A Wee Bit of Mish Mash for Memorial Day

It's a holiday here in America and like most other Americans Your Mama plans on doing some holiday making. Before we put on our party hat and dancing shooz we wanted to sneak the children a couple of quick celebrity real estate tidbits and morsels that have been piling up on our ever-expanding lap.

Looks like British pop star Robbie Williams is the latest famous face to catch a case of the real estate fickle. In early 2009 the UFO seeking singer laid out £8,100,000–that's about $11,696,300 at today's rates according to our currency converting contraption–for the Compton Bassett House an 18th-century estate with 71 acres near Calne in Wiltshire, about 2 hours by car west of London. Williams recently flipped the property back on the market with a reported asking price of £7,500,000–that's $10,829,900 at today's rates–setting himself up for a substantial loss in the neighborhood of a million clams.

It was reported at the time of purchase that Mister Williams was drawn to the Compton Bassett property due to its proximity to fellow members of Take That–the boy band in which Mister Williams once crooned and hoofed–and/or because it is believed by those who believe these sorts of things that the manicured and recently re-built estate is criss-crossed by ley lines. No babies that's not some sort of fast lane to fornication options, but rather a mystical map to powerful locations and energy hot spots favored by New Agers and visiting aliens. Oh dear.

The historic house, once the stables of the original Compton Bassett House, has 7 bedrooms and 8 poopers including a master suite with his and hers facilities that feature Jerusalem limestone and African red granite floors. Other dee-luxe amenities include a leisure complex, 2 staff flats, a tennis court, a swimming pool in the basement surrounded by Doric columns, formal garden dotted with temples and fountains, an 11th century chapel, and a helicopter hangar for quick commutes back to London.

Mister Williams, who dates American manikin Ayda Field, is reported to be moving back to Los Angeles where he had been living since 2006 and where he still owns a couple of posh properties off Mulholland Drive. His primary pad happens to be located in the same pricey gated community as Jenny Jones and Paris Hilton and the other on which he installed his own private soccer pitch is situated just down the road a short piece.

Expat American actress Gwyneth Paltrow is one pampered ladee. Not only does the Oscar winning blondie and her rock musician huzband Chris Martin own lavish spreads in London, New York City and Amagansett, NY, they tend to spend big to set themselves up in dee-luxe temporary digs in whatever city Gwynnie has to go to work.

It wasn't so long ago, in the spring of 2009, that the Martin/Paltrow family was camped out on a sprawling leased estate on Mandeville Canyon Road in the sleepy but swank Brentwood area of Los Angeles, a property now on the market at $24,000,000. Now, word comes by way Goop, Gwynnie's personal website of smarmy and bloated life advice and positive thoughts, that the family was recently ensconced in a two-bedroom loft condo in Nashville, TN's Gulch area where the Gwynster was filming some sort of indie film in which Our Gwyn plays a fallen country singer.

Instead of just leasing a furnished house in a fancy pants part of town, Gwyn-doll gave some local ladee named Annette Joseph the Herculean task of doing a full scale renovation a condo at the Icon building in just 10 days. Ten days! In true celebrity style, Little Miss Gwyneth didn't just ask Miz Joseph to haul in some leased furniture, she had Miz Joseph hire 30 or more men to gut the place, re-sheet rock and paint, give the kitchen a total re-do, slap some marble up on the walls of the master pooper, and install an iPod station. After the hard labor was done Miz Joseph and her team did up the (temporary) day-core with costly items such as a $1,200 claw footed bathtub and $3,095 bed for the master bedroom, a couple of Ghost chairs ($150 each) and two blue banquettes for the dining room ($1,3456 each), a putty colored couch ($2,875), wing chair ($1,695), coffee table ($1,695), and two leather slipper chairs ($795 each) for the living room.

It all came out looking very serene and cozy and family friendly but it was a lot of damn work for what probably amounted to just a few or several weeks of occupancy by the Martin/Paltrows. Your Mama just hopes that when Gwynnie and clan blew out of town all that moderately expensive furniture wasn't tossed in the dumpters but was instead donated to a needy local family or two.

See more of Gwynnie and Chris' temporary crib in Nashville here.