Another Orange County Housewife House Goes on the Block

SELLER: Simon and Tamra Barney
LOCATION: Pointe Circle, Ladera Ranch, CA
PRICE: $1,599,000
SIZE: 4,300 (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Tuscan Beauty! This very desirable plan 3 sits on a pie shaped lot at the end of a long cul-de-sac with only 4 houses on the street. 5 bedrooms all with full bathrooms. down stairs office with built in bookcase.loft, master bedroom retreat, hardwood floors with custom stone inlay. Large kitchen with granite center island. rustic wood beams, crown molding, Iron staircase. Entertainers DREAM yard. Wrap around yard has everything. Saltwater pool and spa w/ waterfalls, fireplace, fire pit, built in grill with prep area, 2 refrigerators, built in covered bar, lush landscaping and so much more.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since the fourth season of the terrifically trashy tee-vee train wreck that is The Real Housewives of Orange County is soon to spill into our family rooms and liquefy the intellectual framework of our already gin and tonic sotted brains, Your Mama thought the children might like a little real estate scuttlebutt about one of the stupidly stereotypical southern California ladees that make up the publicity craving cast of the program.

Thanks to covert communiques from several of Your Mama's tipsters from down behind the Orange Curtain, we recently learned that 40-year old real estate agent Tamra Barney and her uptight Mercedes-Benz salesman huzband Simon have put their Ladera Ranch tract house on the market with an asking price of $1,599,000. Do y'all recall which one she is? She's the deeply shallow and looks obsessed blond gal with four children and perky plastic boobs who was utterly wrecked about turning the big four-0 and who seemed to think she was clever and cute when she was drunk but was really quite annoying and embarrassing. Remember her? She isn't as troubling as the colossally cleavaged Christian cougar Quinn Fry, but she's a close second.

Anyhoo, property records show that Mister Mercedes and his reluctantly slipping over the hill wifey scooped up their tract house in August of 2005 when they forked over $1,320,500 for their approximately 4,300 square foot so-called "Tuscan Beauty." Wedged into an 8,937 square foot pie-shaped lot, the 5 bedroom and 5.5 bathroom residence is located in the gated community of Covenant Hills which, rather surprisingly, is the only gated community in Ladera Ranch.

Listing information indicates that each of the five bedrooms includes a private pooper and another half bathroom services the downstairs where guests are greeted in a narrow, double height entrance hall with a slightly curved staircase. The oppresively beige living room is focused on a fireplace and has been painted beige, filled with a boat load of beige furniture and topped off with a breathtakingly absurd chandelier. Somewhere there is a formal dining room, but if it looks anything like the living room, we do not care to see it. Listing information also indicates the downstairs includes an office with built in bookcases where we like to imagine Mrs. Barney works her real estate empire and schedules her Botox appointments.

The reasonably sized and well appointed kitchen is not to our taste, but we do think with a few minor tweaks–say, replacing those nasty hanging lights over the work island–this could be a very functional and family friendly food preparation room. The adjacent family room features an unfortunately off-center fireplace, more banal beige furniture (not to mention a truckload of beige floor tiles), and a built-in entertainment center where the ever so humble Mrs. Barney made sure her image was on the big screen tee-vee when the photo was taken. Now that, children, is klassy with a "k" if we ever saw it.

Upstairs, a saloon-like sitting area is flanked by four of the five bedrooms including the master retreat with a day-core so perplexing and horrendous that Your Mama can not stop looking at it. Could that be one of Suzanne Somers' ridiculously obscene ThighMasters stashed under the bench at the foot of the bed? If not, she might want to consider ordering one of those exercise contraptions. Your Mama sincerely recommends Mrs. Barney keep her thighs tight, tight, TIGHT in order to stave off the threat of Mister Mercedes turning her in for a newer and younger model.

The Barney backyard has been did up and worked over in an extravagant manner like most of the other Housewives houses. A greenery surrounded barbecue center has plenty of counter space for ripping the skin of chicken breasts, a built in gas grill, not just one, but two mini-fridges, and an outdoor fireplace flanked by a couple of padded benches. Somewhere, according to listing information, there is also a built in fire pit, which just seems like gilding the lily, don't it? Naturally, since the Barney babe and Mister Mercedes have a few shorties running around the tract house, the saltwater swimming pool and spa have been surrounded by a protective barrier to keep the kiddies from drowning while all the grown-ups get crocked at the semi-circular wet bar that occupies a covered patio.

Listen puppies, these Orange Country tract homes are about as far from Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's Barbie Dream House as a home can get. But clearly there are many folks who feel just the opposite. For all we know, and we truely don't know a thing about anything, this is an exquisite and desirable residential example of a finely feathered Orange Country nest that easily justifies the $1,599,000 asking price. You be the judge.