Yesterday the tee-vee people at Extra reported–and we passed on–that the wedding of booty-fied reality tee-vee star Kim Kardashian and professional basketball player Kris Humphries would take place this weekend on the grounds of a Montecito, CA estate owned by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.During the broadcast they showed photographs of the grounds which Your Mama immediately recognized as the property Mister Schmidt snatched up in late 2007 for $20,000,000 from comedian/chat show host Ellen Degeneres. The property, with it's stuh-ning 1926 George Washington Smith-designed Spanish Colonial mansion and acres of immaculately groomed grounds, seemed like an obvious and excellent choice for a celebrity wedding that will undoubtedly be packed to the rafters with other celebrities and high profile people.
However, today, much to our confusion, scads of reports have come out with photos provided by the industrious paps at X17 Online that show an entirely different Montecito estate as the chosen location for the Kardashian family wedding event. In fact, X17 Online's aerial photographs show the impressive estate in a frenzied state of preparation.
The, walled, multi-gated, high-hedged and heavily fortified property X17 shows, isn't far from Mister Schmidt's estate and also boasts a magnificent George Washington Smith-designed mansion. A little peeking and poking around the interweb turned up records that show the 10-plus acre estate where Kimmy K. will actually tie her nuptials knot is owned by Frank J. Caufield, a co-founder of a high-powered Silicon Valley-based venture capital concern.
Old marketing materials for the property provided by a snitch we'll call Montecito Mary, reveal that the pristine spread, dubbed Sotto Il Monte, centers around a 15,452 square foot main house completed in 1929 for Kirk Johnson, one of the founders of the First National Bank of Beverly Hills. The Santa Barbara Tax Man shows the Tuscan mansion contains only 2 bedrooms but 6.5 bathrooms. In addition to the main manse there are various barns and outbuildings scattered throughout the grounds that include a guest house, staff quarters and manager's apartment, greenhouse, shade house, a car collector's garage, pool house, gymnasium.
The vast gardens were originally designed, as per marketing materials, in 1927 by A.E. Hanson who took his stylistic cue from formal Renaissance gardens in Italy. The gardens, a complex series of interlocking garden rooms adheres to a rich formality with boxwood lined symmetrical parterres and tree-lined allées. In addition the to pretty and perfect gardens, the meticulous grounds include a north/south tennis court, an indoor swimming pool plus a 25-meter outdoor pool–that photos show will be covered for the ceremony–and great swathes of Gastbyesque lawns that slope down from the rear of the main residence.
Apropos of nothing having to do with the Kardashian wedding fete and feast...In the early Naughts Mister Caufield married a lady named Karen. After not-quite 8 years of marriage, Missus Caufield filed for divorce. Your Mama, who does not know a hole in the ground from a tin cup, does not know if Mister and Missus Caufield reconciled or finalized their divorce proceedings but we did find online documentation that in 2009 a court ruling provided estranged Missus Caufield with $406,504 in temporary spousal support. Monthly spousal support, children, monthly spousal support.
Property records show that Mister Caufield also owns at least two other posh properties in California including a 6,685 square foot mansion in the snazzy Pacific Heights 'hood in San Francisco, CA purchased in the mid-1980s from a now-deceased but once-prominent pediatrician for $1,450,000. Records also indicate that in October 2007 Mister Caufield shelled out another $2,325,000 for a 1,599 square foot penthouse pad in a converted building in the Jackson Square area just north of downtown San Francisco.
The Kardashian clan's home base is Momma Kris's krib in the horsey gated community of Hidden Hills, CA and in February 2010, before hooking up with hunky Mister Humphries, Kim Kardashian dropped $3,400,000 on a 4,000 square foot Beverly Hills bachelorette pad. We have no idea where Miss Kardashian and her soon to be hubby will settle down once they're unified in the eyes of God and government. However, iffin we were the wagering type–and we're not–we'd bet the farm that in Kimmy K.'s case, a new spouse means a new house. We shall see butter beans, we shall see.
photo: Bing
