Weekend Wrap Up

1.
According to good people at Curbed (via The Smoking Gun) the U-nited States gubbamint has sicced the money hungry I.R.S. on wedding dress designer turned lifestyle guru Vera Wang. The tax man claims Miz Wang, who is married to big biznessman Arthur Becker, owes $349,781 in back taxes from 2008. In order to ensure they get their pound of flesh–or until Miz Wang proves them wrong–the I.R.S. has placed a lien against the fashionista's seriously swank doo-plex digs at 740 Park Avenue, arguably the grande dame of all the tight sphinctered dowagers that line New York City's posh Park Avenue.

Your Mama fully expects the ugly matter to be taken care of toot de suite and that some p.r. flack will soon be charged with the task telling the gossips that it was all an unfortunate mistake or an unintentional oversight. And maybe it was.

The children may recall that Miz Wang famously paid her brother a mouth drying $23,100,000 for her two floor beast at 740 Park Avenue in late 2007 after the lucky, lucky, lucky siblings each inherited half of the vast apartment from their very wealthy businessman father C.C. Wang. According to the always entertaining author Michael Gross, who penned the definitive and de-voon tome on the tight lipped and high collared building, C.C. Wang purchased his spread at 740 in 1983 from the family of Campbell's Soup heiress Elinor "Dodo" Dorrance. Prepare to fall over dead with shock when you learn just how little Mister Wang paid for the fit for royalty residence: $350,000.

Other wildly wealthy co-op owners at 740 Park Avenue include Time Warner widow Courtney Sale Ross who was not so long ago rumored to be quietly shopping her 30-some room triplex for a staggering $60,000,000, Greek shipping tycoon Spyros Niarchos, money maven Steven Schwarzman, make-up mogul Ron Lauder, hotel magnate Kent Swig, and hedge fund honcho David Ganek, just to name a few.

2.
As these things often seem to go with the queen of discord and confusion, the saga of Courtney Love's desire lease and/or buy model turned actress Milla Jovovich's Greek Revival style townhouse in Manhattan's formerly bohemian West Village continues apace.

Since at least the beginning of August 2010 (see #3), mercurial Miz Love has been telling whatever press person who will listen that she's been trying to get her people in touch with Miss Jovovich's people in order to discuss the real estate matter. There were some reports that said that Miz Love had done moved into the four floor townhouse, but apparently that is not the case.

Recent reports in New York magazine reveal that the two women have failed to get in touch with each other in order to make a deal. Miss Jovovich told New York that she loves the little townhouse but no longer spends much time in New York. She also told New York that little Miz Love has "been contacting a lot of people, and I thought I gave her my e-mail address through a friend of ours, but I don’t know."

Your Mama smells the sweet and sick scent of evasion. We have a very difficult time believing that it's really so difficult for the of publicists or business managers of these two ladies to get together. Or, duh, Miz Love or one of her people could just pick up the damn telephone and call the real estate agent who's handing the sale of the townhouse like a normal person would. Of course, Your Mama don't know a piggy bank from a bubble bath but are we the only people who have a sneaking suspicion that Miz Jovovich might not actually want to rent (or sell) her beloved downtown townhouse to Miz Love?

As far as we know–which is really not a thing–Miz Love remains ensconced in the celebrity friendly Mercer Hotel in Soho.

3.
Word on the celebrity real estate street in Los Angeles' Platinum Triangle is that, if it hasn't already, financially battered Oscar winning actor Nic Cage's former home in Bel Air–the one previously owned by hairy chested crooner Tom Jones and Rat Pack boozer Dean Martin–is about to close escrow. Your Mama hears from a chatty Beverly Hills real estate denizen that the buyer is a wealthy L.A. bizness man who plans to remodel and restore the down on its heels residence. The price? We hear it's $10,500,000 but until the transaction is recorded it's all just rumor and gossip kids, rumor and gossip.

4.
Last week the real estate gossips were all abuzz about Nick and Christian Candy selling their penthouse pad in Monte Carlo for a migraine making $306,446,000. Some reports say it was $308,000,000 and other $312,000,000. Whatever it was is high enough to make Your Mama need a damn nerve pill.

Although was first reported that the buyer was American born Greek billionaire Constantine Alexander-Goulandris, as it turns out Mister Alexander-Goulandris only helped to facilitate the titanic sized transaction. According to the fine folks at Luxist the new ree-dick-u-lus-lee rich owner of the fabled and fancy penthouse was a member of Dubai's royal family, the Al-Mahktoums. The luxe-livin' Al-Mahktoums were encouraged to diversify their portfolio, according to Luxist, following financial troubles and topsy-turvy economy that have beset the emirate in the last few years.

The leader of the wildly wealthy clan is Sheikh Mohammed bin Rahsid Al-Mahktoum, who reportedly breeds championship racehorses in Ireland and Britain and who made headlines recently when it was announced–or leaked–that he plans to extend his mega-yacht the Dubai another six or 8 feet feet so that it's a smidge longer than the 533-foot long Eclipse owned by 43-year old Russian multi-billionaire Roman Abramovich. He with the biggest boat....

The palatial penthouse was sold by to the Candy brothers in 1999 by Lily Safra, the widow of Lebanese banker Edmund Safra who perished along with a nurse in a conflagration set by another of the nurses employed at the penthouse to care for the ailing financier. The Candy brothers, never ones to do anything on a small scale, spent a rumored and heart stopping $40,000,000 on renovations before finally moving into the mansion aerie in 2008.

5.
The other day Your Mama discussed the reported bankruptcy of Los Angeles based attorney and financier Leonard Ross and his behemoth Beverly Hills compound. Back in 2007 and 2008 Mister Ross had his historic and much bally-hooed house on the market with an ear piercingly outlandish asking price $165,000,000. There were–perhaps not surprisingly to real estate watching Angelenos–no buyers who were willing to sign on the deed's dotted line at anywhere near that number.
Bankruptcy, one would hope, helps to clarify things and in the new wake of his surprising bankruptcy Mister Ross has re-listed his palatial pinky-orange pad with a new and lower asking price of $95,000,000.

The much marked down price tag is still, quite frankly, a very steep figure. However, given that the property is now priced well below couture queen Suzanne Saperstein's architecturally correct Fleur de Lys ($125,000,000) and a whopping 37% less than Candy Spelling's architecturally awkward pile in Holmby Hills that she calls The Manor ($150,000,000), it's probably priced much more appropriately to attract a foreign potentate, tech tycoon or, say, a Russian oligarch like fertilizer fat cat Andrey Melnichenko who recently had his $300,000,000+ Philippe Starck designed boat "A" parked off the coast of Venice, CA and who, Your Mama hears from a couple of well connected tattle tales, toured at at least one of the three houses mentioned above.

If there is anyone who could or might pay such a stratospheric price for a titanic trophy property in Los Angeles it would to a be one of those high flying property collecting Russian billionaires who are well known to drop tens of millions of dollars on lavish residences around the world where they'll probably spend just a few weeks a year.

We shall see, children, we shall see.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

Derek Jeter Lists Manhattan Penthouse Pad

SELLER: Derek Jeter
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $20,000,000
SIZE: 5,425 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We know we're a little late to the rodeo children, but we're going to put this one through the wringer anyway in order to specifically meet the personal and private needs of one off Your Mama's pals, a gal we'll K.R. Kantgetenoughofderekjeter.

Earlier in the week it was widely reported that New York Yankees short stop Derek Jeter–who may or may not have cheated in a recent game against some other professional baseball team Your Mama ain't never heard of–heaved his midtown Manhattan condo on the market with an asking price of $20,000,000.

Property records and previous reports reveal that Mister Jeter picked up his sky high aerie at the 900-foot tall Trump World Tower building in 2001 for $12,600,000. Listing information shows the apartment is located on the 88th floor, but according to The New York Times there is some sort of funny bizness between the numbers that appear on the elevator buttons and the number of stories actually in the building. Mister Jeter's condo is, according to The New York Times, actually on the 70th floor of the building.

Lo-werd have mercy butter beans it gives Your Mama a nose bleed just to think of living up that high in the damn sky so it really makes no difference to us whether Mister Jeter's apartment is on the 70th or the 88th or the 998th floor. As far as we're concerned, it's just not right and too damn risky to live that high up. Of course, that elevation provides for some undeniably spectacular heaven-like views, but when we consider living on the 70th floor all we can think about is that black out in 2003 when Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter had to walk up 17 flights of stairs to get our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly and then walk back down 17 flights of stairs–in the dark with flashlights–so those pooches could do their terliting bizness. Do y'all know how many times we had to do that? Iffin we lived up on the 70th or 88th floor we'd have to let those canines crap right up on the wood floors because we'd sooner go mano-a-mano with ultimate fighter B.J. Penn than climb down and up 70 flights of stairs every time Linda and/or Beverly had to do their damn bizness during a black out.

Anyhoo, listing photos, which show the apartment bare as a penniless person's cupboard, shows the sky high condo either as it looked in 2001 when Mister Jeter bought it or the well-liked baseball stud has already done packed his jockstrap and decamped for other digs. The high floor spread, according to listing information, sprawls across 5,425 square feet with exposures on three sides and includes 3 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers plus a staff room with private pooper located just behind the kitchen.

Mister Jeter's apartment, which towers over the United Nations complex across the street, is wrapped in acrophobia inducing 16-foot high floor to ceiling windows that take in insane views of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings, Central Park, the downtown Financial District, the Atlantic Ocean and the George Washington Bridge. For those of y'all not familiar with Noo York City, the George Washington Bridge is on the other side of Manhattan from this sky-high aerie.

A foyer opens into the condo's main living spaces that sweep a staggering 77+ feet along the south side of the apartment. The prairie-like living room, located in the prime southeast corner of the apartment, measures 25-feet wide by 41-feet long includes a fireplace accented with Udaipur slate from India. Situated between the leviathan living room and the 660+ square foot banquet hall sized dining room in the southeast corner of the apartment is what floor plan information labels a library. However, it does not appear to Your Mama that there is a single shelf for a single book in that so-called library.

The well equipped eat in kitchen looks like pretty much every other kitchen Your Mama has ever seen or been in in one of these hideously expensive and architecturally average residential towers that hairrific real estate developer Donald Trump puts up all over town. A long hall that shoots back from the gallery the separates the foyer from the dining room contains a powder pooper, walk-in coat closet, service entrance, laundry facilities, and a long storage closet. At the tail end of the corridor is one of the condo's two guest or family bedrooms that includes a private pooper and two walk-in closets.

The other guest or family bedroom sits just off the foyer and has its own private pooper and two standard depth closets. The master suite, also accessed right off the foyer, opens to a long "L" shaped hallway with two walk-in closets, two standard depth closets, and two windowless poopers, one with a separate tub and shower and the other with just a stand up shower. The bedroom itself measures 27-feet long and 17 feet wide which is plenty of room for a sleeping area and large sitting area or playpen.

The condo is kitted out with all the electronic gadgets and gewgaws one imagines an extravagantly paid professional athlete would want including a Lutron lighting and shading system which allows the window shades to be raised and lowered at the touch of a button, a Crestron audio system, a Panasonic IP phone system (whatever that is), and a 3COM managed wireless network system (whatever that is).

Records we accessed through Property Shark show that Mister Jeter also owns an 84 square foot storage unit in the building that he purchased in May of 2004 for $25,700. Presumably this will be sold off to the new owner or another current resident of the building.

Other residents or owners in the Trump World Tower include, according to property records, a lot of folks with foreign sounding names and the governments of Qatar, Afghanistan, India, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Since February of 2009, Mister Jeter's upstairs neighbor has been Blackstone Group private equity honcho Chu Chinh who paid a a toe curling $33,654,000 for three units–one entire floor and half of the floor above–that total 34 rooms, and includes 12 bedrooms, 16.5 poopers and 14,864 square feet. Also in residence at the Trump World Tower is cat-faced plastic surgery victim Jocelyne Wildenstein, who owns 2 adjacent condos, one of which she bought in October of 2007 for $3,500,000, plus two storage rooms for which she paid a total of $103,000 in June and October of 2009.

There is much media speculation the Mister Jeter may have listed his bachelor pad because he just might be fixin' to move in with or marry his longtime actress girl friend Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights) who lives primarily in Los Angeles, CA. But of course, Your Mama don't know nuthin' about that. What we do know is that Mister Jeter–a bit of a real estate size queen–will be far from homeless when he manages to offload his Manhattan condo. In addition to the somewhat controversial 30,000+ square foot mega-mansion he's been building on three contiguous waterfront lots in the Davis Island neighborhood of Tampa, records show Mister Jeter still owns a 4,493 square foot house inside the gates of the Avila Golf and Country Club in Tampa, FL that he bought way back in 1997 for $625,000. He also reportedly owns a mansion in Marlboro, NJ and an historic castle-like mansion in Greenwood Lake in Upstate New York.

listing photos and floor plan: Trump World Tower

Financier Leonard Ross Declares Bankruptcy!

In September of 2007 Your Mama discussed–at length here, here, here, and here–the opulent and behemoth Beverly Hills, CA estate that attorney and financier Leonard Ross had on the market with a mind melding asking price of $165,000,000. At the time, Mister Ross's ritzy pink stucco residence was the most expensive property listed on the open market in all of the United States.

The grandiose and fabled estate was taken off the market in 2008 without a buyer to sign on the deed's dotted line, which is a cryin' shame because today word slips down the gossip grapevine that big living Mister Ross has done declared bankruptcy claiming a punishing $40,000,000 in mortgages on the walled and gated hilltop estate now known as The Beverly House Compound. According to the sassy folks who pen the Page Six column of the New York Post, Mister Ross also declared debts of $350,000 owed to the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, $3,000,000 owed to his ex-wife Merri Jean Ross and additional outstanding bills at the Brentwood Country Club and UCLA.

The Mediterranean manse, designed by architect Gordon Kaufmann who also designed the nearby Greystone Mansion and had a hand in the design of Hoover Dam, was built in 1927 for banker Milton Getz. In 1947 the plum property was purchased by married publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst who called the property Beverly House and moved his long time mistress Marion Davies into the main mansion. Mister Hearst died at Beverly House in 1951 and within two weeks Miss Davies moved her extra-curricular man-friend Horace Brown into the mansion. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

Anyhoo, in 1953 newlyweds John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy spent part of their honeymoon holed up in the palatial pile and the property was used later as the West Coast headquarters for Mister Kennedy's presidential campaign. The boo-teek hotel sized house was was also featured in The Godfather film including the scene where a producer awakens to find the head of a horse lying next to him in bed.

Mister Brown inherited the property from Miss Davies, subdivided it and sold it in 1966. Our Mister Ross scooped up the main part of the estate in 1976, renovated and restored the structures, whipped the gardens into their former glory, and bought up some of the parcels that have been subdivided and sold off. According to a report in a 2007 article in The Los Angeles Times, Mister Ross attempted to sell the estate in the late 1980s with an asking price of $25,000,000.

The multi-parcel property sprawls across 6.25 meticulously manicured but kind of old-fashioned acres behind the Beverly Hills Hotel and includes a titanic 20,000+ square foot main mansion, 3 additional residences plus a separate apartment and cottage for security staff. There are, according to multiple previous reports, a total of 29 bedrooms, a heart stopping 40 poopers, 3 swimming pools, 2 tennis courts, and a damn disco.

Your Mama had a chit-chat this morning with an well connected informant we'll call The Birthday Boy who had opportunity to visit the property a few years back and didn't have the nicest things to say about the property. The Birthday Boy told Your Mama–and we quote here–"The house was classic faded aristocracy. It needed new carpet, new paint, etc. The landscaping was kind of overgrown and the hardscape was falling apart." The Birthday Boy did, however, have very complimentary things to say about both Mister Ross and his much younger wife Nataalia Rey.

Now that Mister Ross's finances have gone belly up, can we expect to see his historic and legendary house go back on the market with a more reasonable and realistic asking price? Your Mama, like everyone else, waits on pins and needles to see what happens.

Jeffrey Tambor Sells at a Loss in Topanga Canyon

SELLER: Jeffrey Tambor
LOCATION: 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