American Digs for French Designer Hedi Slimane

BUYER: Hedi Slimane
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $4,100,000 (reportedly)
SIZE: 4,562 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Dramatic 1 story mid century by architect Rex Lotery on almost 20,000 sq. ft. flat. Pristine condition. Hi ceilings & glass walls open to manicured gardens. Water features & large pool, tall bamboo. Light, bright, open & airy interior w/ clerestory glass, teak louvres, terrazzo floors, step-down living & family rm w/ bar, gourmet kitchen w/ brkfst...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A couple weeks ago, on February 18th to be exact, Your Mama was yakking with a gal we call Nelly Knowsitall who was generously serving up all kinds of celebrity real estate dirt. Sometime during our lengthy interchange, Ms. Knowsitall whispered in our big ear that after tooling around town for several weeks in a gorgeous green vintage Rolls Royce searching for new digs in Los Angeles, fabled French fashion designer Hedi Slimane and his man-pal finally settled on a Rex Lotery designed house in the Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills that was last listed at $4,650,000.

For all the children who do not follow the insular and rarefied world of dreadfully expensive men's habiliment, let Your Mama give y'all a crash course on our Mister Slimane. In the late 1990s, after resigning from a plum post at YSL over differences with notoriously autocratic Tom Ford (who at the time was designing the women's lines for YSL), Mister Slimane landed at the venerable Christian Dior label where he took over designing duds for Dior Homme. It was here, at Dior, that Mister Slimane rose to near mythic fashion world status for making fashion forward men around the world want to be as thin and malnourished looking as a female catwalkers so they could fit into one of Mister Slimane's signature skinny suits.

Mister Slimane's reputation as a mercurial maverick of the dernier cri became substantial enough to warrant a lengthy profile in The New Yorker. The article rather disturbingly revealed that the naturally thin Mister Slimane maintained his super slender boyish figure by eating baby food. As extreme (and probably untrue) as that sounds, it pales in comparison to the absurd but often repeated rumor that high-fashion guru/grandpa Karl Lagerfeld once subsisted on Pepsi Max alone so that he could lose enough weight to fit into one of Mister Slimane's skinny suits. Jeezis children, Your Mama just hopes that is true because, if it is, it's just too dee-voon and dee-lishus we can't stand it.

Anyhoo, Mister Slimane left Dior back in 2007 and soon decamped for the glitz and glam world of Los Angeles where word on the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine is that Mister Slimane and his man-friend scooped up a contemporary crib on an itty-bitty Beverly Hills cul-de-sac.

Interestingly enough one of the children was interested in purchasing this house last year and at the time she queried Your Mama about what we thought of the place, it was listed at $5,500,000. However, more recent listing information shows the last asking price was $4,650,000 and it is Your Mama's understanding that Mister Slimane managed to purchase the property for just $4,100,000. If that figure is accurate, and we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly it is, Mister Slimane (or his peeps) drove a hard bargain for the fashionista property purchaser.

Prop records show the recently rehabbed house was built in 1962, sits on a flat .46 acre lot and measures 4,562 square feet. One section of listing information we were able to obtain shows the house includes 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, while the listing description indicates there are 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms plus a staff room and bath. We trust Mister Slimane will let us know which figures are accurate.

The new Slimane domicle is approached via a gravel driveway that leads to a rail-less concrete bridge that stretches over a moat like water feature that is quite simply not safe for toddlers or anyone like Your Mama who downs a few cocktails before going to a cocktail party. To the right of the entry is a formal dining. The terrazzo floors featured in the entry and the dining room spill down three or four steps to the "formal" living room which opens to the pool terrace through a tall wall of windows. The living room shares a two-sided fireplace with the family room which also sports terrazzo floors and a wall of glass that opens to the pool deck. The family room also features built in bookshelves with space for a flat screen (or course) and a large built in bar where the boozers sit on low poofs and the bartender, preferably a shirtless one, stands at eye level a few steps down.

The island kitchen, with its lovely orange accents (we can't help it, orange is Your Mama's favorite color), looks well stocked with plenty of cabinet space, work space, and of course, a full complement of high end stainless steel appliances. An adjacent breakfast area provides easy access to the outdoors where Mister Slimane and his man-friend, should they ever choose, can grill and chill.

The property does not offer Mister Slimane any views of Los Angeles but the back yard is completely surrounded by tall hedges which will enable Mister Slimane to sunbathe his boyishly lean an lithe little body in the nood without being spotted by the nosy neighbors.

Presumably Mister Slimane continues to maintain a pied in Parisian real estate where Your Mama understands he occupies (or until recently, occupied) a lovely apartment in a bee-yoo-ti-ful brick faced building on the Quai Voltaire in Paris' 7th arrondissement which overlooks the Seine and the the Louvre and which happens to be the same street pencil thin fashion queen Karl Lagerfeld reportedly calls home.