A Lindsay Davenport Double Whammy

Despite the extra junk in our trunk, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are both avid tennis players and fans. Wimbledon winner and Olympic champion Lindsay Davenport happens to be one of our favorites ladees on the circuit. Not only does she have some of the cleanest strokes on the court and a punishing forehand that makes us weep with envy, like Your Mama, shes a moody player with a two handed back hand.

The other day we received a covert communique from Vlad the Revealer and shortly thereafter a second one from Mister Dave at Celebrity Address Aerials who both whispered in Your Mama's big ear that Lindsay Davenport and her investment banker huzband Jon Leach listed their ocean front hideaway in Ventura, CA for sale with an asking price of $5,500,000.

After a quick poke around the internets, we discovered that the California couple have also put one of the two homes property records show they own in Laguna Beach, CA on the market with an asking price of $6,395,000.

We call that a celebrity real estate double whammy!
SELLERS: Lindsay Davenport and Jon Leach
LOCATION: Emerald Bay, Laguna Beach, CA
PRICE: $6,395,000
SIZE: 4,999 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Revel in chic California Riviera style and impressive ocean views from this very private Emerald Bay residence. An abundance of space - a luxury within Emerald Bay - is found here, amid 5 bedrooms, 5.5 baths and an open, flowing floor plan...Each room in this tastefully appointed home is finished with luxe materials, including artisan stone and tile, custom paint finishes, plank hardwood flooring, plantation shutters. Finished garaging for 3 cars plus golf cart and world-class Emerald Bay amenities.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Laguna Beach, once the sort of laid back coastal California town the Beach Boys crooned about, is now a place where old school hippie artists and surfers share the streets with rich white men and their over-injected and prodigiously implanted ladee-friends who look not so different from the too bejeweled and upsetting cat fighters on The Real Housewives of Orange County. Listen kids, we know we're making a broad generalization and not every woman in Laguna Beach has 6 pounds of silicone or saline shoved up in her boobies. But still, a lot of them do. If any of the children have been to Laguna Beach recently, as we have, y'all would know we are speaking the truth.

Anyhoo, property records reveal that Ms.Davenport picked up her house in the guard gated Emerald Bay community in May of 1997 for $2,040,000. According to listing information, the two story house measures a good sized 4,999 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms, all of which is sqeezed on to a tight .14 acre lot.

The fancy-pants Emerald Bay community straddles scenic Pacific Coast Highway just north downtown Laguna Beach. Some of the more impressive properties in Emerald Bay perch precariously on and cantilever well beyond the edge of sheer cliffs that drop down to the Pacific Ocean. Other more modest but still atrociously expensive Emerald Bay properties climb the hillside on the east side of the highway. At the northern end of the community is a spectacular private beach accessible only to people rich enough to live in Emerald Bay. Residents of the approximately 550 homes also have access to a community center, six tennis courts, swimming facilities, an outdoor basketball court, three beach volleyball courts and three parks two of which have children's play grounds.

In order to take advantage of the over the roof top ocean views, Miss Davenport's digs were designed as an "upside-down" house which means the main living spaces occupy the top floor. The front door sits at the top of a gently curving and slate tiled stair case and opens a proper entrance hall on the upper floor which includes a large formal living room with fireplace, a formal dining room, and a family room, all of which have ocean views and all of which surround an ocean view terrace.

While well stocked with a full complement of expensive appliances, the island kitchen looks exactly like a million other kitchens in Orange County. We are deeply disappointed to see that someone has placed (probably fake) greenery and a bunch of ceramic doo-dads atop the kitchen cabinets. If there's anything Your Mama loathes more than a damn pot rack, it's fake plants and knick-knacks tucked up between the cabinets and the ceiling. Not only do we think it looks ridiculous, these mistakenly placed items collect dust and cooking residue at an alarming rate.

One excellent feature the kitchen does offer, according to listing information, is a handy-dandy dumbwaiter for hauling groceries up from the lower floor, a convenience our sassy and scrupulously stair avoiding house gurl Sventlana would surely swoon over. To the right of the front door and tucked away beyond the small office and powder pooper is a generously sized and well located guest room with a sweet en-suite, fireplace and balcony. While we love that the architect has been kind enough to put the guest room as far from the master bedroom as can be, thing that concerns us here is that guests will get too comfortable and be encouraged to over-stay their welcome.

Downstairs, each of the four bedrooms has its own private pooper and one of the secondary bedrooms also opens to a small private patio where Your Mama and The Chicken would have sneaked cigarettes late at night during our rather rebellious teenage years. The oddly shaped master bedroom includes a fireplace for the romantic types, French doors that open to a private patio, a large walk in closet and a good-sized if oddly shaped bathroom that appears to have a party sized shower and a separate cubicle for the terlit and the bee-day.

Interestingly, records show that in December of 1999, Ms. Davenport forked over $1,305,000 for a second house just spitting distance from the first one and also in the exclusive and expensive Emerald Bay community. Records indicate she continues to own the 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house.

SELLERS: Lindsay Davenport and Jon Leach
LOCATION: Solimar Beach, Ventura, CA
PRICE: $5,500,00
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Beach front property located on a wide lot with 60ft of ocean frontage. Extensively remodeled, this Cape Cod style property has sweeping ocean and coastline views. 4 surf spots and access to sandy beach, this is an exclusive surfer's paradise. Outdoor patio with BBQ area and gas fireplace.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few hours up the coast from Laguna Beach is the not exactly glittery or glitzy town of Ventura where Your Mama spent more weekends of our youth than we could ever count. See babies, our favorite, funny and foul mouthed Aunty Jennie used to live in Ventura. On our frequent visits she and our momma would often pile Your Mama, Sister Woman and cuzzins Lois and Toddaroohoo into a dearly loved automobile we called The Blue Vomit and dump us off at the low-brow Boo-ay-nuh Lanes where we were sternly told to spend wisely the five or six clams we were given while the two of them went for a few mid-day mai-tais at the Elephant Bar down the street. Those were some good times children, memories we will laugh about and treasure forever.

Anyhoo, let's get back on track before we digress too deeply into the nostalgic recesses of our gin soaked mind. Just north of Ventura proper along one of the more dramatic sections of Highway 101, where the mountains meet the ocean, sits a line of ocean front homes set on a sliver of land between the highway and the crashing Pacific Ocean. One of those homes currently belongs to tennis titan Lindsay Davenport and her huzband Jon Leach who recently listed the property for sale with an asking price of $5,500,000.

Property records show Ms. Davenport and Mister Leach picked up their ocean front getaway on Solimar Beach Drive in November of 2004 for $2,750,000. Records show the Cape-Cod-ish style house was built in 1970 and measures just 1,955 square feet. Listing information indicates the house contains three bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It appears the street is gated and the small community has a couple of land side tennis courts where Lindsay and Jon probably humiliated neighbors during "friendly" games of mixed doubles.

On the land side is a front facing two car garage that forms a small courtyard where a fire pit and built in bbq area have been installed. Having spent much of our life on the California coast, we know how the wind can whip off the water in a most unpleasant way sometimes, so this interior courtyard space was a smart idea for providing outdoor space out of the winds way.

Although we don't care for Ms. Davenport's day-core and we would gone a different direction with the kitchen dee-zine, we still find this a very appealing, if somewhat unusually located beach house. The open plan living/dining/kitchen area has a wood burning fireplace for all those foggy mornings and chilly evenings, luscious looking wood floors, a high pitched ceiling and a wall of sliding doors that open up the the rear deck that is, thankfully, tucked up behind a revetment and stretches the width of the rear of the house.

At least one of the bedrooms, presumably the master bedroom, opens to the rear ocean facing deck and also has lovely high ceilings, which were surely an important and welcomed feature for the six foot two (and a half) Ms. Davenport.

Ms. Davenport was scheduled to play in the most recent Australian Open, but backed out after finding out she is preggers with her second child. Mavel-tov to the family. We suspect this might have something to do with the selling of these properties, but since we don't know nuthin' from nuthin' don't nobody quote us on that. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter wish the couple the best of luck unloading their homes in a slumping economy and we hope to see Ms. Davenport working her stuff on the court soon.

Changes: Anniversary Presents Now and Then:

 

You know when you buy something and it’s just not “right” from the beginning.  Well………when I bought my sofa and chairs a few years ago, the day they were delivered, I took one look at the slipcovers and had to stop myself from crying.  I could see immediately that my new, fresh, white linen slipcovers had NOT been washed prior to being made!  Needless to say, I was devastated.  And shocked.  And beyond angry.  You see, the person who made them knew better.  I mean, how many slipcovers had she  made before mine?  Hundreds?  Thousands?    And what really added fuel to the fire was that waiting in my garage were 40 yards of freshly washed white linen that I had bought just for the job.   I didn’t use that fabric because  the slipcover person had already gone and ordered the fabric herself, so I kept my washed linen for a future client.  Thinking over my options - I didn’t know whether I should send all the furniture back the next day, or try to wash the slips myself and see how much they shrank.  After much discussion, getting nowhere fast,  I just decided to forget it for a while and deal with it, like Scarlett, on another day.  When the time came to wash the slips for the first time  (because with white linen – that time DOES come!)   I used  cold water, and dried them in a barely warm dryer and put them back on damp, while trying to stretch the fabric.   Of course they shrank,  but they did still fit – barely:   the cushions were so tight that the bottom one wouldn’t lay flat.  I always knew it would have to all be redone down the road so eventually I called Shabby Slips to come to my rescue.  

 

Here you can plainly see on the chair – how short the slips had gotten.  The slip is barely covering the upholstered muslin.   The long bottom cushion on the sofa was so tight it wouldn’t lay flat.   You can see how it is sticking up on the right side of the sofa.   Also – here you can see the original button detailing on the back of the chair.

 

Luck finally came my way when Shabby Slips sent their seamstress to my house to fit my new slips.  I didn’t even have to send my furniture to them!  Heaven!  They cut the fabric on the furniture right  at my house.   And since I already had the washed linen in my garage, I saved a fortune.  A week later they delivered my nice new slips which fit like a glove and had rows of charming ties instead of buttons.  Thank you Shabby Slips – nothing beats dealing with the best!    I tell you all this because I want you to learn from my mistakes.   RULE:  never make slipcovers without washing the denim or linen first!  The only exception to this is if the material is a blend and won’t shrink OR if you plan to dry clean your slipcovers instead of washing them.   My situation was neither, and here I was stuck in a position that I would never allow to happen to a client.  I could have gone to small claims court over it, but in the end, it just wasn’t worth it.   In truth, I knew that slipcovers don’t last forever and I would eventually have to get a new set anyway – I just sped up the process, unfortunately.  Problem solved.

 

 

 

New slipcover detailing on the chair:  the buttons were replaced with charming ties on both sides. Notice how nice and long the slipcover is now.  Before - the slip barely covered the upholstery.

 

There’s been another change in my family room, and a rather contentious one at that:  the coffee table.    Ben and I had bought our coffee table when we moved into our house about 15 years ago.  It was once an Irish dining table that had been cut down to coffee table height and it was a dream come true for us.  We bought it from Colin Gibbins in Montrose who specialized in these tables.  Once the table was cut down, he would add a shelf on the bottom for magazines.   He then stained our honey colored table a rich, dark brown.      They weren’t overly expensive tables,  but at the time, the only way we could afford it was with the yearly check we got from my generous and sweet parents for our anniversary.  Each year, Ben and I would eagerly wait for that check because as newlyweds, it was the only extra cash we had to spend on furnishings!   After many years of happiness with the table, maybe 14 years, I had begun to think I wanted to upscale a bit.  The table is very rustic, very wormy, and I wanted something taller and more refined to go with my new, higher sofa and chairs.   So, one thrilling day I brought home this table from The Fabulous Flea:

 

The Fabulous Flea French Writing Desk, aka coffee table. 

 

I thought it was the prettiest table I had ever seen!  The top has a black leather inset and there’s a little drawer.  Doesn’t it look beautiful in front of that sofa at The Fab Flea?    It looked great in front of my sofa too.  Except there was one problem.   Ben.  He took one look at it and claimed he couldn’t see the TV over it.  Without even trying it out!!   Now all my clients know my lecture about husbands and decorating.    During discussions about furniture and design, I preach:  you are to look your husband in the eye and say, “and where was it that you got your degree in Interior Design?”   Ben usually falls for this tactic, but this day, over this table, he wasn’t falling for it.   In fact, he told me that either the table goes, or he goes.   So, I thought about that for a while.   It was a tough choice.   When I couldn’t decide, we compromised, and he said he would stay if the table went to another room.  This way, he said, he would save me the humiliation of having to tell The Fab Flea “my husband wouldn’t let me have it.”   The table went here:

 

The desk moved in front of my day bed in my living room.

 

The desk worked out perfectly in my living room,  but it still left me with the worm eaten, cut down Irish dining room table in my family room.   Until last Saturday, that is, when Stefan Hurry and I dropped in on Cindy at Neal & Co. and I saw the prettiest French dough table.   Cindy was sweet enough to measure it for me and I went home to see if it was too tall for Mr. TV Man to see over.    Truthfully, it was a little taller than I told him.  He was skeptical enough at the fake measurement to begin with – if he knew how tall it really was, the dough table was never going to make it home with me.   RULE:  sometimes white lies are necessary to get around non-design savvy husbands.    But,  I knew he would be able to see the TV over it, because it was a few inches shorter than the Fab Flea table which never was too tall anyway.   Hyperventilating back to Neal & Co., because I tend to hyperventilate whenever I buy a French antique  (I don’t hyperventilate for much, certainly not clothes nor cars) I brought the dough table home.   The timing was incredible too – replacing one anniversary coffee table for another anniversary coffee table, 15 years apart.    Here it is:

 

I’m in love.

 

It’s actually called a Petrin.  The top slides off and there is a compartment inside the table where you would place the dough to rise after kneading it, or before?   It’s a rich, dark wood – chestnut, actually – and it weighs a ton!    It’s dressier, but not fancy, just a step up to match the scale and mood of the larger sofa and chairs.     Also – notice the new slips, how much better they fit.  Plenty of room to shrink a little too!!   It’s hard to see in this picture, but even the back cushions are taller and the bottom cushion lies flat now that the slip fits properly.   I even made a new little skirt for my Target ottoman.

 

 

 

And from the front.  I’m still in love.

 

From the side, you can see where the apron drops down to cover the hidden dough receptacle. 

 

So, did Mr. TV Man approve?   Well, sort of.   I had to endure a little talk from him about not putting anything tall on the table in front of where he sleeps while pretending to watch TV.    OK.  I can do that.  See how empty the table top is on the left side?   And there was a little whining that he couldn’t put his feet up on the coffee table anymore.   So, I moved a small footstool for him to use for that.   He said it still wasn’t as comfortable as before.   But a few days later, I caught him on the phone happily describing it to his mother.    So, that means he’s OK with it. 

 

I mean, really.    Does he look uncomfortable to you?  And check out his “sock shoes.”   Mr. Sexy.   OMG.  Do you feel sorry for me?    Who actually wears “sock shoes” in the 21st century?????    Next he’ll be ordering a Snuggly on TV, just you watch.

 

 

Yep.    Just wait, he’ll order one for sure.

 

And on a more serious and personal note - To the sweetest man in the world, the most generous, kindest, and most loving person I have ever known, my best friend and my “cell mate:”    Happy Anniversary!!!     Twenty-one years of happiness.   Thanks for putting up with me, I don’t deserve you – we both know that!    I love you!!! 

Your Mama Hears...

...From two separate singing canaries that the legendary Castillo del Lago high in the Hollywood Hills is soon to be listed with an electrifying asking price between fifteen and eighteen million clams.

(Gasps heard 'round the world.)

The 9-story fortress-like mansion on Mulholland Highway, was designed and built by John DeLario in 1926 and sits in the shadow of the Hollywood sign overlooking the higgledy-piggledy shores of Lake Hollywood. Originally built for oil explorer Patrick Longdon (some resources say his name was Patrick Logan), the house was once home to notorious gangster Bugsy Siegel who allegedly used it as a speakeasy and gambling parlor.

In the 1950s, the house fell into a sad state of disrepair, was vandalized and, at one point, caught fire. The property eventually came under ownership by some guy with the rather impressive name of Baron Patrick de Selys-Longchamps who, according a knowledgeable source we chit-chatted with, lived on the property for a few years in un-restored condition. The Baron sold to a couple named Willfong who did over and did up the house and, we're told, had it published in Architectural Digest. Records show that in 1990, the Willfongs sold to Richard Grossman and Lisa Lyons who happen to be the folks currently selling the old Cecil B. deMille estate in Laughlin Park. The Grossman/Lyons in turn sold it to Her Madgesty Madonna Ciccone in 1993.

The Kabbalah Kween quickly mortified and alienated some of her neighbors when she painted parts of the the exterior with red and yellow horizontal stripes. By some accounts, further renovations by the do as she pleases entertainer stripped the house of even more of architectural integrity. In a sensationally scathing November 2004 article in the Times Online, L.A. based architecture aficionado, noted real estate broker of iconic properties and nearby neighbor Crosby Doe was quoted as saying, "She wrecked it." Mister Doe went on to state, "They took the historic tiles off the roof, threw them in a dumpster and put on these Taco Bell tiles. It was one desecration after another." Oh, ouch!

In 1996, not long after one of her security staff shot a stupid and deranged man attempting to scale the walls of the property, Madge moved on and the house was purchased by prolific and award winning commercial director Joe Pytka who has owned it ever since. Records show he forked over $5,300,000 for the property.

Property records show the house measures 7,783 square feet with 9 bedrooms and 6 terlits. However, her trash talking brother Christopher writes in his salacious tell-all book Life With My Sister Madonna that, "The twenty-thousand-square-foot castle has five bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, stands of four acres of land, and–with its 160 foot lookout tower–feels secure." We'll let y'all decide who's figures are accurate.

Keep in mind puppies, that for now, news of Castillo del Lago coming up for sale is just rumor and gossip. Got that? Rumor and gossip.

photo: Pacific Coast News