Anjelica Huston Wants Out of Venice Beach Complex

SELLER: Anjelica Huston
LOCATION: Venice, CA
SIZE: 13,796 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 full and 3 half bathrooms
PRICE: $18,000,000

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We're joining this party a little late but Your Mama loves us an artist space so we're going to re-hash a Venice, CA live-work property owned by movie star and Hollywood icon Anjelica Huston that's already been well hashed in Curbed LA and the Huffington Post.

Anjelica Huston is dee-vine, hunnies. As far as we're concerned beehawtcha can just stand there looking into the camera not saying a damn word and we'd happily hand over 13 or 15 bucks to watch that movie, you know? She was flaw-less in Prizzi's Honor–for which she was awarded an Oscar–she was insanely good in The Grifters–which earned her an Oscar nomination–she was dead on target in the The Addams Family film franchise, she was delicious in The Royal Tenenbaums and even tastier in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

More recently Miz Huston, the widow of famed and acclaimed sculptor Robert Graham, has turned in smashing performances in lesser known films such as the black comedy Choke and a cinematic adaption of Leo Tolstoy's novella The Kreutzer Sonata. The movie star has also taken on couple of boob-toob roles on Huff and Medium.

Mister Graham, most known for his obsession with the human form, particularly that of a nekkid ladee. Some of the children may have seen one of his famous female torsos in Beverly Hills, CA where a 14-foot solid aluminum hottie that stands on a chunky bronze pedestal at the intersection of Rodeo Drive and Dayton Way. Others may recall the headless and feetless über athletic male and female torsos standing atop a post and lintel structure commissioned by the Los Angles Olympic Organizing Committee and installed at the main entrance to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to commemorate the 23rd Olympiad held in Los Angeles. New Yorkers who deign to go above East 90th Street will recognize Mister Graham's 30-foot tall cast bronze and gold leaf Duke Ellington Memorial installed in the center Duke Ellington Circle–that's Fifth Avenue and East 110th Street–at the northeast corner of Central Park.

Miz Huston and Mister Graham's contemporary complex sits on three contiguous parcels just 200 feet from the wild, wacky and high-lariously entertaining hot mess that is the Venice Beach Boardwalk and the often thickly populated sugary sand that stretches out towards the surf. The residential quarters occupy the center parcel, the massive art studio sits on the eastern parcel and the smallest third parcel on the western side is a narrow, ficus tree shaded garden with a patch of grass, a lot of potted plants, and a tiny brick terrace with a carved Balinese sofa, plant laden coffee table and one of those fire chimney things that can be purchased from any Home Despot around the country.

The entire compound is walled, gated and presumably very well secured. The blocky residential side, which presents and all but windowless fortress-like face to the street, spans 4,063 square feet over two floors and according to listing information combines French, Mediterranean and Bauhaus architectural styles. The interior spaces of the residence include 3 bedrooms and 2 full and 3 half poopers. The main living areas include a combination living and dining room with hardwood floors, fireplace and a soaring barrel vaulted ceiling , a game room down in the basement–a basement is surely a very rare thing in Venice–and a narrow book shelf lined library/den. Several balconies and French doors open the house to the side yard or the quite and exquisitely private central courtyard that separates the two buildings.

In addition tot the living quarters, the Graham-Huston's corrugated metal and glass warehouse-style complex includes a gigantic studio with 9,733 square feet of airiness designed by Robert Graham's son Steven with the assistance of avant-garde Venice, CA architecture firm Studio Vass. The studio space towers three stories tall with 2 mezzanine and offers a series of interconnected and voluminous flexible use spaces flooded with light and ocean views from the higher levels. The studio is currently configured, according to listing information and previous reports, as a gallery, offices, dance/exercise room, communal kitchen, large workshop, and top floor sitting room with vaulted ceiling, poured concrete floors, and a view of the Pacific Ocean past the palm trees and over the surrounding roof tops.

Shaded by a lovely coral tree, the quiet courtyard that separates the living quarters from the studio building including coral colored concrete hardscaping, dining terrace, a couple nooks and crannies for contemplative moments, and a raised black bottomed lap pool and party-sized spa.

Listen puppies, Your Mama can hardly tell a dog from a cat but we can easily recognize that Miz Huston and Mister Graham's leviathan live-work space this is a massive complex that sprawls across 3 contiguous lots with astronomical square footage. But we also know that it's located Venice or, as Curbed LA succinctly called it, "the corner of tourist and crazy." Don't none of your Venice Beachers misunderstand Your Mama. We loves us the nitty-gritty architecturally forward thinking city of Venice–well, not those RV people who dump there terlit waste right into the street gutters–but let's be honest, $18,000,000 is a lot of damn clams for a house in a plush zip code like 90077, 90210 or 90024 so a price that stratospheric in the 90291 makes it seem like someone got hit hard over the head a serious case of Real Estate Insanity. But then again, because of it's proximity to the beach, this property might very well be a goldmine if it can be further developed and converted to an arty-farty but freakishly expensive boho-chic condominium complex.

Your Mama doesn't know where Miz Huston plans on moving or where Mister Graham's archives will be kept if not in this building. Although it seems unlikely she'd move there full time we do know from property records and previous reports–including this one in Architectural Digest–that Miz Huston owns a 120+ acre ranch spread up in the bee-yoo-tee-ful and rugged foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Three Rivers, CA, near where the north, south and middle forks of the Kaweah River merge. As it turns out Your Mama knows a little summin-summin about that particular neck of the California citrus groves. As a child, our tough talkin' Granny and sweet talkin' Grandpappy used to toss Your Mama and Sister Woman into the back of their Datsun pee-cup truck and take us on up to the Kaweah Chuckwagon Cafe, a smorgasbord style restaurant where we feasted on soggy chicken, dried out ham, and red Jell-O with that horrible hard skin it sometimes gets. The Chuckwagon has done went out of business but perhaps Miz Huston had the distinct if dubious pleasure of eating at the Chuckwagon before it shut its doors because we'd like to think we've had at least that one shared experience with such a creature as Miz Huston.

listing photos: Engel & Voelkers

Amy Adams: New Baby, New House

BUYER: Amy Adams and Darren Le Gallo
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $3,165,000
SIZE: 4,311 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to no fewer than three of Your Mama's better connected sources, two-time Oscar nominated actress Amy Adams (Junebug, Enchanted, Sunshine Cleaning, Doubt, Julie & Julia) owns a perfectly lovely if architecturally ordinary 3 bedroom and 4 pooper Cape Cod-ish style crib with designer done interiors in the lower Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills. According to property records, Miss Adams' Benedict Canyon property was purchased through a trust in December of 2008 for $1,825,000.

In mid-May of 2010 Miss Adams pushed out a gurl baby that she made with her actor-artist fiancé Darren Le Gallo. If Your Mama has said it once we've said it 72 times: When the rich and famous get a new baby–or a new spouse–it often means they buy a new house. We're not sure why that is exactly but property records reveal that in late July of 2010 the very same trust and trustee associated with Miss Adams and her baby daddy's Benedict Canyon residence scooped up a new house on a secluded quiet cul de sac high in the Hills above Beverly.

Your Mama managed to dig up listing information for the new property which indicates the Connecticut style ranch was originally built in 1952 and extensively remodeled with contemporary elements in 2005. The sprawling and well maintained house measures 4,311 square feet according to listing information with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers including a master suite privately situated on the second floor that provides tree top views, hardwood floors, a fireplace, two custom fitted walk-in closets, a posh pooper with spa tub, and a private patio with a slivery view of the city lights and Pacific Ocean.

An electronic drive gate opens to a small flagstone motor court lined with lush plantings. The children will note how the landscaping palette has been kept to just green things, a choice that along with the frosted glass paned garage doors lends a contemporary vibe to an otherwise architecturally traditional house. We're certain that some of the children will loathe this merger of modern with East Coast traditional–the somewhat cliché garage doors in particular–but Your Mama don't mind it a bit. Yes, we love and appreciate an architecturally and stylistically pure abode just as much as the next property snob, but we can also get on board when an architecturally undistinguished house is given a more contemporary spin on things.

Anyhoo, a short walkway leads to the front door that opens into a small foyer that immediately and unceremoniously gives way to the combination living and dining room that features original hardwood floors, a vaulted and beamed ceiling punched through with sky lights, built-in bookshelves, a stacked stone fireplace, and three sets of French doors that open the room to the gigantic flagstone terrace that extends off the back of the multi-winged ranch.

Very contemporary, frameless frosted glass panels that stretch from the floor to the ceiling divide the living/dining room from a good sized and oddly shaped study/den with charcoal colored slate floors, built-in shelving, and vaulted wood ceiling with exposed beams. Since the day-core in the listing photos is that of the previous owner we won't comment (much) on that but Your Mama will confess that we get goose pimples over how the crisp white and art-friendly walls in the living/dining room and the study/den beautifully juxtapose themselves against the more organic woods and stone elements that repeat themselves throughout both the interior and exterior of the property.

The charcoal colored slate floors continue into the commodious kitchen, into the adjacent family room that opens out to the back yard terrace and, somewhat unexpectedly and strangely, up the walls and onto the back splash in the kitchen. The gore-may cookery is essentially a wide galley style affair with a long work island/breakfast bar down the center. The sleek flat fronted cabinetry, sky lights, and high grade stainless steel appliances that include a sizable side by side Sub-Zero and a mac-daddy Viking brand range are, once again, set off against the more organic quality of the slate flooring and vaulted wood ceiling with exposed beams and trusses. Built-in cabinets in the family room area accommodate tee-vee and stereo/iPod equipment.

According to listing information, there are three bedrooms in addition to the master suite and a fourth that has been converted to a home gym. Your Mama really has no idea if Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo plan to maintain a home gym, but this being Tinseltown it would certainly not be surprising if the well formed pair opted to install a whole bunch of body torture equipment in their new home to save them the trip and indignity of going to a public fitness facility.

A large room with a flat beamed ceiling and original hardwood floors was outfitted by the previous owners as a media room with a gigantic sectional sofa, floating built-in cabinetry for books and entertainment equipment and a wall mounted flat scree tee-vee. Short of putting it in a cabinet with closing doors it's nearly impossible to hide the squawk box. The children will take note, however, that the the boob-toob was cleverly disguised–or at least minimized–by hanging artwork in a tight cluster around the tee-vee.

In addition to the generously sized flagstone terrace that runs along the back of the house, the back yard area includes a built-in barbecue center, mature trees and plantings, an unnaturally green lawn that undulates gently with the terrain, and a gated and nearly hidden free-form swimming pool and spa. While all the trees and foliage that run up to the edge and hang over the pool and spa look amazingly au natural, we're certain that Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo's pool man will quietly curse them out every week while he's skimming all the leaves and other crap off the surface and bottom of the swimming pool.

The nearly 1-acre property also includes a cactus garden–and Your Mama loves us a cactus garden–a fully fenced and partially shaded dog run with stacked stone walls, pathways that meander up and around the hillside and lead to stone benches, and at least one secluded deck with long views over the surrounding canyon towards the city lights and the Pacific Ocean.

Listen chickens, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter don't pine to live in a Connecticut style ranch house in the 90210, but iffin we did and we had three and some million clams to spend, Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo's new digs just might be the icing to that cake. It's wonderfully private, perfectly quiet, big without being obscene, luxurious but kick your feet up casual, done without being over done, traditionally built but modern minded and, generally speaking, looks like a lovely spot to escape the intensity and fakery of showbiz. Brava! Miss Adams.

Some of Miss Adams and Mister Le Gallo's new neighbors include Queen Latifah and, we presume, her "trainer" Jeanette Jenkins, Dixie Carter's widow Hal Holbrook, actor Jonathan Frakes and his soap star wife Genie Francis who put their 6 bedroom and 10 pooper house up for lease in 2009 when they moved to Maine, and leveraged buyout tycoon Ted Forstmann who owns the IMG talent agency and once courted Top Chef's statuesque stunner Padma Lakshmi.

listing photos: PostRain Productions for Partners Trust

Malibu Modern in The Rockaways...That's Right, the Rockaways

SELLER: Brett Morgen and Debra Eisenstadt
LOCATION: The Rockaways, Queens, NY
PRICE: $4,495,000
SIZE: 5,600 square feet, 3 bedrooms 2 full and 3 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama knows some people–a lot of people, actually–who have lived in New York City their entire adult lives and never made the trip down Brooklyn's fantastically diverse Flatbush Avenue to The Rockaways, a collection of mostly working class communities in Queens that line up along a narrow spit of sand barely three blocks wide at some points. For many, Manhattanites in particular, The Rockaways might as well be the moon since it seems terribly far away not to mention an entirely different socio-cultural world. Pity that. Besides having about 4-miles of gorgeous ocean frontage with wide sandy beaches–some of which are, believe it or not, pristine–The Rockaways are a fascinating slice of the amazing pie that makes up New York City.

There are basically three parts of the Rockaways: Breezy Point, the Far Rockaways, and everything in between. The Far Rockaways, at the eastern end directly south and in the flight path of J.F.K. International Airport, was once a summertime getaway for rich and famous types like W.C. Fields and Mae West. It also happens to be where big bad Bernie Madoff and his wifey Ruth grew up. Time hasn't been kind to the once chic Far Rockaways which today is a pretty rough and tumble jumble of neighborhoods that range from pretty nice to downright scary.

At the far western end of the Rockaways is Breezy Point, a small gated cooperative enclave that in 2001 the New York Times called "the whitest place in New York" due to its 98% Caucasian population. The Rockaways–and Breezy Point in particular–have long attracted a large number of members of the New York City police and fire departments and heaps and hordes of people of Irish descent, which has led to The Rockaways sometimes being referred to as the "Irish Riviera."

In between Breezy Point and the Far Rockaways are a collection of neighborhoods that range from the gang infested Hammel Houses to working class Rockaway Park to the upscale Belle Harbor made famous in November of 2001 when American Airlines flight 587 crashed into the neighborhood resulting in the deaths of more than 260 people.

Nowadays, mixed in with all the fire people, po-po, Irish, and working class locals who flock to the beach in the summertime to escape the crushing humidity are city folks and scads of arty farty hipster types who have discovered that it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to get to The Rockaways on the A-train than it is to get to the Hamptons, Fire Island, or even Robert Moses State Park on Long Island.

Straddling the border between the upscale Belle Harbor and the even more upscale Neponsit neighborhoods at the western end of The Rockaways, a somewhat out of its element ocean front glass and cedar sided contemporary is currently on the market with an asking price of $4,495,000. The owners of the house, which was designed and completed in 2008 by New York City architect Edward Mills, is Oscar nominated (documentary) filmmaker Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture, Chicago 10, Say It Loud: A Celebration of Black Music in America, On the Ropes) and his wife Debra Eisenstadt who in addition to being an actor, director, producer, and writer (Oleanna, The Limbo Room) also happens to be the granddaughter Benjamin Eisenstadt, the food condiment packaging tycoon who developed the formula for and designed the pink packet for the sugar substitute Sweet & Low.

The movie making couple picked up their Belle Harbor house in September of 2006 for $3,400,000 according to property records. The Morgen-Eisenstadts are the peeps responsible for the current contemporary architectural iteration of the residence that stylistically speaking could be picked up and happily plunked down in Malibu, CA or the gay gay gay Pines community on Fire Island, NY. Listing information indicates the modern house, a collection of solid masses, transparent planes and unexpected voids fitted together like an intricate puzzle, measures around 5,600 square feet spread over 4 floors and includes 3-4 bedrooms–depending on what one considers a bedroom–and 2 full and 3 half poopers.

The home is entered via an exterior staircase that climbs up to the first floor from the street level. Just beyond the front door is a small but proper entrance hall with coat closet and powder pooper. Several steps down from the entrance hall a long and sort of narrow living/dining room has over-sized windows that looks out onto dune, beach and ocean views. The floors are bee-yoo-tee-fully distressed French oak and the fireplace is a mass of sand colored stacked stone. Since the view is the undisputed star of the show here, artworks in the room are nil and furnishings include little more than a charcoal colored sectional sofa, that like the house is a collection of masses and voids in furniture form, and sculptural rough-edged wooden coffee and dining tables in the stunning style of master woodworker George Nakashima.

The clean lined kitchen/family room has stainless steel counter tops and back splash, concrete floors, and high grade stainless steel appliances wisely juxtaposed against more organic feeling wood cabinetry with flat fronts, visually textured exposed grain, and an ashy/bleached finish. A work island with Wolf range and raised breakfast counter separates the kitchen from the small family room area where a second fireplace with sand colored stacked stone surround is flanked by wood-framed glass doors that slide open to a blue stone terrace with outdoor fireplace and a small but heated ocean view swimming pool.

The lower level of the home, a basement sort of space that's actually on grade with the street, is comprised of a single car garage, large play room, half-pooper, a trio of large storage rooms and a small but state of the art media room with blood red walls, a titanic 12' x 7' screen, and cozy, red velvet covered sectional sofas.

A steep stair rises from behind the kitchen to an airy and light infused second floor hall where there hangs a portrait of Edward Kennedy by Andy Warhol and off of which open the three primary bedrooms. There are two smaller ocean view bedrooms that share a Jack and Jill style pooper with an ocean side window, and a master suite with vaulted ceiling, fireplace, huge walk in closet, and small but dee-luxe sky lit and ocean view pooper with separate tub and frameless glass shower. A wall of sliders opens the bedroom to a semi-private ocean side deck with glass railing.

Another steep stair case with glass rail and open treads leads to the third and top floor where a narrow "L" shaped room opens to a small terrace, the floor of which is punched by two sky lights that look directly down into the master pooper, a situation that could get a little ugly and embarrassing. The top level also includes another half-pooper and glassed in office area that gives way to a large roof terrace where the Morgen-Eisenstadt's managed–no doubt at considerable expense–to hoist up a free standing hot tub. While this hot tub on the roof is making the ocean and hot tub loving Dr. Cooter wet his pants with glee and envy, Your Mama would like to have seen the sellers spend a few more clams enclosing the hot tub in materials more in line with the gray cedar vertical that clads the exterior of the house. None the less, the roof deck has 360 degree views that in addition to unobstructed and mesmerizing vista of the Atlantic Ocean there are great views of the twinkling lights of New York City, planes landing at J.F.K., and the Verrazano Bridge.

When the house was renovated, the current owners, that would be Mister Morgen and Miz Eisenstadt, spent big to install a 9-zone central air and radiant heat system, a security system that includes six surveillance cameras, and a 13-zone Crestron home automation system through which discreet panels on the walls of each room control the home's lighting, audio and video systems, as well as the iPod and Sirius radio set ups.

Perhaps Mister Morgan and Miz Eisenstadt have realistically responded to a still sagging real estate market, or maybe because they recognize that in this stiff market the financially qualified buying pool for a house like this in a location like The Rockaways is slim at best, or possibly just because they're eager to move on to wherever they're going next, the asking price was recently chopped a couple of times from $5,379,000 to it's current price tag of $4,995,000.

No offense to the fire, po-po, and hipster people who love it there, but we're not convinced that for 4 and some million clams The Rockaways is the location of our ocean front dreams. Plus we're certain our imperious house gurl Svetlana would sooner slit our wrists than contend with the fingerprints and pooch nose juice that stainless steel and exterior glass railings tend to attract in Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's home. But dah-uhm children, this house is right up Your Mama's architectural alley. We're a bit iffy on a few things such as the tee-vee mounted above the sliders in the master and the switch to a different kind of wood floor in the upstairs poopers is awkward at best, but we're swooning over the glittering white walls that provide a barely there backdrop for the mix of hard edged and organic elements that play themselves out throughout the house and, of course, that speck-tack-u-lar view of the ocean across the undulating grassy dunes.

listing photos: Corcoran

Jason Lee Lists at a Lower Price

SELLER: Jason Lee
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,250,000
SIZE: 2,205 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Ooo-wee children. One of Your Mama's all time favorite celebrity owned properties is back on the market and it's looking even better than before. Back in late 2007 three time Grammy winning R&B singer and guitarist Robert Cray sold his long time compound located in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles for $3,350,000.

Even before the ink was dry on the deed Your Mama had heard from several well connected sources including the always spot on Lucy Spillerguts and the the serious celebrity real estate insider Gabriella Gabsaboutit that the buyer was 2-time Golden Globe nominated actor Jason Lee. Less than three years later the property has been hoisted back on the market with an asking price of $3,250,000, otherwise known as $100,000 less than was paid for it near the very top of a once white hot real estate market.

Mister Lee, a former professional skateboarder, busted into showbiz in the mid 1990s when he appeared in the movies Mallrats and then Chasing Amy. He went on to roles in Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky (with fellow Scientologist Tommy Crooz). By the mid-2000s he was a bone fide tee-vee star on the program My Name is Earl in which he played a mustachioed and well meaning dummkopf who won a bit of money in the lottery and spent all his time doing good deeds in order to atone for his previous life as a petty criminal. The show was canceled in 2009 and Mister Lee quickly got another job sans mustache as a quirky police detective on Memphis Beat on the TNT. Like so many other actors and actresses, Mister Lee has lucratively lent his voice to a number of animated films throughout his career.

Mister Lee's private life is his own beeswax, of course, but he is a public figger after all and for those interested in these things he is currently married to the Turko-Australian model Ceren Alkaç with whom he made one baby a couple of years ago and he has another 10 or 11 year old child with the unconventional name of Pilot Inspektor who he made with another lady to whom he was engaged but not married. He also, allegedly, sits on the Board of Advisers for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a "nonprofit organization dedicated solely to eradicating mental health abuse and enacting patient and consumer protections" founded by those wacky folks at the Church of Scientology. As best as Your Mama can tell, the CCHR's primary concern is to make psychiatrists out to be little more than drug pushing devils.

According to current listing information, which proudly announces that it is a "Gated & Private Celebrity Compound," the property stretches across 1.41 terraced hillside acres and includes a modestly sized 2,205 square foot main house with 3 bedrooms and 3 poopers plus a pool house, detached office/studio space, and a detached 2-car garage where Your Mama imagines Mister Lee keeps at least some of the vintage motorcycles he's known to collect.

There is, of course, nothing "modest" about a modestly sized home that is priced well over three million clams, but the single story main house, built in 1948 and sited with views of the Hollywood sign and Griffith Park Observatory, has an architectural simplicity and honesty that gives Your Mama the good kind of goose bumps. The drive gates open to a large motor court and detached two car garage with adjacent office/studio space. An extra wide gravel path leads to the front door set into the center of the front facade that is literally dripping with foliage in a very purposeful but haphazard sort of way.

The living room has chestnut colored hardwood flooring, a beamed wood ceiling, and opposite the super extra long window that looks out into the gardens there is a monolithic but discreetly designed stacked Arizona flagstone fireplace with a raised hearth reminiscent of something one might find in a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home. The day-core is a smart, warm and dee-voonly eclectic hodge-podge of classic mid-century modern pieces, a variety of mis-matched and multi-colored rugs laid willy-nilly on the floor, photographs leaning against the wall and along the window sill, and stacks of books on just about every flat surface including on the floor, on the hearth, and on the Isamu Noguchi coffee table.

Your Mama would like the children to notice that there does not appear to be a boob-toob affixed to the wall, mounted above the fireplace or, indeed, any television anywhere at all in this room. Your Mama adores the tee-vee and all the banal and jaw dropping crap programs that come pouring out of it night after night. We even more love a room designed for conversation, contemplation, reading, crossword puzzling and listening to music. How rare is this in a day and age when so many folks seem to think that the height of luxury is having cable television in their damn shower.

Just beyond the living room is the dining room that has a concrete floor with custom tile border and wall of collapsing French windows that slide open to create a seamless interaction between the indoors and the outdoors. A 1950s desk-like dining table lit by a single glass orb pendant light (that we think is hung a tad too high) is surrounded by vintage Emeco aluminum chairs. A low table at one end of the room is stacked with more books and a built in wet bar is the perfect spot for a boozer like Your Mama to camp out during a party or during the long slog of the mid-morning hours.

The petite but well equipped kitchen has glossy hardwood floors with custom tile border, concrete counter tops, open shelving, which we love like the dickens, and a white porcelain farmhouse sink with industrial style hardware that sits in front of a long window that echoes and smartly ties in the long window in the living room. See how that's done, kids? Someone was really thinking here. Anyhoo, we're not so fond of the natural wood raised panel doors on the lower cabinets and we're a bit miffed that the refrigerator is located in the adjacent pantry, but these are quirks we could happily get used to.

Each of the three bedrooms opens to the terraces and patios that surround the house and the well-sized master bedroom has a private garden surrounded by a vine covered wall, and an attached pooper with a most unusual tub/shower combination with a curved section that juts out into the room. Of course we don't know a nail head from a book end, but we imagine that bump out is a step to make it easier to get in and out of the thing.

On the hill side of the house an expansive terrace leads to an art and book filled office/studio space with saltillo tile floors that rather interestingly climb up about 1/3 of the bottom part of the walls with the remainder covered with woven grass wall coverings. We don't really recommend running the tile up the walls, but iffin the room were cleared out it could be hosed out without destroying the walls, which isn't an entirely bad thing, right?

The large, rectangular swimming pool with its surround of irregularly sized flagstone is sunk directly into the lawn of a large flat area just below the house. A small pool house, which Mister and Missus Lee use as an apparel design studio, has a wide covered porch for escaping the scorching southern California sunshine and the inside has saltillo tile floors and a vaulted wood beamed ceiling. There does not appear to be a pooper in the pool house which is a real shame because it's a bit of a drag to have to schlep a gin filled bladder back up to the main house even if it isn't really very far. Like with the the kitchen issues, it's an inconvenience Your Mama could get used to even though for three million clams we would prefer not to have to climb any stairs at all in order to do our bizness.

The property has a rough around the edges we-didn't-do-up-the-landscape sort of landscaping that we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly cost a fortune to install. A couple of unexpected architectural gems dot the property including a tree house that Your Mama would have chopped off a limb to have as a child and and a vegetable garden enclosed in very contemporary structure wrapped with chicken wire to keep out the many critters who, believe it or not, roam the streets and byways of most if not all of the hillside neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Listen butter beans, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are not nor will we ever be in the market for a three million dollar property but iffin we were ever to find ourselves with pockets that deep we would have surely called Mister Lee's real estate people yesterday and made an offer. A grand and meticulously manicured estate is a lovely thing to behold, but our personal real estate preferences are really more in line with the arty-farty boho sort of thing going on at Mister and Missus Lee's compound.

One has to wonder why the Lees would choose to leave their little slice of paradise in Los Feliz so soon after settling in. Then again, famous folks are a funny lot and who are we to know anything about or question the fickle real estate ways of the rich and famous?

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty / Beverly Hills

Lady Gaga Gets Down in the 90077

Listen chickens, Your Mama was away on our vacay a day or two longer than planned because, perhaps not surprisingly, we got stranded in the wilds of northern Arizona after our recently rehabbed friend Fiona Trambeau fell off the wagon and ran off with some socks with sandals wearing German tourist in a rented RV. She also, much to our horror and dismay, took off with the keys to her Lezbaru tucked deep into her tube top. Eventually ol' Fiona came back, worse for the wear and reeking of Pilsner, dripping in chunky turqwahze jewelery and shouting out things like, "Auf dem wasser su zingen!" After giving Fiona a verbal dressing down that would wither even the most bitter drag queen and an arduous 11 hour trek across 4 states, 2 time zones and temperatures reaching upwards of 110 degrees, Your Mama has finally returned home to our hideway in the Hollywood Hills.

Anyhoo, vacation dramatics aside, Your Mama is back in the saddle at the celebrity real estate rodeo and ready to go. Let's get our post vacation feet wet with some recent real estate doings of a gal named Stefani Germanotta, better known to the young people as the provocative pop star Lady Gaga. Besides taking up the button pushing mantle of the middle aged music icon Madonna–a story line the Kabbalah Kween might take umbrage with–Miss Gaga recently made became the darling of the tabs and gossip glossies after the beer swilling high priestess of wannabe shocking brazenly flipped off photographers at a Mets game at Shea Stadium and then showed up a couple weeks later at a Yankees game in little more than a bra and panties where she proceeded to get sauced, sweet talk her way into the team's clubhouse, and cause a ruckus with some word slurring and (alleged) breast fondling.

As tantalizing as Miss Gaga's wacky ways may be, it's her real estate bidness that concerns Your Mama. While away on vacation, not so patiently awaiting the return of our trampy pal Fiona Trambeau, Your Mama received an unexpected covert communique from one of our better connected informants–let's call her Rhonda Ratsemout–who whispered in our big ear that New York City based Lady Gaga maintains a super swank nest in Los Angeles.

That's right bunnies, Lady Gaga is going Hollywood, or rather she's going Bel Air. According to Rhonda, last October Miss Gaga leased a 6 bedroom and 8 pooper residence in the hills above Bel Air at around $25,000 per month.
Property records and previous reports reveal Lady Gaga's leased residence is owned by Canadian real estate developer Lorne Leibel whose car fanatic son Cody is the bidness partner of restaurateur, nightclub owner and hotelier Sam Nazarian who owns celeb friendly Hollywood hot spots such as Hyde Lounge, Katsuya, The Abbey and the SLS Hotel. Property records reveal Mister Leibel paid a hefty $3,150,000 for the property in January of 2004 and last had the property on the open market in 2009 for $4,750,000.

According to listing information the high-walled and gated residence sits at the tail end of a quiet cul-de-sac and measures 6,143 square feet. Interior amenities include an impress the guest style double height entry with marble floors and a curving staircase that would make Norma Desmond swoon with melodrama, a two-story living room wrapped in French doors and warmed by a fireplace with an intricately carved stone mantel piece and a family room with another fireplace and another intricately carved stone mantel piece and brown and cream colored vertical striped wall treatment. There is also an office/library with built-in shelving and French doors that open to the pool terrace and a gigantic gore-may kitchen with separate breakfast area and an adjacent outdoor eating area.

The hillside property has a resort-style swimming pool and spa that practically hangs over the canyon with unobstructed and panoramic views of the Los Angeles. With a pair of binoculars, Miss Gaga can probably look across the canyon and up at Heidi Klum's former house that Nick Lachey currently owns has listed with an asking price of $6,800,000 although we don't imagine Miss Gaga has much use for someone as musically vanilla as Mister Lachey who, Your Mama thinks, beehawtcha could chew up in about 12 seconds flat.

Your Mama freely admits that we don't know where Miss Gaga currently resides in New York City although we do know that she used to live not so far from the Lower East Side tenement where Your Mama lived for about 1,000 years. However, since first hearing from Rhonda Ratsemout, we've heard that Miss Gaga actually tried to by Mister Leibel's other house in the Hidden Valley enclave of Beverly Hills (Post Office) that was last listed at $16,500,000. In the end she decided to lease the less expensive house in Bel Air, all of which makes Your Mama wonder if Miss Gaga is planning on relocating to Los Angeles sometime in the near future. Only time will tell chickadoodles, only time will tell.

NOTE: This posting has been amended for its original form. Your Mama got our wires crossed as to the exact house Miss Gaga leased. We've got out ducks in a row now. We apologize for the gross error.