Jesse Tyler Ferguson Buys Los Feliz Casa

BUYER: Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,450,000
SIZE: 4,926 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Four-time Emmy nominated Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson—always the Emmy bridesmaid never the bride—married his slender, swarthy, and scruffy-faced man-friend, Justin Mikita, in July (2013) in a downtown New York City ceremony officiated by legendary playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner and attended to by a small flotilla of Showbiz types.

Like so many other rich and/or famous newly-wedded heterosexuals, the happy couple soon sought a new nest. We'd heard word through the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine they peeped properties deep in the spiritual heart of the San Fernando Valle but it wasn't until Yolanda Yakketyyak and Lucy Spillerguts both snitched to Your Mama that Misters Ferguson and Mikita—or is it the Misters Ferguson-Mikita now?—coughed up $4,550,000 for an updated and well preserved Spanish Colonial Revival residence with a celebrity pedigree in a star-studded pocket of L.A.'s Los Feliz neighborhood.

Rock star power-pair Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale bought the house in 1998 for $1,375,000 and sold it in April 2007 for $4,795,000 to two-time Emmy nominated television writer/producer Mark Brazill (3rd Rock From the Sun, That 70s Show). They moved, in case y'all don't know to to a gated community in the Beverly Hills Post Office where they spent $14 million on a large modern mansion previously owned by J.Lo.

Mister Brazill, bless his heart, caught an immediate and raging case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and, just a month after he bought it, flipped the property back on the market with an asking price of $4.885 million. Sadly for Mister Brazill, it took a number of price chops before, finally, in October 2009, he managed to unload the property for $3,995,000, a heart-stopping $800,000 loss not counting carrying costs, improvements, upkeep and real estate fees.

The buyers, according to property records were artist Bill Nelson and Lara Merriken, the latter the entrepreneurial creator of the Lärabar snack bar. Mister Nelson and Miz Merriken, according to digital marketing materials, made a long list of crucial restorations and renovations (i.e. new tile roof with copper gutters and custom swimming pool tiles) before they listed the the property in March (2103) with an asking price of $5,195,000.

A long, gated driveway sweeps up and across the steep slope in front of the house that listing details show was originally built in the late 1920s and is currently configured with four bedrooms and four (or maybe 4.5) bathrooms in 4,926 square feet.

It takes a full flight of exteriors stairs to get from  the motor court and front-facing three car garage to an unexpectedly large, Mexican paver-tiled terrace with a perfectly lovely sky view over the thick and mature tree tops that provide the gated and fortified mini-estate with visual privacy from the street and surrounding homes. An antique, carved wood door leads into a grand, rotunda-type foyer that is sure to impress guests and the hunky FedEx delivery man both with paver-tile floors inset with shiny black tiles; a vintage light fixture that is either original to the house or looks like it could be; a dramatic, Norma Desmond-worthy curved staircase with swirly wrought iron banister; and a hand-painted, exposed wood ceiling.

We don't care so much for the parquet flooring in the cavernous formal living room—it seem out of character for this room—but we are otherwise down down down with the the rest of the room that features a voluminous, 25-foot exposed wood ceiling; a barely-adorned carved stone (or possibly but hopefully not poured concrete) fireplace; and French doors with terraces access and a super-sized arched window with side garden view. Tucked into a tight cranny between the curve of the staircase in the foyer and the living room there's a downright clever and fully-wood paneled office nook or writing room or whatever.

There's a tall, barrel-vaulted ceiling and snowflake-patten tile floor in the library and in the spacious formal dining room there a paneled coffered ceiling finished with pretty-nearly the exact same if less chatoyant rich and reddish brown tone as the wood floors. The children will note the rich and reddish brown wood floor in the dining room is the fourth—and not the last—floor treatment on the main living level but, thankfully, the wood floors in the dining room extend into the sunny breakfast room as well as into the kitchen itself, a high-end country-style affair with industrial-style stainless steel appliances, marble counter tops and a pair of huge and chunky woodblock center islands set end to end for maximum snack and prep space.

A fifth floor material/pattern presents itself as oatmeal-colored wall-to-wall carpeting in the partly-paneled family room that does double duty as a screening room with a projection system and large screen that drops out of the ceiling at the touch of a button or a flip of the switch or whatever mechanism it is.

Three family bedrooms on the second floor share a single hall bathroom while the reasonably roomy master suite has space for a sitting area in the bedroom plus a small private balcony, dual closets, and a renovated master bathroom with lots of arches and a spine straightening groin vaulted ceiling.

The .55 acre, street-to-street lot has numerous patios, terraces, balconies, and courtyards as well as an outdoor fireplace, a terraced swimming pool and spa with custom tile work, a raised vegetable garden, a yoga pavilion—it's L.A., after all, and a decked perch at the top of the property with long views over the trees towards the Pacific in the far off distance.

Some of Mister Ferguson and Mister Mikita's new, high-profile neighbors include comedic actress Kirstie Alley, Weeds and Orange Is The New Black creator/writer Jenji Kohan, and Red Hot Chili Pepper Michael "Flea" Balzary. Until recently Twilight heartthrob Rob Pattinson lived on the same street but he's since decamped for rented digs in the same Beverly Hills Post Office enclave where Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale live and has his lavishly landscaped house on the open market for $6,750,000.

Eagle-eyed celebrity real estate watchers may recall that it was only just a bit more than three years ago that ginger-haired and usually bearded Mister Ferguson shelled out $759,000 for a compact two bedroom and one bathroom Spanish bungalow in the Silver Lake area. The fate of the bungalow is as yet unknown...at least to Your Mama. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

listing photos: PostRain Productions for Sotheby's International Realty

Monday Mash Up

Ever wonder what the inside of pixieish fashion designer (and season four Project Runway winner) Christian Siriano's New York City walk-up nest looks like? Well, kiddies, wonder no more.  (New York Times)

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Everybody knows by now that Madonna recently sold her Beverly Hills residence to a Wall Street tycoon but did y'all know that the buyer—at least according to Your Mama's well-connected informants—ever-so-briefly owned and recently sold Tyler Perry's former über-modern mansion at the tippy-top of the Bird Streets 'hood? As was quipped by real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak: "From Madea's house to Madonna's"

In other Madonna-related real estate news, the middle-aged Material Girl is full steam ahead with the custom-construction of an 8 bedroom mansion in Da Hamptons. (New York Post)

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New York City real estate honcho Howard Lorber—he's the chairman of the sprawling Douglas Elliman real estate brokerage—listed his seven-bedroom mansion in Southampton with an asking price of $18.5 million. Meanwhile, his real estate broker son, Michael, who appeared for one season on Million Dollar Listing (New York) recently unloaded his own sixth-floor condo-crib at the Grand Beekman building in Midtown Manhattan for an (as yet) undisclosed amount. The apartment had been listed for $2.79 million. (The Real Deal)

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Two-time Oscar-nominated Tinseltowner Mark Wahlberg recently completed construction on a 30,000 square foot faux-chateau in the guard-gated Beverly Park community that, despite its home theater, wine cellar and double-height paneled library, its architect, mega-mansion specialist Richard Landry, described as '"a good traditional family house with no craziness to it.'" No offense, but beotch, pleeze. (The Hollywood Reporter)

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Conservative pundit and blogger Matt Drudge of the eponymous and popular Drudge Report sold house on Rivo Alto Island in Miami Beach for $1.575 million a FedEx executive. Mister Drudge owns a nearly 10-acre, two-parcel spread about 35 miles from South Beach. (exMiami via The Real Deal)

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The asking price of Casa de Shenandoah, Las Vegas crooner Wayne Newton's former Sin City ranch, was dramatically slashed from its original and wildly optimistic $70 million to a still sky-high $48 million. (Realtor.com)

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High-tech billionaire Elon Musk—he's the co-founder of Tesla Motors and Pay Pal—paid $6.75 million for a fixer-upper ranch house perched above the Bel Air Country Club in Los Angeles. The house was once the long-time home of two-time Oscar-nominated actor Gene Wilder and happens to be right across the street from the much more grand 20,000+ square foot mansion Mister Musk purchased earlier this year for $17,000,000. (Trulia Luxe Living)

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A large estate in L.A.'s rustically swank Mandeville Canyon that was leased by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2009 and later rented by media tycoon Peter Chernin while his Santa Monica residence was being remodeled recently and quietly sold for $12.9 million. The buyers, swears Yolanda Yakketyyak, are hedge fund founder Sean Fahey and wife Robin Luce. Mister Fahey and Miz Luce are well known to L.A.-oriented architecture buffs and real estate-o-philes as the couple who, in 2010, paid $6.2 million for the avant-garde Bart Prince-designed Lever/Morgenthaler House in Malibu that they hoped to raze and replace with much more conventional mock-Med mini-mansion. (After much protestation and petition signing by a number of high-profile Malibu residents the Fahey-Luces decided to remodel the house to better suit the needs of their family.) Anyways...

The seller of the Mandeville Canyon estate, we've been told by several sources, was Seattle-based billionaire John McCaw, Jr. who purchased the 5.3-ish acre, horse-friendly spread and its 1930s Monterey Colonial mansion in 2003 for, according to Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, about $16 million. Mister McCaw Jr. had the estate on and off the market since at least the summer of 2008 at a variety of prices that went as high as $28.5 million but, in the end, took a punishing $3+ million loss, not counting carrying costs, upkeep, improvements and real estate fees. Yolanda also swears that she has it on "unimpeachable top-notch authority" that the couple plan to "bulldoze the old beotch" and build anew.

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And, finally, just for shits and giggles, The Telegraph takes a fun look at the declining desirability of The Bishops Avenue, a storied, mile-long street in North London lined with largely unoccupied mega-mansions owned by a long-list of (nouveau riche) international billionaires with insatiable taste for excessive residential luxuries.

Real Estate Baller Jim Jannard Buys Malibu Mini-Ranch

BUYER: James "Jim" Jannard
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $2,515,000
SIZE: 11 acres, 3,256 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Well-connected real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak recently snitched to Your Mama that multi-billionaire businessman and fast up-and-coming Los Angeles-based real estate baller James "Jim" Jannard has added yet another property to his already over-stuffed portfolio of private residences, an 11-acre mini-ranch in the mountains above Malibu that he quietly picked up last month for $2,515,000.

Mister Jannard, now in his mid-sixties, is nothing if not a hard-charging entrepreneur who founded the Oakley sunglasses and athletic-wear empire in the 1970s that he took public in the mid-90s and sold to global eye wear conglomerate Luxottica in 2007 for $2.1 billion in cash. (He remains a significant shareholder in the company.) In 2005 Mister Jannard founded the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company,* an outfit that has elephantine showbiz industry dreams but primarily manufactures high-end digital cinema cameras used to make movies such as David Fincher's The Social Network, Steven Soderbergh's Che, Peter Jackson's Oscar-nominated action flick District 9, and the Baz Lurhman extravaganza The Great Gatsby. In 2010 Red acquired the old Ren-Mar studio complex in Hollywood and re-named it Red Studios Hollywood; According to the studio's website Weeds and True Blood are taped there.

A gated, tree-lined driveway extends deep into the center of the semi-remote Lucky Ranch before it wraps itself tightly around a mature specimen tree in front of the main residence, a 1950s split level rancharoo that at some point was updated in a non-specific and uninspired architectural style.

Listing information indicates the main house has three bedrooms and three bathrooms in 3,256 square feet and a separate, self-contained two-bedroom guest house offers guests or domestic staff their own living room and kitchen plus a bonus room and bathroom.

Listing photographs show the main house, reasonably luxurious if largely outdated, has wood floors throughout the common living areas, tile in the bathrooms, and wall-to-wall carpeting in the bedrooms. There are vaulted and sometimes clerestory-lit exposed wood ceilings and at least two river rock fireplaces, one in the formal living room and one in the family room. Given Mister Jannard's apparent predilection for grandiose dwellings Your Mama expects the existing abode will be transformed (or replaced) by an accomplished and well-compensated team of smart architects and lady and/or nice-gay decorators.

In addition to the fairly rudimentary equestrian facilities—lean to stable, paddock, and whatnot—the mini-ranch's backyard amusements include meandering flagstone terraces and pathways, built-in barbecue and fire pit areas, a rock- and waterfall-ringed pebble-bottom swimming pool and spa, and organic gardens with a variety of fruit and nut trees.

The horse ranch isn't so convenient to grocery outlets or, besides Malibu and Vine, dining establishments but for Mister Jannard it is but a short if windy, 5.5-mile drive up Decker Canyon from the unapologetically epic, bluff-top estate in Malibu that Mister Jannard purchased from billionaire money man and fellow real estate baller Howard Marks last year in a hair-curling deal that property records show went down for $74.5 million.**

The full extent of Mister Jannard's bulging property portfolio isn't known to Your Mama but we do know that his holdings in Malibu are only the tip of his real estate iceberg. He also owns a handful of properties in the San Juan Islands archipelago in Washington State that includes (but are probably not limited to) a 9-ish acre waterfront estate on Orca Island, a substantially larger waterfront camp on neighboring Crane Island and, a few miles away, the entirety of the 516-acre Spieden Island that he picked up in 1997 for $22 million.

Spieden is not, as it turns out, the only private island owned by Mister Jannard. A few years ago the land hoovering billionaire scooped up the islands of Kaibu and Vatu Vara near Fiji. He's reportedly developing an upscale boutique resort on Kaibu that will, no doubt, only be affordable to those with super-sized incomes or exceedingly high credit card limits.

Back in the United States Mister Jannard owns a number of properties in the excessively pricey Pelicans developments in Newport Coast (Orange County); a nearly 14,000 square foot contemporary mansion in a swanky gated community at the western edge of Las Vegas that he picked up in 2008 for $11.5 million; and two supremely located properties in the trendy and spendy Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills, one he bought in October 2010 for $5.2 million and the other he picked up in the late-December 2009 for $19.9 million. In classic baller style the latter residence, a crab shaped mid-century modern, has been razed to make way for a much larger residence.

*Mister Jannard, who has faced some pretty stiff criticism from industry insiders over his digital cameras, recently stepped back from his lead role at Red.

**Mister and Missus Marks purchased the bulk of the 10+ acre estate they they sold to Mister Jannard in 2002 for about $31 million from the estate of deceased Herbalife tycoon Mark Hughes who died in the house from some sort of sleeping pill overdose or something in May, 2000.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty