Michael Jordan Picks Up Penthouse Pad

As anyone who knows Your Mama knows, we know next to nothing about grown men who earn outrageous amounts of cheddar dribbling little orange balls up and down gigantic arenas with exceedingly shiny wood floors and netted bottomless baskets at either end. None the less, we're going to do the best we can here with this bit of celebrity real estate bizness that involves a man named Michael Jordan who, according to our ball crazy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau, is one of the if not the greatest basketball player the world has ever seen.

Listen children, before we begin we must say that although Your Mama finds zip, zero and zilch in public property records that indicates Mister Jordan did anything of the kind, according to Charlotte Chitchatter and a number of real estate rumors and recent reports making their way down the sports gossip grapevine Mister Michael Jordan recently scooped up a penthouse pad in Uptown section of downtown Charlotte, NC.

After a spin through the interweb and a quick consult with Fiona Trambeau–who gave us a verbal blistering for waking her trampy ass up before noon–we learned that Mister Jordan began his professional career as a ball dribbler in 1984 with the Chicago Bulls team. After three consecutive NBA championships, His Airness retired his basketball jersey in 1993–or maybe in 1994, we don't really know–in order to pursue a career in baseball. That endeavor did not, apparently, go very well because by 1995 Mister Jordan was back to the Chicago Bulls getting paid the big bucks. After signing at least one one-year contract that promised him an income of well over $30,000,000 (not counting endorsement deals) and three more consecutive NBA championships Mister Jordan retired for the second time in 1999. He reappeared for a couple of lackluster seasons, according to ol' Fiona Trambeau, in the early 2000s with the ridiculously named Washington Wizards.

Mister Jordan's accolades, awards and professional achievements are far too many for Your Mama to adequately detail. Suffice to say he's a much lauded and applauded fellow with records and accomplishments coming out his wazoo, including playing on two gold medal winning Olympic basketball teams. He was also, of course, enormously fortunate to have all manner of exceedingly–some might say excessively–lucrative endorsement deals thrown at him from deep pocketed multi-national corporations such as (but not limited to) Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and the underwear maker Hanes.

To his credit, even well after his retirement from the b-ball, the charitable Mister Jordan still rakes in a fat fortune on endorsement deals and other business interests that include a majority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats professional basketball team, which brings us back to the real estate matter at hand and the penthouse Mister Jordan allegedly purchased in the Uptown area of downtown Charlotte, NC.

According to all the reports, Mister Jordan recently snatched up the entire 7th floor of The Trust building (below) on N. Tryon Street that looks out over on and is walking distance from the Time Warner Cable Arena where Mister Jordan's Bobcats people do their dribbling and shooting.
According to the developer's website, the 7-story Trust building, a modernist affair with wisps of traditional Japanese timber architecture, was put up in 1967 as the Home Federal Savings and Loan Building. The developers who took on the project of converting the bizness building to private residences maintained the architectural spirit and integrity of the building's exterior but transformed the interior spaces into eight luxuriously appointed condos of various sizes and layouts. They also, according to the website, added a residents only roof terrace partially shaded by an glass canopy that includes a private sunbathing area, an outdoor kitchen, dog run, patch of grass, a water wall–whatever that is–various seating areas, and 360 degree views of the surrounding towers of downtown Charlotte's Uptown neighborhood. The building also offers residents access to a wine vault, secure parking, extensive private storage space and an on-site restaurant.

As best as Your Mama can tell, the 7th floor of The Trust was offered as two separate loft style apartments that total about 6,800 square feet of interior space plus recessed terraces with gas grills. We know nothing about the approximately 3,500 square foot "B" side of the 7th floor other than it was originally designed with 2 bedrooms and listed, according to listing information, at $1,650,000.

The "A" side of the 7th floor, according to the developer's website and listing information, spreads across about 3,300 square feet of luxe loft-style space and was designed with 2 bedrooms, 2.5 "spa style" poopers, a large den, a small office area, and a huge pantry/laundry room behind the gourmet kitchen equipped with Viking brand appliances. The listing photos for the unit, last listed at $1,750,000 show medium brown hardwood floors, exposed concrete beam ceilings, and large windows that wrap around the entire apartment.

There are photos floating around of the "A" unit but they're really of little consequence because recent reports indicate that Mister Jordan–whose people, the children will keep, have not publicly confirmed he purchased–has embarked on a major million dollar renovation to combine the two condo units into one 7,250 square foot penthouse aerie with private elevator landing, two large recessed terraces, and 360 degree views.

Mister Jordan will not be the only person connected to the Charlotte Bobcats living up in The Trust. The Bobcat's forward Boris Diaw reportedly also owns a condo at The Trust.

Until 2007, when he got a dee-vorce from his wife Juanita that reportedly cost him a blood curdling $168,000,000, Mister Jordan made his primary home in the suburbs of Chicago where he and the family lived on an sprawling and fully landscaped 8.39 acre spread in Highland Park that the Lake County tax man's records shows measures a beastly, boo-teek hotel sized 27,648 square feet and includes at least 12 terlits and garage parking for at least 14 automobiles. It's not entirely clear to Your Mama if ex-Missus Jordan got the multi-winged pile with indoor basketball court in the dee-vorce, but that does appear to be the case. In truth, the very contemporary suburban crib is so damn big Mister and ex-Missus Jordan could easily divide up the house and both live there and rarely run in to each other. We suspect that's not, however, what happened.

Records and previous reports reveal that in November of 2008, Mister Jordan and his younger Cuban ladee friend Yvette Prieto–a "model" who knows how to pick 'em and was previously hooked up with Julio Inglesias, Jr.–paid $281,000 for a very modest 3 bedroom and 2 pooper house in the surburban Highlands of Kendall community in Miami, FL. Property records show both of their names on the deed for the 2,235 square foot house.

Listen chickens, despite having to cough up a couple hundred million clams for the ex-wife, Mister Jordan is about as far from broke as one can get. It's estimated the basketball legend and athletic icon still rakes in more than $40,000,000 per year so it's unlikely that Mister Jordan purchased the petite pad because he can't afford anything more expensive or lavish. Of course we don't know nuthin' from nuthin' about anything but Your Mama suspects this house in a lackluster area at the south western edge of Miami is one of Miss Pietro's consolation prizes in the event her relationship with the big man swirls down the terlit of love.

Before any of y'all get all righteous and start going to town about how far Mister Jordan has fallen off of his real estate high horse, recognize that the unreformed real estate size queen has far larger real estate dreams and plans than a little house on the edge of the Everglades. Multiple reports reveal that in the spring of 2008 Mister Jordan paid $2,400,000 each for two adjacent lots that total just over 3 acres inside the guarded gates of the super swank Bears Club community in Jupiter FL. The Bears Club, an über upscale golf community, was developed in the late 1990s by former professional golf legend Jack Nicklaus and his wife Barbara.
Subsequent reports indicate that plans have been approved for Mister Jordan to build a big ol' mansion at the Bears Club described as "contemporary" with "a limestone-and-stucco exterior and Spanish tile roof." The approved plans call for a beast of a residence that measures around 26,000 square feet and includes 10 bedrooms and 10 poopers, 4 staircases connecting the first and second floors, 1 elevator, and garaging for 8 automobiles and 3 golf carts.

Additional planned amenities of the humongous house include an 11 foot- fireplace in the great room, kitchen with eating area and adjacent family room, library/study with wet bar, media room, a large game or card room on the second floor, and a glass lanai that stretches across the back of the house that looks over the home's spa pool and summer kitchen area.

As if that all were not enough, approved plans for Mister Jordan's new digs also include a guest cottage, pool house, and two-story guard house even though the estate is located in a guard gated community that offers residents private security.

According to the bizzy boys over at Celebrity Address Aerial, Mister Jordan also owns a a big house within the private Glenwild Golf Club community in Park City, UT, the same hoity-toity golf community where, scuttlebutt has it, Tiger Woods has peeped at property. Property records are a bit vague but it appears that the 7,994 square foot house sits on 3.93 acre lot and includes 2 full and 2 half poopers and an unknown number of bedrooms. It looks to Your Mama like he purchased the golf and snow ski getaway in posh Park City in September of 2007.

photo (Charlotte): Bobs Blitz
photo (Highland Park): Bing
photo: Jupiter): Bing

Your Mama Hears...

...From a usually very reliable South Florida informant we'll call Fannie Fanstheflames that former swimsuit model/nanny Elin Nordegren (Woods) has been spotted shopping around for a Tiger free lair in Boca Raton, FL. According to Miz Fanstheflames, word on the celebrity real estate street in South Florida is that Soon To Be Ex-Missus Woods is hunting for a suitable new nest in the five million clam range.

At least one previous report of house hunting rumors indicated that one of Soon To Be Ex-Missus Woods foremost requirements for a new home is that it have a guest house where Tiger can stay when visiting his cubs because who wants their always on the prowl ex-huzband staying up in their crib? No one, that's who.

Premature reports of the erstwhile couple's dee-vorce settlement indicated that for her troubles and public humiliations Soon To Be Ex-Missus Woods would receive a mind melting $750,000,000 plus ownership of the couple's primary residence–where she did not beat his cheating ass down with a 9-iron–located behind the gates of an upscale community in suburban Orlando's Windermere, FL, another more modest property located just around the corner, an apartment in a particularly swank section of Stockholm, and a small farmhouse on Falgaro Island in Sweden Soon To Be Ex-Missus Woods purchased in the days immediately following the scandalous public revelations of Mister Can't Keep It In His Pants' prolific extra-marital catting around. Mister Woods was reportedly to retain ownership of the former couple's not yet completed compound on Jupiter Island, FL, as well as a property in Newport Beach, CA where he may or may not have trysted with one or more of his Harem of Hussies.

However, more recent reports state that Mister Woods isn't even worth three-quarters of a billion bucks and that Soon To Be Ex-Missus Woods has requested approximately $100,000,000 in exchange for a trial-free dee-vorce. Your Mama would bet everything we have that Mister Tarnished Reputation does not want a public trial that might have further negative impact on what whatever lucrative endorsement deals he still has and might also have Soon To Be Ex-Missus Woods' attorney, sending his Harem of Hussies subpoenas to appear in court to give their side of the story regarding the integrity and character of Mister Woods.

Whatever the case Your Mama thinks Soon To Be Ex-Missus Woods deserves every penny she gets. Beehawtcha earned it. There's a moral lesson in there for all you married (ladees and) gentleman who might be considering getting a little–or a lot of–nookie on the side.

Weekend This and Thats

1.
Your Mama's a little late to the rodeo on this one, but in case y'all missed it, details about porn purveyor Bob Guccione's old Manhattan townhouse–bought by hedge hog Phil Falcone and his wife Lisa Maria for $49,000,000–are starting to seep out of the limestone.

Among other ridiculously dee-luxe amenities, the Falcone's 25,000+ square foot double-wide townhouse mansion will have two elevators–one for the staff, natch–a swimming pool, and a press room. No puppies, that's not a room for on-site publicity peeps, but a room in the basement where Lurleen the Laundress will spend her days and nights ironing sheets and working the stains our of the Falcone's napkins and undergarments.

Another tidbit about the townhouse that Your Mama found inneresting, is that one of Missus Falcone's two dressing rooms will include a wet bar just in case the ladee of the house feels like getting drunk while getting dressed. Lo-urhd knew we do sometimes.

2.
Brace yourselves butter beans because another "housewife" from The Real Housewives of New Jersey has hoisted her hideous home on the market.

Earlier this week a listing for too tan Teresa Giudice's church of conspicuous consumption popped up that showed her mansion listed at $3,999,999. Tee-tee subsequently tweeted that her mansion of marble is not for sale and the online listing has since vanished. Make of that what you will.

This time it's former stripper turned suburban soccer mom turned sex tape maker Danielle Staub. Miz Staub, a woman who comes off on her reality program as being about as stable as an earthquake, had her house on the market in the fall of 2009 for $1,495,000. It's now back on the market at with a hugely reduced asking price of $1,095,000.

Maybe Danielle and Tee-tee should consider going in together on an affordable two-family in Union City or something. Ugh.

3.
The deal is reportedly done on property developer Mohamed Hadid's insanely ginormous Bel Air mansion Le Belvedere. However he's being a bit cagey on the final sale price of the 10 bedroom and 14 pooper property telling the L.A. Times only that the buyer paid between fifty and $72,000,000.

Transaction records have yet to clear but while peeping and poking around the public property records this morning, Your Mama unexpectedly turned up an unexplained name on some recent records, that of a man named Sarp Turanligil. A quick search on the interweb indicates there is a man named Sarp Turanligil who is the chairman of Divan Hotels, a Turkish hotel group.

Listen puppies, Your Mama is not sure if the Mister Turanligil shown on the property records is the same Mister Turanligil of Divan Hotels. We're also not sure if Mister Turnaligil's name showing up in the property/title records is some sort of error, if he was an investor in the property, loaned Mister Hadid money, or if perhaps he's the deep pocketed buyer.

Basically we don't know nuthin' other than that name now appears on the property records. Time will tell and we shall see.

UPDATE: Records show the house transferred for fifty million clams.

4.
Although he may be living there all by his lonesome, the very contemporary Jupiter Island, FL home being built by bed hopping professional golfer Tiger Woods looks like it's nearing completion. Like his nearby neighbor Celine Dion's new Jupiter Island home/water park, Tiger's got two side by side swimming pools too.

Tiger's spread includes a 10,000 square foot main house and a 9,500 fitness facility that recent reports reveal will include an oxygen therapy room, whatever the hell that is.

5.
Legendary country crooner–and plastic surgery victim–Kenny Rogers has hoisted two Georgia mansions on the market. One beast of a house in the Buckhead area of Atlanta previously carried and asking price of $7,950,000 and is now listed at $5,900,000, and another, a kind of Polynesian paradise sort of place located just outside of Athens, is listed at $3,200,000.

6.
In other Hotlanta celebrity real estate news, actress/activist/fitness video maker/born again Christian Jane Fonda listed her Atlanta, GA loft condo a just over a month ago with an asking price of $4,500,000. Somebody must have hit her with the sensible stick because thanks to Georgia Justwantsyalltoknow Your Mama has learned that Miz Fonda Vadim Hayden Turner has slashed the price of her 4,700 square foot doo-plex by a whopping $2,000,000. The 3 bedroom and 3 pooper condo with it's bee-zar womb-like entrance hall is now listed at a far more reasonable $2,500,000.

Your Mama's west coast sources say that big, bad Barbarella has leased herself a dumpy 1 bedroom apartment in the star-studded Sierra Towers building in Los Angeles where her neighbors include other old-school divas such as Cher, Elton John and Joan Collins.

Hilary Duff Gets New Digs

BUYERS: Hilary Duff and Mike Comrie
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $3,850,000
SIZE: 5,260 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Before there was a teen-aged Miley Cyrus working the pole on the Teen Choice Awards and giving a 44 year old gay guy an inappropriate lap dance, and before the baby-faced Jonas Brothers were causing tween and teen gurls–not to mention far too many chicken loving homos–to tingle in their private parts, there was Disney darling Hilary Duff, a young, sweet-faced blondie who rocketed to fame and fortune in the early naughts on the short-lived but wildly successful tee-vee program Lizzie McGuire.

Once upon a time, believe it or not, a young Miss Duff was professionally rivaled against wild child Lindsay Lohan. That was before Miss Lohan flushed her career down the terlit with the booze and dope. While Miss Lohan has a SCRAM bracelet strapped to her ankle, squeaky clean Miss Duff is out buying multi-million dollar houses. There's a moral lesson for the kids in that there cautionary tale iffin they care to listen or take heed.

All grown up at 23 or 4 years old, Miss Duff has long moved on from working it as a wholesome Disney cash cow and has become a brand unto itself. The bizzy as a beaver actress is also, according to her resume on the IMDB, a successful singer with platinum and gold records, a fashion designer, parfumier, producer, model, philanthropic spokesperson, and in her spare time, a student who reportedly takes occasional correspondence courses through the Harvard Extension School. Jeezis, Joseph, Mary Mother of God, remember when starlets were just starlets who had to do little more to pose on red carpets in pretty dresses and didn't need to be a multi-tasking machine relentlessly pushing stink water, cheap clothes, and sparkly things?

In more recent years, Miss Duff–who recently got engaged to a chisel chinned stud named Mike Comrie who earns big bucks pushing the puck for the Edmonton Oilers–has concentrated more on her singing than her acting. However, she did kind of recently appear in a single episode of Law and Order: SVU as well as a 6 episode arc of the trashy but popular Gossip Girl. She is next scheduled to appear on the silver screen as Bonnie in a re-do of the legendary film The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Miss Duff being cast as Bonnie earned her the ire of notoriously grumpy movie star Faye Dunaway who starred in the 1967 original and publicly commented last year that she didn't think Miss Duff was a good choice to reprise her iconic role since she, Miss Duff, is not a "real actress." Meee-ow. Miss Duff, spurned, burned, and 14 kinds of peeved, ripped off her trademark "I'm a nice gurl" exterior and cattily shot back about ol' ladee Dunaway, "...I might be mad if I looked like that now too." Oh. Snap!

Anyoo, like so many of Disney's other teen-aged stars, Miss Duff has long lived in Toluca Lake, CA where property records and previous reports reveal she currently owns not one but two homes. In March of 2004, at just 16 years old and fresh on the heels of her Lizzie McGuire fame and fortune, young Miss Duff forked over a very grown up $3,500,000 for a beefy 8,827 square foot house with 5 bedrooms and 5 poopers. Presumably this is where the then under-aged Miss Duff lived with her parents and older, actreess sister Haylie.

The Duff family digs are surrounded by the homes of a myriad of other famous folks including a large house once owned by Damon Wayans and leased by the Jonas Brothers, The lake-front crib of unlucky in love ack-turuss Jennifer Love Hewitt, and the sprawling mansion of Jenny Garth (Beverly Hills 9021-) and her handsome huzband Peter Facinelli who is having an honest to goodness showbiz moment on the soo-blime boob-toob program Nurse Jackie.

Also nearby, just half a block away, is a second house that the then 18-year old Miss Duff purchased in February of 2006. Records show that the wholesome and toothy entertainer laid out $1,650,000 for the walled and gated Mediterranean style residence that records show measures 2,420 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2 poopers. Previous reports indicate this is where Miss Duff and her older sister Haylie live (or once lived) together.

We don't know if the 20-something year old Duff sisters are or were recently shacking up together in Toluca Lake but we have learned from our very well connected informant Beverly Hills that Hilary Duff and hunky fiancee Mike Comrie will soon be moving her hairpieces and his hockey sticks into a big ol' Georgian Colonial style mansion in Beverly Hill's guard gated Summit community. Records show the seller of Miss Duff and Mister Comrie's new crib was actress and Paris Hilton pal Julie Araskog and that the property was purchased through a trust that paid $3,850,000.

The 5,260 square foot house happens to sits right up next to the mansion in which pop superstar Britney Spears once lived, still owns, and can't seem to sell even though it's currently priced almost two million clams less than she paid for it in January of 2007. Given that Miss Duff and Mister Comrie paid $3,850,000 for their house, it looks like Miss Spears, the poor lassie, may be forced to come down even farther iffin she want to sell her real estate white elephant.

Listing information shows Miss Duff and Mister Comrie's new, "stately" two-story house has 5 bedrooms, 6.5 poopers, a wide brick and concrete driveway, a walled and gated front yard that has a big ol' fountain in the middle, a double height front porch held up by four square and fluted columns, and a mile of dentil molding that runs around the eaves of the second floor.

The grand, let's impress the guests entrance hall has double height ceilings, paneled and painted walls, hardwood floors laid in a complicated and dizzying pattern, a curved Norma Desmond style staircase, and a glittery crystal chandelier larger than than many Manhattan studio apartments. There are formal living and dining rooms, natch, a breakfast room, and a gore-may kitchen with white cabinetry, white marble counter tops, stainless steel appliances and herringbone patterned hardwood floors. The commodious and adjacent family room has coffered ceilings, a wet bar, fireplace, and French doors that open to the backyard.

Upstairs the hardwood floors turn to a Parquet de Versailles pattern, a decorative matter that befuddles and annoys Your Mama because there is just no need for a house of this size to have three or more hardwood floor patterns. There just isn't. Anyhoo, there are four family/guest bedrooms, each with Carrara marble en suite poopers. This means, of course, that none of Miss Duff and Mister Comrie's guests or future children will have to put on a brave face and pretend the hall bathroom doesn't smell like a damn pubic toilet after Aunt Edna comes for the weekend and stinks up the facilities.

The master suite, a large corner room with a quartet of French doors that open to a quartet of Juliet balconies with iron railings, has a fireplace for romantical evenings, and his and her walk-in closets and poopers. One of the poopers, large enough to be furnished with an upholstered chaise, features Carrara marble floors, a free standing soaking tub surrounded by windows fitted with internal shutters, and a flat screen tee-vee mounted into a custom cubby hole up on the wall opposite the sink and vanity.

The backyard, which butts up to a vacant hillside ensuring privacy for nood sunbathing and after dinner games of strip croquet, has two pergola shaded brick terraces–one for sitting, one for dining outdoors, a long lap pool and spa surrounded by brick terracing, and a gravel pad with a freestanding fireplace and a foursome of potted citrus trees.

Other residents of The Summit currently include Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale who now own a house they bought from Jennifer Lopez, and Pointer Sister Anita Pointer. Other famous former property owners in The Summit include that recently deceased Ed McMahon, Alex van Halen, Holly Robinson Peete, and P-Fiddle (Diddle Puff or Puffy Daddy or whatever damn name he calls himself nowadays).

Your Mama can honestly say that we've neither seen nor heard Hilary Duff act or sing, know nuthin' about Mister Comrie's ice hockey thing, and find their new love nest a bit twee and elegant for such a young couple. None the less, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter think little Miss Duff seems like a nice, young woman with big veneers who has, to her credit, mostly managed to stay out of the hot lights of Hollywood that sometimes lead to the crash and burn of child stars–Hello! Are you listening Lindsay Lohan?–and we both wish her and her man friend a happy home and happy life.