boulevard, includes a chef's kitchen, and an office/art studio for the work at home creative types.

Due to its "tweenish," neither here nor there feeling location, Your Mama is not big on the charms of living in Brentwood, and were the Dr. Cooter and Your Mama in the market for a new house, we would absolutely require that a house in this price range have a swimming pool. No pool, no three and a half million dollar deal. Of course, Miss Murphy has a small child so perhaps she prefers not to deal with the potential headaches and hazards that swimming pools sometimes represent to people with children rather than dogs.

However, that said, Your Mama loves the Spanish architecture meets modern lifestyle that this house exudes. We think it could use a bit more sass and sizzle, and we confess that given Miss Murphy is just 32 years old we expected to see a slightly younger vibe inside. What Your Mama sees instead is an earthy well traveled bohemian model chic meets millionaire single working mommy sort of look, which is not altogether a bad thing. But there are moments that present an ever so slight air of matronly. Sorry, Miss Murphy, but there are. Yes, it's that baby grand piano and the patterned curtains in the living room that looks like no one sits in it where we take most umbrage. Do you (or your child) actually play that piano Miss Murphy? If so, it's fine. If not, well, it's just a decorating pretense isn't it, and it should really go.

Moving on to the things we appreciate. At the front of the house a large walled courtyard is the perfect spot for whittling away the mornings reading the morning newspaper, slugging strong coffee, and letting our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly yap at every passerby and annoy all the upscale neighbors who live cheek by jowl in this part of Brentwood.

The warm, functional looking, and large kitchen with big ass appliances and acres of butcher block counter top spills easily into the family room with its high wood beamed ceiling, a wall of bookshelves (with actual books, bless you Miss Murphy), and that gorgeous red rug. Any of Your Mama's children who have ever been to our house at the beach knows that we L.O.V.E. a nice red rug to get the eyeballs dancing.

Upstairs, the master suite is complete with two walk in closets, floor to ceiling French doors, and a beauteous bathroom. We're digging the vaguely Moroccan thing that's happening in there with the gorgeous green tiled and glass enclosed shower, and while we would never dream of actually taking a bath and sitting in our own filth, Your Mama thinks that's one lovely soaking tub, a respectable update on a classic claw foot rather than one of those horrible new-fangled things that does color therapy and shit. No thank you.

Out in the back we find a marvelous covered porch with a green and white checkerboard tile floor perfect for sipping stiff cocktails in the late afternoon and gossiping with The Chicken, Your Mama's oldest friend in the world. The backyard landscaping, with it's dangling Olive tree and crushed granite patio exudes an Old World and pleasant Mediterranean courtyard vibe that is successfully merged with that wonderful and contemporary wall of arched glass that connects the inside with the outside.

Given that Miss Murphy is still an extremely bizzy, in demand and successful moe-dell who graces magazine covers and gets paid the big bucks to appear in advertisements, we would not be surprised to learn that she's headed back east to her former home base of New York. Or not. Wherever she and her child land, we are quite certain that this poor gurl from a trailer park in Florida, will not be headed back there any time soon.