Ryan Phillippe's Asian Inspired Freak Out

BUYER: Ryan Phillippe
LOCATION: Rising Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $7,150,000
SIZE: 8,300 square feet (approx., as per listing), 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: One of a kind architectural oasis built by Buff & Hensman. Turn-key entertainers dream w/ soaring views. Gated & completely private. 5 bd, 7 ba. guest quarters w/ pvt exits, 2 master suites w/ office area in both, expansive living room & deck for large parties, media room, private office. Huge outdoor patio w/ chef's bbq, pool, spa, sauna/steam room & fire-pit. Asian-style gazebo overlooking pool. 2 story gym, master suite & media center with 14 ft ceilings & 60ft of head on jetliner city views.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Several weeks ago Your Mama heard from a well placed and always well informed tipster that recently dee-vorced hottie actor Ryan Phillippe (Flags of Our Fathers, Crash, Gosford Park) coughed up some big bucks to purchase an ass-uglee house near the tippy top of Rising Glen Road in the hills above West Hollywood. However, transaction records had yet to be filed and before we were able to sort through our spider web of contacts for a second source, the increasingly intrepid Miz Ann Brenoff at the LA Times scooped Your Mama on the purchase. Now of course, just about every real estate chatterbox and gossip glossy that cares about the oft-shirtless father of two has discussed the purchase. Whether the children like it or not, Your Mama feels like weighing in none the less.

Property records (and a tipster we'll call Ernie Eatsalot) reveal to Your Mama that Mister Phillippe, who now publicly dates Abbie Cornish–the twenty-something broo-net rumored to have been at the the center of his dust up and bust up with a-list actress Reese Witherspoon, purchased his homage to insanely bad Asian inspired day-core for $7,150,000.

The five bedroom and 7 bathroom decorative disaster was originally designed by mid-century modernists Buff & Hensman and given a major (and not particularly sensitive) overhaul by the previous owner and seller, The Beastmaster and The Cotton Club executive producer Sylvio Tabet. Your Mama can barely see through all that shoji screen silliness and Buddha badness to figure out if this house retains any of its original mid-century features or qualities or if Mister Phillippe will need to hire a good architect and a nice gay decorator to undo the architectural carnage and dee-pressingly one-noted day-core. For better or worse, right or wrong, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are of the minds that if a person needs that much "zen" bullshit around them at all times, what they really need is a good therapist and some strong meds and not another meditation mat.

Not surprisingly dubbed Rising Zen by Mister Tabet, the wall, gated and low slung residence measures either 5,033 square feet according to property records or 8,300 (approx.) according to listing information. Either way it's a big damn house for one dude. There are large but low ceilinged living and dining rooms, an overhauled kitchen with top grade appliances and a skylight, a media room (natch), double master suites, and a guest suite that includes a separate entrance. Listing information indicates several offices are spread throughout the house including one with a fish tank built into the wall.

By far the most notable interior space is the two story home gymnasium which sports concrete walls, a shiny concrete floor, pleasantly high ceilings and a giant vase with bamboo sticks that could easily act as spear-like weapons if necessary. Listen children, Your Mama recognizes that many people, particularly rich and famous people, have a penchant for dragging all that gym equipment into their homes. But we just don't get it. We don't care to break a sweat vacuuming at home so we certainly aren't going to strap ourselves into some damn Pilates contraption in the basement that will bend and twist our limbs like a pretzel. Besides, having all that exercise equipment hovering around and glaring at us while we tuck into a giant bowl of chocolate ice cream would only make us feel fat. And who needs that kind of judgment from a damn leg press machine?

Anyhoo, the large flat back yard includes a pool long enough to swim laps, a gigantic deck where the former soap stud turned film star can entertain about as many people as he wants, a spa, sauna and a steam room, a chef's barbecue (whatever that is), fire pit, a gorgeous view down the canyon and over the glittery and glitzy city lights below, and (SURPRISE!) an Asian style gazebo adjacent to the swimming pool. It appears to Your Mama that the gymnasium and one of the bedrooms...perhaps it is the guest suite?...have been tucked into the hillside and under the deck, a clever way to gain both interior and exterior square footage while preserving the view.

Perhaps Mister Phillippe has a thing for not very good Asian inspired day-core, but if we're being honest–and we always are–it is Your Mama's humble and utterly meaningless opinion that for seven and some million clams Mister Phillippe should have been able to buy himself a house not making a desperate effort to be a Shinto shrine with suede sofas and bedrooms. Just a thought.

Other nearby residents include that kooky and Clueless ack-trees Britney Murphy who forked over $3,850,000 to purchase her house from formerly batty Britney Spears back in 2003. A couple of doors down from Miss Murphy and her greasy looking daddy-huzband Simon Monjack is celebrity hypnotist Paul McKenna who recently spent $6,600,000 for his Regency style compound that was once owned by gay gazillionaire David Geffen who sold it to song writing super star Diane Warren. The British hypnotist claims, among other feats, to be able to hypnotize the fat right off of people, a (dubious) skill and talent that ought to make him millions of dollars in LaLa Land, land of fat obsessed skinny bitches.