Chelsea Handler: Home For the Holidays

BUYER: Chelsea Handler
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: $5,942,500
SIZE: 5,572 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A month or so ago Your Mama did the celebrity real estate dishes on one of our favorite funny femmes, Chelsea Handler. At that time, the gravel voiced wise cracker and hussy was living up in a leased terra-cotta colored contemporary in a particularly posh section of the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, CA.

Her stay in Brentwood was temporary because as everyone who follows Miss Handler's tweets (or twits or twats or whatever they're called) already knows the sharp and sometimes deliciously mean comedienne purchased a home of her own, just in time to put a Thanksgiving turkey in the deep fryer, light the Menorah and snatch up a ceiling-scraping Christmas tree for the living room.

Thanks to an information bone from a well-connected spy in Beverly Hills, a lovely gal whom we'll call Juanita Whispersthedirt, we've recently learned that Miss Handler picked up a perfectly private walled and gated celebrity-style contemporary tucked into a steep hillside in the uppity Bel Air area of Los Angeles.

Before we delve down into some of the real estate details, Your Mama wants to let the children know we are not going to engage in much diss and/or discussion of the seller's bending-towards-Art-Deco day-core seen in the listing photographs. Presumably and hopefully Miss Handler will hire a nice, gay decorator to get up in her new crib and work out some of the architectural quirks and decorative kinks like all those damn orchid plants and the horrific peachy-colored flower patterned wallpaper in the master pooper that made Your Mama vomit in our mouth a little when we first saw it.

Your Mama scared up some listing information and property records for Miss Handler's new house that reveal she splashed out the considerable sum of $5,942,500 for a completely rebuilt residence that measures 5,572 square feet with a total of 6 bedrooms and 7 poopers.

An electronically controlled gate opens from a quiet cul-de-sac to a swooping driveway that rises to a tight motor court and 3-car carport/garage. Once through the front door, the interior spaces meander along at a variety of angles that match the topography of the lot and include, according to listing information and marketing materials, a dining room with treetop views and a large living room with fireplace, travertine (or some other stone) flooring, and expansive walls of glass. The nearby kitchen has gleaming and glossy white cabinetry, matte black counter tops, a pantry, Viking brand appliances, tree top views through a wide window over the sink–a feature our wool gathering house keeper Svetlana would appreciate–a lighted soffit that runs around the room's ceiling, and a Volkswagen-sized skylight directly above the large work island and breakfast counter.

One of the two family rooms, a den with fireplace and flat screen tee-vee mounted above it, opens directly and awkwardly off the dining room but does have two dynamite glass panels that slide into the walls and merge the room with the backyard. A second, larger and icky peach colored family room is fitted with yet another wall mounted flat scree tee-vee and more glass panels that disappear in the walls to create a porch-like environment. An adjacent room, a room unfortunately not entirely closed off from the family room, is chock-full of the various and sundry body torture contraptions designed to keep a person slim and taut and that Your Mama avoids like they're dipped in the Hantavirus and rolled in Anthrax.

Naturally, the star-friendly residence has all the new-fangled bells and whistles modern-day famous and rich people require including custom lighting and sound systems, a camera equipped security system and a panic room with built-in safe where Miss Handler can stash her stash.

The backyard, privately situated between the house and a seriously steep and grassy hillside that looks like it's going to be awfully difficult for Miss Handler's little nugget Chewy to mow, has a heated 50-foot long swimming pool with attached raised spa, a couple of small terraces for sun loungers, an outdoor fireplace flanked by ass-bashing built in concrete benches, a built in barbecue center fully equipped with Viking brand appliances and, natch, a flat screen tee-vee mounted to the side of the damn house so iffin anyone who might be frolicking in the pool has a burning urge to watch the Judge Judy Show, they can.

What the property does not have are stables, which means Miss Handler will have to adopt out the small horse that Jay Leno gave her as a housewarming present in late July. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter promise we will buy Miss Handler a more appropriate house warming and holiday gift just as soon as she invites us to sit cross-legged in front of her Christmas tree while her barefoot lesbian house-ladee serves coffee and fruit cake.

Back in November of 2008, when Miss Handler was still shtupping and living in sin with her boss Ted Harbert at E!, the couple paid $3,700,000 for a penthouse pad with panoramic Pacific Ocean views at the Azzurra complex in Marina del Rey, CA. Sometime in early 2010–or in late 2009 depending on who you ask or what you read–Miz Handler and Mister Harbert's relationship swirled down the terlit of love.

Not long after splitting with her boss, horny Miz Handler hooked up briefly with a rather studly and well-formed Canadian animal handler and television star named Dave Salmoni and she may or may not currently be gettin' bizzy with rich, rich, rich and bullet hole riddled rapper 50 Cent.

Property records, via Property Shark, show that in May of 2010 Mister Harbert bought out Miz Handler's share of their 3,319 square foot former love nest penthouse in Marina del Rey for $1,147,000.

As an aside, the listing agent for the property Miss Handler just purchased was none other than über-broker Mauricio Umansky, both celebutante Paris Hilton's uncle and the handsome huzband of Kyle Richards who some of the children will know as the raven haired ladee on the The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills who is about to rip Kelsey Grammer's insufferably narcissistic ex-wife Camille a new asshole. This poor Camille person, all fake boobs, blond weave and self-helpy self-righteousness, had the guts and gall to get up on the national tee-vee and whine about how difficult and exhausting it is to be a mother and wife when you have 6 homes, 4 nannies for 2 elementary school aged children, a couple of personal assistants, and a house manager or two not to mention a shapely male tennis pro with whom she flirts like she's a dog in heat. Bitch, pleeze. Do not even go there, gurl. Listen to Your Mama here Camille because we are about to offer you some free and sage advice: Nobody, and we mean no body at all, wants to hear about your silly, rich ladee trophy wife problems. We suggest you just clam up that over-Botoxed mug of yours and try to enjoy your last few minutes of fame as the former wife and baby momma of a shockingly rich and tired ol' sitcom star. We can understand how you would want to be known as more than just Kelsey Grammer's (ex)wife but you are not doing yourself any favors, ladee, by acting a damn fool on the tee-vee and invoking Kelsey's Grammer's name every 47 damn seconds. Okay? Get it together now. Seriously.

Anyhoo, from Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's humble house in the Hollywood Hills to her newly acquired mansion in the hills of Bel Air, we wish Miss Handler happy holidays and a happy new house.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

To Let: Nicole Kidman's Starchitect Designed Digs in NYC

OWNER: Nicole Kidman
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $45,000 per month
SIZE: 3,785 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: For many years, Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman leased posh pied a terres in lower Manhattan. She lived for a bit in the London Terrace complex in Chelsea where Your Mama would see her lookin' all steely eyed and slim. She also spent some time in a SoHo penthouse then owned by Boris Becker now owned by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos and she shacked up in the SoHo doo-plex penthouse that her then lover Lenny Kravitz recently sold to Grammy queen Alicia Keys and her baby-daddy Swizz Beatz.

Now buckle up your safety belts, bunnies, because this is gonna blow your ever-luvin' minds: Even though ex-Missus Tom Cruise laid out oceans cash all over downtown Manhattan on high-priced rentals, she actually owned–and continues to own– a large and lavish apartment in one of the three green glass Richard Meier designed towers along the West Side Highway in the Far West Village.

Imagine for a moment, chickens, having the financial freedom to spend many millions on a pied a terre only to decide, "Meh, I don't like this place so much after all" and then go out and rent someone other famous person's gigantic and uncommonly expensive apartment. Lawrd, puppies, who does that?

Nicole Kidman, that's who.

Anyhoo, Miz Kidman is making waves on The Real Deal real estate website because–better get your check books, gurls–she's put her glassy crib in the Far West Village up for lease for a bone chilling $45,000 per month.

Miz Kidman snatched up the high-floor condo on the bizzy, bizzy, bizzy West Side Highway back in 2003 when The Meier Triplets were brand spanking new and creating an architectural stir in New York City and beyond. Unfortunately, Your Mama doesn't know exactly what Miz Kidman paid for the place, but we understand from previous reports it was around 8,000,000 U.S. clams and that the apartment was purchased in the name of her little sister Antonia Hawley. Since Miss Kidman only occupied the apartment for a short time–or if at all–it's quite possible the sleek residence was at some point occupied by the little sister. However, all us real estate gossips seem to think that whomever it was that put their panties away in the custom fitted closets, the posh pad was paid for by Big Sister Kidman.

Listing information shows the apartment, wrapped on three sides in floor to ceiling glass, has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers including a master suite with sitting area, Midtown Manhattan view, custom fitted closets. The en-suite marble and walnut facilities include a double vanity, steam shower, egg-shaped soaking tub, and a floor to ceiling interior window so a person could, in theory, sit in a vat of hot water with their own filth and at the same time look clean through the living room and see the Hudson River and the Hoboken skyline.

The living room stretches the full width of the building and has a small south-facing balcony which due to the traffic is probably a little loud to be peaceful. A dee-luxe cooker was tucked quietly around the corner where the counter tops are both marble and walnut and the appliances among the most expensive money can buy.

Like all successful and extravagantly wealthy actors homes should be, Miz Kidman's condo is smart wired to remotely operate the audio, visual and lighting systems plus control the sunshades that scroll down at the touch of a button. The blue of the Hudson River acts as a vibrant and shimmering color counterpoint to the severely restricted palette of the interior day-core, all crisp white, seal gray, luscious chocolate browns and a little black here and there to ground things a bit. Despite its fishbowl nature, it's really quite magnificent, both livable and bordering on sterile at the same time and that, buttons, is not an easy decorative combo to pull off.

The person who coughs up the cash to rent the residence will find themselves surrounded by big name neighbors including Alexis Stewart–that's Martha's daughter–who has a ginormous triplex in the complex, Calvin Klein who owns a penthouse doo-plex, hotelier Ian Schrager, celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Aussie actor Hugh Jackman who only bought his 11,000 square foot triplex earlier this year for the ungodly sum of $21,000,000.

Miz Kidman and her man-mate Keith Urban own homes all over the world including (but not limited to) a penthouse pad in Sydney and a 100+ acre spread a couple hours outside Sydney, a mansion in Nashville, TN, and a contemporary crib in a star-studded section of Beverly Hills (Post Office). The Kidman-Urbans recently acquired a ten million dollar doo-plex in a much ballyhooed newly completed Annabelle Selldorf designed West Chelsea building with so-called sky garages accessed by an industrial lift that raises cars to private parking bays located on the same floor as the apartment to which it is deeded.

listing photos: Halstead

Dasha Zhukova Flips Out in the Birds

SELLER: Daria 'Dasha' Zhukova
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $16,500,000
SIZE:9,691 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms

UPDATE: Since this discussion Your Mama received a missive from a representative of Miss Zhukova who informed us the property is, "most definitely not for sale." For the record, the real estate aggregating website Redfin shows the property was listed on the 15th of November and quickly de-listed on the 17th of November. You got that, butter beans? She says it's not for sale so it's not for sale.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In September of 2008, one of the largest estates in The Bird Street area of Los Angeles above the Sunset Strip came on the market with an über optimistic asking price of $29,000,000. By August of the following year the price tags and plummeted to $21,900,000.

Then along comes the a gal named Dasha Zhukova, the Russian born American bred daughter of a wealthy oil tycoon and arms dealer and the twenty-something year old ladee-friend of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. In December of 2009 Miss Zhukova pushed out Mister Abramovich's sixth shorty and just a month later, according property records and previous reports, she signed on the deed's dotted and paid $19,500,000 for the 9,691 square foot mansion.

Since Miss Zhukova lives primarily in London and Moscow–and on whichever of Mister Abramovich's many mega-yachts–the humongous house high in the hills above LaLa Land was purchased as a pied a terre where she could stay when visiting her mother or–since she owns and oversees a pioneering contemporary art gallery in Moscow and was until recently the Editor-In-Chief of the fashion/art/culture publication Pop magazine–look at art or whatever it is she does in Los Angeles.

Anyhoo, Miss Zhukova grew bored–or something–with her pied a terre in Tinseltown and flipped her huge house in The Bird Streets above the Sunset Strip back on the market with an asking price of $16,500,000.

No, puppies, Your Mama's flying fingers did make not a mistake. Miss Zhukova actually listed the Los Angeles mansion she bought only 11 months ago ago for $3,000,000 less than she paid for the place. That's a hair curling loss but when your father and man-friend combined are worth more than the GDP of any number of sub-Saharan countries, it probably stings a little less.

Now, how many times have we told the children how fickle rich and/or famous people are when it comes to their real estate? So capricious they'll take a multi-million dollar loss on a house they just don't want anymore. Harumph.

photo: Bing

Is Lady Gaga Headed for the Scotish Countryside?

Let's begin the new week with a little unsubstantiated celebrity real estate rumor and gossip, shall we?

In less than five years the newly minted, meat dress wearing new Madonna of pop music Lady Gaga has gone from scraping up pennies off the sidewalk to pay for a shitty one room tenement apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to being one of the highest paid entertainers on the planet with a rushing river of money that flows into her coffers and allows her the financial fortitude at 24 years old to buy or lease lavish homes in some of the most affluent and expensive zip codes across the damn country.

For the last six or 8 months Lady Gaga, who wears clever and outlandish look-at-me-look-at-me outfits in her everyday life but bristles when people give her the sartorial stink eye, has been making serious real estate headlines from coast to coast. As bizzy as beehatcha is–and she is like a damn dervish she's got so many things to do–she somehow had time to house hunt from Los Angeles to the Hamptons all summer long.

First word slipped and slid down to Your Mama off the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that recently ridiculously rich Lady Gaga–née Stefani Germanotta–was considering the purchase of a recently rehabbed estate in Beverly Hills, CA with a price tag of $16,500,000. Previous to Miss Gaga's (alleged) interest, Your Mama had heard from an impeccable source that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, who already own a house in the star-studded 'hood, were interested in but did not purchase the property.

In a respectable and sensible financial maneuver, instead of dropped boo-coo bucks to buy a house, Lady Gaga opted instead to lease a 6 bedroom and 8 pooper mansion in the hills of Bel Air at around $25,000 per month. Interestingly, and probably not coincidentally, the mansion Miss Gaga leased in Bel Air is owned by the same young music bizness dude who owns the lavish Beverly Hills estate that she (and Nicole and Keith) declined to buy.

By mid-July the scuttlebutt and stories about Lady Gaga house hunting in the hoity-toity Hamptoons become deafening. There were all sorts of reports that Miss Gaga was working with this real estate brokerage and other stories about her working with that real estate agent. Fast and furious came all the blogs and tabs with reports that Miss Gaga was interested in a $26,000,000 house in Sagaponack. Although her people denied all the real estate speculation, even more stories landed that claimed Miss Gaga had already leased a house in the Hamptons for the summer season. It would seem that if Miss Gaga was indeed in residence in the Hamptoons she'd be easy to pick out at Loaves & Fishes in Sagaponack, a towering bouffant haired lady in a bubble wrap pant suit and treacherously tall horse hoof-like shooz surrounded by a bunch of tan Mercedes driving ladees in Pucci sarongs and pudgy hedge hogs in crisp polo shirts.

Even though her manager–or somebody who makes millions off her professional efforts–gave her a vintage convertible Rolls Royce to pilot around town, Lady Gaga didn't much care for LaLa Land. Before long, the capricious young superstar returned to New York City where the little minx has kept the lady at the Gimme Shelter column in the New York Post bizzy as a beaver reporting on all the twenty and $25,000 per month downtown apartments that Lady Gaga has toured.

Often decked out in one of her casual, pants-free daytime outfits, Miss Gaga reportedly went for a look-see at a 4,000 square foot doo-plex at 1 Morton Square with monthly rent of $25,000; Prior to that she toured a 2,858 square foot doo-plex penthouse in SoHo with a 1,200 square foot of private terraces and a $21,000 per month price tag. According to the tabs and gossip glossies, the celebrity-style (magnet) SoHo penthouse was also peeped by Meg Ryan, Baz Luhrmann, and comedian Lewis Black.

In August it was revealed that Lady Gaga toured a 3,468 square foot crib in the SoHo Mews building listed at $9,975,000. The 4-bedroom penthouse pad has 1,591 square feet of wraparound terrace with a hot tub. Now chickens, we can understand why Miss Germanotta might want a terrace but we need a damn gin & tonic in order to get our pea-sized mind around her doing anything as pedestrian as sitting in a silly hot tub. We know Miss Gaga puts her pants on one leg at a time and gets drunk on cheap booze at baseball games like ordinary people, but we draw the line at a Miss Missy Hoohoo tucking into a chain mail one-piece bathing suit and bobbing around a hot tub.

As late at mid-October Lady Gaga was, according to the Gimme Shelter ladee, still hunting for a home and toured a slick and stylish 4,000 square foot penthouse pad listed with an asking price of $14,995,000 at the Winka Dubbeldam designed V33 building in TriBeCa. The sleek and almost painfully au courant doo-plex has 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 5 fireplaces, 1 private parking space, nearly 3,500 square feet of terraces and an 8-foot by 16-foot infinity pool. That's right, an infinity edge pool right in the middle of Manhattan.

In late September, WWD–that's the fashion holy book Women's Wear Daily–reported that Lady Gaga was in the final stages of a property purchase on the sleepy but über-upscale island of Martha's Vineyard where other famous home owners include Larry David, David Letterman, and Carly Simon. True or not True? Bueller? Bueller? If Your Mama needed a drink to imagine Miss Gaga submerged in a hot tub it requires an additional nerve pill to picture her gallivanting around the Martha's damn Vineyard in a bathing suit made of Christmas tinsel and butterflies and strutting down the shore in a pair Alexander McQueen's spectacular tootsie punishing Armadillo shoes.

About the same time the real estate rumors swirled about her snatching up a house on Martha's Vineyard, even more scuttlebutt came in on the Lady Gaga real estate gossip train about how she wanted to buy a castle in England or maybe Scotland. Some reports even said that Miss Germanotta got the idea of an estate in the U.K. from Madonna although Your Mama suspects middle-aged Madge secretly hates young and nubile Miss Gaga.

Anyhoo, that brings us up to last week when Your Mama received a covert communique from one of our international spies that Lady Gaga's house hunt has indeed gone international. If fact, word on the Scottish real estate street is that the button pushing performer has bit the bullet and signed contracts to purchase the massive and historic Yester House estate in Scotland, in the village of Gifford about 20 or so miles outside the fine city of Edinburgh.
Yester House has been for sale since August of 2008 when it was listed at £15,000,000, that's 24,165,300 American dollars at today's rates according to Your Mama's currency conversion contraption. The asking price for the 300-acre estate was later hacked to £12,000,000 ($19,332,200 at today's rates) and subsequent to that slashed to £8,000,000 ($12,888,200 at today's rates). The newest price, according to earlier reports, includes 285 of the estate's nearly 600 acres and all the contents of the house.

According to our American living in Scotland, a member of the household staff at Yester House told him that a "contract has been signed for a sale to Lady Gaga." Your Mama makes no claims of veracity for that statement. Real estate rumors are exactly that, puppies, rumors. Maybe Miss Gaga is buying Yester House and maybe she is not. Okay? At this point we have no confirmation and we are not aware of any previous reporting of the (alleged) purchase.

Yester House (above), owned since the 1970s by Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti who died in 2007 and now owned by by his family, was built between 1699 and 1728. The 17th-century mega-mansion measures an elephantine 34,585 square feet with more than 60 rooms, 35 or more fireplaces, 5 reception rooms including two drawings rooms and a formal dining room with not just one but two fireplaces, a print room (whatever that is), business room, flower arranging room, 3 kitchens, more staircases than Your Mama can count, second floor music room and a basement level billiard room with two fireplaces.

Six principal bedrooms surround the 1,300 square foot ballroom on the second floor, each with private pooper and two with large private dressing rooms. Eight additional bedrooms on the third floor share two bathrooms, and a self-contained staff suite located in a separate wing has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Your Mama counts 3 additional full bathrooms and 3 more half poopers sprinkled throughout the middle school-sized house.

A rabbit warren-like 20+ room service complex on the basement level includes a wine cellar or two, gun room, laundry facilities, butler's pantry, the original kitchen and adjacent scullery, walk in larder, dairy room (perhaps for milking cows and making cheese?), a garden room, a 400+ square foot room for the head housekeeper and a dozen various workshops, cellars and storage rooms.

While it's embarrassingly over-sized for a 20-something single gal like Lady Gaga, it's also rather perfect. Just imagine Lady Gaga here, alone at Yester House on some stormy Scotish night as she slowly and dramatically drags from room to dimly lit room in a floor length dress fashioned from whispers, fingernail cuttings and jagged shards of broken mirrors and mutters random snippets poems by Rilke and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It works, right?

Whether Miss Gaga buys Yester House or some other house in Scotland or another overly expensive mansion somewhere else, Your Mama will keep our fat and tired fingers crossed that she'll have the chutzpah to purchase a proper and hair curling architectural confection that holds up to and reinforces her image as an out-sized, over-blown, grossly but enigmatically self-conscious, absurdly eccentric and appropriately cryptic pop music super star.

listing photos (Yester House): Knight Frank