Thursday Odds and Ends: Ryan Seacrest

Fastidiously groomed radio DJ, American Idol host, reality tee-vee super-producer Ryan Seacrest—he's the man responsible for the frightening and frightfully successful Kardashian franchise—Ryan Seacrest had his Los Angeles, CA mansion photographed for the glossy pages of the January 2008 issue of Architectural Digest.

Almost two years later in October 2010, the 8,172 square foot Spanish-style pile nestled privately near the top of Nichols Canyon and dubbed by the rich and powerful Hollywood honcho as Casa di Pace—that's 'House of Peace' in Spanish or I-talian or something, dontcha know?—popped up on the open market with an asking price of $14,950,000. Despite at least one price drop the star-style property in the Hollywood Hills has languished.

A week or so ago, as noted by the folks at Zillow, Mister Seacrest re-listed the just-over-an-acre estate with a new, improved and much lower asking price of $11,985,000. A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's just $485,000 more than the $11,500,000 he paid for the place in April 2006 when he bought it from two-time Oscar winner Kevin Costner.

Considering the considerable carrying costs and no-doubt balloon-like renovation and redecoration expenses, not to mention the real estate fees that could easily run into the hundreds of thousands, it appears to Your Mama that even if Mister Seacrest's Real Estate—unquestionably one of the most successful in Los Angeles—manages to pull in a full price sale he still stands to lose a pretty-pretty penny on the property, a pain and suffering Your Mama imagines just might be at least somewhat mitigated for Mister S. by an annual income that reportedly exceeds $55,000,000.

Current listing information shows the fully renovated, two-story, multi-winged canyon and city view mansion—all decked out by decorator Jeff Andrews—has 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, a rotunda entry, formal living and dining rooms and—natch—a screening room.

The gated grounds, no doubt fortified with the most advanced security technologies, encompass a circular motor court, well-tended gardens, detached guest house, numerous balconies and terraces, a lap-length swimming pool set into a flat, grassy terrace, and a lighted tennis court set directly but well below the residence.

Although still reeling with a vicious hangover from dinner last night with gal pal A. Stickpot, we still had the presence of mind this morning to give our our always well-informed acquaintance Shirley Icantellya a ringy-dingy to see if she had any dish on Mister Seacrest's real estate plans. She told us word on the celebrity real estate street is Mister Seacrest fancies a move to the hoity-toity streets of Bel Air where he's been peeping posh properties priced "up to $35,000,000."

How y'all like them real estate apples?

aerial photo (top): Pacific Coast News
exterior photos (bottom): Westside Estate Agency

Thursday This and Thats: Reese Witherspoon

Reports out of the U.K. suggest newly wedded, (allegedly) preggers and Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line, Legally Blonde, and Election), may have scooped up a new house in the uppity Bel Air area of Los Angeles. The real estate scuttlebutt from across the pond has spread like wildfire in the States but, all due respect to our property gossip compadres, we're not convinced this isn't all just a bunch of hooey and hot air.

Yes, a new spouse and/or a new baby often presages a new house for the pampered and highly paid denizens of Tinseltown. But, Miz Witherspoon, despite spending more than $21,000,000 on her residential real estate portfolio, doesn't strike Your Mama as the type to uproot her family just because there's a new bun in her oven.

Since late 2003 Miz Witherspoon has owned and occupied a gated, 6,956 square foot mansion on a tight corner lot in a leafy, gated enclave in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles just north of Sunset Boulevard and below the gleaming Getty Center. She paid, according to the property records we peeped, $4,725,000 for the then almost brand new 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom mock-Med manse (shown above in 2004).

In May 2009 she dropped another $3,325,000, according to property records, to pick up a down-on-its-heels contemporary residence next door, since razed and replaced with terraced gardens and a small, gated parking pad.

The following August (2010) Miz Witherspoon, through the same trust associated with her Brentwood properties, quietly paid eccentric (and sort of frightening) actor Steven Seagal $6,900,000 for a 2.53 acre estate tucked down a long, gated driveway in a perfectly private hollow in the bucolic (and expensive) Mandeville Canyon area between Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. At the time of the sale, the equestrian-friendly property encompassed stables, swimming pool, flat lawns, a riding ring, and an existing Spanish-style casa built, as per the L.A. County Tax Man, in 1937 with 7 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms in 6,125 square feet (above).

Miz Witherspoon also owns an almost 6,500 square foot faux-French Provincial residence in Nashville, TN (above, top) where she spent her childhood and where, as fer as we know, her parents still live. She also maintains a stunning 7-acre ranch in Ojai, CA (above, bottom)—bought from Million Dollar Decorator Kathryn Irelend in March 2008 for $5,800,000—where she and Mister Toth were married last year in an intimate ceremony attended by a considerable cadre of celebrities.

So what gives?

Iffin we had to hazard a guess—and it is, to be sure, only a guess based on little more than clouds of pink cotton candy—we'd guess Miz Witherspoon( and Mister Toth) have planned or embarked on some renovation or another to one of their several homes and merely visited the aforementioned, currently under-renovation residence in Bel Air in order to get a good look-see at samples of the handiwork of one or more artisans and/or contractors. Make of all this nonsense what you will but our money is on Miz Witherspoon et famille stayin' put.

photos: Pacific Coast News

Tuesday Afternoon Odds And Ends: Matt Damon

According to the always industrious kids at Curbed Matt Damon has allegedly and reportedly paid around $15,000,000 for a hulking, three-story, 13,508 square foot contemporary mansion in Pacific Palisades, CA with 7 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, 35-foot mahogany ceilings, a "serious gym," two staff rooms.

Maybe he did and maybe he didn't.

As of today, the 7 bedroom and 10 bathroom residence remains on the open market with an asking price of $15,950,000 and two days ago a trusty real estate insider we'll call Mister Platinum Triangle told Your Mama that he heard Mister Damon wanted to lease not buy the mansion in order to be close to b.f.f. Ben Affleck.

All just celebrity real estate rumor and gossip at this point, puppies. Make of it what you will.

listing photo: Coldwell Banker / Pacific Palisades