Buy or Lease Björk's House in Snedens Landing

SELLER: Björk Gudmundsdottir
LOCATION: Woods Road, Snedens Landing, NY
PRICE: $1,800,000
SIZE: 2,975 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...This Unique & Rare home offers 6 large bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and a powder room. There is also a large room that has been transformed into an artists studio surrounded by walls of glass. The enormous kitchen rivals that of most restaurants, with all top of line over sized appliances as well as an eating area. There are skylights and a wealth of windows throughout the house that provide for fabulous natural light throughout the day as well as views of the Hudson River. The Master bathroom is made out of natural stones. There are 2 main patios or decks off of the house from different rooms of the house, from the kitchen, foyer, and artists studio...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday Your Mama discussed the downtown New York City digs of über-artist Matthew Barney which he has listed for sale with an asking price of $1,700,000 and we briefly addressed the four and some million dollar Brooklyn Heights penthouse Mister Barney and his Icelandic superstar ladee-mate Björk Gudmundsdottir are in the process of purchasing. Today, in an effort to tie a bow around this particularly delicious celebrity real estate package, Your Mama would like to discuss Björk's bucolic retreat in the posh enclave of Snedens Landing, NY which the wonderfully wacky swan suit wearing singer has listed with an asking price of $1,800,000. The property is also listed for lease at $7,000 per month.

Quietly swank Snedens Landing, which is in New York State even though it sits on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, is just a 30 minute commute (without much traffic) to Midtown Manhattan. The pastoral, private and arty-farty Palisades community is made up of only about 100 high-priced homes tucked into the rugged, wooded landscape that tumbles down to the shore of the mighty Hudson River. The teeny-tiny community is sometimes referred to as Hollywood on the Hudson because of all the klieg lighters who own homes there including Chuck Barris, Al Pacino, Bill Murray, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lorraine Bracco who bought her house from Ellen Burstyn in 1989 and is reportedly in contract to sell her riverfront celebrity magnet manse to Phish front man Trey Anastasio.

Your Mama freely confesses that property records we accessed for Miz Gudmundsdottir's Hudson River hideaway are a wee bit confusing to our gin soaked pea brain. One set of records show the singer with the seductively sibilant speech pattern purchased the 1.5 acre property on Woods Road in April of 2002 for $1,400,000. Another set of records rather strangely indicates she snatched it up in March of 2002 for $4,900,000. Why there are two sets of records that have identical information about the sizes of the property and residence but two wildly different purchase prices is simply beyond our admittedly limited abilities to makes sense. However, given that Miz Gudmundsdottir has listed her cozy crib with a price tag of $1,800,000, we have to make the assumption that the actual purchase price was $1,400,000.

Whatever the case, the three story main house measures 2,975 square feet (or 2,195 square feet depending on where one looks) and listing information indicates the quirky, multi-winged house includes 6 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers. A circular drive leads to the front of the house where unkempt vines climb up the side of the house. The house is, according to listing information, entered on the middle level where all six of the bedrooms are located as well as a large room used as an artist's studio. The top floor contains, according to listing information, only a vast living room with a vaulted ceiling and and gigantic windows.

Tucked into the hillside on the lowest floor is a commodious and cluttered kitchen with a stone floor, stone walls, over-sized appliances, white cabinetry and a massive center work island with what appears to be a butcher block counter top that is lit by a small sky light. The kitchen is open to an also cluttered but still cozy, window wrapped breakfast room with a stone floor, stone walls, a fab George Nelson saucer lamp and some sort of wicker high-chair pulled up to a simple parsons table. The formal dining room, also on the lowest floor, looks almost like it was built into a cave with stone floors and walls, a low beamed ceiling, and the most amazing round and chunky, rough hewn wood dining room table surrounded by heavy, wood chairs so wonky and rustic that they look to Your Mama like a woodsman hacked them out of tree trunks and glued them together with tree sap. Above the table is a once trendy, somewhat passe, but still very appropriate deer antler chandelier.

The scenic and calming wooded grounds are probably painfully beautiful at the height of leaf peeping season and there are views of the Hudson River through the trees. Miz Gudmundsdottir has installed a fenced playground for her young daughter and a second small structure on the property is, according to listing information, currently used as a Pilates studio, which is odd because Your Mama never would have imagined Björk–or Mister Barney for that matter–doing anything as pedestrian as Pilates.