A Big Deal in the Big D

SELLER: Larry and Joyce Lacerte
BUYER: Kelcy Warren
LOCATION: Park Lane, Dallas, TX
PRICE: rumored to be $30,000,000-ish
SIZE: 26,620 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 10 full and 6 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: A big estate in Preston Holler

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In an era when foreclosures, falling home prices, and real estate doom and gloom is the order of the day, it's easy to forget that a lot of rich people are still filthy, stinking, vaingloriously rich and tossing big money around on palatial properties like it was 2005. One such Daddy Warbucks is Texas energy executive Kelcy Warren who recently forked over a spectacular amount of money for the undeniably lavish and architecturally dignified Dallas, TX estate of software tycoon Larry Lacerte and his wifey Joyce.

Your Mama first learned of the tremendous transaction from dee-voon Dallas real estate gossip Candy Evans who spilled the juicy beans about the purchase back on June 17. According to information provided to the enviably well informed Miss Candy, the 8.7 acre estate on posh Park Lane in the pricey Preston Holler* area of Dallas was first quietly shopped around last year with a hair raising asking price of $45,00,000. That rumored figure was reportedly reduced to a still hair raising $40,000,000. Then, according to Miss Candy, along comes Warbucks Warren who is believed to have dropped somewhere around $30,000,000 for the property. If true, and we have no reason to believe it is not because Miss Candy does not fool around with her facts, the sale would represent the largest amount of money ever paid for a pad in Old Preston Holler.

Texans proudly declare that, "Everything is Bigger in Texas" and children if y'all have ever been to Texas–and Your Mama most surely has–then you know them sun-kissed tawny Texans love them some big trucks, big churches, big hair, and big bank accounts. At a boo-teek hotel-sized 26,620 square feet, the Lacerte/Warren mansion certainly lives up to that beloved stereotype. Property records show the English-y, ivy covered and multi-winged monster-manse was built in 1992 and includes garaging for 12 cars, 6 bedrooms and 16 terlits** divided among 10 full and 6 half poopers. Have mercy. Your Mama hopes the Warrens get on the telephone to a reputable domestic employment agency right quick because they are going to be in serious need an army of minimum wage gurls to keep all those beds made and terlit bowls dinner plate clean. They will also, presumably, require a busload of well-coiffured and tight-panted nice gay decorators to be up in their new crib spending their money on the sort of swagged drapery, 18th century commodes, porcelain snuff boxes, Fabrege doodads and Louis the Something gewgaws that will make their new money look old.

Unfortunately we know precious few details about the interior spaces of the monster mansion, but there are reportedly loads of elaborate carved woodwork, cast hardware and hand-cut stone, natch. According to Miss Candy's report, the recreation facilities include a racquetball court, an exercise room, a wine cellar and tasting room, a bowling alley, tennis court, a children's play ground, a damn baseball diamond with a lighted scoreboard, a small lake, an orange conservatory next to the interlocking Koi ponds where it is rumored the Lacertes kept more than a million clams worth of Koi and, hold on to your britches kids, a near-Olympic-sized natatorium with adjacent locker rooms. A natatorium! Good grief.

After checking around with a couple of Your Mama's peeps in the Big D we learned that word on the real estate gossip grapevine down Dallas way is that Mister Warren is carrying a fourteen million dollar mortgage on the property. We can not confirm that figure but just thinking about a fourteen million dollar mortgage makes Your Mama need a damn nerve pill.

Preston Holler is one of Dallas' finer and most expensive neighborhoods where many of the swank streets are lined with mansions that make Beverly Hills look like the damn ghetto. The Holler is home to Texas bigwigs like H. Ross Perot, T. Boone Pickens, Mark Cuban, actor Luke Wilson and of course, our esteemed former president George W. Bush and his librarian ladee-mate Laura.

*Your Mama is well aware that the neighborhood is called Preston HollOW and not Preston HollER, but we like saying Holler.

**Since there was no official listing for the property, these figures are from public property records and may or may not reflect an accurate count of bedrooms and poopers.

A Little News About Neverland

According to a well-timed article in the Wall Street Journal, in the months preceding the untimely but not entirely shocking death of Michael Jackson–be honest people, he hadn't looked healthy 10 years–Neverland Ranch was being cleaned up, fixed up and readied for sale by Colony Capital, the real estate investment company that acquired the gigantic Los Olivos, CA estate last year in some sort of joint effort with Mister Jackson to save the property from foreclosure.

Mister Jackson purchased the 2,600 acre property with it's 13,000 square foot Tudor style main house back in 1987 and proceeded to build his own private wonderland that was really more State Fair than private residence.

Since vacating the property in the aftermath of his last child molestation trial in 2005, the zoo has been emptied out, the carnival rides removed and the contents of the house and his personal property catalogued for a highly publicized exhibition and auction that was cancelled at the last minute due to an agreement between the auction house and Mister Jackson's camp.

The status of the objects is in question but it has been reported (somewhere but we don't recall where) that they are (allegedly) in the possession of Mister Jackson's self-proclaimed spokesman and manager Dr. Tohme R. Tohme (who is not a doctor of any kind) and is not the actual physician who lived with Mister Jackson in his $100,000 per month leased mansion in the Holmby Hills. However, if Michael Jackson's history tells us anything, we should expect that (not a) Dr. Tohme will seek to turn a buck from Mister Jackson's belongings and claim it's for the children.

What will become of Neverland Ranch now is any one's guess but, crass as it may be to say out loud, money is money and Your Mama would bet everything we have the good people at Colony Capital, who reportedly think the property is worth in excess of $70,000,000, will make every effort to cash in on their investment in any way can.

Hold on to your boots children, because it's going to get ugly.

Hunky Jason Statham Lists Sexy Hollywood Condo

SELLER: Jason Statham
LOCATION: N. Vine Street, Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $1,395,000
SIZE: 2,140 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Simply the BEST & largest unit in one of the most architecturally significant buildings on W. coast. This *CELEBRITY OWNED* Uber chic loft featrs exquisite upgrades inc. Viking applncs & island, dsgnr bthrms, hrdwd floor, hand carpentered closet & pantry. ONLY the 8th floor features over sized windows to gaze directly at the sparkling lights at Sunset beneath the Hollywood sign nestled behind the iconic Capital records building from your living room, a loft and home that defines sophistication.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday, just before receiving word that Michael "The White Lady" Jackson passed to the other side, Your Mama heard from Mr. Smiley who directed our nosey eyeballs towards a "celebrity owned" condominium in at The Broadway Hollywood building listed for $1,395,000.

Not to toot our own horn or anything but it took Your Mama all of 47 seconds to figure out that the 8th floor loft-condo is owned by British born action flick actor Jason Statham who property records reveal bought the 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom unit in June of 2008 for $1,543,515 which means if our bejeweled abacus is correct, even if Mister Statham gets full price (and that is quite unlikely in today's market) he's take a loss of nearly $150,000.

Mister Statham, a former Olympic springboard diver and moe-dell, has appeared in a long list of films starting with ex-Mister Madonna's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the suggestively named Snatch and Revolver. He went on to make a slew of other cinematic gemstones that Your Mama confesses we've never seen nor heard of and, as per his IMDB reh-zoo-may, he is currently a hot property in Tinseltown with three films in production, another announced and two more in development. No wonder he's selling his starter condo...he's probably moving on up to something more worthy of his shooting star.

Let's leave alone the listing agent's loud declaration that the apartment is "CELBRITY OWNED" and move beyond the listing's high-larious hyperbole ("one of the most architecturally significant buildings on the W coast?" Really? It's a nice building, but really? On the entire wes coast?) and try to see the 2,140 square foot apartment for what it is.

The lofty corner unit centers around a large living room area with a wall of tall windows that looks down on gritty Hollywood Boulevard where if you look hard enough you can still find a street walker or two, over the cylindrical Capital Records buildings–which might actually be of the most architecturally significant buildings on the W coast–and towards the famed Hollywood sign. The living room is defined and anchored by colossal snow white sectional sofa wraps around a low, white coffee table both of which sit on a white shag rug. It all looks very "sexy" and lounge-like but, much as we can appreciate a white sofa, this is not a set up that would work well in Your Mama's house because we know deep in our snarky soul that our sassy house gurl Svetlana would rather light that shit on fire than try to keep it clean.

The kitchen has all the right appliances and a large (stainless steel?) island for slicing, dicing, chopping and mixing, but the dramatic mood lighting is really quite silly. Yes chickens, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have indirect lighting in our cookery too, but this kitchen looks like it's trying way to hard to be some sort of velvet rope nightclub rather than a place to boil up some pasta and make a damn tuna sandwich.

At least one of the two "bedrooms" is nothing but a doorless cubby off the living room which means that every passed gas, deep breath or rustle of the sheets can be heard by any and everyone else in the apartment. This is fine if you live alone and bring a plastic titted bimbo or two home every now and then from the too trendy Philippe Starck designed sushi joint Katsuya on the ground floor, but what happens when your damn mother comes for a visit? Larhd have mercy it gives Your Mama the chills up and down our fat back just to think of that.

The master bathroom, a black and white and mirrored cliché of pooper glamour, includes two sinks, shiny black counter tops, a separate tub and shower and acts as passage to a fully customized and fitted walk in closet/dressing room. Custom kitted walk-in closets are always a nice feature but Your Mama is concerned that there is not a window in the bathroom because no matter how powerful that electric vent in the cieling is, the crap smell will still creep into the closet and attach itself to clothes and shooz. Not pretty.

While living up in a condo in the heart of Hollywood is not appealing to many Angelenos any more than that shacking up above Times Square is the residential dream of many New Yorkers, the 10 story Broadway Hollywood building, built in 1927 and used originally as the B.. Dyas Specialty Emporium, is a designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (#664) and does offer residents original architectural details and (for better or worse) Kelly Wearstler designed common areas as well as a number of desirable amenities such as valet parking, a fitness center and a swimming pool, spa, sun deck, outdoor fireplace and lounging cabanas up on the roof. It's unclear if the building has a 24/7 doorman, but it should if it don't, okay?

The Broadway Hollywood building opened its doors amid a thunderstorm hype and hoopla at the tail end of the real estate run up in Los Angeles and the frenzy (and some say marketing ploy) brought a lot of big name buyers to the building including Victoria Secret model Emma Henning, the nice gay decorator with the over-processed hair Kenneth Brown (who had been tyring to sell or lease his unit), Charlize Theron, Jack Osbourne, designer Sami Hayek (that would be Salma's brother), Danny Masterson and and that seemingly washed up ladees man Wilmer Valderama. It's unclear to Your Mama is any of these people actually occupy these apartments or if they were "purchased" as investments.

Property records show young Mister Statham also owns a house up on Rising Glen Road in Los Angeles that he bought in June of 2005 for $2,400,000 as well as on ocean front crib in the super celeb friendly and guard gated Malibu Colony that was purchased just a few days ago (in June of 2009) and which we'll discuss at greater length when we have a few minutes.