Carly Simon Gives It Another Go in the West Village

SELLER: Carly Simon
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,495,000
SIZE: (approx.) 1,200 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Looks like multi-Grammy, Golden Globe and Oscar winning singer/songwriter Carly Simon is giving it another go, re-listing her New York City duplex pied-a-terre with an asking price of $2,495,000.

Some of the children who have been hanging around here for a long time may recall that Your Mama first (dissed and) discussed Miz Simon's quirky and quintessentially West Village co-operative apartment way back in June 2008 when she pushed it on the open market with an in-hindsight grievously optimistic price tag of $3,850,000. The listing agent at the time was—not surprisingly—Miz Simon's sister Joanna Simon at Fox Residential. By the time un-sold duplex was taken off the market almost two years later, in the spring of 2010, the price had plummeted to a much lower but still far too rose-tinted asking price of $2,975,000.

In April 2012, for reasons entirely unknown to Your Mama, Miz Simon decided not to re-hire her real estate agent sister and instead engaged the services of high-powered über-agent Raphael De Niro—Robert De Niro's son—at Douglas Elliman who popped her duplex pied-a-terre back on the market with a substantially lower but, alas, still Utopian $2,750,000 asking price. Two and a half months later the price dropped even further to $2,490,000 before it disappeared from the open market.

Miz Simon, bless her real estate heart, jumped back on the merry-go-round last week and heaved her West Village duplex on the open market last week with a third new real estate agent—Corcoran young gun Nick Gavin—who put an ever so slightly and curiously higher asking price of $2,495,000 on Miz Simon's tough to sell West Village digs.

Property records and reports indicate Miz Simon purchased her West Village hideaway in the early 1800s Federal style red brick townhouse in early 2004 for around $1,200,000. She reportedly gut renovated the two floor unit but retained much of the apartment's original details such as the rough-hewn wide plank wood floors, exposed brick and the two wood-burning fireplace, one in the downstairs living room and the other in the upstairs sitting room where Miz Simon has incongruously installed both a baby grand piano and a claw-footed soaking tub.

The apartment is entered on the lower level through a small foyer off of which open a laundry closet and a full bathroom blessed with an actual window. The adjoining living room has a free-standing exposed brick fireplace with blue and white pattern tiles around the firebox. Openings on either side of the fireplace connect through to the renovated trapezoidal kitchen outfitted with open shelving and budget-friendly stainless steel appliances.

A very narrow, open staircase wraps around the kitchen where it arrives at a small landing/dressing area with a trio of small closets. Flanking the above-mentioned sitting room where Miz Simon has a piano and a bathtub—in the same room—are a small (master) bedroom and a compartmentalized and windowed half-bathroom.

Thankfully and—no doubt—much to the pleasure of the listing agent, Miz Simon has thinned some of the furniture, pared back a bit on some of the bric-a-brac and and fabric draping that she seemed so partial to back in 2008. It looked, decoratively, like the sort of Big Apple pied-a-terre Your Mama thought scarf and scrap material loving musicians Stevie Nicks or Steven Tyler might swoon for. But, alas....

Since the very narrow, townhouse-type co-operative building has only two other (quite tiny) units—one of which is owned by a journalist/non-profit executive who was once erroneously romantically linked in the tabloids to presidential mistress Monica Lewinsky—the approximately $2,400 per month maintenance fees for Miz Simon's house seem unusually high for the size of the apartment, especially given that there are no high end conveniences or services—i.e. doormen, fitness center, etc.—available to the small handful of residents. What the duplex does have going for it is it's location on one of the most charming and desirable residential nooks of the once bohemian and now exceedingly gentrified and shockingly expensive West Village.

As far as Your Mama knows, Miz Simon's primary residence is still Hidden Star Hill, the sprawling 25-plus acre Martha's Vineyard, MA, compound near the town of Tisbury that her five-time Grammy winning singer/songwriter ex-husband James Taylor bought in the late 1960s and transferred over to Miz Simon following their 1983 divorce. In addition to an approximately 5,000 square foot main house, the property includes a haphazard collection of several other residences—two of which are occupied by her and Mister Taylor's two adult children—several outbuildings and barns, a swimming pool, tennis court and a small pond.

exterior photo: Kate Lenova for Property Shark (2005)
listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Jason Bateman Buys Ernest Borgnine's Beverly Hills Mini-Compound

SELLER: Tova Traesnaes, fifth wife and widow of Ernest Borgnine

BUYER: Jason Bateman and Amanda Anka
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,000,000
SIZE: 6,148 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We first heard it yesterday from our always scoopy pal Patty Propertyseller but the long-legged blond gal at Trulia Luxe Livingbeat us to the digital punch about Showbiz couple Jason Batemanand Amanda Anka dropping an even-steven $3,000,000 to snatch up the Beverly Hills (Post Office) residence of recently deceased film and television actor Ernest Borgnine.

The eminently likable and wryly funny Mister Bateman has been shaking his money maker around Tinseltown since the early 1980s when, as a wee child, he landed a regular gig on Little House on the Prairie. He quickly went on to sitcom child stardom on the silly and shallow Silver Spoons, then on the short-lived It's Your Move and, in the mid- to late-80s, on Valerie, a network switching family comedy later known as The Hogan Family and Valerie's Family. Mister Bateman as also been lucky enough to work steadily as an adult on both t.v.—sometimes plum roles such on the too little appreciated cult hit Arrested Development—and on the silver screen in movies that include Juno, Up In The Air and Horrible Bosses. His sister is, of course actress Justine Bateman who shot to her own child stardom in the early '80s on the sitcom Family Ties. The low-key Miz Bateman currently has a pivotal role on the goofy, low budget short form web series Easy to Assemble and she previously had a recurring gig on the now-canceled Desperate Housewives.

Missus Batemen—that would be Amanda Anka—also hails from a show business family; Her father is iconic 1950s and '60s crooner Paul Anka. Miz Anka-Bateman occasionally works as an actress and her resume features an anemic list of small television roles on a number of big shows like Beverly Hills, 90210—the original one—and ER as well as a few puny parts on the big screen such as in the very melancholy Sofia Coppola-written and -directed film Somewhere.

The Bateman-Anka's new half-acre mini-compound had been owned and occupied or more than fifty years by the five-times married Oscar-winning Mister Borgnine (Marty) and, since the 1970s, with his much younger and surviving fifth wife, Tova Traesnaes, a Norwegian-born skincare, cosmetics and fragrance mogul who hawks her various wares on the QVC. 

Anyhoodles poodles, the property, described in listing details as a "Country English compound," was reportedly first floated off-market by Miz Traesnaes as a so-called pocket listing with a $3.395 million asking price in late September 2012, just a couple short months after 95-year old Mister Borgnine went to meet his maker in early July. The property finally popped up on the open market in late October (2012) with a familiar $3.395 million dollar asking price. 

Listing information revealed the gated property sits on a private knoll just above Mulholland Drive with easy access to both Beverly Hills and Studio City and shows the spacious but hardly huge 6,148 square foot residence is fronted by a parking lot-sized motor court and includes a formal center hall entry with rustic wood floors, a glittering crystal chandelier and a sweeping circular stair case perfect for prom pictures and making a (melo)dramatic entrances at cocktail parties and family functions.

Listing information goes on to reveal the well-maintained but woefully dated residence includes a formal living room with fireplace and a double-height family room with built-in wet bar, at least one oval stained glass window and mortifying mint-green drapery swags stuck to the the towering arched windows that look like they're desperately but unsuccessfully trying to class up the otherwise faux-rustic booze and boob-toob watching room. The somewhat snug formal dining room overlooks the front motor court and is dressed in an old fashioned and not-quite-scaled-correctly printed wall covering (or mural) that depicts a bunch of birds hanging out on the branches of nearly leafless trees.

There's also a paneled library, a den and an eat-in kitchen with adjoining breakfast room, built-in glass-fronted china cabinets and white tile counter tops painted (or screen printed) with decoratively saccharine little bouquets of multi-colored flowers. We're sure those tiles cost Mister and fifth-Missus Borgnine a fortune to buy and have installed but an even larger sum of money will surely be spent by the Bateman-Ankas to remove them and overhaul the existing, strangely formal-feeling kitchen.

Two guest/family bedrooms occupy their own upstairs wing and share a Jack-n-Jill bathroom. The other upstairs wing is devoted entirely to an expansive master suite that encompasses a bedroom, private sitting room, a roomy balcony and dual dressing rooms and bathrooms, one of which has horrendous mint-green wall to wall carpeting on floor and pearl-clutching mirror-backed lattice tacked to the walls and the angled ceiling. Once again we're absolutely certain Mister and fifth-Missus Borgnine paid some nice-gay or lady decorator an arm and a leg to come up with that—ahem—design and it will surely cost Mister and Missus Bateman another arm and a leg to hire their own nice-gay or lady decorator to remove and replace all that over-latticed decorative wackiness.

Over nighting guests or live-in domestic staff can be comfortably and privately accommodated in a self-contained guest house that Your Mama thinks sits atop the detached two car garage and contains, according to listing information, a living room, kitchen, play area, one bedroom and a bathroom.

Red brick terracing laid in a tight basket weave pattern surrounds the backyard swimming pool where there's some sort of blue statue sticking up out of the shallow end. Another part of the yard has a couple of built-in water features and a glass-enclosed wooden gazebo for—we don't know—having tea in the rain or maybe meditating.

Given that the Bateman-Anka's paid three million clams for this place and, as well maintained as it all appears to be, given all that it needs in updates and upgrades we imagine it'll be some time and another couple million spent before they actually move their still-growing young family move in.

Your Mama really can't say where Mister Bateman and Missus Anka-Bateman actually live but we do know that they've long owned a 2,617 square foot house with five bedrooms and three bathrooms in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles that property records show they picked up in the fall of 2002 for $885,000.

listing photos: The Agency and Westside Estate Agency

Sitcom Queen Patricia Heaton Officially Lists in Hancock Park

SELLER: Patricia Heaton
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $8,295,000
SIZE: 8,398 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was almost a year ago that Your Mama relayed the celebrity real estate scuttlebutt about two-time Emmy-winning sitcom queen Patricia Heaton (The Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond) and her part-time actor/producer hubby David Hunt (Liz and Dick, Mad Men, 24) quietly making their Los Angeles (CA) estate available off-market with a price tag of around—we were told by two separate and generally very well-informed sources—$12,000,000.

Well, chick-a-diddles, the off-market market apparently didn't respond so well to the rumored eight-figure asking price but thanks to eagle-eyed informant Rick Wrinklebottom Your Mama has learned that Mister Hunt and Missus Heaton's expensively renovated, painstakingly restored and much-published Elmer Grey-designed mansion in L.A.'s historic and star-studded Hancock Park 'hood* popped up on the open market with an arguably much more reasonable and realistic asking price of $8,295,000.

The walled, gated and security camera equipped corner property—published in the December 2009 issue of Architectural Digest—encompasses two contiguous parcels that total 1.14 acres in the affluent heart of Hancock Park. The mansion was built in 1923 for Merritt Adamson and Rhoda Rindge Adamson whose mother founded the famed Malibu Potteries company in the mid-1920s, hence all the authentically spectacular tile-work throughout the residence.

Listing information indicates the elegantly proportioned main mansion measures in at 8,398 square feet with a total of six bedrooms, five bathrooms and seven fireplaces. The inset double front doors are framed by carved wood pilasters and swing open into a spacious and somewhat oddly angled foyer and stair hall with slightly disturbing butter-colored walls, gleaming hardwood floors, an Old-Timey crystal chandelier and an elegant staircase with carved wood and wrought iron banisters.

There are roomy formal living and dining rooms, of course, the former with a fireplace and lots of richly textured upholstered furniture and the later a very sophisticated decorative mash-up with more than a twinge of Chinoiserie. There's also a low-key library/den with painted paneled walls, built-in book-shelves, a corner fireplace and at least two sets of French doors that connect to two of the many patios and covered verandas that surround the house.

An loggia-like billiards room with sitting area makes an exceptionally long run along the rear of the residence's lower level and is lavishly done up with intricate patterned tile flooring, a stenciled exposed wood beam ceiling and a fireplace stenciled with a pair of peacock-like birds. At least six arched French doors with elaborate iron grill work open the room to the entertainment terrace that overlooks the main part of the back yard.

Miz Heaton is best known for portraying frazzled middle-class housewives with cluttered kitchens on the boob toob but in real life her swanky eat-in kitchen is clearly that of a wealthy woman and includes all the commercial-grade stainless steel appliances money can buy and a butcher block work island and a hideous and menacing looking pot rack that frazzles Your Mama's delicate decorative nerves. We know some of the children think pot racks are charming and convenient but we think they're dust catching noggin knockers.

Anyhoo, there are at least two other family room type spaces with large televisions which sorta makes sense since Mister Hunt and Miz Heaton have four young-ish children and giving them each a t.v. to watch probably saves a lot of unnecessary and annoying yelling between them. One of the family rooms has a corner fireplace and a grid of heavy wood beams on the ceiling and the slightly larger other one is architecturally blessed with a steeply pitched and hand-stenciled wood ceiling.

In addition to the four family/guest bedrooms plus a staff suite, the main mansion includes a celebrity-sized master suite with a private sitting room (with fireplace and two wrought iron railed Juliet balconies), a spacious and surprisingly Frenchified bedroom (also with fireplace) and sun-flooded bathroom with double sinks, claw-footed soaking tub and separate glass and subway tile shower stall. Presumably there is adequate closet space for the sorts of folks who own eight and some million dollar mansions.

A side-street gate slides open to a smallish motor court and detached four-car garage. Atop the garages there's a luxurious guest house/screening room fully outfitted with a vintage tiled bathroom, carved stone fireplace, pitched and exposed wood beam ceiling, built-in book shelves, French doors all around the room that open to wrought iron railed Juliet balconies and—natch—a state-of-the-art projection system.

Landscaping snobs will certainly recommend that Hunt-Heatons hire a new gardeners staff since listing photographs show the grounds that surround the house are extensive but a smidgen unkempt. The hedges aren't clipped quite as crisply as maybe they should be, there's too much grass coming up between the tiles in the courtyard between the main house and the garage, the soccer pitch-sized lawn looks like it could use some water and the shrubbery around the lighted sport court looks, well, like a hot landscaping mess.

But for the old-fashioned slide, we do rather like the simplicity and geometric elegance of the flagstone terrace surrounded swimming pool that's overlooked by a pergola-shaded pavilion with outdoor fireplace and changing room/bathroom so that wet and wild children need not traipse through the house when it comes time for them to use the terlit.

We're not sure what Mister and Missus Hunt-Heaton's future real estate plans are but we do know that the couple maintains a multi-parcel property just outside of Cleveland, OH in Miz Heaton's hometown of Bay Village.

And we also know they won't be moving to the multi-level West Hollywood (CA) condo the couple picked up in March 2007 for $1,145,000 and, after more than three years on and off the market, finally unloaded in October 2012 for $865,000, at steep $270,000 loss not counting upkeep, carrying costs and real estate fees.

*Your Mama already knows that some of the children will gripe and groan about how Hancock Park is riddled with crime compared to some of the other uppity zip codes in L.A. like 90210, 90077 and 90272 but the fact is the centrally located neighborhood has always attracted its fair share of wealthy doctors, lawyers, businessman and Tinseltowners with the dough—if not the inclination—to live in one of those other, less crime-riddled zip codes. Some of the other notably named folks in Hancock Park include (but are far from limited to) actor Sean Hayes, celebrity gossip Janet Charleton, actor Matt Bomer and his publicist man-mate Simon Halls, t.v. writer/producer Shonda Rhimes, actress Kathy Bates, producer John Wells and financier Bruce Raben.

listing photos: PostRAIN Productions for Coldwell Banker