A Little New York City Floor Plan Porn

SELLER: Richard O. Ullman
LOCATION: 15 Central Park West, New York City, NY
PRICE: rumored to be $55,000,000
SIZE: 5,610 square feet, 4 bedrooms 5.5 bathrooms (plus 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom staff room)
DESCRIPTION: This spectacular terraced penthouse comprising 5,600 square feet of living space including 4 exquisitely appointed bedrooms and 6.5 marble bathrooms is located in the most prestigious building on Central Park West. The apartment features panoramic views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline and includes high ceilings, an extraordinary layout, grand proportions, magnificent entertainment spaces, the finest of finishes and exquisite architectural details throughout.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the last several months there has been much ballyhoo, brouhaha and spilled ink over a somewhat mysterious doo-plex condo at the ritzy Robert A.M. Stern designed building at 15 Central Park West in New York City rumored to be quietly listed at an astronomical asking price above $75,000,000. Perhaps some of the children have been reading the scuttlebutt about the apartment in the New York newspapers along with Your Mama.

Here's what's been happening...Back in March of 2008 a wildly wealthy pharmaceutical benefits bigwig named Richard O. Ullman forked over $23,500,000 for a 5,610 square foot unit on the 18th and 19th floors of the pre-war wannabe building that in 2007 and early 2008 was the epicenter of high-priced real estate in New York City. Financial titans like Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill bought big apartments along with famous folks like Oscar winning actor Denzel Washington, NASCAR fat cat Jeff Gordon and tantric sex practitioners Sting and Trudie Styler.

Mister Ullman, who sold his company National Prescriptions Administrators in 2002 for more than half a billion bucks, never moved into the 4 bedroom and 5.5 pooper property which also includes a staff bedroom and pooper located, natch, off the service hall. It's not, chickens, that Mister Ullman didn't move in because he caught a case of real estate cold feet after closing on the apartment but rather that he possesses a pair of ridiculously large real estate cajones. Just months after signing on the dotted line rumors started to swirl and slip down the gossip grapevine that Mister Ullman was flipping the apartment back on to the market with an unabashed and undeniably greedy asking price more than triple what he paid for the place. The two-floor terraced unit over looking Central Park didn't pop up on the open market but it was widely thought to be quietly available for a not so quiet price of $75,000,000.

If Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, it puzzles and perplexes Your Mama how Mister Ullman's real estate agent managed to muster the jaw dropping audacity to utter such an insanely large number with a straight face to other real estate agents or prospective buyers because, you know, it makes us giggle and guffaw with aghast to even think of the steel nerve it takes to buy and flip an apartment back on the market just a few months after closing at three or four times the price paid without so much as having replaced a fixture or painted a wall. Not surprisingly, the apartment languished unloved and unwanted, a lonely suite of rooms doomed to be the ass-end of many jokes and the poster child for the sort of uncurbed, unrestrained and ravenous real estate avarice that ran rampant in Manhattan the previous few years.

After months of speculation and whispering about whether the apartment really is or is not for sale and at what bank account draining price, the dee-luxe doo-plex has finally hit the open market. While listing agent Dolly Lenz, real estate über-agent and She-Ra of the 12 Blackberries, endeavors to keep the asking price an ancient Chinese secret by marking the number as "Price Upon Request," the tireless real estate writers at The New York Times recently revealed the asking price is believed by real estate insiders to be around $55,000,000 with, according to listing information, monthly fees of $8,600. It does not take any flicking of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus to see that although the (alleged) asking price is far lower than it (allegedly) used to be, it is still a ballsy, brave and hair raising number considerably more than twice what Mister Ullman paid just over one year ago.

Let's take a spin through the place to see what sort of condo Mister Ullman and Miz Lenz think is worth fifty-five million clams in a not particularly brisk market in which many of the potential buyers of trophy properties are sitting on the sidelines and keeping their purse strings tightly pulled.

After an elevator ride that does not conclude with a private landing, one passes through the front door and into a small vestibule with a coat closet on the left and a lounge and windowless powder pooper on the right. Your Mama can't imagine what use this "lounge" might have in a private apartment but in the event there is ever a line to use the terlit there is, thankfully, plenty of space to accommodate. The vestibule leads to a large foyer with a herringbone patterned wood floors and a ceiling fixture that looks suspiciously similar to the one the super installed in the rent controlled 2-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan Your Mama occupied before marrying up and moving into a downtown doo-plex with the Dr. Cooter. On the left is a sweeping staircase that rises to the private quarters and to the right a library that opens through two sets of pane-less French doors to the 1,000+ square foot terrace that runs the width of the lower floor of the apartment.

Straight through the foyer is the sizable 600 square foot living room which features a featureless fireplace and two more pane-less French doors that provide access to the terrace which rather dramatically hangs over Central Park and provides stellar views of the posh apartment towers that line Fifth Avenue and Central Park South. A second small vestibule separates the living room from the dining room and contains an actual closet as well as a booze closet for whetting one's whistle. Adjacent to the dining room and also connected to the foyer by a short hall is the kitchen/breakfast/family room which, quite frankly, isn't any bigger or more finely finished than the set up Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter have in our far less expensive crib on the West Coast. In fact, we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly and our sour-faced pussy Sugar that our kitchen is not only nicer than this one, but was also more expensive. We're not bragging children, we're saying that for $55,000,000 the kitchen ought to be knock down spectacular and this one just ain't. Beyond the kitchen is the service hall and civilized sized staff suite which, to Mister A.M. Stern's credit is actually large enough that the owner's live-in house gurl won't feel like she's stuck up in a cell at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women.

The second floor is accessible by a Norma Desmond style staircase in the foyer and, for the lazy folks, by a private elevator that lifts a person from the hallway between the foyer and the kitchen up into the upper foyer. Two family bedrooms, each with a marble encrusted private pooper, face the building's courtyard and can be seen into by anyone with eyes who happens to be living on the other side of the courtyard on an higher floor. A third bedroom, shown as a guest room on the floor plan, also offers an all marble private pooper and small closet and dressing area. A second entrance and small laundry room are tucked away near the guest room.

The master suite is comprised of an entrance hall, large bedroom with a trio of windows looking over the park, four walk-in closets, three additional closets, two marble bathrooms including one with a park view soaking tub and separate shower, and a private study/exercise room that is, the children will note, larger than the house gurl's bedroom downstairs.

The rooms are simple white boxes with wood floors that wait patiently for the owner to hire up a smart architect and a small army of nice gay decorators to work their magic. This is all well and good because, let's be honest, most ridiculously rich people often do a re-do on the fancy apartments they buy, but for fifty-five million smackers the lack of detail in this apartment is, well, inexcusable. For $55,000,000 Your Mama wants a meticulously and perfectly completed mansion in the sky that is not only move in ready with a paneled library but comes complete with on-call terlit attendants and a 24/7 ger-may chef to whip up box cakes and baby back ribs at a moment's notice. But alas...

In an effort to lighten his real estate portfolio, Mister Ullman also has a 4 bedroom, 4,415 square foot, 44th floor apartment at the Trump International on Central Park West on the market with an asking price of $18,450,000. Your Mama wishes the healthcare honcho all the luck in the world selling his high-priced pads because iffin anyone were to ask us, and of course no one did, we think he's gonna need it at these prices.

The Hooligan of English Fashion Lists East London House

SELLER: Alexander McQueen
LOCATION: Cadogan Terrace, East London, UK
PRICE: £1,700,000
SIZE: 2,957 square feet, 2-3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: The house is laid out over 4 floors offering unique features throughout which also extends to the private garden. Extremely spacious accommodation comprising fully fitted kitchen/dining room, lounge and study area, 2/3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (including wet room) and walk in dressing area. There is also a huge roof terrace offering panoramic views.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: During our convalescence over the last weekend Your Mama received a covert communique from a British bloke we'll call Benny Buttermeup who informed us that maverick fashion designer Alexander McQueen had listed his East London house with an asking price of £1,700,000, that's $2,799,849 to all us Amereecanos.

Mister McQueen, for those who do not know, comes from working class roots and as a young lad stitched garments on Saville Row for folks like Prince Charles and Mikhail Gorbachev. After a stint with Italian garmento Romeo Gigli he attended the prestigious Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design where his plucky and unexpected designs earned him the attention of influential fashionistas and led him to the top job at the esteemed House of Givenchy. After five years of causing controversy at the venerable label, Mister McQueen busted out on his own in order to free himself of any of the constraints that come with designing for an historic and grand house. And hog wild he's been ever since. Just have a look-see at his strange and heavenly Fall '09 women's collection which looks like he sent a bunch of doppelgängers of tranny trainwreck Pete Burns out on the runway in elaborately constructed fabric extravaganzas.

Mister McQueen's often controversial, sometimes shocking, always theatrical, challenging and meticulously tailored designs have caused some define him with labels like "on-fahnt tear-ee-blay" and "The Hooligan of English Fashion." We're certain that some of the children are going to whine about how impractical strange most of Mister McQueen's high fashion habiliments are, but one must keep in mind, puppies, that these are not duds one dons to ease on down to the local Applebees for an Pick 'N Pair Lunch Combo after and whittling the day away at the local outlet mall.His outlandish, idiosyncratic and showy take on frocks and frippery has earned him fashion forward fans like Björk, Japanese pop star Ayumi Hamasaki and the late, fashion dynamo Isabella Blow who rather dramatically offed herself in 2007 after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer. But we digress...

Listing information for Mister McQueen's four floor townhouse across from lively Victoria Park on Cadogan Terrace indicates it measures a spacious 2,957 square feet and provides 2 proper bedrooms (plus a third room which could be used as a bedroom) and 3 poopers including a large number on the lower ground floor (that's the basement kiddies) with something called a "wet room." We're not sure if this simply means a large shower or if this space is intended to be used for some other lurid and lascivious purpose. Perhaps not surprisingly, the interior spaces have been done up, we're told, by Tanzanian born British architect David Adjaye in a minimal and unadorned manner that stands as a stark counterpoint to Mister McQueen's typically flashy and heavily adorned clothing.

The front stoop opens to a ground floor entrance hall that serves as the central traffic hub for the entire house. To the right through a set of glass doors lies the kitchen and dining room area which offers high ceilings, bright white walls, some sort of flooring that looks like terrazzo, a fireplace and a kitchen space with winter white base cabinets and snow white counter tops that floats in the center of the space and, as sleek and clever as it is, looks to Your Mama like something at a futuristic Benihana. Behind the kitchen a spectacular set of floor to ceiling glass doors open to a small terrace that leads to the garden. Down a half flight of stairs from the kitchen/dining room is what the floor plan shows as a second kitchen. We can't conceive why a house this modestly sized would require two kitchens, but it's nice that this one also opens into the large rear garden making for easy-breezy barbecues. Down another half flight, to the lower ground floor, is a large "reception" room, the boiler room and that "wet room," which is still conjuring up images of sordid activities of the sort that makes Your Mama blush.

A half flight up from the entrance hall is an itty bitty cell-sized bedroom with an adjacent pooper the size of Your Mama's linen cabinet and believe us when we tell you our linen cabinet in not very big. Up another half flight is the main living room which has a built-in sectional sofa situation facing a fireplace flanked by built in glass shelves and with a small flat screen tee-vee screen above. The back of the built-in sectional is lined with shelves for books, knick-knacks and other paddy-whacks. The children will note the wonderfully aggressive horned lighting fixtures that Your Mama would choke a horse to have in our own dining room. (Relax, PETA people, we would not really choke a horse, it's just an expression, okay?)

Up yet another half flight of stairs is the commodious master bedroom anchored by a free floating sculptural structure that divides the sleeping area from the spacious pooper that includes a free-floating soaking tub (do we all recognize the theme here with the free floating bits and pieces?), separate shower and private cubicle for the terlit. Off to one side of the bedroom and looking out over the tree tops of Vicky Park, a walk-in and dressing room with custom built-ins houses Mister McQueen's personal wardrobe which is, generally speaking, far less extravagant than those he designs for rich fashion mavens and covetous clothes queens.

Mister McQueen's outdoor spaces include a long and narrow backyard with a modern multi-level deck with a slim channel that cuts through the deck and spills down the steps and into dark bottomed square pond (or pool or hot tub thing). The roof has been decked and planted with low maintenance plants and the sort of glass skylights that can be walked on. This is all very striking and impressive but we're concerned that privacy could be a bit of an issue if there are guests on the roof and Mister McQueen needs to use the terlit.

We won't know what Mister McQueen's real estate plans are until he rings up Your Mama to let us know, so until then we'll assume he's moving to bigger digs. Or maybe he's just bored. Y'all know how those high fashion people need constant stimulation and can (easily) get bored every 20 minutes or so.

Joey Fatone Selling His Own Private Plantantion House

SELLER: Joey Fatone
LOCATION: Kilgore Road, Orlando, FL
PRICE: $5,900,000
SIZE: 12,370 square feet, 6 bedroooms, 8 full and 4 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: "Grande Oaks," a 12,000+ sqft privately gated lakefront estate on famous Millionaire's Row. Boasts 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, 4 half baths, home theater (w/ stadium seating), office/study, game room, 10+ car garage, $1M+ resort-style pool, dock/boathouse...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After a few days off to take care of some personal matters that are none of any of y'alls bidness we're back in the saddle so to speak and starting the week by heading on down to Orlando, FL where boy bander turned television twinkle towes turned game show host Joey Fatone has listed his sprawling estate with an asking price of $5,900,000.

Mister Fatone was the baritone for the outrageously successful boy band 'N Sync which was originally created and managed by that creepy Lou Pearlman character who is currently serving 25 years in the clink for cheating investers out of three hundred million or so smackers. This was back in the day when times were simpler, when pre-teens, tweens and teens only needed to see a 5 or six freshly scrubbed and polished young men singing in harmony and spinning on their heels to be entertained. Nowadays it takes a bit more cleavage and foul language to do the trick, but that's another discussion for another day. More recently Mister Fatone has appeared on Broadway (Rent and Little Shop of Horrors), came in second place on the enormously popular but terrifically undignified Dancing With the Stars program and currently hosts The Singing Bee, whatever that is.

Property records for Mister Fatone's 4.36 acre lakefront spread on posh Kilgore Road are a bit fuzzy however it appears to our beady little eyes like Mister Fatone probably picked the place up in the August of 2001 for $2,650,000 and shortly thereafter let the cameras from MTV Cribs up in his crib to snoop around in his frige, up in his 53-foot long closet and around the grounds that include a swimming pool complex that listing information indicates cost more than a million clams to construct and makes the one at the Playboy mansion look downright ghetto.

Listing information indicates the 12,370 square foot plantation style pile, which someone has dubbed Grande Oaks, includes 6 bedrooms and 6 full poopers and another 4 half poopers. Can someone explain to Your Mama why there is an "e" at the end of the word "Grand?" Is this meant to imbue as certain kind of elegance? We hope not, because it does not. It's a silly artifice that sets Your Mama off on the wrong foot. In addition to the massive main house, the walled, gated and heavily secured spread includes a second, detached building that Your Mama presumes is the colossal 10 car garage where Mister Fatone keeps one of the KITT cars used on the kitchy 1980s boob-toob series Knight Rider which starred that funky David Hasselhoff guy. Why anyone would want to own a car like that is simply beyond Your Mama's limited capacity of understanding.

A columned portico leads to the front door which open to traditionally de-zined interiors that include a large entrance hall (the children will note how the doors or off-center which is just driving Your Mama all kinds of crazy), formal living and dining room with furniture that looks like it might have been won on the Price Is Right, a paneled office/study with ka-razee red, black and white color block shag wall to wall carpeting, a lurid red sofa, built in book cases that look like they might house all of Mister Fatone's many music awards and, somewhat upsettingly, a built in puppet theater complete with red velvet curtains and gold tasseled trim.

Other rooms, according to listing information include a 30-foot long granite slathered gore-may kitchen with dual refrigerators and ovens, a clubby, paneled home theater room with stadium seating, projection screen and surround sound. Upstairs, in addition to the 4 or 5 bedroom suites there is also a game room/bonus area with a serving bar, a couple of wide balconies for surveying the property and watching the sun sparkle on the lake or spy anyone coming down the drive, and a second laundry room so that Mister and Missus Fatone's Svetlana need not trouble herself with hauling the dirty linens down the elevator to the laundry facilities on the ground floor.

The master suite that includes it's own private entrance vestibule, a sitting room with an adjacent butler's pantry so the Fatones need not schlep down to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee or a box of late night candy, a dual-sided fireplace, a sleeping chamber with wood coffered ceiling and some pretty complicated balloon valances, the aforementioned 53-foot long closet/dressing room that features a trio of custom built dressing islands and an utterly obscene marble master bath with separate vanities and terlits, a sauna and a steam room, walk-in shower (aren't all showers walk in showers?), and a gigantic Jacuzzi tub surrounded by skinny columns that has Your Mama reaching for the nerve pills. We think perhaps the nice gay decorator might have been aiming for a Caligula meets Gone With the Wind sort of thing but honestly chickens, it's really an eye-popping sort of uglee ain't it?

The grounds include the mammoth million dollar plus swimming pool complex that includes what we think is a kiddie pool, a beach like entrance on one end and a arching bridge that leads to the grotto area where we find a large orgy friendly spa tucked into a faux-rock cave and an outdoor kitchen/entertaining area with a large grill, fireplace and what we think might be an aquarium. Jutting out into the lake is a long dock with docking facilities including a shed like thing where a small craft can be lifted up out of the water.

Who knows why Mister Fatone wants to sell his lavish and exuberantly appointed property. Perhaps he's grown tired of the water bills and maintenance which we imagine requires full time staff to mow the lawns, clips the hedges, mops the floors, scrub the 10 terlits and all sweep out that garage which is bigger than the entire home of most people. Wherever he may go, Your Mama wishes him and his a happy home.