A Couple Celebrity Rentals

While whittling away this most patriotic of holidays at an ocean front shack in a wee town filled with kinda trashy people where we had to pilfer a wireless connection from one of the hard drinking p-cup driving Bako neighbors, Your Mama received a couple of covert communiques from the always well informed Lucy Spillerguts who pointed our boozy attentions to a couple of celebrity owned Los Angeles area properties currently on the rental market.

If you can't be a star, maybe showering in the same poopers and boiling eggs in the same kitchens of famous folks may suffice.

OWNER: Ian Somerhalder
LOCATION: Santa Monica, CA
PRICE: $4,200 per month
SIZE: 1,007 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to good ol' Lucy Spillerguts and confirmed with listing information and property records, model/actor/concerned citizen Ian Somerhalder recently put his wee but close to the beach cottage in Santa Monica, CA on the rental market with an asking price of $4,200 per month.

Mister Somerhalder got his start in the showbiz working catwalks and and modeling his chisel chinned pulchritudity for big name fashion brands like Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci and Guess?. He went on to appear in the blessedly short lived Dawson's Creek spin off Young Americans, the sorry film adaption of Bret Easton Ellis' iconic book of liberal arts college debauchery The Rules of Attraction, and a couple of bit roles in a couple of those CSI Something Or Another programs on the boob-toob. In 2004 a 26-year old Mister Somerhalder was cast as Boone Carlyle on the now canceled cult program Lost and currently appears as the 175 year old crow controlling blood sucker Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries, one of the ubiquitous film and tee-vee programs about vampires.

Property records show Mister Somerhalder bought his bantam bungalow in October of 2006–at the very apex of the now burst real estate bubble–for $897,000. Property records and listing information show the 1,007 square foot house–located in the Ocean Park area of Santa Monica, just north of nitty-gritty Venice and about six blocks from the beach–sits on a postage stamp sized lot of only 2,470 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 1.5 upgraded and updated poopers.

The entire property is wall, gated and landscaped for maximum privacy and is entered through Balinese style carved wood gates that swing open to a small, shady front yard where square concrete pavers set into gravel pathways lead around both sides of the house and a curving concrete path lined with large rocks meanders up to the wood framed and frosted glass front door.

A closet sized entrance hall opens into the bright white and nearly windowless living room that has bleached hardwood floors and a pared down Shabby Chic day-core that includes a white slip-covered sofa and a steel and glass coffee table sitting on a black, way too small for the room rug. A wide doorway separates the small living room from the even more diminutive dining area that opens through French doors into the rear garden. A breakfast bar with a wooden counter top divides the dining area from the small but recently renovated kitchen. Now children, there's certainly nothing wrong with a small kitchen in a small cottage but there is something terribly wrong and 9 kinds of upsetting about those upper cabinets fitted with too short doors that leave a disturbing and entirely unacceptable gap at the top. Even worse, it appears that the cabinet above the stainless steel refrigerator has only one too short door when it needs two properly sized doors.

Mister Somerhalder–or perhaps the previous owner–had the smarts to install an extremely low maintenance and drought friendly landscaping that includes a lot of gravel, concrete pagers, shade trees and built in planters and benches.

Why Mister Somerhalder would want to rent his beach bungalow and where his next real estate step may be is uknown to Your Mama but we wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he was relocating to New York City or to larger and more expensive celebrity style digs in Los Angeles.

OWNERS: Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $40,000 per month
SIZE: 4,500 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: At almost 10 times more than Mister Ian Somerhalder wants for his picayune cottage in Santa Monica, a three story ocean front residence in Malibu, CA owned by doddering rock star Ozzy Osbourne and his outspoken red-haired wife Sharon can be snatched up for the remaining part of the summer at $40,000 per month.

Property records show Mister and Missus Osbourne bought the beach house in March of 2003 for $5,100,000. Listing information shows the brick-built building measures approximately 4,500 square feet with a total of 5 bedrooms and 5 poopers including a master suite that stretches across the entire ocean side of the second floor and includes a lavish marble pooper and large, custom-fitted walk in closet.

The house is separated from the bizzy and loud Pacific Coast Highway by a small courtyard with stone benches, fountain and copious vines that cling to and crawl up the tall, brick will walls. Wood framed glass front double doors open into the main living space comprised of a faux-stone wall living and dining room with puffy white slip covered upholstered pieces, a fireplace with flat screen tee-vee mounted where there really ought to be a nice piece of art, and a rustic and distressed farm table surrounded by six white-washed and cane backed chairs. A trio of wide French doors along the back wall provide access to the ocean side terrace, view and beach.

Keeping the large, well-equipped and all stainless steel kitchen fingerprint free would make the head of our tyrannical and testy house gurl Svetlana's spin around on her broad shoulders like the poor demon possessed Linda Blair gurl in the Exorcist and the fitness equipment in the paneled library/office that effectively blocks access to the adjacent pooper makes Your Mama's hair stand up on end with fright. Surely there was a more appropriate spot for these body torture devices than the damn library.

Sitting somewhat awkwardly on the third floor, ocean side terrace is a free standing hot tub that either had to be dragged through the house and wedged up two narrow flights of stair or was expensively hoisted up and over the house by a crane that would have snarled the traffic on the PCH even worse than it already is.

The Osbournes have periodically and unsuccessfully attempted to unload their La Costa crib since the spring of 2006 when it was listed with an asking price of $14,000,000. Eventually the asking price plummeted to $10,950,000 but even the lower price didn't entice any beach buying Richie Riches to scoop the house up. The property has several times also been put out for lease and at one time, in late 2008, was available for long-term lease at $25,000 per month.

After selling their crucifix filled Beverly Hills, CA mansion to pop star Christina Aguilera and her music executive huzband Jordan Bratman in the summer of 2007 for $11,500,000, the sometimes controversial couple decamped to the guard gated and star studded suburban enclave of Hidden Hills, CA. Records and previous reports show the rocker royals paid $12,388,500 for the 10,953 square foot house that includes 6 bedrooms and 10 poopers. The Brits also maintain an estate outside Jordans in the Buckinghamshire area of England and presumably they have some sort of outpost in London property but Your Mama has no confirmation or actual knowledge of such.

The Osbourne children all have homes in Los Angeles. Kelly has a small house up behind the Chateau Marmont hotel bought in February 2005 for $1,195,000 that recently had a raw sewage situation, Jack has a small, secluded compound in the Laurel Canyon area, and the oldest and less public sibling Aimee has a house in the Bird Streets above the Sunset Strip purchased by mumsy and daddy Osbourne in June of 2007 for $2,350,000 from Grey's Anatomy actress and Tinseltown scion Jessica Capshaw.