Weekend Wrap Up

1.
Your Mama knows almost nobody wants to know this, but the sale of financially battered and beleaguered actor Nic Cage's Bel Air mansion is finally complete. The deal is done, the deed is singed and this story is finally reached its conclusion. As far as we know from Billy Blabbedit, the Gerard Colcord designed mansion, formerly owned by both Dean Martin and Tom Jones, sold for $10,500,000. That's a lot of money by any standard but just a sliver of the whopping $35,000,000 Mister Cage and his real estate people thought the house was worth with it first come on the market in 2007.

2.
Earlier in the week Your Mama discussed the sprawling New York City apartment of Marie Claire Fashion Director and often exasperated Project Runway judge Nina Garcia and her financier huzband David Conrod.

Miz Garcia has baby number two in her belly, which may or may not have something to do with the with child couple's decision to move house. In the event Miz Garcia and Mister Conrod might want to save themselves some money by not moving Your Mama re-worked the floor plan of the apartment to accommodate him, her, baby #1 and baby #2.

One of the children, Stolidog, spent some time giving the floor plan a once over too and thoughtfully sent us another option for switching things up. See whatch'all think.

3.
The fine folks over at Curbed used Your Mama's little online endeavor to create a long (but "non-exhaustive") list of celebrity owned estate names such as Casa di Pace (Ryan Seacrest), Avec Chateau (one of Tyler Perry's many over-sized mansions), The Promised Land (Oprah Winfrey), Chartwell (the old Beverly Hillibillies mansion owned by media mogul Jerry Perenchio, and Red Barn, the Snedens Landing estate owned by Mikail Baryshnikov that he recently hoisted on the market with an asking price of $4,000,000.

4.
Jimmy Fallon, the former Saturday Night Live cast member turned late night tee-vee talk show house, and his wife Nancy Juvonen–otherwise known as Drew Barrymore's producing partner–forked over $1,350,000 for a third apartment at 34 Gramercy Park East, the oldest co-operative building in New York City. It's unknown– but it seems likely–that Mister Fallon and Miz Juvonen will doo-plex there current two-unit crib with the new 2 bedroom apartment they purchased upstairs.

5.
Somehow, in a haze of booze and sleepless nights, Your Mama missed this one. Did y'all know that Ricki Lake's Malibu beach rental house located just west of Topanga Beach burned to the damn ground a couple of months ago?

Lucky for Miz Lake, the entire family including the dog escaped unharmed. Not so lucky for Miz Lake is that she told police and fire people that the likely cause of the fire was a couch that went up in flames when she was trying to refuel a nearby portable heater. Also lucky for Miz Lake, she still owns a big house in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles that she bought from Courtney Cox in 2002 for $2,200,000.

6.
How many times has Your Mama told the children that rich and famous folks are fickle when it comes to their real estate. Fickle. Fickle. FICKLE. Six months or so ago, after whining to the press about how "shallow" Los Angeles is, Lisa Marie Presley packed up her horsey house in Hidden Hills, CA and decamped from the English countryside along with her huzband Michael Lockwood, their two year old twin daughters Harper and Finley, her 21-year old model daughter Riley and 18 year old son Benjamin from a previous betrothal.

There are many reports that say that Miz Presley shelled out eight or ten million pounds to purchase Coe Hall, an historic and huge house in Rotherford, East Sussex. However, Your Mama's spies–who had a peep and a poke around the property records–say that no transfer records were filed which indicates Miz Presley leased rather than bought the estate, some of which dates to the 15th-century and includes 11 bedrooms, 9 reception rooms, 9 poopers, a cinema, a state of the art sound system, swimming pool complex with hot tub, tennis court, parterre gardens, paddocks, and a private lake.

Coe Hall had been on the sales market for quite some time but it was also, prior to Miz Presley moving in, listed at £15,000 per month so iffin in fact Miz Presley leased the property we expect she paid around that amount. Shortly after moving into Coe Hall, there were salacious reports about Miz Presley requiring her domestic staff sign confidentiality contracts that forbid them from telling anyone, including their spouses, where they worked. We have no idea if that's true or not but we do know that Coe Hall is just down the road a piece from the Britain's Scientology headquarters at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead.

Some of the updated and upgraded country house dates to the 15th-century and includes 11 bedrooms, 9 reception rooms, 9 poopers, movie theater, a state of the art sound system, swimming pool complex with hot tub, tennis court, parterre gardens, paddocks, and a private lake.

Turns out, bless her little heart, The Princess of Rock 'n Roll (allegedly) hates living in the English countryside and if she hasn't already soon plans to high-tailed it back to the United States.

Unfortunately for Miz Presley, she can't just move back to her house in Hidden Hills. That's because she's had it up for sale with an asking price of $6,995,000 and according to listing information, it's in contract. She still owns the much smaller and less swank 4 bedroom and 3 pooper house next door–where where her ex-huzband and baby daddy Danny Keough lived–but since it remains on the market with an asking price of $1,995,000 it would seem she's not headed back there. Maybe she's shacking up with Momma Presley in Beverly Hills? Maybe she's moving to Nashville. Maybe it's all big fat wrong rumor and she's staying in the U.K. at Coe Hall. Who knows?

Real Estate Wrap Up

1.
Philanderer extraordinaire Tiger Woods has been much in the celebrity real estate news lately. First there were rumors and reports that he leased an apartment in a second rate building in New York City's West Village. The scuttlebutt next turned to his main ex-mistress Rachel Uchitel who is widely reported to have dropped around two million clams for a 3 bedroom and 3 pooper condo in the Murray Hill area of the Big Apple.

Now there's the stunning news that just two days after his quickie dee-vorce was finalized Mister Woods took a staggering $54,500,000 mortgage on the Jupiter Island, FL compound he and the ex-wife have been building the last four or five years.

Speculation among all the celebrity and real estate gossips is that the massive mortgage has something to do with financial stipulations and considerations Mister Woods has to pay out to ex-Missus Woods as per the terms of their dee-vorce.

Mister Woods paid $44,500,000 in cash for the water front property that includes several very contemporary clean-lined structures, three swimming pools, and a gigantic gym.

2.
Are the children ready to get back on the Dave and Vicky Beckham real estate crazy train?
Your Mama sure hopes so because word is starting to slip slide down the real estate gossip grapevine that the superstar couple is looking to unload Beckingham Palace, their sprawling English spread located in a part of the U.K. called Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Don't ask Your Mama where that is on a map because we don't know and we didn't bother to look.

The soccer stud and the celery stalk thin former pop star turned fashion maven paid around £2,500,000 for the 1930s Georgian style mansion back in 1999 and recent reports indicate the 7 bedroom mansion is valued by savvy estate agents at £18,000,000. As far as we know there is not an official listing for the property available online but iffin any of the children should turn one up be sure to holler at Your Mama.

The peripatetic pair who have three boy children own several other homes including a chateau in France, a house in Dubai, and a mansion in Beverly Hills, CA that they purchased in the spring of 2007 for $18,200,000 after a long and tedious search that wore out all us celebrity real estate gossips. Although it's expected the Beckham clan will settle (semi) permanently in Bev Hills, the high on the hog livvin' couple are none the less reported to be looking for a townhouse in London to make as their base when in the U.K.

3.
Academy Award winning actor Nic Cage, who recently reached some sort of secret settlement with his former accountant and bizness manager Sam Levin who Mister Cage alleged led him down a garden path to financial ruin, famously and publicly lost his legendary mansion on Copa de Oro Road in the swank Bel Air section of Los Angeles to foreclosure in April of 2010.

Mister Cage had been trying to sell the mansion since sometime in 2007 when it was offered with a ridiculous asking price of $35,000,000. The property, formerly owned by Dean Martin and hirsute crooner Tom Jones, was put on and taken off and put back on the market a number of times and the asking price eventually dipped to $17,500,000. But alas, despite some serious interest and at least one near sale, no one bit the bullet and signed on the dotted line.

Shortly after the bank took possession the somewhat shabby 6 bedroom and 9 pooper property it was heaved back on the market with an asking price of $12,500,000. We say "somewhat shabby" because Your Mama managed to get a peep at the property with our very own eyeballs and despite some interesting bits and pieces and some obviously high quality craftsmanship, the house was, in our humble and meaningless opinion, a bit of a hot mess. And that's being nice, children because y'all should hear the choice words a few Bev Hills real estates have whispered to Your Mama about the property.

Anyhoodles poodles, the bank isn't having any more luck selling the place than Mister Cage had. The asking price now? $11,800,000 and still, apparently, no one wants it.

UPDATE: Well blow me down kittens because as it turns out the old Cage estate on Copa de Oro is in escrow. Glory be!

Now then, do any of the children want lay down a wager on what price the property will finally sell?

4.
The British tabs have been all abuzz the last week reporting that celebrity hypnotist Paul McKenna has expressed some interest in purchasing the opulently unrestrained Holmby Hills mansion where Michael "The White Lady" Jackson spent his final days.

The 7 bedroom and 13 pooper property is currently listed at $28,995,000 and the not always reliable tab The Daily Mail recently reported that Mister McKenna is considering paying £19,000,000 for the hotel sized house, an amount that Your Mama's currency conversion contraption indicates is just under full asking price at today's rates.

An alleged pal of Mister McKenna told the Daily Mail that, "Paul was blown away by the sheer elegance of the property. It is one of the classiest houses in LA." Listen chickens, Your Mama, who don't know a corbel from a Corvette might beg to differ with that characterization opting for words such as ostentatious, humongous, steroidal, and a wee bit garish, but real estate beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one person's classy is another's architectural punch to the gut. Kapeesh?

Back in January of 2008, Mister McKenna paid $6,600,000 for a house high in the hills above the Sunset Strip that had formerly been owned by showbiz types such as producer Chris Roberts, prolific songwriter Diane Warren, and a-list gay billionaire David Geffen.

Call us crazy, call us cynical, call us a Debbie Downer, but Your Mama thinks there ain't nuthin' hot air to this real estate rumor. But then again, we've been wrong before and will be wrong again.

5.
There aren't as many big deals going down as there used to be during the go-go real estate years of the mid-naughts, but recently dee-vorced Paramount Chairman and CEO Brad Grey managed to sell his Pacific Palisades estate for $21,500,000 according to the Wall Street Journal. Of course, as much moolah as 21 one and some million smackers may be, the 6 bedroom and 11 pooper house had been listed for $29,900,000, which Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us means Mister Grey settled for 72% of what he originally hoped to get.

The property was purchased by the President and CEO Douglas Emmett, a real estate investment trust with fingers in the commercial and multi-family markets in both southern California and Honolulu.

6.
Back in late July of 2010 Your Mama dissed and discussed the lavish but no longer wanted Chicago townhouse of Jamie Dimon, the New York based Chairman, President, and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase. At that point the asking price of the financier's 5-floor, 26-room and 13,500 square foot mansion on Chicago's Gold Coast had plummeted from its original $13,500,000 asking price to $9,500,000. Mister Dimon and his wife, who paid $4,680,000 for the 8 bedroom and 9 full and 2 half pooper pile in the fall of 2000, must be getting pretty serious about dumping their former digs because they've just slashed the price by more than two point five million clams all the way down to $6,950,000.

Given that Mister Dimon reportedly earned around $36,000,000 in 2008, $41,200,000 in 2006
and heaven only known what in 2007 and 2009, we don't imagine many if any will have any sympathy for the real estate woes of Mister and Missus Dimon.

7.
The rich, famous, and curious in Los Angeles are following the contentious dee-vorce between Dodgers' owners Frank and Jamie McCourt like it was damn Dickens novel. The McCourts came from Boston and swept the local real estate world by storm snatching up high priced properties left and right.

First they laid out more than $20,00,000 for an estate in Los Angeles' hoity Holmby Hills 'hood–and reportedly spent another $14,000,000 or so on renovations–and they they bought the estate right next door. Then next set their real estate sights on Malee-boo where they paid $27,300,000 for a famed John Lautner designed house on Carbon Beach that they scooped up in July of 2007 from architecture nuts Courtney Cox and David Arquette. It wasn't long before they dropped another $19,000,000 for the house next door. Do the children see a pattern here?

Your Mama did a full run down of the McCourt's fat real estate portfolio back in October of 2009 and according to our entirely unscientific research we figured that Mister and soon to be ex-Missus McCourt have spent at least $167,050,000 to purchase and renovate their many private residences and at that time were servicing a stomach turning $59,700,000 in mortgages.

There has been a lot of public tussling and private clawing about whether the McCourts own the Dodgers together, if the team is "community property," or if the heavily leveraged franchise belongs only to Mister McCourt. However, the latest reports on the McCourt's disputatious dee-vorce doings reveal that soon to be ex-Missus McCourt proposed that she retain ownership of the couple's colossal private real estate holdings while the Mister could have the financially strapped Dodgers franchise. Smart woman? Maybe. But the question remains whether a dee-vorced Missus McCourt can afford to keep and maintain all those properties let alone service the titanic mortgages.

8.
And finally msnbc.com's Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Bill Dedman continues his fascinating and increasingly sordid reportage on the Byzantine financial affairs of the reclusive, mysterious, and wildly rich centenarian heiress Hugette Clark. We, like so many others, can't seem to get enough of this merry-go-round of a story.

Weekend Wrap Up

1.
Lefty liberal lesbian news host Rachel Maddow bought a West Village apartment with a screwy layout from bisexual REM front man Michael Stipe.

2.
British singer/presenter Cheryl Cole and one of Dancing With the Stars' resident twinkle toes Derek Hough are out house hunting in Los Angeles. Does anyone really care?

3.
A penthouse as London's impossibly swank and freakishly expensive One Hyde Park complex developed by the boys at Candy and Candy sold for a mind bending £140,000,000 a figures that Your Mama's currency conversion contraption indicates converts to an unbelievable $218,589,000. The unknown buyer is rumored to be an oil rich somebody or another from the Middle East or possibly Nigeria. Your Mama discussed the high security complex a couple of times here and here in early 2008.

4.
Disco queen Donna Summer has bought a $3,800,000 condo at the famous folk friendly Carlyle Residences, a newly built crescent shaped tower along Los Angele's Wilshire Corridor in Westwood. Miz Summer joins the celebrity ranks of fellow residents like Bruce Willis, Larry King, Paul Anka, and Dodger Matt Kemp.

Miz Summers seems to be a bit of a property maven and owns a number of other residences around the U-nited States of America including a bay front mansion on Shelter Island (NY), a gigantic spread just outside of Nashville, TN in the itty-bitty town of Brentwood, a condo in Naples, FL, and a big water front house on a spit of sound about 10 or 15 miles south of Sarasota, FL.

5.
Although the property has been on and off the market since at least November of 2009, The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that a 3.07 acre spread in horsey Hidden Hills, CA connected to Priscilla Presley is on the market for "just under $7 million." The elder Miz Presley is listed as the trustee for the property. According to about 49,000 of Your Mama's informants the property is actually owned by Miz Presley's publicity shunning daughter Lisa Marie who decamped to London in the fall of 2009. An adjacent 2.48 acre property with a 4 bedroom and 3 pooper house also connected to Priscilla Presley is also on the market with an asking price of $1,995,000.

6.
Several years ago amid much brouhaha and ballyoo, industrialist billionaire Ira Rennert built a 29 bedroom and 39 pooper complex on 63 ocean front acres in Sagaponack, NY–that's the Hamptons butter beans. Now Mister and Missus Rennert want to build a 40th bathroom–an outdoor bathroom down by the beach apparently–and the town of Southampton is balking at their request. Listen puppies, Your Mama is bowled over by the wold excess of the Rennert's lifestyle–they have their own private synagogue–but almost seems silly to let them build a 100,000 square foot house with a rumored 39 bathrooms and then get all persnickety and bitchy about one more damn terlit.

7.
Tampa Bay, FL based self-made millionairess Cheryl Mercuris–who reportedly made her mountain of money in the rather vague sounding "direct marketing" bizness shocked even the richest of the rich in the Hamptons when she agreed to cough up a shocking $500,000 for a two-week summer rental in Bridgehampton. The mansion Miz Mercuris rented, the stoopidly named Sandcastle, is a newly built beast on 12 acres about as far from the ocean as one can get in the Hamptons that has 14 bedrooms, 19 poopers, a bowling alley, golf simulator, squash court, spa facilities, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a rock climbing wall, and a tennis court. The spec-built estate has long been for sale and currently has a rather optimistic asking price of $49,500,000. Miz Mercuris, her 6 year old son, a nephew and her parents are so pleased with their two week stay in the Hamptons they have reportedly singed on the dotted line for another 3 weeks. Unless the landlord gave her a break, that means Miz Mercuris has coughed up another $750,000 for a total cost of $1,250,000 for her summer vacation.

Weekend Wrap Up

1.
Former cab driver turned multi-billionaire Tamir Sapir got struck with the real estate luck stick and sold his famous Beaux Arts style Duke-Semans mansion on New York City's Fifth Avenue for a stroke inducing $44,000,000 to Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim who, among other fingers in pies, owns a substantial portion of the New York Times.

2.
Lady Gaga is still going goo-goo for high priced real estate. Although she's been mostly seen looking around at rental cribs in the $20-25,000 per month range she was recently spotted checking out a 4 bedroom and 4.5 pooper penthouse apartment at the SohoMews that's listed at $9,975,000.

3.
Sex and the City's Sara Jessica Parker continues her hunt for a hideously expensive house in Manhattan. A few weeks ago she toured the penthouse at the Bouwerie Lane building on The Bowery and more recently she's toured clothing designer David Chu's triplex penthouse on Park Avenue listed at $29,800,000 (reduced from $32,800,000) as well as a couple of townhouses on the Upper East Side including the 6 bedroom and 6.5 pooper former Woolworth mansion listed at $20,000,000.

4.
In 2007 Bianca Jagger was booted from her 18th floor rent-controlled Park Avenue apartment and now the courts have ordered that she fork over $708,600 in back rent, interest, and attorneys fees.

5.
The one time high-livin' hip hop mogul Damon Dash recently lost two condos in New York City to foreclosue. One of Jay-Z's former partner's condos–a 5,200 square foot doo-plex at the Atalanta building in TriBeCa–was sold at auction for $5,500,000 and the other–a smaller 2,888 square foot triplex at The Sugar Warehouse building also in TriBeCa–failed to meet the lender's upset price.

6.
Even though they both seem to be unemployed and they already have a huge house in the Beverly Hills Post Office, Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz are reportedly building a new house in Hollywood.

7.
It's baaaaaccckkk. After trying unsuccessfully attempting to sell it in 2008 in order to keep it from slipping into the jaws of foreclosure, Ed McMahon's mansion in the guard gated Summit community is back on the market with an asking price of $4,600,000. Mister McMahon has since gone on to meet the great announcer in the sky and the property and at it appears that the property remains in a trust controlled by Mister McMahon's estate although we imagine there are still creditors who still want their money.

Weekend Wrap Up

All Your Mama's got to say on magician Chris Angel's 22,000 square foot Las Vegas beast is that it looks like the sort of place Ozzy Osbourne and Michael Jackson might live if they were having a homosexual romance.

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Your Mama thought this beehawtcha from Jersey was broke–isn't that what bankruptcy means?–and here she is flaunting her forged iron railings and candelabras in In Touch damn magazine.

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A week or so ago we discussed and dissected the Beverly Hills, CA mansion listed by Dr. Phil McGraw and his wife Robyn. More recent reports reveal the couple have already purchased a bigger and more expensive French Mediterranean style mansion.

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The New York City apartment of late, great buck toothed opera singer Beverly Sills recently hit the market with an asking price of $6.995. The 4th floor 3-bedroom spread is located in the much ballyhooed Beresford building where Jerry Seinfeld and his family live.

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Celine Dion is one of the richest ladees on earth, so why do contractors on her new water park / estate in Jupiter Island, FL have to file liens on the property in order to get paid? We're not suggesting she's out of money–she is most assuredly not–but maybe she needs a new check writer.

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That '70s Show actor Danny Masterson says he was duped by a developer to the tune of $3,200,000.

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Is Lady Gaga goo-goo for the Hampton? Her mouthpiece says she ain't, but other sources swear she's done leased a place for the summer.

Weekend Wrap Up

Last week Your Mama discussed and dissected the Sunset Beach, CA house that Oscar winning actress Sandra Bullock's cheating chopper customizer ex-huzband Jesse James has on the market for $4,995,000 (reduced from $6,750,000).

At that time we mentioned to oft repeated rumor that Mister James was fixin' to relocate to Austin, TX where he has bidness concerns and where, perhaps not coincidentally, his ex-wife has a large and lavish spread.

According to the peeps at gossip juggernaut TMZ, Mister James had did the real estate deed and bought himself a 7-acre estate in Austin that includes 9 bedrooms and 7.5 poopers, plenty of room for him to ramble around in all by his lonesome or for all his kids and baby mommas to visit at the same damn time.

The $1,980,000 mansion includes a large home fitness center, theater, a six car garage/workshop, several swimming pools and ponds, and outdoor fireplace next to the party-sized spa, a crick crossed by a bridge, rolling lawns, and mature shade trees galore.

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Sounds like the former President Bill "Couldn't Keep It In His Pants" Clinton and his smart and staunch Secretary of State wife Hilary Rodham Clinton just might going country. Well, sort of. According to the New York Post Bill and Hil have their eyeballs on Clover Hill Farm, a dee-luxe 20 acre compound in Bedford Hills, NY that carries a price tag of $10,900,000. The 7,000 square foot main house has 5 bedrooms and 6 full and 2 half poopers.

The bucolic property comes complete with a swimming pool, stables–Your Mama defies any of the children to think of Bill or Hil sitting up on a pony without fallin' out–a koi stocked pond with spitting fountain, artists studio, and two guest houses perfect for the suited up Secret Service mens and/or for the soon to be married daughter Chelsea and her man-mate when they come a'visiting.

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Conservative radio claptrapper Rush Limbaugh can finally pack his bags and move his right wing things out of New York City, a lefty-liberal city he loathes because of its high taxes. According the inestimable Josh Barbanel at the Wall Street Journal–who the children may recall used to pen the celebrity real estate gossip for the New York Times–Mister Limbaugh's Fifth Avenue condo with its surprisingly feminine and muralific day-core is currently in contract for just under its final asking price of $12,950,000. Sayonara Sister Pillpopper.

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The dee-voon Connie Stevens, a one-times actress/sex kitten who parlayed her fame and brains into a mountain of millions with her Forever Spring skin care and make-up lines, dumped her Manhattan digs for around $7,000,000 according to The Real Deal. The dee-voon Miz Stevens, who bought the 54th floor penthouse pad at the Upper West Side's towering Park Millenium building way back in 1994, reportedly watched the World Trade Towers collapse from her aerie on September 11, 2001.

The 2,479 square foot condo, which has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers, is located in the same upscale Manhattan apartment tower where Oscar nominated actor Alan Alda (M.A.S.H., The West Wing) and his wife own 3-contiguous and presumably combined condos. Also in residence–at least when they're not holed up in their boo-teek hotel sized ocean front mansion in the Hamptons–is potty mouthed and kinky haired radio tycoon Howard Stern and his wife Beth Ostrosky. Greenwich, CT based Regis Philbin also maintains a pied a terre at the Park Millenium building but hunnies we can barely bring ourselves to type his name. Have mercy butter beans, that man is like fingernails on a chalkboard to Your Mama. At least his former sidekick Kathy Whatserface has camp appeal and, much to our delight, acts like a damn fool most of the time. But that Reeg fella? We just don't get it.

Anyhoo, the pending sale was first reported in late May 2010 by the New York Times

Miz Stevens also owns homes the Holmby Hills area of LA and an "enormous log cabin" in Jackson Hole, WY

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Former Dateline dive Stone Phillips recently scooped a penthouse in New York City's Gramercy Park neighborhood according to the New York Times. The 2 bedroom and 2 pooper pad that was last on the market at $4,750,000 has wrap around terraces and southern exposures over the private, residents only park.

The penthouse, which comes with a deeded key to the park, was offered in estate condition. That means Mister and Missus Phillips will likely be spending a many more dollars having a smart architect and a nice, gay decorator do over their new digs before they actually settle in.