Tennis Ace Kim Clijsters Is A Jersey Girl

BUYER: Kim Clijsters and her huzband Brian Lynch
LOCATION: Baileys Corner Road, Wall Township, NJ
PRICE: $772,000
SIZE: 2,717 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Custom details embrace you around every corner. one floor living at its best with options for easy expansion to the second level for additional bedrooms. 3 bdrms & 2.5 ba on main floor. Owner's spared no expense when finishing off expansive basement with custom bar and built ins, not to mention two more "bedrooms" with their own 3/4 bath. Perfect for teenagers own space, live-in, or Au-Pair.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since we're reaching the tail end of the U.S. Open in New York City we thought it might be fun to have a look-see at one of the top players new homes. Thanks to Vlad the Revealer we have the 411 on the New Jersey residence recently purchased by the always smiling Belgian ball buster Kim Clijsters and her retired professional basketball player huzband Bryan Lynch.

Young Miss Clijsters, considered by some to be a bit of an underachiever even though she once held the number one ranking for nearly 5 months, was injured in 2006, retired from tennis and got married in a secret ceremony in 2007, pushed out a baby in 2008 and earlier this year decided to come back and kick some serious ass at the U.S. Open. Back in 2005 Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter watched Miz Clijsters win the U.S. Open and today, in her impressive and unexpected march back to the top of the tennis heap, she's going head to head with the fearsome number 2 seeded Serena Williams in the semi-finals. Could be a real butt clencher. Miss Clijsters' huzband, Bryan Lynch, played basketball professionally on the European circuit but is American by birth. That's about all we know or need to know about him.

Property records reveal Kimmie and Bri-bri bought their decidedly modest house someplace in New Jersey with the unfortunate name of Wall Township in late July of 2009 when they forked over $772,000 for the 2,717 square foot single story house. A few minutes of research reveals that Wall Township, among other things, is the hometown of Ashley Alexandra Dupre, otherwise known as the high-class prostie that brought former New York governor Eliot Spitzer's political career to a humiliating end.

Listing information indicates the house has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, a ratio that would suggest that each bedroom includes a private pooper. Do we even need to discuss all the olfactory reasons why this bed/bath ratio is a good thing?

The shiny wood floored living room–or perhaps it's a family room–has a high ceiling, is warmed by fireplace and prominently features a trio of large, paned windows topped with fanlights. These windows, one of which is a French door that leads to a rear patio, are lovely in an of themselves. But children, please note that the trio of windows are placed painfully off center, an asymmetrical architectural mistake that would have Your Mama popping nerve pills 24/7. The decent sized dining room has wood floors, simple wainscoting and a four-armed "chandelier" that we can only hope Miss Clijster had removed immediately after signing the closing papers. An eat-in kitchen has been fitted with white cabinetry, biscuit colored tile floors, a lot of big windows and another perfectly ordinary "chandelier."

According to listing information the sellers spent big money finishing the basement. Your Mama lived on the east coast long enough to know that many people, particularly people with children, like these horrible finished basement places but there is little more residentially depressing to Your Mama than hanging out in a basement with a dropped ceiling and itty-bitty–and often inoperable–windows stuck up too high on the wall. Have mercy. Anyoo, according to listing information the Clijsters/Lynch finished basement includes two "bedrooms" and a three-quarter pooper for teenagers, an au-pair or a live-in. This is indeed a perfect set up for naughty teenagers who want to secretly smoke a little pot or for a slutty au-pair who sneaks the mens into her room at night. However, we're not sure about a live-in domestic. We don't know about the live-in staff of other people but we know as surely as we breathe that our tyrannical house gurl Svetlana would unceremoniously hogtie and skin Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter with a butter knife if we ever so much as suggested that she live in a basement "bedroom."

The back of the house opens up to a narrow covered portico held up by a couple of slim columns. An interesting set of steps leads from the portico down to a large deck. Truth be told, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's former weekend home on the East End of Long Island had nearly identical steps–done in a dark and dee-voon Ipe wood–leading up to both the front and back doors of our shingled farmhouse. They made a nice interplay of something more modern paired with something traditional. We're sure some of the children will have something snarky to say about that, but that's okay. We can dish it and we can take it. But if you're gonna bring it about the steps, you better bring it, okay?

Anyhoo, since the listing photos depict the day-core of the non-celebrity sellers and not that of Miss Clijsters and Mister Lynch, we're not even going to mention that sad, lonely bit of greenery on top of the kitchen cabinet, the gigantic football helmet thing on the wall in the basement or that slim sign sitting on top of the big screen tee-vee that reads, "We believe in Santa Claus." Oh, puke. That sign would be, at best, mawkish if it were Christmastime but since the photo does not appear to have been taken during the holidays it can only be seen as a deeply disturbing descent into a distressful decorative dementia. Okay, we discussed the sign. We couldn't help it. Some things are simply too ornamentally grisly to turn a blind eye.

Thankfully the furniture and other comestibles have been removed and we can only hope that Miss Clijsters uses some of her prize money from the U.S. Open to hire a nice, gay decorator to make what is essentially a very ordinary house in an historic and upscale part of New Jersey into a home worthy of a highly likable tennis titan and a retired professional basketballer.