Christopher Knight and His Top Model Townhouse

SELLER: Christopher Knight and Adrianne Curry
LOCATION: Highland Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA
PRICE: $1,689,000
SIZE: 2,136 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: South Manhattan tri level townhome with ocean views. Two bedrooms plus office, 2 1/2 baths and over 2,100 SF of living space. Three stop elevator, two ocean view balconies, hardwood floors, granite counters, recessed lighting, 4 car parking, beach living at it's best.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: There is almost no television program that Your Mama likes more than America's Next Top Model, Tyra Banks' reality show of pin thin wannabe models who spend their days learning to walk in heels, purse their lips, relax their jaw and give each other the verbal smack down. We are not even remotely embarrassed to admit that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have watched the stellar program from the very beginning, and recall like it was yesterday the evening that the raw and uncouth former Hooters waitress Adrianne Curry won the first cycle.

It was after the show aired that the real drama ensued, and Ms. Curry told anyone who would listen that the show never delivered on the prizes she won. Ouch! Although Ms. Curry has since apologized and is arguably the most successful winner of the show, ANTM no longer uses her image on the show and her name is never mentioned in press materials for the show.

Ms. Curry went on to make lots of pictures for lots of designers and publications, including a nood pictorial in Playboy for which she was reportedly paid $1,000,000. Girl may not know how to speak proper English, but she does not how to exploit an opportunity to her own advantage...which for better or worse, is a far more valuable skill in Hollywood than knowing better than to use a double negative while being interviewed on camera.

In 2005, the model who has no compunction about baring her boobies to the world, popped up on the the Surreal Life, that brilliant train wreck of a show where has-been C and D list celebrities are locked in an ugly house together so that they can claw each other's eyes out. Ms. Curry did her fair share of mixing it up with the guests, but mostly she flirted shamelessly with Christopher Knight, the one time child actor who played Peter on The Brady Bunch. Mister Knight, who went through an awkward pubescence on national television, grew up to to be a reasonably handsome man with a smoking hot body. Somehow he, over the course of the show filming, he was charmed by Ms. Curry's total lack of charm and, don't you know, that after two years and a reality show of their own later, the hot blooded couple have married. And according to Ms. Ruth Ryon at the LA Times, the couple have recently sold their Manhattan Beach townhouse which Mister Knight purchased in May of 2003 for $1,250,000.

Located just a few short blocks from the wide and sugar sandy Manhattan Beach, the three story townhouse packed 2,136 square feet on to an itty bitty 1,668 square foot ocean view lot. Property records show the townhouse with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, but listing information indicates 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. The listing information did not include interior photos, and Your Mama could only be bothered to watch the reality show the couple created for themselves once or twice, but somewhere in the dark recesses of our failing memory we recall that the interiors were very forty year old bachelor.

Listing information for the house shows that the townhouse sold for the asking price, $1,689,000, after only 1 day on the market, which we're quite certain made the listing broker enormously happy.

According to Ms Ryon, the couple moved on to another ocean view property, this time a house, in another South Bay community. Your Mama just hopes they've moved to a house where Ms. Curry can park her car in a secure location.

Source: LA Times

Diana

If you, like me, admired the beauty of the person that was Diana, the once Princess of Wales, this weekend you are probably thinking of Diana and of your own special memories of her. Everyone that knows me, in real life, is keenly aware of how much I adored Diana. There was a point in time where books on Diana and the Royal Family dominated my library. I have scores of these books, books about Diana's outfits, books about the Royal Jewels, books about the Royal castles, and books about their private lives written by fired or disgruntled past employees. The one book I own about the royals that I think would be of interest to design bloggers is The Garden at Highgrove, written by The Prince of Wales.


It is a beautiful garden book, somewhat similar in tone to David Hick's garden book, My Kind of Garden. It chronicles how Prince Charles bought a rather plain country home and turned it's barren land, save for one magnificent, aged cedar of Lebanon, into a magnificent parkland, filled with secret gardens, wildflower pastures, and garden paths, all the while using a environmentally sensitive approach to gardening. It details the help Charles received in designing his gardens, and how special care was taken to how the garden would look from inside the home, not just from the outside. It is a wonderful book, and is a companion to another book by the Prince written a year prior titled Highgrove, Portrait of an Estate. Filled with glorious pictures of wildflower fields, garden sculpture and pottery, garden gates and pathways, one does not have to be a horticulturist to enjoy it.


Aerial view of Highgrove. Note the cedar of Lebanon behind the home. Over 200 years old, the tree is now overtaken by fungus and other nasty things and is being dismantled.

A garden walk of yews, with another picture of the cedar.

From inside the home, a view of the yew walk. Doors are held open with the help of blue and white garden stools.

A garden walk through an arched wall.

A touch of whimsy in a garden.

A wildflower field at the front of Highgrove.

A dewy morning shot of Highgrove.

Cows grazing at Highgrove.


A door covered with climbing roses leads to a secret garden.


In the ten years since Diana's death, the Royal family has gone high tech. Prince Charles' own web site is top rate and if you are interested in visiting any of his homes or learning of their history, I highly recommend a perusal of it. Most interesting, is the fact that you can actually stay as a vacationer on his land. In cottages owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, a huge land holding that is the Prince of Wales' birthright and his main source of income, you can rent out these rather fashionable vacation homes. The information is on the Duchy's web site, along with pictures of the cottages that apparently are rated a 5 star by the English travel bureau.

One of the charming cottages available for holiday rental on the Prince's land. Interior shots of a few of the cottages are below:

With all this talk of Prince Charles, you may, like me, still have trouble believing that Charles would give up a wife like this:

To marry a wife like this:


If so, perhaps you are better off siding with the Spencers, Diana's own blood family. The Spencers home base is at Althorp, where Diana once lived. Althorp also has a wonderful web site. Her brother, the Earl of Spencer, currently lives at Althorp and opens it each summer to visitors. You must have a ticket prior to going though, don't expect to show up and visit without one. Diana is buried on an island in the middle of a small lake at Althorp and there is a wonderful exhibit of her childhood, life as the Princess, her wedding dress, and her charity work in the former horse stables. Another book I highly recommend was written by the Earl of Spencer and it chronicles the history of Diana's ancestral home:

The small lake which surrounds the island where Diana is buried at Althorp.

The monument at her grave.

Diana's handsome brother, Charles, has cashed in on all the fame as her only brother and heir to the estate of Althorp. He currently sells reproductions of the antiques at Althorp. Theodore Alexander is the company that markets this very expensive line of furniture.



Charles, the Earl of Spencer is ruggedly handsome and single, though it is reported he has a new girlfriend following his second divorce. But, if you want to try to catch his eye and become his new Countess, the Earl will be in Houston at Louis Shanks, of all places, on September 7 from 10 to 12 noon. Good luck!

UPDATE: Paris Hilton

Although there has been rampant speculation about whether she did or did not, Your Mama hears that Paris Hilton did indeed buy the big yellow house up in guard gated Mulholland Estates that all the gossips and tabs have recently declared is the new home of Princess Paris.

And we hear from our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills that the deal has closed for $5,900,000, which is not too far off the $6,250,000 asking price. Looks like Paris' uncle Maruricio drove a hard bargain.

So now the world sits tight and waits for the place to get decorated in classic multi-millionaire starvelet style with some leopard print carpet, a giant self-portrait above the fireplace and a greased stripper pole so that all the glossy tabs can print pictures when ol' Paris' new book comes out and she needs a little PR push. Paris gurl, we have a better idea, call Your Mama and let us showcase your new home on our little blog.

Source: Pacific Coast News (photo)