Pop Princess Kylie Minogue Lists London Flat

SELLER: Kylie Minogue
LOCATION: London, UK
PRICE: £3,950,000
SIZE: 2,730 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to one of Your Mama's butter beans across the pond in Britain we learned over the long Labor Day weekend that Grammy winning and breast cancer beating Australian singing super star Kylie Minogue has her two-floor flat in London on the market. The princess of pop first listed her South Kensington crib in the early part of the summer (2010) for £4,500,000. That's $6,933,960 at today's rates according to Your Mama's currency conversion contraption. However and alas, reportedly due to lack of buyer interest, Miss Minogue recently slashed the price tag of her apartment–which listing information calls a "maisonette"–by more than 10% to it's current asking price of £3,950,000, or $6,086,480 at today's rates.

Iffin Your Mama is being honest–and we always are–we'd confess to the kiddies that Miss Minogue's particular brand of pop music is of little interest or comfort to our ears and as such we really know little about Miss Minogue and/or her career trajectory. A perfunctory peep and poke around the interweb tells us that Miss Minogue began her long climb up the ladder of fame and fortune as a child actor turned soap actress who made a sensationally successful segue into pop music in the late 1980s. Although the sexy singer faced criticism early on that she was little more than a talent-free manufactured pop star who traded in on her celebrity as a soap star, today the Australian born singer is considered by at least one research company to be the most powerful celebrity in Britain.

Since Your Mama isn't skilled in the ways of researching property transactions in the U.K. we have to go with previous reports that indicate Miss Minogue scooped up her South Kensington pad in the early 1990s, at first sharing the flat with her brother Brendan who has since moved out of the apartment and back to Australia.

According to listing information, the 5th and 6th floor flat that's located in a small building with a resident caretaker–that's a super in New York City speak–was given a decorative overhaul four years ago by the glitzy, glammy and highly publicized interior design and property development management firm of Candy & Candy. The re-do reportedly cost the sexy singer somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000,000. Candy & Candy is owned and operated by brothers Nick and Christian Candy who are the same suave chaps who oversaw development London's über posh One Hyde Park where a six-bedroom penthouse pad recently sold for a record breaking and jaw dropping $220,000,000.

The bespoke brothers, it might amuse and interest the children to know, share ownership of the very same (in)famous Monaco penthouse doo-plex at the La Belle Epoque building where billionaire banker Edmund Safra perished in a bizarre conflagration back in December of 1999. Naturally the Candy brothers have Candified the 30-room penthouse pad making it, we're quite certain, virtually unrecognizable to the Mister Safra's wildly wealthy widow Lily Safra.

The Candy brothers are also the same fellows who were involved in an overly optimistic consortium of investors who in April of 2007 paid a ridiculously stoopid $500,000,000 for an 8-acre site in Los Angeles–at Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards–hoping to build a glassy and ritzy Richard Meier designed condo complex strikingly similar to the one that went up a few years ago on Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, NY's Park Slope neighborhood. The pie in the sky investors purchased the Beverly Hills property with a shocking $365,500,000 loan from Credit Suisse a large part of which was quickly sold to Banco Inbursa, owned by Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim. Señor Slim is the dude who, the children will recall, just a couple months ago paid $44,000,000 for the Duke Semans Mansion on New York City's Fifth Avenue. In large part because of collapse of the Icelandic Kaupthing Bank, the Candy brothers and their group of investors defaulted on the loan and the property now belongs to a group of investors including Mister Slim's Banco Inbursa.

As inneresting as the Candy Brother's bizness doings are, we digress and they're really neither here nor there and of little import the real estate matter at hand. Although listing information indicates Miss Minogue's "maisonette" has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms a rapid review of the floor plan included with listing information shows 2 real bedrooms and 3.5 poopers plus a small study and a large dance studio that in a pinch could be used as a bedroom.

The 2,730 square foot apartment is accessed via an elevator that whisks residents and guest up to the fifth floor entrance hall with walnut floors laid in a checkerboard parquet pattern and a sensual staircase with patinated brass balustrade and black piano-lacquer handrail. Double glass doors open to the reception/dining room with baby blue paneled walls with inset mirror inlays, underfloor heating, a large bay window with views over the surrounding roof tops, and a dining room table and chandelier that both look improperly scaled for the room. We're going to give Miss Minogue–not to mention Candy & Candy–the benefit of the doubt and guess that this room and indeed the entire flat were stripped down and pared back to its bare decorating essentials in preparation for its being hoisted on to the market.

Sliding panels slip into the walls and reveal a drawing room–that's an American living room–with more baby blue walls, another bay window with roof top views, and a pair of identical Tiffany blue velvet sofa loungers flanking a fireplace with antique brown marble surround and squaring off over too small glass coffee table.

The windowed eat-in kitchen can be accessed through the drawing/living room or the entrance hall and is custom fitted with walnut cabinetry, marble counter tops, a pair of sinks, work island with breakfast bar and wine fridge, and a colossal and colossally expensive La Cornue brand stove with both electric and gas ovens, two plate warming drawers, and a cook top with griddle and two electric and 4 gas burners.

A long carpeted hall leads back from the entrance hall. To one side a small bedroom/study with custom fitted cabinetry and desk with leather counter top and on the other a privately situated powder pooper with window. A bit further down the hall a small bedroom has custom walnut cupboards and a big black marble pooper includes a steam shower, heated towel rail and underfloor heating.

A door at the end of the hall opens into the master bedroom that offers sleepers a view toward the London Eye, a fireplace with Serpegiente marble surround, satin paneled walls with crystal stud detailing, and a silk/wood carpeting with overlapping circle pattern and walnut parquet surround. Between the bedroom and Miss Minogue's dee-luxe pooper with heated marble floor, fireplace and freestanding tub is a blush colored custom fitted dressing area with two closets and scads of curved cabinetry for storing and stashing all of Miss Minogues knick-knacks and panty whacks.

The very Hollywood from the 1940s staircase leads up to the second floor landing with a utility room with stainless steel counters, laundry facilities and mini-fridge on one side and a pooper, on the other. Beyond the pooper and utility room is a large room with wood floors, six skylights in the sloped and peaked ceiling, a built-in dressing table and built in cabinetry that conceals a home entertainment system and Murphy bed, and additional shelving and storage under the eaves.

According to multiple reports, Miss Minogue wants to sell her South Kensington "maisonette" in order to purchase a larger London spread that will better accommodate visits by her family members.

Back in February of 2008, Your Mama discussed Beauciel, Miss Minogue's 221-acre eco-friendly spread on Australia's French Island that she had on the market for just under two million Aussie clams. Presumably the property has been sold, but honestly chickens, we don't know.

More recent reports from the celebrity real estate beat reveal that Miss Minogue paid around $675,000 for a luxury villa in Tossa de Mar, the hometown coastal village of her muy guapo Spanish supermodel man-friend Andrés Velencoso Segura who is well known among male mannequin watchers for posing butt-nekkid and with his wing-wang hanging out.

listing photos and floor plan: John D. Wood & Co.

Real Estate Wrap Up

1.
Philanderer extraordinaire Tiger Woods has been much in the celebrity real estate news lately. First there were rumors and reports that he leased an apartment in a second rate building in New York City's West Village. The scuttlebutt next turned to his main ex-mistress Rachel Uchitel who is widely reported to have dropped around two million clams for a 3 bedroom and 3 pooper condo in the Murray Hill area of the Big Apple.

Now there's the stunning news that just two days after his quickie dee-vorce was finalized Mister Woods took a staggering $54,500,000 mortgage on the Jupiter Island, FL compound he and the ex-wife have been building the last four or five years.

Speculation among all the celebrity and real estate gossips is that the massive mortgage has something to do with financial stipulations and considerations Mister Woods has to pay out to ex-Missus Woods as per the terms of their dee-vorce.

Mister Woods paid $44,500,000 in cash for the water front property that includes several very contemporary clean-lined structures, three swimming pools, and a gigantic gym.

2.
Are the children ready to get back on the Dave and Vicky Beckham real estate crazy train?
Your Mama sure hopes so because word is starting to slip slide down the real estate gossip grapevine that the superstar couple is looking to unload Beckingham Palace, their sprawling English spread located in a part of the U.K. called Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Don't ask Your Mama where that is on a map because we don't know and we didn't bother to look.

The soccer stud and the celery stalk thin former pop star turned fashion maven paid around £2,500,000 for the 1930s Georgian style mansion back in 1999 and recent reports indicate the 7 bedroom mansion is valued by savvy estate agents at £18,000,000. As far as we know there is not an official listing for the property available online but iffin any of the children should turn one up be sure to holler at Your Mama.

The peripatetic pair who have three boy children own several other homes including a chateau in France, a house in Dubai, and a mansion in Beverly Hills, CA that they purchased in the spring of 2007 for $18,200,000 after a long and tedious search that wore out all us celebrity real estate gossips. Although it's expected the Beckham clan will settle (semi) permanently in Bev Hills, the high on the hog livvin' couple are none the less reported to be looking for a townhouse in London to make as their base when in the U.K.

3.
Academy Award winning actor Nic Cage, who recently reached some sort of secret settlement with his former accountant and bizness manager Sam Levin who Mister Cage alleged led him down a garden path to financial ruin, famously and publicly lost his legendary mansion on Copa de Oro Road in the swank Bel Air section of Los Angeles to foreclosure in April of 2010.

Mister Cage had been trying to sell the mansion since sometime in 2007 when it was offered with a ridiculous asking price of $35,000,000. The property, formerly owned by Dean Martin and hirsute crooner Tom Jones, was put on and taken off and put back on the market a number of times and the asking price eventually dipped to $17,500,000. But alas, despite some serious interest and at least one near sale, no one bit the bullet and signed on the dotted line.

Shortly after the bank took possession the somewhat shabby 6 bedroom and 9 pooper property it was heaved back on the market with an asking price of $12,500,000. We say "somewhat shabby" because Your Mama managed to get a peep at the property with our very own eyeballs and despite some interesting bits and pieces and some obviously high quality craftsmanship, the house was, in our humble and meaningless opinion, a bit of a hot mess. And that's being nice, children because y'all should hear the choice words a few Bev Hills real estates have whispered to Your Mama about the property.

Anyhoodles poodles, the bank isn't having any more luck selling the place than Mister Cage had. The asking price now? $11,800,000 and still, apparently, no one wants it.

UPDATE: Well blow me down kittens because as it turns out the old Cage estate on Copa de Oro is in escrow. Glory be!

Now then, do any of the children want lay down a wager on what price the property will finally sell?

4.
The British tabs have been all abuzz the last week reporting that celebrity hypnotist Paul McKenna has expressed some interest in purchasing the opulently unrestrained Holmby Hills mansion where Michael "The White Lady" Jackson spent his final days.

The 7 bedroom and 13 pooper property is currently listed at $28,995,000 and the not always reliable tab The Daily Mail recently reported that Mister McKenna is considering paying £19,000,000 for the hotel sized house, an amount that Your Mama's currency conversion contraption indicates is just under full asking price at today's rates.

An alleged pal of Mister McKenna told the Daily Mail that, "Paul was blown away by the sheer elegance of the property. It is one of the classiest houses in LA." Listen chickens, Your Mama, who don't know a corbel from a Corvette might beg to differ with that characterization opting for words such as ostentatious, humongous, steroidal, and a wee bit garish, but real estate beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one person's classy is another's architectural punch to the gut. Kapeesh?

Back in January of 2008, Mister McKenna paid $6,600,000 for a house high in the hills above the Sunset Strip that had formerly been owned by showbiz types such as producer Chris Roberts, prolific songwriter Diane Warren, and a-list gay billionaire David Geffen.

Call us crazy, call us cynical, call us a Debbie Downer, but Your Mama thinks there ain't nuthin' hot air to this real estate rumor. But then again, we've been wrong before and will be wrong again.

5.
There aren't as many big deals going down as there used to be during the go-go real estate years of the mid-naughts, but recently dee-vorced Paramount Chairman and CEO Brad Grey managed to sell his Pacific Palisades estate for $21,500,000 according to the Wall Street Journal. Of course, as much moolah as 21 one and some million smackers may be, the 6 bedroom and 11 pooper house had been listed for $29,900,000, which Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us means Mister Grey settled for 72% of what he originally hoped to get.

The property was purchased by the President and CEO Douglas Emmett, a real estate investment trust with fingers in the commercial and multi-family markets in both southern California and Honolulu.

6.
Back in late July of 2010 Your Mama dissed and discussed the lavish but no longer wanted Chicago townhouse of Jamie Dimon, the New York based Chairman, President, and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase. At that point the asking price of the financier's 5-floor, 26-room and 13,500 square foot mansion on Chicago's Gold Coast had plummeted from its original $13,500,000 asking price to $9,500,000. Mister Dimon and his wife, who paid $4,680,000 for the 8 bedroom and 9 full and 2 half pooper pile in the fall of 2000, must be getting pretty serious about dumping their former digs because they've just slashed the price by more than two point five million clams all the way down to $6,950,000.

Given that Mister Dimon reportedly earned around $36,000,000 in 2008, $41,200,000 in 2006
and heaven only known what in 2007 and 2009, we don't imagine many if any will have any sympathy for the real estate woes of Mister and Missus Dimon.

7.
The rich, famous, and curious in Los Angeles are following the contentious dee-vorce between Dodgers' owners Frank and Jamie McCourt like it was damn Dickens novel. The McCourts came from Boston and swept the local real estate world by storm snatching up high priced properties left and right.

First they laid out more than $20,00,000 for an estate in Los Angeles' hoity Holmby Hills 'hood–and reportedly spent another $14,000,000 or so on renovations–and they they bought the estate right next door. Then next set their real estate sights on Malee-boo where they paid $27,300,000 for a famed John Lautner designed house on Carbon Beach that they scooped up in July of 2007 from architecture nuts Courtney Cox and David Arquette. It wasn't long before they dropped another $19,000,000 for the house next door. Do the children see a pattern here?

Your Mama did a full run down of the McCourt's fat real estate portfolio back in October of 2009 and according to our entirely unscientific research we figured that Mister and soon to be ex-Missus McCourt have spent at least $167,050,000 to purchase and renovate their many private residences and at that time were servicing a stomach turning $59,700,000 in mortgages.

There has been a lot of public tussling and private clawing about whether the McCourts own the Dodgers together, if the team is "community property," or if the heavily leveraged franchise belongs only to Mister McCourt. However, the latest reports on the McCourt's disputatious dee-vorce doings reveal that soon to be ex-Missus McCourt proposed that she retain ownership of the couple's colossal private real estate holdings while the Mister could have the financially strapped Dodgers franchise. Smart woman? Maybe. But the question remains whether a dee-vorced Missus McCourt can afford to keep and maintain all those properties let alone service the titanic mortgages.

8.
And finally msnbc.com's Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Bill Dedman continues his fascinating and increasingly sordid reportage on the Byzantine financial affairs of the reclusive, mysterious, and wildly rich centenarian heiress Hugette Clark. We, like so many others, can't seem to get enough of this merry-go-round of a story.

Your Mama Hears...

...that there was a bit of a bidding frenzy for the Spanish style casa in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles where Marilyn Monroe met her untimely (and some say suspicious) end in 1962.

The children will recall the house was listed in mid-July of 2010 with an asking price of $3,595,000. A well connected snitch we'll call LaTwanda Letsitslip snitched to Your Mama that there multiple offers for the fabled house came fast and furious and that the deal is going down for few hundred thousand clams over the asking price.

Not bad in a muted real estate market that sometimes still feels adrift at sea.

The new owners? Your Mama didn't get any names, but LaTwanda told us that word on the celebrity real estate grapevine is that they are palsy-walsy with some of the high profile nearby neighbors.

Candy Spelling's Candyland Hits the Open Market

All the real estate gossips and others who care about such silly things already know that Tinseltown's most famous widow Candy Spelling is fixin' to move to a 16,500 square foot (give or take) dee-luxe doo-plex penthouse at the newly built Robert A.M. Stern designed tower in the Century City area of Los Angeles. It's widely whispered and reported she paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $47,000,000 for her new crib in the sky.

As the custom build-out of her still gigantic but comparatively downsized digs nears completion, Miz Spelling must be getting eager and antsy to unload her famous (and infamous) mega-mansion in the hoity-toity Holmby Hills neighborhood. Miz Spelling has long had her house, which she rather haughtily calls The Manor, quietly and not so quietly on and off the market for a number of years. There have long been pared down listings on the websites of the real estates handling the property but it's never been, as far as we can remember, on the wide open market. However, thanks to Wendell Whistleblower, we've learned that Miz Spelling has finally, at long last, and just yesterday put the listing for her titanic 56,500 square foot, 123 room faux-French chateau on the MLS.

Interestingly–and somewhat surprisingly to Your Mama–Miz Spelling has opted to stick with the same blood curdling $150,000,000 asking price she's been unsuccessfully shopping the property around at for years.

Back when The Widda Spelling first put her humongous house on the market and allowed some news cameras into The Manor, she giggled about how she really didn't know how many poopers there are in her convention hall sized house. Presumably the real estates of record–or more likely their assistants–spent an entire weekend schlepping through all 4 floors of the mansion counting bedrooms and terlits because listing information now shows there are 14 bedrooms and an astonishing 27 poopers. Have mercy! Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's tyrannical and theatrical house gurl Svetlana would fall over in hysterics and convulsions iffin we told her that she was going to be responsible for keeping 27 damn terlits polished.

Other interior comforts and frivolities include a billiard room, arcade room, doll museum, 2-lane bowling alley, a flower cutting hall with professional florist refrigerator, a gift wrapping room or two, silver and china storage rooms, an art studio, exercise room, music room, barber and beautician facilities, a service wing with staff quarters, at least 5 fireplaces, and garaging for 16 automobiles.

The grounds, which span 4.69 flat acres according to listing information and must require a full-time groundskeeping crew to maintain, include a circular football field sized motor court with a fountain in the center, formal gardens, expansive lawns, vast terraces, a koi pond, a l'orangerie, antique rose bushes, tennis court, and a swimming pool with adjacent pool house complete with full kitchen and bar.

It makes Your Mama's heart squeal with agony to think of Miz Spelling–who, as far as we know, lives alone but for her staff–coming home on a Friday night after a casual dinner with Tori at Koo Koo Roo and rambling around that big ol' hotel sized house all by her lonesome.

Making matters worse and driving Your Mama to the drink at nine in the damn morning is that we can't realistically conceive of just who might want to buy a house like this at a price like that in the shabby economy with which we're currently saddled. None the less, has anyone called real estate size queen Tyler Perry or Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko whose been bobbing around on his big boat off the coast of Venice, CA the last couple of days?

Of course, we don't know a book end from a tight end but since Miz Spelling seems reluctant to slash the asking price she just might have better luck getting the property re-zoned and selling her steroidal mansion as some sort of corporate retreat or maybe as a half-way house for Hollywood wives who get unceremoniously traded in for a younger and firmer version of themselves by their middle-aged and out of shape entertainment executive huzbands.

It's our understanding that Miz Spelling still owns and maintains an ocean front spread on Malee-boo's super swank Carbon Beach that's just a few doors down from David Spade. Now can y'all imagine those two having coffee and do-nuts on the deck on a summer morning?

photo: Pacific Coast News