January Jones Snags a Fixer in Los Feliz

BUYER: January Jones
LOCATION: Ambrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,020,000
SIZE: 2,200 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Savor this sunny '20s Mediterranean villa on one of Los Feliz's most picturesque streets. Large rooms, high ceilings, French windows and doors lend a note of graciousness throughout. Full-width living room with fireplace; spacious dining room and kitchen; over-scale master bedroom suite plus 2 family bedrooms all on second floor. Landscaping to delight the avid gardener. Mostly flat lot affords play area too. Updated. Det. 2-car garage with long driveway.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back on the first of September, Mister Big Time ran one of his "Which Celebrity's House Is This?" posts about a property in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, CA which had been sold for $1,020,000 in late July of 2009. Given the way the deed was filed, he suspected the property had been purchased by someone notable.

We soon received a covert communique from our practically omniscient informant Lucy Spillerguts who whispered in Your Mama's big ear that the modest house located on pretty but not particularly fancy Ambrose Avenue was purchased by actress January Jones who, the children may recall, works her fine thing as the beautiful and neurotic yet cunning Betty Draper on Mad Men. Before Miss Jones landed her plum gig on Mad Men and got nominated for a Golden Globe, she starred in a number tee-vee programs (Law & Order) and movies (American Wedding, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights) but was perhaps best known as a model who mixed it up with high profile men like Ashton Kutcher, Jim Carey, and Josh Groban.

Just as reported by Mister Big Time, property records indicate that Miss Jones paid $1,020,000 for the 1920s quasi-Mediterranean and listing information points out the house measures 2,200 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 2.5 poopers.

Now children, before y'all start tearing ruthlessly into the day-core, let's keep in mind that Miss Jones did not buy the slip covered furniture, the silly, patterned plates hung willy-nilly on the walls in the kitchen or, thank jeezis, that deeply disturbing neon and corrugated metal monstrosity in the dining room. It's hard for Your Mama to imagine that someone actually spent time and energy conceiving and making that hot mess, but they did. Your Mama would rather have a root canal than work on such a thing, but all things being fare, we're pretty sure there are any number of people who are pretty sure the way we spend our spare and creative time is inexcusably without merit.

Anyhoo, "artwork" choices of the seller aside, looking strictly at the bones of Miss Jones' new house and remembering that not every celebrity has the financial wherewithal or burning desire to live in a super slick crib above the Sunset Strip or a damn palace in Beverly Hills, it's not hard for Your Mama to see that a smart architect and a nice, gay decorator could easily work out some of the kinks and tease out a sweet if undistinguished little house here.

The living room runs the full width of the house and has lovely wood floors, a stone fireplace, and a full wall of large windows that look to Your Mama's untrained eye more Craftsman than Mediterranean. The blond wood floors continue into the decently sized dining room large enough accommodate a few friends for Thanksgiving dinner and once the kitchen and laundry room are reconfigured, remodeled, opened up to the back yard and perhaps even expanded, we're sure it will no longer resemble the cheap ass kitchen in the dumpy domicile in which Your Mama and our finely feathered friend Sheila Sinn lived during the last days of our lackluster college career.

A detached two car garage sits at the back of the property begging for a second floor guest house to be tacked on to the top and the flat backyard pleads, "Please put me out of my misery and tear out all this brickwork and all these random plants and replace me with a swimming pool and some drought tolerant Jay Griffith gorgeousness."

We'd bet almost everything we have that once Miss Jones and her peeps complete working over her new house we'll see her lushly photographed lounging in her boo-dwar for the glossy pages of InStyle or some other publication that elevates pretty celebrities to deities who know all there is to know about romance, fashion and interior day-core. But that's really another beef for another day, ain't it children. Today we'll refrain from getting up on our soap box and simply wish Miss Jones a happy new home and tell her to be sure to let Your Mama know if she needs the names a few few nice, gay decorators who can work her interiors like nobody's bidness.