The Russians Are Coming...The Russians Are Coming...

...And they have their heinously expensive 394-foot long yacht with its Philippe Starck designed interiors parked right off the coast of Venice, CA.

Buckle your seat belts butter beans because it seems the free spending Russian oligarchs that have been snatching up high priced properties in Europe and all up and down the eastern seaboard of the U-nited States have finally hit the west coast and hit it big.

Yesterday we received word from the peeps at Yo! Venice! that word on the real estate street was that 30-something year old banking, steel and fertilizer fat cat Andrey Melnichenko–not to be confused with the fertilizer honcho Dmitry Rybolovlev who paid $95,000,000 for Donald Trump's Maison La Amitie in Palm Beach in the summer of 2008–was in the process of buying up an entire block on Venice's Ocean Front Walk. That's right chickens, you heard that right, an entire damn block.

Although there are no confirmations by anyone connected to the alleged situation, a well connected and intrepid source told Yo! Venice! that indeed several title orders had been opened on multiple properties between Paloma and Sunset Avenues. It's not known, nor does Your Mama have a clue, what Gospadin Melnichenko might want with an entire city block of ocean front property in Venice. Perhaps it's just an investment, maybe he'd like to build a hotel, or possibly erect a massive residential monument to his extreme wealth.
Mister Melnichenko and his supermodel Serbian wife Aleksandra have been cat nip for the gossip glossies, billionaire obsessed, and boat queens around the world ever since it became public knowledge that he spent upwards of $300,000,000 to have a super-yacht built at the Blohm + Voss shipyards in Hamburg. The big glittery boat, the one sitting in the waters of the coast of Venice (shown above), was quite simply dubbed A.

Listen chickens, if you haven't seen photos–or better yet the video–of Gaspadin Melnichenko's floating mega-mansion, get thee eyeballs on them quick. The submarine-shaped ocean liner measures 394-feet long–that's longer than a damn football field–and includes 23,600 square feet of living space. The lavish and very contemporary interior spaces of the super sleek and somewhat sinister looking boat were all did up in quintessential Philippe Starck style with acres of mirrors, rotating beds, Baccarat crystal wash basins in the poopers, and walls covered in silver leaf, white sting ray hides, and hand-stitched calf's leather. There's even a hidden "nookie" room in one of the many guest suites for, well, for doing the dirty, of course. Other ocean going luxuries includes three swimming pools, a helipad, a gigantic garage with 3 large launches and, natch, heavy duty security including bullet proof glass and dozens of cameras including night vision cameras.

Mister Starck rather humorously told the Wall Street Journal that "while most megayachts are 'vulgar' statements of wealth and power" Gaspadin Melnichenko's A is not. The French designer went on to pronouce–presumably with a straight face–that, " this boat has elegance and intelligence, it is not trying to show the money." Bitch, pleeze. You gotta be completely out of touch with reality not recognize that spending $300,000,000 to build a 394-foot private yacht with three damn swimming pools and a helipad ain't about nuthin' but showing the damn money.

Anyhoo, all us real estate gossips will wait on pins and needles for confirmation–or denial–of Gaspadin Melnichenko's rumored property purchase in Venice.

top photo: Guillaume Pilsson for The Wall Street Journal
bottom photo: Yo! Venice!

Mariska Hargitay Upgrades in the Hamptons

BUYER: Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann
LOCATION: East Hampton, NY
PRICE: $7,340,000
SIZE: 7,000 square feet, 11 bedrooms 6.6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: With the summer coming to a close–and Hurricane Earl bearing down on the east coast–we thought we'd take a virtual stroll out to the hoity-toity and celebrity packed Hamptons, that glittering string of über upscale communities that dot the beachy and bucolic landscape at the far eastern end of the south fork of Long Island.

In early July of 2010 it was reported that the Emmy winning Law & Order hottie-mommy Mariska Hargitay and her actor huzband Peter Hermann upgraded their East Hampton digs from a modest 2,554 square foot house on East Hampton's Buell Lane to an historic and rambling shingle-sided farmhouse in the same posh part of town as the summertime spreads of Martha Stewart, Mort Zuckerman, and Jerry della Femina. The property is, as it turns out, also just around the corner from the very English-y Coxwould estate–listed for a bone breaking $425,000 for the 2010 summer season–that the Kabbalah Kween is rumored and reported to have leased for the summer because the $10,000,000 horse farm that she bought in late 2009 from Kelly Klein does not, alas, have a house on the property.

Blame it on the booze butter beans, but Your Mama quickly forgot about Mister and and Missus Hargitay's new house in the Hamp-toons until recently when we were clued in by the bizzy boys at Celebrity Address Aerial who whispered in Your Mama's big ol' ear that the Hargitay-Hermanns scooped up a 3-story house in East Hampton–purchased through a trust–in late June 2010 for $7,340,000.

Listing information shows the disheveled and slightly raggedly old-school Hamptons "cottage"–built way back 1890–sits on a 1.14 acre parcel and measures approximately 7,000 square feet with a staggering 11 bedrooms and 6.6 poopers. We're not exactly sure what a .6 pooper is but that, puppies, is what the listing says.

A gravel driveway sweeps across the yard to the house where a charming and deep covered porch spans the width of the front facade. There's little Your Mama enjoys more than whittling a summer day away on a shaded porch near the beach with a big stack of tabs, a giant pitcher of gin & tonics, and a big bag of candy. Yes, we're a damn fool for candy. It's a bad habit Sister Woman hates–she's in the teeth bizness–but one we can not seem to break.

Anyhoo, according to listing information, the interior spaces include a trio of parlors with wood floors distressed by age, a dining room, window wrapped sun room, and a huge, funky eat-in kitchen with a turqwaze and black tile pattern painted on to the wood floor. The laminate counter tops have an unfortunate swirly, cream and rose colored pattern, the beat up cabinetry that is supposed to look old and charming just looks to Your Mama like it's seen its better days, the Sub-Zero fridge has a chalk-board front, and above the commercial style range hangs, we are mortified to see, a pot rack that looks all kinds of hungry to clank some unsuspecting water boiler on the damn head.

Presumably, many if not most of the cottage/mansion's 11 bedrooms are situated on the second floor. Also on the second floor is a huge deck, part of which is covered, that overlooks the back yard. Another long deck runs along one side of the main floor at the back of the house and steps down the in ground heated swimming pool that too is surrounded by decking.

Even more deckingwraps around a small blue wooden building–let's call it a quaint little pool house with French doors and 9-over-1 panel sash windows–and around to where a very 1970s looking round hot tub has been sunk into the deck. The grounds also include wide swathes of lawn, mature plantings and shade trees, a guest house and a recording studio.

The unassuming, quirky, and unpretentious property–if anything in the Hamptons that cost more than seven million clams can be considered unpretentious–was sold by a British born but New York City based fashion designer and her rock and roll drummer huzband. While we always appreciate a home that genuinely looks and feels of its owner–and we do appreciate that this house does look and feel of its former owner–we don't care for the particulars, in this case a wildly eclectic hippy-dippy beach house meets Shabby Chic meets English country house meets city sophisticate day-core. However, it's really of no use speaking on it because Your Mama has to (hope, pray and) assume that the Hargitay-Hermanns have brought or will bring in their own nice, gay decorator and maybe even a smart architect to put their own spin on the interior spaces.

The real estate whereabouts of Miz Hargitay and Mister Hermann are oft reported on and speculated about. We're not sure how much light we can throw down on the matter but here's what Your Mama knows.

In October of 2007, Miz Hargitay and Mister Hermann unloaded their 2,500 square foot Jeffrey Bilhuber designed TriBeCa penthouse at 19 Beach Street for $5,100,000 and quickly laid out $7,000,000 for a 4,817 square foot penthouse pad in the then newly converted O'Neill Building on bizzy, wide, and loud Sixth Avenue in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood.

Eight or so months later, after learning their toddler got into a swank school on the Upper East Side, the peripatetic pair hoisted the 3 bedroom and 3.5 pooper doo-plex digs at the O'Neill Building back on the market with an asking price of $8,250,000. A few months later, in October of 2008, just one year after moving in, the Hargitay's packed their bags, strapped their baby on their back, and moved back out having sold their corner unit aerie for $8,150,000 to a New York City property mogul.

There was chatter among the celebrity real estate gossips back at that time that the Hargitay-Hermanns were either looking to move uptown–closer to their tykes pricey institution of learning–or to one of the leafy and expensive enclaves in Westchester County just to the north of New York City. Honestly bunnies, we don't have a clue where the Hargitay-Hermanns went but iffin Chelsea was too far for their child to commute to toddler school, then Westchester County might as well be the damn moon, you know?

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

Ladees and Gentlemen, The Taupe Office

Lord have mercy, what is with Americans and their affinity for wishy-washy beige day-core?

The Oval Office, that room in Washington, D.C. where American presidents sit and pull the levers of international politics, has never been a particularly stylish place decoratively speaking. It was a fairly utilitarian affair until Pat Nixon injected an oval shaped electric royal blue rug into the mix. Ever since then each president–with the assistance of his not always very stylish wife and a well paid decorator–has done up and did over the Oval Office to reflect their own personal decorative tastes.We're down with that. We genuinely feel that the got-damn president of the U-nited States of America ought to have an office in which he (or, perhaps one day, she) feels comfortable and relaxed and capable of making decisions that have global impact. We don't even mind if a few of our tax dollars go towards funding a redecoration of the Oval Office, even if it is for an administration we don't care for.

However, we got some issues with the latest tasteful, rigorously restrained, and totally taupe incarnation of the Oval Office. President Obama's newly redone office is a cautious and almost frumpy sea of taupe with just tiny hints of blue on the sofa pillows and the table lamps sitting on the side tables in the seating area in the center of the room. Even the vertically striped wall paper fades away into visual obsolescence.

Your Mama well recognizes that in a time of war and economic austerity for the peeps of America–at least the ones who don't work on Wall Street–it would have been wildly inappropriate to unleash a crayon box full of color in the Oval Office. This bizness, however, seems to Your Mama's pea sized brain like decorating for the lowest common denominator. We smell a conscious effort by the Obamas and Mister Smith to create a set up and get up that would not offend voters–conservative ones in particular–so many of whom are eager as beavers to find a reason to knock the president down a notch or two and just might see something more stylish as a sign of uppity elitism and/or lack of connection with the common man. (Please note kiddies, that is not intended as a political statement, it's our meaningless opinion of the day-core.)

As vanilla as it may be, the Oval Office's new day-core is definitely more up to date and of this time than the wealthy grandma look of previous administrations. But honestly chickens, while everything is in good taste and (we presume) high quality, this looks like the sort of thing one might find in the lobby of an expensive business hotel.

All that said, what Your Mama really wants to know is what's the shit with the fruit bowl on the coffee table? Do Michael Smith, the Prez, and his adviser peeps really think Benji Netanyahu, Nancy Pelosi, or General Austin are gonna reach down for a banana or a damn nectarine in the middle of high stakes meeting? Pleeze.

It should be noted that no tax payer money was spent on the overhaul of the Oval Office. The cheddar for the redo came from a pool of money created by private donations given specifically for the purpose of doing over the White House day-core.

photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times

Is Tiger Woods Swinging His Club In New York City?

Rumors have been running all kinds of wild for the past few days that recently dee-vorced and a lot less rich Tiger "Can't Keep It In His Khakis" Woods moved some crap into a downtown New York City rental apartment last weekend.

The scuttlebutt baby seems to have been birthed on the US magazine website that quoted an unnamed "witness" as saying that Mister Woods introduced himself as "the new neighbor." The story was quickly picked up but the kind folks at Curbed who speculated that the 34-year old golf phenom might choose a celebrity packed building such as the Superior Ink in the West Village that has celeb friendly amenities such as a residents only indoor parking garage for discreet entries and exits. Curbed quickly added an update to their report that a CNBC sports business reporter tweeted that the stories of Tiger's new New York City digs were not true.

The next gossip cowboy to ride the rumor was the NY Daily News who reported that Mister Woods was seen unloading boxes and golf clubs from a double parked BMW and into an unidentified Hudson Street building. Never one to walk away from a pretty face–or large mammaries–Mister Woods allegedly stopped to pet the puppy of the very same "pretty brunette" who tattled to the Daily News about Mister Woods' alleged new bachelor pad in the West Village.
Once again the good people at Curbed quickly picked up the story, identifying the building pictured in the Daily News item as the Printing House condo building on Hudson Street in the lower and far West Village neighborhood (above). If all the real estate rumbling about Mister Woods getting himself a part-time pied a terre at the Printing House has any veracity–and we have no idea if it does or not–Your Mama imagines that part of the appeal of the Printing House building for Mister Woods may have been the boo-teek rooftop gym that includes squash courts, yoga and pilates classes, and a rooftop swimming pool and sundeck. Sounds like the perfect place for a horny public figure to semi-discreetly pick up large chested and hard bodied babes and get them downstairs for some bowmchickabowbowm without anyone being the wiser. Okay, that's naughty and nasty and probably uncalled for but he's proven himself to be shady that way, you know?

In other Tiger Woods related real estate news, former squeeze Rachel Uchitel–who was reportedly paid ten million big ones by Mister Woods to keep her luscious lips shut–reportedly wants to purchase a newly renovated 3 bedroom and 3 pooper Park Avenue apartment priced at $1,995,000. The problem is, according to the tabs, the condo board is getting all persnickety and balking at the notion of having such a notorious (and alleged) home wrecker as Miss Uchitel living up in their midst.

Honestly chickens, Your Mama didn't know nor do we think that the board of a condominium building gets a say on who can or can not buy an apartment in the building. Of course Your Mama don't know a cook book from a cup of coffee but it's our understanding that that particular privilege of black balling potential apartment buyers–iffin anyone wants to call it a privilege–is the exclusive domain of the boards of co-operative buildings and not condo buildings.
Anyhoo and whatever the case, Your Mama did a little research and the only recently renovated 3 bedroom 3 pooper Park Avenue apartment we could find currently on the market at $1,995,000 is an 8th floor number in a pre-war building on lower Park Avenue at 39th Street, just three short blocks south of Grand Central Station (above). The apartment includes a wood burning fireplace in the living room, a small dining room, granite counter tops in the kitchen and–glory be!–windows in each of the three poopers for airing out Miss Uchitel's stank.

The children may recall that in December of 2009 Your Mama dissed and dis-cussed Miss Uchitel's ground floor 2 bedroom and 2 pooper apartment at the Turnberry Place condo complex in Las Vegas, NV that she had–and still has–on the market with an asking price of $1,350,000.

For what it's worth–and it ain't worth a penny–we just find it sort of strange that Mister Woods might even want to maintain a residence in the very same city where Rachel Uchitel is allegedly trying to set down some real estate roots. But then again, what city could Tiger Woods live or spend time where he hasn't already gotten in trouble for schtupping a stripper, porn star, or a star fucker?

photos: Property Shark
listing floorplan: Corcoran