SELLER: Jeffrey TamborLOCATION: Topanga, CA
PRICE: $1,525,000
SIZE: 3,591 square feet, 4 bedrooms 5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Topanga Canyon, CA, nestled into the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu, has long been known as an arty-farty bohemian enclave of hippies–and hipsters like Devendra Banhart–and musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Stephen Stills, Alice Cooper, and Chris Robinson. Actors have also long been drawn to the rugged and somewhat remote region in the mountains above Malee-boo including Emile Hirsch, Lisa Bonet, Wendie Malick, Rick Schroder, Viggo Mortenson, Eric Mabius, Lynn Redgrave, and Teri Garr.
In the 1950s, blacklisted actor and activist Will Geer–best known for his role as Grandpa on the 1970s boob-toob series The Waltons–moved his family out to Topanga Canyon where he created an artist colony that eventually became the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. About 7,000 years ago one of Your Mama's b.f.f.s from high school got hitched at the Theatricum in a wildly eccentric ceremony that included sage burning, fertility boats, and readings from both the bible and Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. Your Mama, who was part of the large wedding party who sat on grass mats at the foot of the stage, went to the wedding bare footed, wearing orange and red pajamas, and stoned out of our gourd. Topanga is–or at least was–that sort of place.
For the last few years, quirky, sky scraper tall, and Emmy nominated actor Jeffrey Tambor has shacked up with his second wife Kasia Ostlun in hippy-dippy Topanga Canyon on a private 1.19 acre property with powerful and panoramic mountain and ocean views. Mister Tambor, who Your Mama thinks can be very funny in the right circumstances, has been doing the Hollywood shuffle since the 1970s. Over his long years in Lala Land Mister Tambor paid his dues with roles in some real film and tee-vee turkeys like Malibu's Most Wanted, The Ropers, The Love Boat and, sadly, a couple of Muppets movies. He's also appeared in a number of movies and boob-toob programs that earned colossal kaching and iconic status including Hill Street Blues, The Larry Sanders Show, There's Something About Mary, Arrested Development and the sleeper hit movie of 2009, The Hangover.
Property records reveal that in October of 2008 Mister and Missus Tambor shelled out $1,675,000 for a woodsy contemporary crib in Topanga Canyon. Listing information indicates the house measures 3,591 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 5 poopers, a count that may or may not include the attached guest apartment that has its own separate entrance. Not long after settling in, the then 64-year old Mister Tambor–who has 35 or 6 year old daugther from his first marriage–learned that his much younger wife had twin boys in the oven. These twins on top of the toddler the couple already had. Low-erd have mercy. Pleeze.
Now children, we know it ain't really none of Your Mama's bizness what people do with their private parts in their private lives. However, we can't help but get up on our soap box a minute to beef about these apparently quite vee-rile senior citizen men who put babies up in the bellies of their much younger wives and ladee friends. We get that some women hear the tick-tock of the biological clock but it is our humble and utterly meaningless opinion that if a woman wants to raise baby she ought not get with a man who os thisclose to collecting the social security. Not only is it unseemly, it's selfish to make babies with a man who may very well need to be put in a home before their children graduate from college. Do these people ever think about how horrifying it might be for a teenager to have to deal with an elderly parent who drools and poops their pants?
Anyhoo, that's another topic for another time and place..
If we've said it once we've said it 47 times too many, a new baby and/or new spouse often means a new house for Tinseltown types. Thanks to the bizzy boys over at Celebrity Address Aerial, Your Mama learned that in June of 2010, just about a year after the second Missus Tambor pushed out a set of twin boys, the May-December duo sold their Topanga Canyon retreat for $1,525,000. It doesn't take much flicking of the well worn beads of our bejeweled abacus to see that Mister and Missus Tambor lost $150,000 on their real estate mistake not counting the tens of thousands of clams they surely paid in real estate fees.
The main part of the Tambor's Topanga pad consists of a large open plan living/dining/kitchen area with vaulted, wood beamed, and sky lit ceiling, wide plank hardwood floors, and a bank of French doors that open to a large, upper level dining terrace with long and unobstructed views of the dramatic and fire prone mountains that surround the house. There is a lovely and rustic river rock fireplace in the living room and the well equipped kitchen has both granite and butcher block counters, simple white flat fronted cabinetry, and a mac-daddy Vulcan brand range with a griddle large enough to make pancakes for the entire neighborhood. While we can't help but notice the jumbo stainless steel pot rack hanging precariously above the work island and breakfast counter, we are thrilled to see there aren't any potentially lethal dust and grease collecting cooking implements hanging from the contraption.
Listing information indicates the master suite, which has a fireplace for chilly weather and romantical moments, is located in a loft area. We can only hope and pray to the real estate gods that this loft-style master bedroom is not actually open to the more public areas of the house because that's just an appalling thought for a myriad of reasons that Your Mama should not have to and will not detail for the children.
The main living areas of the house are situated on the upper level on the structure and as best as Your Mama can tell from listing information the lower level includes, among other rooms, a good sized den with an uncomfortably low beamed ceiling with track lights hanging off of them, hardwood floors, and a full wall of built-in floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with actual books.
The lower level opens out through a trio of French doors to a massive multi-level deck that wraps itself around a flat lawn area and extends dramatically out over the hillside at the back of the property with views that go for miles and miles and miles.
We don't, of course, have any knowledge of where Mister and Missus Tambor plan to settle next but iffin we had to guess we'd imagine they might head back to Pacific Palisades. According to prop records and previous reports, Mister Tambor owned at least three homes in the hoity-toity and family friendly community perched on a long bluff above the Pacific Coast Highway and the roiling Pacific Ocean. In February of 2007 Mister and Missus Tambor sold his last Pac Pal pad, a 4,256 square foot shingled Cape Cod style house on Kagawa Street to a successful commercial director for $3,300,000. For what interest it may have to real estate mavens, property records show the commercial director and his ladee-mate sold the former Tambor house at a significant loss in June of 2010 for $2,974,500.
listing photos: Snyder Sutton Real Estate via Redfin
