Floor Plan Porn for the New Year: 834 Fifth Avenue

Among the dozen or so white glove co-operative apartment houses that rank among New York City's most expensive and hardest to gain access to, staid, stodgy and solid as a rock 834 Fifth Avenue is the cream of the real estate crop.

The somber and pedigreed pre-war dowager at 834 Fifth Avenue was designed by the much lauded and applauded architect Rosario Candela and erected in 1931 on the corner of East 64th Street directly across the street from the entrance to the Central Park Zoo. The understated and architecturally confident 16 story limestone clad building has a three story rusticated base, a garden courtyard, and just 24 sumptuous and spacious apartments–many of them doo-plexes–serviced by round the clock doormen, concierge and elevator operators.

The imposing building, occupied over the years by some of the hoitiest of New York's toitiest, is on par with other hideously expensive and oddly clannish apartment houses such as 4 E. 66th Street where young hedge hog Chase Coleman paid $36,500,000 to buy the former full floor residence of financially embattled super-socialite Veronica Hearst in July of 2008 and 998 Fifth Avenue where booze heir Matthew Bronfman paid $18,000,000 for former home of the dee-voon Anne Slater in late 2007 and where property mad oil and copper billionaire Len Blavatnik paid $27,500,000 for a fourth floor spread in January of 2007.

As with many of the priciest and aristocratic co-operative buildings in Manhattan, turnover at 834 Fifth Avenue tends towards painfully slow. Since 2005, there have been just three apartments on the open market and a total of six (recorded) sales. 834 Fifth Avenue, sugar beets, is not for the financially feint of heart or–since the building allows no financing of purchases–the cash strapped. If Your Mama busts out our bejeweled abacus and flicks the well worn beads around a bit we discover that the amount of money that changed hands at 834 in the last 5 or 6 years totals a bone shattering $161,644,500 with an average sale price of $26,940,000.

There were two (off-market) sales at 834 Fifth Avenue in 2010 and a third apartment–a high floor doo-plex apartment owned by 21-time Tony Award winning Broadway producer Harold Prince and his wife Judy–remains up for sale where it has lingered and languished since it was first heaved on to the (open) market in September of 2009 with an knee buckling and bank account busting asking price of $33,000,000.

By November of 2010 three chops had brought the asking price of Mister and Missus Prince's two-floor residence down to $24,900,000. Shortly thereafter the apartment was de-listed and ten days later, in late December of 2010, the 11-room doo-plex was re-listed with a new listing agent at the old $24,900,000 asking price.
Listing information and the floor plan (above) show the 11-room apartment, formerly owned by make-up maven Elizabeth Arden, measures (approximately) 4,750 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers plus multi-level staff quarters that contain another two bedrooms and two poopers.

Some of the children may need a nerve pill to quell the shock and awe when they learn that no financing is allowed for purchased at 834 Fifth Avenue and the monthly maintenance for Mister and Missus Prince's fit-for-a-prince pad runs $16,442 per month. A few quick flicks of the beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's a mood altering $197,304 per year.

Floor plan information included with listing shows the stately but not uncomfortably or ostentatiously vast high floor apartment has a much-desired-by-the-rich-and-famous private elevator vestibule. A less than optimal and paltry pair of rooms (plus a terrace) directly face Fifth Avenue and Central Park. On the lower floor the park facing room is a long and narrow solarium that opens to the west facing terrace and upstairs it's the corner master bedroom. The master pooper, it should be noted, also has a spectacular vista of the park from the terlit.

The bulk of the apartment runs down East 64th Street and at least a few of the rooms, we imagine, have oblique park views. The state of the art kitchen complex includes a big butler's pantry, a second, walk-in sized pantry and a small terrace for smoking a pre- and/or post-meal preparation doobie. Behind the kitchen and just off the service entry, staff quarters spread over three floors include one decent sized bedroom with a windowed private pooper on the lowest floor, a mezzanine level mechanical space, and on the second floor a second cell-sized bedroom, large laundry room and another pooper, also a window.

The second floor can be accessed either via the narrow back stair in the domestic staff area or by ascending the dramatic curving staircase in the entry. A powder pooper tucked discreetly under the stairs has not just one but two windows. Do the children see why this Mister Candela guy is the bees knees when it comes to thoughtful and elegant apartments?

The master bedroom sits immediately off the upper landing and has over sized windows that reach almost to the floor, a wall of closets plus a walk-in dressing room and the aforementioned park view private pooper. Each of the two secondary bedrooms, both situated down a long hall and well away from the master bedroom, has at least one walk-in closet and private terliting facilities.

Listing information indicates the sale includes three separate storage rooms.
In January of 2009, the heirs and attorneys (or whomever) for Missus Araxia M. Buckhantz–a cousin of eccentric Armenian born petroleum potentate Nubar Gulbenkian–listed her 13 room spread with an asking price of $30,000,000. The palatial simplex unit, according to listing information from that time, shows the apartment has 12-foot ceilings, three terraces, 4 fireplaces, a library paneled in 18th century George II pine and a 37-foot long living room with George III paneling.

The apartment was listed on the (open) market for less than one month before it was put into contract and in mid-March the sale was recorded for $29,000,000. Property records show the buyer was Loews movie theater heiress Laurie Tisch. Miz Tisch made recent real estate news in early December of 2010 when it was reported here, there and everywhere that celebrity house hunters Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick were interested in purchasing her clumsily laid out 8-bedroom doo-plex apartment at 88 Central Park West. The reports were denied. Make of that what you will.

The children will take note of several special tidbits about the Buckhantz/Tisch spread. First of all, observe that there are only two bedrooms in this $29,000,000 apartment and that both bedrooms face east to take advantage of the morning sun. This arrangement leaves more than 100-feet of park view frontage used to best advantage for the living room, solarium, library and formal dining room all of which have access to one of the apartment's two enviable terraces.

A bedroom sized pantry separates the dining room from the kitchen. Note, bunnies, that in addition to the bedroom-sized pantry that joins the formal dining room to the kitchen, Mister Candela also provided a convenient connection from the kitchen to the entrance gallery by way of a closet lined hallway. Behind the kitchen three unforgivably small staff rooms share one pooper and surround a "servant's hall" where, apparently, the domestics are supposed to eat dinner and watch tee-vee when they're not dusting knick-knacks and scrubbing terlits.

Two more items of significance that earn Mister Candela a standing ovation: Firstly, the floor plan master managed to locate every terliting and bathing facility in the apartment where they could have a window for ventilation. Even the staff crapper has a window and the powder pooper off the entrance gallery even has a multi-million dollar view of Central Park. Secondly, live in domestics around the world will appreciate that Mister Candela provided direct access to the servant's hall from the service elevator. This astute arrangement allows the maids and man servants to sneak out and sneak paramours into their private quarters for a little slap and tickle without the master(s) of the house being any the wiser.

One of the more recent transfers at 834 Fifth Avenue was in April of 2009 when Cuban born billionaire and Bill Clinton crony Paul Cejas and his wife Gertie put their fifth floor apartment on the (open) market with an asking price of $18,500,000. By September (2009) the asking price has sunk to $16,500,000 and in May of 2010 the rambling, 10-room apartment sold for $15,000,000 to a Swiss tycoon by the name of Maurice Amon whose fortune derives in great part from the sale of the ink used to print much of the world's bank notes.
Listing and floor plan information (above) shows the 10-room residence has a cute little octagonal foyer, an old-fashioned cloak room, living room sized entrance gallery and monthly maintenance charges of $10,335. The 28-foot long park facing formal living room has 11 and some foot ceilings, intricate dentil moldings and a wood burning marble fireplace. The adjacent mahogany paneled library has built-in bookshelves, a walk-in closet and a pooper with a park view. Original plans for this apartment available on the Avery Architectural Fine Arts Library show the current library was originally planned as the master bedroom which explains, perhaps, why current floor plan information shows a bee-day in large bathroom off the library.

The bedroom wing has a wide corridor lined with walk-in closets and each of the two east-facing bedrooms has a private pooper. A long butler's pantry with built-in breakfast banquette connects the public rooms to the kitchen–which is, we regret to inform, also the laundry room–and the three-room staff suite and pooper at the extreme rear of the property.

Other recent recorded sales in the building include several apartments that appear to have traded without ever appearing on the open market. In April of 2010, San Francisco based Levi Strauss heiress Miriam Haas laid out $12,500,000 to buy a petite penthouse apartment on the 15th floor from San Francisco based financial services bigwig Charles Schwab and his wife Helen.

In the spring of 2007 the trustees of the estate of long time resident Jeanette Solomon put her 8-room spread on the 9th floor of 834 Fifth Avenue on the market with an asking price of $16,500,000. A bidding war drove up the sale price to a staggering $27,700,000. The new owners: Charles and Helen Schwab.

Loida Lewis–the high-powered Filipino widda of African American billionaire bizness baron Reginald Lewis–hoisted her gigantic doo-plex apartment at 834 Fifth Avenue on the market in 2006 with an asking price of $45,000,000, a dumbfounding number later reduced to a still stunning $39,500,000. According to previous reports, the apartment has a 640-square foot living room that overlooks Central Park (as does the master bedroom), 7.5 poopers, 4 wood burning fireplaces and a "restaurant kitchen." Mister and Missus Lewis, it should be noted, were the first “people of color to own an apartment in a ‘Good Building’ on Fifth Avenue,” according to the writer Steven Gaines, author of real estate must reads The Sky's the Limit and Philistines at the Hedgerow.

Mister and Missus Lewis purchased their palatial pad at 834 Fifth Avenue in 1992 from automotive executive John Delorean who had acquired the apartment from Gregg Dodge Moran, a showgirl turned socialite who married into the Detroit Dodges and who reportedly paid just $225,000 for the apartment. Missus Dodge Moran, it may amuse the children to know, briefly owned the 23,000 square foot Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, CT, the one-time estate of the Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley that was sold in 2010 for $35,000,000 to an unknown buyer.

Anyhoo, Missus Lewis unloaded her big ol' doo-plex at 834 in October of 2007. According to property records and previous reports, cell phone service honcho Mark Rachesky (Leap Wireless) and his wife Jill paid a milk curdling $33,444,500 for the apartment.

The biggest deal to ever go down at 834–and still one of the highest prices ever paid for a cooperative apartment in Manhattan–was in May of 2005 went media magnate Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng shelled out an astonishing $44,000,000 for Laurance Rockefeller's 20-room triplex penthouse that reportedly has monthly maintenance charges of around $25,000 per month.

Other residents with recognizable names at 834 Fifth Avenue include (but are not limited to) a couple of heirs of the Johnson & Johnson fortune (that would be Christopher and his brother Robert "Woody" Johnson who live next door to each other), philanthropist, haute couture queen and high society doyenne Carroll McDaniel Portago Carey-Hughes Pistell Petrie who once lived on the 5th floor and now lives in Pauline Pitt designed digs on the 10th floor, Eugenie and John Radziwell (he's the son of Jackie Kennedy's sister Lee's onetime huzband Prince Stanislas Radziwell), mergers and acquisitions specialist Joe Roby and wifey Hilppa who bought their 15-room spread in 1997 for $12,000,000, famously fat living former "King of Wall Street" John Gutfreund and his very social wife Susan whose live primarily in a plush Parisian apartment they put up for sale in 2010 but still maintain an opulent Henri Samuel designed 16-room apartment at 834 Fifth Avenue that measures in at a hefty hefty hefty 12,000 square feet.

Also in residence at 834, Greek shipping tycoon George and Lita Livanos who own a low floor doo-plex and who also once owned a maisonette in the building where they housed their children and staff, Bing Crosby's son Harry who lives in a maisonette unit formerly owned by Richard and Honey Berlin, the parents of portly Andy Warhol superstar Brigid Berlin, and Judith and Alfred Taubman, shopping mall magnate and former head of Sotheby's who did 7 months in the pokey in 2002-3 for a price-fixing scheme between Sotheby's and rival auction house Christie's and who reportedly have an apartment filled with Modiglianis, Renoirs and Monets. Until recently billionaire biznessman Leslie Wexner (The Limited brands) and his wife Abigail owned a 16-room six-bedroom doo-plex once owned by Rupert Murdoch (who, as mentioned above, traded up for the titanic triplex penthouse in 2007), but a report from early December of 2010 in the New York Observer reveals that the doo-plex–shopped off market for $60,000,000 then dropped to $34,000,000–has been purchased by an unknown buyer.

photo (top): Property Shark
floor plans: Redfin

New Desert Digs for Steven Seagal

BUYER: Steven Seagal
LOCATION: Scottsdale, AZ
PRICE: $3,500,000
SIZE: 8,450 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Martial artist turned action film actor turned law enforcement officer turned reality show eccentric Steven Seagal is on a multi-state real estate merry go round.

Mister Seagal doesn't factor much into the Tinseltown two step anymore his Hollywood heyday being in the late 1980s and 90s when he shook his money maker as the good looking and manly hero of action films that include Hard to Kill, Under Seige, Under Seige 2: Dark Territory and The Glimmer Man. Time has not been kind to Mister Seagal's good looks or his his silver screen grape, which pretty much dried up into a raisin in the mid-1990s. During the early 2000s he released little more than a number of film failures that practically no one has ever heard of and went directly to DVD.

Perhaps due in part to the decline in his action film career Mister Seagal went to the police academy in the early 1990s and currently acts as a Reserve Deputy Chief of the sheriff's office in Jefferson Parish, LA. Naturally, in classic b-list actor fashion, Mister Seagal has a reality program that follows him around as he busts chops and criminals. He is said to own a home in Louisiana, which makes sense but, honestly chickens, we didn't find any (obvious) record that confirms that real estate rumor.

Most recently, along with Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk) and Peter Lupus (Mission Impossible), Mister Seagal joined the illegal immigration operations posse of armed volunteers under Arizona's attention seeking, highly controversial, cranky and extremely aggressive Maricopa County Sherrif Joe Arpaio, a man famous for making prisoners wear pink underwear and who has recently came up under the microscope of the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice and a Federal Grand Jury for alleged civil rights violations, abuse of power, and racial profiling.

Anyhoodles poodles, a few weeks ago the children may recall that Your Mama discussed Hollywood's second highest paid actress Reese Witherspoon who forked over $6,900,000 to purchase Mister Seagal's very private property in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles, CA.

Since 2005 Mister Seagal has owned a home just east of Memphis, TN in the tiny town of Eads that he purchased in October of 2005 for $1,500,000. As it turns out the 13+ acre spread in Eads with its brick-faced 5 bedroom and 4.5 pooper traditional (below) has been on the market since at least February of 2010 and is currently listed with an asking price of $1,999,000.
Word now comes slip sliding down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Mister Seagal and his fourth wife–ballroom dancer Erdenetuya Batsukh–have snatched up a contemporary residence on almost 12 acres in the Tonto National Forest near Phoenix, AZ, just north of Carefree. According to information provided on the sly to Your Mama by Sangita Snitcharoo Mister Seagal paid $3,500,000 for the 8,450 square foot modern mansion that sits high on a ridge above the Chiricahua Golf Course with long views over the rolling desert. Listing information indicates that the furnishings were available for purchase by separate agreement and Miss Snitcharoo told Your Mama that Mister and Fourth Missus Seagal did buy some of the furniture.

Listing information provided by Miss Snitcharoo shows that Mister Seagal's new desert digs have 4 bedrooms and 5 full and 2 half poopers. A guesthouse with family room and kitchenette provide extra over night space, which is a good thing since Mister Seagal has 7 children by four different woman so it's probably a real clusterfuck during the holidays.

The multi-level stone, glass and copper residence, built in 2001, has walls of butted and floor to ceiling glass panels that allow the dee-luxe if dated and somewhat hotel like interior spaces to visually merge with the spectacular views and the many private terraces that surround the house. The main terrace wraps around a negative edge swimming pool and spa that spills dramatically into the landscape.

The master bedroom has a walk in closet and a private pooper with jetted tub, a step-down shower with a private view of the gardens and a bee-day for scrubbing down the naughty bits after doing the dirty bizness. Other amenities and luxuries include a 3 car attached garage, and exercise room with sauna, three fireplaces, built in barbecue and a golf room located just off the driveway that is equipped with software and a screen that allows one to golf virtually at a myriad of courses around the world.

Property records indicate this is not the first time Mister Seagal has owned property in Arizona. In April of 2006 Mister Seagal sold a house in the 55 and up Leisure World community in Mesa. Presumably this house was occupied by one of Mister Seagal's relatives.

Property records show that in May of 2003 Mister Seagal picked up a huge amount of mostly undeveloped land in Montague, CA near the Oregon border. Your Mama's rudimentary and not necessarily accurate calculations on our bejeweled abacus shows that there are more than 25 parcels that combined measure in at about 6,352.8 acres. Who knows what his plans for this swathe of land might be.

There are also scads of reports that Mister Seagal owns a dude ranch in Colorado, but just like Prissy in Gone With the Wind don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies, Your Mama don't known nuthin' about any dude ranch in Coloraduh.

listing photos: Prudential Arizona Properties

Jenny Craig Trims Her Real Estate Fat

SELLER Jenny Craig
LOCATION: Rancho Santa Fe, CA
PRICE: $8,995,000
SIZE: 10,029 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 3 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to the kindness of Sandy Sandiego, Your Mama recently learned that diet plan diva Jenny Craig has put her posh pad in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe, CA on the market with an asking price of $8,995,000

Miz Craig and her deceased huzband/bidness partner Sidney founded the eponymous Jenny Craig weight loss and weight management system in Austrailia in the early 1980s and in the mid-1980s they exported their weight loss wares to the United States and around the world. In 2002 Mister and Missus Craig's lucrative diet plan enterprise was acquired by a private equity firm (MidOcean Partners) and in 2006 the company was sold to Nestlé in a deal worth approximately $600,00,000. Your Mama does not know how much moolah Mister and Missus Craig pocketed from either transaction, but from the looks of their real estate holdings in the Rancho Santa Fe area, the company and the sale of said company was enormously profitable for the pashas of the low-cal pre-planned meal.

Certainly the Jenny Craig diet plan (or whatever it's called) has helped a lot of people down size their denims but the program is not without critics and controversies. At least one website dedicated to the fine art of dieting claims it costs a person roughly eighty clams to lose every single pound on the Jenny Craig weight reduction regimen. By the rudimentary calculations of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, iffin a person needs/wants to lose 100 pounds–and there are an unnerving number of people who waddle the streets and clog up the drive-thrus at Mac-Donalds who need to lose 100 pounds–it'll cost them an astonishing eight thousand dollars.

While our opinion ain't worth squat, the one and only weight loss plan Your Mama thinks actually works is to eat less, eat healthy and get up off your big ol' backside and get some damn exercise. All these porcine people who think they can freeze the fat off their asses or–like that bewigged and deluded Kim Zolciak ladee on The Real Housewives of Atlanta–decrease the size of their colossal cabooses by shining some silly lasers on their muffin tops are just wasting their damn dollars and being made the fool. Eat less, eat healthy and get up off your big ol' backside and get some damn exercise. That, butter balls, is the cold, hard truth on the matter.

Anyoodles poodles, let's get down off our dietary soap box, shall we? Jenny Craig–the company–seems pretty popular with the celebrity set or is, at least, well-known for celebrities being paid big bucks to provide testimonial and push the plan on over-weight non-celebrities. Over the years Jenny Craig's spokespeople have included Fat Actress Kirstie Alley who appears on an endless loop of puffing up and slimming down, former presidential mistress Monica Lewinsky, newly svelte actress Valerie Bertinelli, ladee-luvin' superstar musician/actress Queen Latifah and Seinfeld's Jason Alexander.

A peep and a poke around the public records reveals that Mister and Miz Craig scooped up their 3.37 acre Rancho Santa Fe estate in May of 1997. The property was purchased from the estate of Pete Rozelle, former commissioner of the National Football League–from January 1960 through November 1989–who went to meet the great quarterback in the sky in December 1996. Rancho Santa Fe is consistently ranked among the top 3 or 4 most expensive zip codes in California and among the most expensive in all of the United States of America.

The San Diego County Tax Man shows The Widda Craig's crib measures 10,029 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms while listing information indicates there are 4+ bedrooms and 4 full and 3 half poopers in the main house. Another two bedrooms located in the 550 square foot guesthouse share, we presume, at least one more terliting and bathing facility.

The property, rather grandly called The Villa, sits on sloping lot in and un-gated community of similarly sized homes in Rancho Santa Fe and is saddled with yearly homeowners fees of $13,126 per year. Many rooms of the Spanish-Mediterranean mansion, circa 1992, and the backyard overlook Rancho Paseana Farm, a 228-acre thoroughbred race horse training facility that Mister and Missus Craig purchased in 1995 and Miz Craig currently has on the market with a mouth drying asking price of $29,950,000.

Huge wood gates swing open from the street into the first of three gravel motor courts at The Villa. A weave around a planter at the center of the first motor court brings one to the second motor court that has a fountain at the center swings around to the front front of the tile-roofed residence. A sharply curving drive extends off from the first motor court to a third motor court tucked out of site behind the guest house and garage.

Shallow and gently curved stone steps lead from the driveway to a stunning pair of arched antique wood doors that open into an airy, multi-level foyer with wood inlaid terra cotta tile floors. Just off the front door a tightly curving staircase that Norma Desmond would adore has a series of arched windows that march up the the exterior wall and a delicate and sensuous wrought iron banister. The entrance hall steps down into the 33-foot long formal living room with stone fireplace, intricately carved wood ceiling and a vaguely ecclesiastical carved wood chandelier. The nearby formal dining room with antique wood beamed ceiling and over-scaled parquet flooring that reminds Your Mama of the sorts of nightmares we had as a child where everything was in the puzzling, disturbing and extreme opposite proportion as in walking life.

That kitchen complex includes a butlers pantry, gore-may cookery and breakfast room where a floor to ceiling curving glass window frames the view of surrounding hills. The chestnut colored cabinetry has a carved rope detail that matches identically to the rope detailing on the edge of the granite counter tops, an unnecessary decorative conceit we don't particularly care for. Up above rough hewn beams, down below Mexican paver tiles laid at a 45-degree angle and in between sit two work islands, two dishwashers, full-sized side-by side-fridge and freezer and hand-painted vine and the walls around the arched windows.

Other rooms include a vast, stone floored family room with arched fireplace, built in sunken wet bar, a pool table placed at a disharmonious angle in the middle of the room and a gigantic old-school big screen tee-vee. There are three more boob-toobs in the paneled library/media room that features distressed wood floors, wood coffered ceiling, and fireplace with elaborate carved wood mantel. Lowerd people, who watches three programs on the tee-vee at one time? Your Mama's boozy brain can barely follow one program at a time so we'd wind up in the nut house for sure iffin we attempted to view three programs at one once. Just the very idea causes us to need a nerve pill to manage the presumed stress of an attempt to watch three programs at once.

The master bedroom suite includes a private study/office and a 29-foot long bedroom with a hand-painted mural on the ceiling, wet bar and private balcony. Both of the huge his and her poopers have separate showers and soaking tubs. "His" facility has a tee-vee mounted up on the wall like it's a damn hospital room and the "her" facility has a fireplace and more wall and ceiling murals that depict nekkid angels and other crap. Listen, cinnamon sticks, Rule Number 62 in Your Mama's Big Book of Decoratin' Dos and Don'ts states that wall murals in private residences must be approached with extreme caution. There is an impossibly thin line between a tasteful and well-conceived mural and an expensive piece of painted poo that represents a lame and painfully thwarted attempt to imbue a new(ish) house with a patina of age and old money. Although some exceptions can and must be made for wall and ceiling murals in houses of religious worship, any mural in a residential setting that depicts cherubs and/or angels shall arouse previously unknown depths of decorative suspicion and deep cynicism.

Miz Craig's property has a fully-finished 4-car garage/car museum with tile floors and tons of track lighting. Mister Craig, in his life, had a small but exquisite collection of historical automobiles, many of which were previously owned by celebrities. More than a dozen cars from the Craig collection were auctioned at Bonhams & Butterfields in August of 2010 including a 1933 Duesenberg convertible previously owned by William Boyd, a.k.a. Hopalong Cassidy and a 1935 Lincoln K V-12 Phaeton President Franklin D. Roosevelt used in California during his second re-election campaign. Mister Craig's collection also included vintage vehicles once owned by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Clark Gable. Your Mama finds it interesting to note that at least two listing photographs show a Lincoln stretch limousine parked up in the Craig's garage. This leads Your Mama to believe that Mister and Miz Craig actually owned their own limousine which they, presumably, used to ostentatiously schlep around Rancho Santa Fe and San Diego. Having to rent a stretch limo for uppity events is one thing, candy canes, it's another thing to own a damn stretch limo. It's unseemly, really.

Anyhoo, the grounds at the rear of the house include vine shaded terraces, large swathes of very green rolling lawns, heated swimming pool, stone lined circular spa, tennis court and a 1,500 square foot pool pavilion. Your Mama thinks, but is not positive, that the Craig's installed a home fitness room in the pool pavilion complete with treadmill, free weights, punching bag, several other body toture devices and a small hot tub sitting right on the wall-to-wall carpeting, a situation that looks to Your Mama like nothing but a sure-fire recipe for mold.

Your Mama makes no claims to knowing a damn thing about the real estate market in Rancho Santa Fe and/or the value of the Craig's estate The Villa. What we do know from our brief bit o' research on the internets this morning is that the highest recorded price paid for a property in Rancho Santa Fe in the last year (as per Redfin) was $8,500,000 and that, puppies, was for a 21,000 square foot mega-mansion on 9 acres with 8 bedrooms and 10.5 poopers. Make of that what you will.

listing photos: Barry Estates

A Little Mish Mash for Mundee

1.
Oh dear. It seems there's another marriage that's done swirled down the Tinseltown terlit of love. This time it's Tish and Billy Ray Cyrus, the parents of Disney's pole dancing and salvia smoking cash cow Miley Cyrus.

As all the children know, a dee-vorce often means the family homestead gets sold and rumors have started to circulate that Mister and soon to be ex-Missus Cyrus plan to sell their mansion in the star studded Los Angeles, CA enclave of Toluca Lake.

The Cyrus clan bought their 8,300 square foot mock-Tuscan mansion brand spanking new in 2007 for $5,838,000 and the gossip juggernaut TMZ says they'll probably ask "for more than $7 million." TMZ also reported that soon to be ex-Missus Cyrus has already been out hunting for a new house and allegedly had a look-see at a $4,600,000 crib in Encino three months ago.

In April of 2009 a very teen aged Miss Miley dropped a very grown up $3,400,000 for a sprawling Spanish style hacienda of her very own that happens to be just around the corner from her parents' pad. Will Miss Miley stay put? Or will she move on to Encino or some other suburban locale in Los Angeles to be near her momager?

The upscale Toluca Lake community claims a plethora of celeb residents including actor Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry, not particularly funny comedian George Lopez, former Baywatch babe Brook Burns, actor James Marsden, one of Puff Daddy's several baby mommas, Beverly Hills 90210 alum Jason Priestley, Beverly Hills 90210 alum Jennie Garth and her man-mate Peter Facinelli (Nurse Jackie) who listed their huge house in June of 2010 for $5,995,000, and comedy's reigning king Steve Carell who has long lived in the 'hood, recently shelled out $6,000,000 to buy the old Jonathan Winters house around the corner from his current residence, and quickly tore it down to make way for his own Barbie Dreamhouse.

2.
In early 2010 superstar singer/dancer/whatever Jennifer Lopez and her cantinero huzband Marc Anthony purchased a massive 17,129 square foot mansion in the hot as Hades Hidden Hills community in suburban Los Angeles, CA. The 3-acre estate, last listed for just under ten million smackers, has 9 bedrooms and 12 poopers divided up between the main house and the guest house.

The couple hired celebrity decorator Michelle Workman to work over the interiors of the 2-story country ranch style mansion and recent pictures of the house, photographed for the January/February 2011 issue of Veranda magazine, show a glam 1940s thing all done in a very restrained and sophisticated palette of white, creams, greys and black lacquer.

Miz Lopez, who also owns a 10,000+ square foot traditional mansion on Long Island in Glen Head, NY, has come a long damn ways from the the block in the Bronx where she was raised up hasn't she children?

3.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich owns scads of high priced and high maintenance homes around the world including a luxury flat at the Bridges Wharf conveniently located near the Battersea heliport, the 420-acre Fyning Hill estate in West Sussex, a villa in the South of France, a house in Tuscany, another in Montenegro, a posh pad in Moscow and a hillside compound in swank St. Barts that he bought last year for a mind altering $90,000,000 (or thereabouts).

Starting in the late 1990s Mister Abramovich started buying up flats in two adjacent London townhouses on Lowndes Square near Harrods and Harvey Nicks that had been split into 9 luxe apartments. By 2008 Mister Abramovich had managed to acquire all nine apartments at a reported cost of between fifteen and twenty million pounds.

The plan is to combine all nine units in the two townhouses into one 30,000-ish square foot mega mansion with five floors above street level and another three below. Submitted plans for the main house show 8 bedrooms each with private pooper, numerous sitting/drawing/living rooms, a cinema/media room, kitchen complex, and a swimming pool, sauna and spa in the the basement. Staff will be accommodated above the garage in the mews building at the rear of the property.

Recent reports suggest that when completed, Mister Abramovich's house will be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of £150,000,000. According to Your Mama's currency conversion contraption shows that's a knee bucking 231,498,000 in American dollars at today's rates.

4.
All the East End gossip rags are all a-go-go about Jersey Shore stars Jenni "JWOWW" Farley and Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi house hunting on Long Island. That's right puppies, most of those too tan party hounds on that horrific but very popular Jersey Shore program aren't even from New Jersey. We're not sure why the producers weren't able to find enough liquor swilling guidos and guidettes in Jersey to cast the show, but that's another issue for another blog.

Anyhoo, according to the gals at Real LI, the boozy babes wanted to have a looks at a 5 bedroom and 3 pooper "postmodern Colonial" in East Setauket, NY with a 44-foot long salt water swimming pool. The listing agent for the property told Real LI that the gals requested to bring television cameras to the showing–the owner nixed that–which makes Your Mama think this whole house hunting thing is related to the Jersey Shore show or possibly some kind of spin off with Snooks and WOW as the stars.

Subsequent to the reports Miss JWOWW tweeted or twated or whatever it's called and denied the house hunting rumors. Make of that what y'all will.

Gawd. Who cares, right?

5.
All you little boys out there who desire to don a dress and slap on a pair of high heels shouldn't let anyone tell you that cross-dressing won't get you anywhere because superstar drag queen/author/reality television hostess/MAC cosmetics spokesperson RuPaul is a damn millionaire. Werq!

According to The Real Deal and Streeteasy RuPaul paid $1,095,000 for a 1,490 square foot apartment in New York City's far West Village way back in 1998 and sold the 13th floor pad in mid-December 2010 for $2,400,000. A few quick flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that even after the fat real estate fees were paid lucky Ru likely took in more than a million clams on her real estate investment.

RuPaul's apartment, which appear to never have been on the open market, was sold to an LLC under the name of Jerry Gorovy. Mister Gorovy, who looks a little too much like Jesus for Your Mama's comfort, is the longtime pal and assistant of the late and great French sculptor Louise Bourgeois.

Happy Christmas To One and All

Bristol Palin Get a New House for the Holidays

BUYER: Bristol Palin
LOCATION: Maricopa, AZ
PRICE: $172,000
SIZE: 3,929 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It's Christmas Eve y'all and shooting out of the real estate gate like a Christmas present is the real estate news that 20-year old Bristol Palin paid $172,000 to purchase herself a house in the unlikely community of Maricopa, AZ, about 35 miles south of Phoenix.

Miss Palin's claim to semi-celebrity is, of course, is that's she's the eldest daughter of political rabble-rouser and Tea Party queen Sarah Palin. She became part of the national discourse when it was revealed during the 2008 presidential campaign–when her mother was the Republican Party's rather unusual and unexpected choice for vice-president–that a teen aged Miss Palin was going to be a mother.

The children will note that the abstinence advocate and unwed teenage mother of one paid for her new crib in cash. That's right, puppies, cold hard cash. We'd say that young Miss Palin must have got a financial leg up from her newly minted millionaire mommy, but somewhere recently we heard (but can not confirm) that the younger Miss Palin earns fifty grand a pop to go talk to teenagers about sexual abstinence. Oh pleeze. How does a young gal who birthed a baby as a teenager, made a huge splash on that stoopid Dancing With the Stars program and has the financial power at the dewy age of 20 to pay $172,000–in cash–for a house in suburban Phoenix have the nerve to get up in front of teenagers and tell them that an unexpected pregnancy could ruin their lives. Honestly. It would be high-sterical if the moral audacity of the thing wasn't so completely unnerving.

Anyhoodles poodles, listing information shows Miss Palin's new digs measure 3,929 square feet and includes 5 bedrooms and 2.5 poopers. There's a three car garage for all Miss Palin's whips and the large, landscaped backyard, according to listing information, is "perfect for volleyball, BBQs and more!" We can't be bothered to discuss the details of the house because, well, there's nothing to discuss. It's just a big ol' beige piece of architectural banality. You can talk it up and tart it up but a pig with lipstick is still a pig.

The ungated Cobblestone Farms subdivision has palm tree lined streets that wind in on each other like a nautilus shell and includes basketball courts, baseball field, soccer field, children's play center, a swimming pool, and a horse shoe playing pit. That's right, horse shoes. Sakes alive. Horse shoes. Lowerd have mercy.

According to gossip juggernaut TMZ, Miss Palin has been telling pals that she may attend Arizona State University once she moves into her mcmansion in Maricopa. Well, good for her. A college education is a good thing.

It may or may not be a coinkydink that Sarah Palin's daughter chose Arizona (and perhaps ASU) since president Obama was snubbed by the top brass at ASU who refused to give him an honorary degree after he gave the commencement speech at the 2009 graduation saying that the president had not yet accomplished enough in his career to warrant the honor. Not accomplished enough? The president of the United States of America? Really?

On that note we're off to slumber with one eye open to see if Santy Claus will be coming down the chimney tonight.

Turn on the Lights!

P!nk's New Pad

BUYER: Pink and Carey Hart
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $11,850,000
SIZE: 6,800 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Today is a travel day, butter beans, so brevity is the sugar in Your Mama's cookie this morning.

Ages ago Your Mama heard from a gentleman we'll call Sherman Oaks who whispered in our big ol' ear that platinum haired pop star P!ink was on the prowl for a new crib and planned to put her house on Sherman Oaks, CA on the market. As far as our research on the interweb shows, the Grammy winning songstress hasn't listed her house in Sherman Oaks–at least not on the open market–but earlier this week an article in the Los Angeles Times revealed that the P!nk and her back in the saddle motorcycle riding huzband Carey Hart are fixin' to move into a new house in the Point Dume area of Malibu, CA.

Not long after the article hit the internets, we received a covert communique from Ms. Nosey Pants out in the Bu who let P!nk's real estate cat out of the bag. According to Ms. Pants (and those bizzy bees at Blockshopper), P!nk purchased a property in the Point Dume area of Malee-boo in late October of 2010. Listing information Your Mama provoked out of the computer shows the beach house was first put on the market way back in February of 2008 and its last price tag was $15,995,000. Property records show the house was sold for $11,850,000, which means it was over-priced to start with or that P!nk's people drove a hard-ass bargain.

Electronic drive gates swing open to a long, straight, stone driveway that stretches deep into the lot where it ends at a large motor court with five car garage. To one side of the garages, a main house with 5 bedrooms and half a dozen poopers. On the other side, a two-story guesthouse/pool cabana with another bedroom and pooper. The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the house measures 5,218 square feet while listing information suggests it comes in at around 6,800 square feet. We know it makes an ass out of both you and Your Mama, but we're going to assume anyway. The larger number likely takes the square footage of the guesthouse/pool cabana into account and the smaller number does not. Okay?

The architecture feels vaguely Craftsman with a cliché twist of what listing information calls "Balinese contemporary." The house was built in 2005 and the spacious interiors have stone and hardwood floors, vaulted wood-beamed ceilings, custom millwork, and six chunky stone fireplaces throughout the house.

A long open plan space that encompasses the gore-may kitchen, breakfast room and family room opens up through a bank of French doors to a terrace that overlooks the shallow canyon at the back of the 1-acre property. It's along a private path in this canyon area that P!nk and Mister Hart will walk in order to access a private and particularly scenic section of beach at the bottom of the vertical and dramatic Point Dume cliffs.

Other terraces and patios around the house offer tree tops views, ponds, fountains and far too much of that only-in-L.A.-is-it-stylish kind of Balinese-y statuary. The bulk of the outdoor space of the mini-estate actually sits at the front of the property. The front yard put on the pants of the backyard, so to speak. A party-sized spa and a 25-yard swimming pool with a gently tapering shallow beach end are sunk into a long stretch of lawn. Listing photographs show a trampoline sunk into the ground not too far from the swimming pool, a scenario that looks to Your Mama like a drunken accident just waiting to happen.

Once settled, P!nk and Mister Hart will live sugar borrowing distance from actor Matthew McConaughey–who has the body of a homosexual porn star–and his equally hot-to-trot Brazilian model baby momma Camila Alves. Matt and Cammy and the two genetically gifted children they formed out of wedlock–Quell scandale!–use the same path through the canyon to get to the same private and particularly scenic section of beach at the bottom of the vertical and dramatic Point Dume cliffs that P!nk, Mister Hart and the baby they're about to bring into this world will use. Mazel tov!

A Wee Peep at 770 Park Avenue

Sorry folks, we're just not feeling much in the mood to chit-chat about the real estate comings and goings of Tinseltown types today. We'd rather piggy-back on the fascinating recent report by Chloe Malle in the pink pages of the New York Observer about the pending fate of democratic fund raising power player Hassan Nemazee's vast doo-plex pad up in the exclusive 770 Park Avenue building in New York City.

The elite co-operative buildings in Manhattan each have their own vibe and reputation as regards to the sorts of financial heavy hitters who have what it takes to squeeze past the persnickety co-op boards who wield the power to nix a potential buyer of an apartment for any reason whatsoever. They don't even have to explain themselves. They can just say, "nay" and that's the end of that. Potential buyers in the top tier co-operative apartment houses could get sent packing for any reason such as they can't meet the financial requirements, they may not fraternize with the right people or they might be too high profile, the wrong religion or color, have attended the wrong university or they just might make the grievous mistake of wearing the wrong color of shoe to the interview.

Anyhoo, 770 Park Avenue is known around town by the people who care about such things as a bastion of exceedingly wealthy and generous left-leaning donors to democratic candidates. Until recently Mister Nemazee epitomized the sort of democratic fat cat who lived in the pre-war dowager designed and built in 1929 by Rosario Candela, one of the legendary architects of some of the swankiest of the swank co-operative apartment houses in the NYC. This building was so swish when it was erected that the lobbies and hallways were done up by influential high-society decorator Dorothy Draper.

In 2008 Mister Nemazee acted as the finance chairman for Hillary Rodham Clinton during her unsuccessful bid for the democratic presidential nomination and in July of 2010 he was sent to the pokey for 12 years on convictions related to the operation of a colossal Ponzi scheme that collected a knee buckling $292,000,000 in fraudulent loans from major lending institutions such as HSBC, Citibank and Bank of America.

According to an early August (2010) report in the New York Post, the feds want to evict Mister Namazee and his wife Sheila from their big-ol' doo-plex at 770 due to unpaid monthly maintenance charges and quarterly mortgage bills. Apparently, according to the Post, Mister and Missus Nemazee's stopped paying their ten grand (or so) a month maintenance at 770 almost as soon as Mister Nemazee got caught with his hand in the cookie jar in the summer of 2009. An unnamed source told the Post that the Nemazees were more than a year behind on their fees but that the building's board wasn't getting their panties in a bunch about it because "they feel sorry for Ms. Nemazee." Oh lowerd, pleeze. Do they really?

While Mister Nemazee was shipped off to the white collar clinkety-clink in Texarkana, TX, Ms. Nemazee remained ensconced in the couple's desirably high floor A-line apartment at 770. The thing is, as part of the plea deal made with Mister Nemazee, the feds plan to sell the large and luxe residence to help pay back some of the hundreds of millions Mister Nemazee stole.

Missus Nemazee, however, does not want to move. She likes living large up in 770 and she hoped to stay in residence. In an attempt to stake her personal claim to the apartment she alleged that it was she and not her felonious husband who came up with the bulk of the cash used to buy the lavish apartment in 1989. Missus Nemazee requested a trial to appoint her as the legal and sole owner of the apartment in the hope that it would then not have to be sold to pay back the massive debt owed due to her huzband's nefarious financial activities.

Iffin Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, we'd admit that we don't know if Missus Nemezee's real estate concerns about the doo-plex at 770 were brought before a court. What is clear, as expressed in Miss Malle's report last week, is that all the uptown brokers are abuzz because it looks like the Nemazee spread will soon be put on the market.

Many of the uptown brokers, according to Miss Malle's report, are foaming at the mouth and hope they are the chose one to list such a rare real estate gem as the Nemazee spread at 770. All of the brokers quoted in Miss Malle's report oohed and aahed over the both the building–Brown Harris Stevens' John Burger called it "one of the best Park Avenue buildings"–and the apartment. One broker who went nameless suggested the apartment could and should be listed as high as $28,000,000 and big time broker Kathy Steinberg, also from Brown Harris Stevens, concurred saying, "I think that's totally, totally fair. It could even go over $30 million, though it's unlikely."

Now, babies, who are we to cast aspersions at the hyperbole of the some of New York City's most successful and well connected real estate brokers, many of whom live in the very same luxurious and expensive buildings where they sell high priced pads. We really ought to defer to their expertise. After all, we've never even stepped foot in 770 Park Avenue let alone had a look see at the Nemazee's corner doo-plex. However, maybe because it's been raining non-stop for a week on the west coast and we're feeling a bit claustrophobic and crabby, were going to go all bitchy and huffy-puffy and say that a $28,000,000 price tag might be a wee bit optimistic for the Nemazee nest at 770 when you consider that no recorded sale in the building in the last six or seven years has come anywhere near that sky-high price. Granted, A-line corner apartments like the Nemazee crib may very well be far more grand than the colossal D-line doo-plex units like the high-floor hunny that transferred in late 2007 for $20,000,000. (More on that in a second.) However, for eight or ten million clams more than a D-line the Nemazee's corner A-line would have to be a lot better, Taj Majhal better, you know what we mean? Otherwise Your Mama just might stick to the beautifully laid out 11-room and 4 fireplace B-line doo-plex on the 4th and 5th floors currently listed at $17,900,000.

In June of 2008, before the real estate market really drove itself off the cliff, a quirky but spectacular penthouse doo-plex with no fewer than five terraces sold for $12,000,000. The apartment was originally listed in October of 2007 with an asking price of $19,500,000. Just a few weeks later the priced dropped dramatically 10% to $17,500,000 and the very next day the price plummeted another 26% to $12,995,000.

The 8-room residence (pictured above as it was done up by the seller) has just 2 bedrooms and 3 poopers plus a staff room with private facilities tucked back behind the kitchen. A separate, cell-sized room on the buildings third floor has a closet but no terliting or bathing facilities. This is a sure way to get your live-in staff to hate your rich guts: Make them stay in a punishingly wee room 16 floors from a damn terlit.
Floor plan information (above) reveals a private elevator landing, entry vestibule and entime foyer. A long, canal-like hall stretches off the foyer, leads past a winding staircase and a wet bar and births one into the living room complete with wood burning fireplace and access through French doors to three–count 'em kids, three–separate terraces. A small fourth terrace is located off the surprisingly tiny formal dining room located between the entry foyer and the gore-may kitchen.

The two bedrooms are well situated for privacy, far from each other as well as removed from the public areas of the penthouse. Upstairs a crow's nest-ish bedroom has windows on three sides a a private pooper that, sadly, can only be accessed via the public upper hall. Of course, there's little "public" on the second floor but, even still, it could get awkward for Bill Barebottomedhouseguest to come strolling out the pooper buck nekkid only to run into Florinda the day maid digging around in the large walk-in hall closet looking for the damn Swiffer. The main floor master suite, situated off the entry foyer in the rear of the apartment, consists of an entry hall, small book-lined library, dressing hall with mirrored doors, dual baths each with a window, and a commodious 400 square foot bedroom with a second wood burning fireplace.

The seller, according to the peeps at Property Shark was a ladee named Margaret Love Stevens the buyer, according to our unscientific research on the interweb, was Texas construction tycoon James Sowell and his wife Elizabeth. We don't really know how involved Mister and/or Missus Sowell are in the political arean, but public records do show that since 2004 Miz Stevens donated more than twenty grand to Democratic candidates while Mister Sowell donated just four thousand dollars to Republican candidates. Make of that what you will, children.

One of the few Republicans in the thick Democratic mist at 770 Park Ave is hedge hog Robert Niehaus and his wife Kate. In October of 2007 the well-heeled pair shelled out $20,000,000 to purchase the 5,000-ish square foot, 4 bedroom and 5.5 pooper doo-plex digs of big biznesswoman and "Democratic fund raising powerhouse" Connie Milstein.

Miz Milstein–an heiress to the Milstein real estate fortune–gained some notoriety during the 2000 presidential election when she was caught red handed–as in on camera–bribing homeless people with cigarettes as absurd incentive to get them to vote. She was fined $5,000 for her astonishingly ludicrous effort to get out the vote. Speechless. Your Mama is truly speechless and need to take a few minutes away in a dark and quiet room in order to try to get our mind around that snap from reality.

Whatever the fall out from the cigarette incident, it certainly didn't make Miz Milstein a real estate hot potato. See kids, she decamped the very exclusive 770 Park Avenue for the even more uppity 998 Fifth Avenue, where owners of grand apartments include a Russian oligarch (Len Blavatnik), an heir to a famous liquor fortune (Matthew Bronfman), and a corporate raider (Mark Rachesky).

A few months before Miz Milstein fled the scene at 770, in April of 2007, female Republican mover and shaker K.T. Mcfarland sold her gigantic B-line duplex for $17,500,000 to Kentucky booze heir W.L. Lyons Brown Junior, the former Bush-appointed ambassador to Austria and a recently appointed honorary trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Junior comes from the Kentucky Browns, purveyors of fine booze brands such as Jack Daniel's, Southern Comfort and Finlandia Vodkas who still run the Brown-Forman Corporation that they founded in 1870.

In an article from the New York Observer from the time of the sale–May 2007– shows the 13-room doo-plex apartment contained 4 bedrooms with private poopers, a curving staircase with neoclassical banister, a 30 foot long formal living room and, in addition to a staff room and bath behind the kitchen complex, another staff room located three floors below. Interior details included herringbone hardwood floors, high ceilings with impressively substantial dentil and acanthus moldings and windows that reach almost down to the floor with Juliet balconies in the living and dining rooms. Monthly maintenance charges ran $9,177, or that is what it was at the time of the sale.

Like Miz Milstein, Miz Mcfarland is a real damn politico. She was a national security adviser to Henry Kissinger, a speech writer for politician Caspar Weinberger, and held the long-winded title of deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs at the Pentagon in the mid-1980s under President Ronald Reagan. Miz Mcfarland cemented her place in the pantheon of political pundit candy during the 2006 Senate campaign when she ran as a Republican against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Poor Miz Mcfarland, according to reports, had to admit that she didn't vote in recent elections she also said she thought Hilary Clinton was spying on her via helicopters hovering over her Park Avenue building which also served as her campaign headquarters much, Your Mama imagines, to the delight of her far more liberal neighbors. Miz Mcfarland later said she was joking about the helicopter thing.

You can't make this stuff up, kids. The rich movers and shakers who pull the levers of big bizness and politics are amazing. It's like watching Vaudville.

In addition to all the big girl apartments that have been bought and sold in the last 5 or six years, there have been several lower priced sales at 770 including a ground commercial unit that went for $2,200,000 in July of 2005 and a two bedroom and 2 pooper place on the second floor that sold for $3,600,000 in October of 2007. The most recent sale at 770 was in January of 2010 when the high floor 2 bedroom and 3 pooper pad of a ladee named Eleanor Winthrow was sold to a couple who may or may not have something to do with the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. The apartment, which has a very narrow 45-foot long terrace that runs along the living and dining rooms, was sold for $5,000,000. It had originally been listed, the children may wish to note, with a much higher price tag of $10,950,000.

Some of the other high profile people that occupy the discreet building include Vornado Realty Trust chairman (and billionaire) Steve Roth and his Broadway producer wife Daryl Roth who bought the late Gianni Agnelli's spread in 2003. Your Mama does not know what they paid for the place, so don't even ask. What we do know is that Agnelli's pied a terre was listed at $25,000,000. Some of the children may recognize Mister and Missus Roth as the very same folks who in 2009 forked over $9,410,000 to buy imprisoned Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff's ocean front house in Montauk, NY. The Roths, it should be no surprise to now, have given nearly one hundred thousand clams to democratic causes and candidates.

Also in residence at 770 according to property records and previous reports on the building are airport transportation expert, MTA board member, and donator to democrats Doreen Frasca, powerful co-CEO of New Line Cinema Michael Lynne who also donates to democrats, and socialite art patron Sylvia de Cuevas. David and Lisa Schiff, the well-connected parents of son Drew who married Al Gore's daughter Karenna also live up in 770 and, natch, lean heavy to the left with their pocketbooks.

With Republicans being some of the newest residents at 770, could it be that the building is seeing a shift to the red? Would a right winger buying the Nemazee apartment not only be a sweet kind of real estate revenge on the democrats but a further following of the political leanings of its residents? We shall see, puppies, we shall see when the Nemazee's apartment sells to the highest bidder, or at least the highest bidder who can pass muster with the board.

photos and floor plan: Stribling