CCH Pounder Lists West Adams Mini-Manse

SELLER: CCH Pounder
LOCATION: 10th Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,250,000
SIZE: 3,284 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The home has a center hall plan with large open rooms to entertain. Living room with fireplace and large family/den with glass doors open to a deck and lush garden. Large master suite with private bath. Quality custom cook's kitchen.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As we like to do when we have nothing better to do, Your Mama was recently perusing random real estate listings and came across an attractive house in the historic West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. As we poured over the pictures, we started to feel that inner vibration that sweeps through our innards that tells us we are peering into the home of a celebrity.

A wee bit of research on the interweb and, as we suspected, we discovered that the walled and gated residence on 10th Street is currently owned by noted television actress CCH Pounder and her Senegalese anthropologist huzband who have listed their 3,284 square foot tropical looking terra cotta colored center hall traditional with an asking price of $1,250,000.

Born in Guyana and educated in Britain, the dignified and cultured Miz Pounder has an impressive resume as long as Your Mama's pile of empty gin bottles is high and has been nominated for three prime time Emmys and eight Image Awards. (Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.) The classically trained Miz Pounder currently plies her craft on The Shield as Detective Claudette Wyms and as Carolyn Maddox on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as well as working her stuff in four additional projects, including the upcoming James Cameron 3-D sci-fi extravaganza Avatar. This beehawtcha must be so damn bizzy, just thinking about her crazy schedule makes Your Mama need a nerve pill.

Property records show that Mister and Missus Pounder's residence was built in 1915, and was purchased by the couple in October of 2004 for $602,000. The property sits in the West Adams Terrace Historic Preservation Overlay Zone which means that any alterations to the exterior of the property are subject to review by the HPOZ board to ensure the changes maintain the character of the neighborhood. We're sure some of you think that's a bothersome load of crap, but for those folks who appreciate maintaining a semblance and shred of architectural history it's worth the hoop jumping. For those not overly familiar with the less vaunted and little cooed over areas of Los Angeles, the West Adams Terrace neighborhood is a sliver of Los Angeles that abuts the Santa Monica Freeway about 2 miles directly south of the hoity toity Hancock Park neighborhood.

Listing information for the two story house reveals there are three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, which means that either guests gotta schlep their big backsides upstairs to sit on a terlit or that all the upstairs bedrooms share just one terlit, a situation that will unnerve guests and/or home owners who prefer to poop in private.

Anyhoo, it appears the center hall entrance runs a glorious straight line from the front all the way to the back where it opens into the heavily vegetated back yard. A large corner living room features a fireplace and a couple of lovely looking steel blue velveteen chesterfields. The dining room has been done over in a shade of celadon with an antique glass chandelier hung much too high and a hand painted ceiling that, while not our cup of decorative tea, looks like it might be sort of interesting.

We don't see much of the kitchen in the listing photographs, but the cabinets appear to be painted green (which could be really good if done right) and we can clearly see that Miz Pounder has unwisely hung a pot rack above the stove. Oh lawhd children, how much does Your Mama hate a pot rack. Yes, the maid and all the guests will be suitably impressed with the expensive and gleaming copper pot collection, but imagine how greasy and grimy those things get when something is actually cooked on that stove. Also, note to someone: You might want to remove the damn coffee pot before taking the photos next time because no one is impressed with a twelve dollar Mister Coffee from the local Rite-Aid.

The bedroom, as well as the rest of the house, has beauteous chocolate brown flooring and a fantastic four poster bed with intricately and exquisitely turned posts and spindles. We never care for beds placed catty-corner to the room, but would we could, Your Mama would try our darnedest to squirrel this bed frame out in our handbag if we were ever to be so lucky to be guests in this home. Again, note to someone: You might have taken the extra 30 seconds to move that bedside printer out of the frame and push that blue storage box under the bed out of view because, pleeze, let's be honest, in this market, you really do have to put your best real estate foot forward for your clients.

All that said, this is clearly the home of thinking people who understand the importance and value of having actual books in the home (see them under the window in the living room?) and who obviously have a sincere relationship with the artwork they choose to purchase and display. We may not like all Miz Pounder's decorative choices, and we may worry about the amount of time it would take our bossy housegurl Svetlana to dust all that stuff, but this is without a doubt a home that expresses a cultured, considered and deeply personal point of view and for that we applaud her (and the huzband too).