Introducing the Buddy Ebsen Museum

SELLER: Buddy Ebsen's wife and widow
LOCATION: Via Horquilla, Palos Verdes Estates, CA
PRICE: $3,240,000
SIZE: 4,398 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...This elegant home features a magnificent living room complete with Palladian windows to enjoy the panoramic views, high ceiling and fireplace. The adjacent formal dining room is perfect for entertaining. The large kitchen with adjoining breakfast room opens to a private patio. The stunning library fatures a coffered ceiling, fireplace and wonderful views. The dramatic entry staircase leads you upstiars to 2 large bedroom suites, each with its own bathroom. The fourth bedroom, located on the entry level is currently being used as an artist's retreat.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: About a week ago, before our computer drama and before we lost an entire day in transit to the left coast, a little birdie we'll call Sammy the Songbird whispered in Your Mama's big fat ear that the Palos Verdes Estates home owned by old skool actor Buddy Ebsen has been foisted on to the market by his third wife and widow Dorothy Knott (Mister Ebsen passed on to the big movie set in the sky in 2003). All the children who are older than dirt and/or appreciate classic films and television programs will recall that Mister Ebsen skillfully played Doc Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's and that his best known acting gig was as the lovable oil rich ignoramus Jed Clampett on the soo-blime and still funny television series The Beverly Hillbillies. But, of course, who could ever forget Mister Ebsen in his last big role working his geriatric stuff as the milk obsessed gum shoe Barnaby Jones back in the 1970s? Certainly not Your Mama.

Being that we're unhealthily attracted to the prurient and out of the ordinary behaviors of others, what Your Mama finds most interesting about Mister Buddy Ebsen is that he fathered eight children. Eight! Including one born while he was in his seventies. Imagine that children. Your Mama can't imagine why anyone with more than 50 candles on their birthday cake would want a damn infant causing a ruckus while they sat down to watch the legendary Laurence Welk on the boob toob, but hunnies, we are none the less impressed with Mister Ebsen's pre-Viagra virility.

Anyhoo, we're here to talk about real estate, so let's get down to the bizness at hand. Property records show that Mister Ebsen purchased this 4,398 square foot house in December of 1985 for $950,000, and from the look of things, anyone who lives here better enjoy working those calf and boo-tox muscles because there are enough stairs and steep slopes on this property to give Your Mama's little heart an attack just thinking about trying to get from the street all the way up to the damn bedrooms. We can only hope that someone thought to install a damn elevator for the less physically fit.

Listing information indicates that there are three bedroom suites on the top floor and a fourth bedroom on the main level that is used as an "artist's retreat." This was probably the maid's room before people figured it was safer and more private to have the staff live out of the house.

While the view from the house looks long and spectacular, we are less than impressed with the interior day-core. We regret to inform The Widow Ebsen that there is precious little we'd keep in the house besides that crazy white grand piano in the living room which is so damn Liberace it's brilliant. For some unknown reason we're also digging the doors that enclose the book shelves in the library, so we'd prolly leave those too. Maybe. Sorry Buddy Ebsen luvin' people, as far as Your Mama is concerned, everything else can be tossed over the ornate balustrade and into a dumpster.

Although we're sure The Widow Ebsen loves her kitchen and we can appreciate the large work island and the nice view out the window over the sink, Your Mama thinks a serious gut job will be required and insisted upon by the new owner. Additionally, the little white chandelier is too tiny for the space and those balloon drapes are so damn dee-pressing they are making Your Mama's head hurt even more than last night's prodigious pitcher of gin and tonics. All the children please take note of Your Mama's interior day-core rule # 364: Balloon drapes are only appropriate for funeral homes and certain Park Avenue apartments inhabited by ladees old enough, rich enough and lacquer-haired enough to be called "doyennes."

Our last bone of contention with this property is the backyard...or rather the lack of one. Listen puppies, to each his or her own when it comes to backyards, but if Your Mama was spending three million or more clams to live down in Palos Verdes Estates (which, quite frankly, we would never do), we would certainly require a backyard big enough for a heated swimming pool, a shaded and private terrace for al fresco massages from the always scantily clad Sven the Swedish ma-sewer, and a small patch of green grass for our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly to frolic and sunbathe.

Palos Verdes has always been a bit of a residential mystery to Your Mama, but as it turns out, we're actually headed down to that neck of the Los Angeles woods tomorrow to have a look-see at the ocean view manse of a ladee ack-tress/moe-dell who is probably most famous for taking her clothes off in Playboy than anything else. Should be fun.

Your Mama read that Mister Ebsen once owned a 36 acre ranch somewhere up in the Santa Monica Mountains, but Your Mama didn't find any record of such a thing. Perhaps the fine folks at Movieland Directory can sort that out and let us know?

Now children, please allow Your Mama to have a wee morning nap as we've been up since the crack of dawn and we have to be on top of our game in a few hours when we meet a sharp and sassy gal pal for lunch at the commissary of some movie studio or other.