Actress and Activist Daryl Hannah Lists Malibu Hideaway

SELLER: Daryl Hannah
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $4,995,000
SIZE: 17.6 acres with a coupla houses

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: For many of the children the seaside California community of Malibu probably conjures up crashing waves streaked with neoprene-sheathed surfers, blue skies hazy with stubborn wisps of fog, stagnant bumper to bumper weekend traffic, and all but butt-nekkid celebrities strolling the wet sands and frolicking in the foamy and—let's get real, people—near freezing surf. Before any of you people start trying to chop our block off for maligning the temperature of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Cali, recognize that Your Mama grew up bobbing around in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Cali and we know of what we speak: No two ways about it, it's cold.

Anyhoo, lesser known about Malibu, maybe, are the topologically evocative and Arcadian canyons that wind and whorl like smoke up into the rugged, fog-damp and oak tree carpeted Santa Monica Mountains that surge dramatically up from the ocean's edge. Tucked and burrowed into Malibu's windswept hillsides and secluded ravines are all manner of luxury mansions, artist retreats, old school hippy havens and low key (if exuberantly expensive) bucolic compounds such as the the 17.6 acre spread actress, board game co-creator, and thrice-arrested environmental activist. Daryl Hannah recently pushed on the (open) market with a $4,995,000 price tag.

Miz Hannah has been catting around Tinseltown since the early 1980s when she appeared in Blade Runner. Her seminal role on the silver screen came early in her career, in 1984, as the sexy mermaid Madison in Splash. Since then she's appeared in scads of films that include Wall Street, Steel Magnolias, Northfork, and Quentin Tarantino's ongoing Kill Bill franchise.

Over the years the striking and statuesque blond, now in her early fifties and who, despite her denials, looks to Your Mama's boozy eyeballs like she's had some sort of filler(s) injected in to her face, has had a long list of high profile romantic conquests with men and gentlemen who include Hollywood über-cocksman Warren Beatty, high endurance illusionist David Blaine, John-John Kennedy Jr. (whose mother Jackie O. was said to have disapproved of her scion son dating the actress), musician fellow environmentalist Jackson Browne, and New York City-based boo-teek hotelier Sean MacPherson.

In more recent years Miz Hannah, a long time vegan and animal rights activist, has arguably become more famous for her vociferous—some say sanctimonious—commitment to various environmental and animal cruelty causes than for her film roles. That said, far more than most—big living celebs in particular—Miz Hannah not only talks the talk of the environmentally concerned, she actually walks the walk with solar-equipped homes, biodiesel powered cars and a rap sheet to prove it. (She's been arrested three times for her involvement in public protests.) Miz Hannah also puts her money where her tree hugging mouth is and signed on as an executive producer of the documentary Greedy Lying Bastards, a small-budget documentary about, as described in the Hollywood Reporter, "the influence the fossil fuel industry has had on the political process and efforts to combat climate change."

Miz Hannah's all but hidden hideaway in the hills above Malibu comprises two separate parcels, the smaller of which measures 7.6 acres and was picked up in June 2001 by a trust our impeccably informed source Lucy Spillerguts pinky swears is linked to Miz Hannah. Blockshopper shows the smaller parcel went for $550,000.

The adjacent, larger parcel, exactly 10 acres briefly owned in the 1990s by musician and music executive Herb Alpert, according to property records we peeped, was sold in the same June 2001 to the same trust our Miss Spillerguts pinky swears is connected to Miz Hannah for $775,000.

A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus calculates the total paid for the one-time nursery above the El Pescador and El Matador beaches was $1,325,000, nearly a quarter of the current close to five million dollar asking price.

Listing information indicates the solar-powered property has two "charming homes" including a recently updated and upgraded "original 1927 river-stone hunting lodge surrounded by an outdoor moss deck," whatever that is. Improvements and customizations to the humbly sized but well-equipped green-minded house include, as per listing information, radiant heated floors, a walk-in closet/dressing room and a bathroom with Japanese soaking tub and an indoor/outdoor shower.

At least one additional structure is wrapped in wonderfully utilitarian rusted corrugated metal panels and draped with (what appear to Your Mama's boozy eyes to be) various bird feeders, wind chimes, dream catchers, potted plants in macramé slings, a dart- and chalkboard and, swagged between thick wood posts that hold up a covered porch, a slinky hammock.

We're not really sure what use the tiny, two-story structure wrapped with rusted corrugated metal panel has, but we love every square inch of what we can see of it and would d.i.e. for a weekend getaway that simple and stylish.

The terrain teems with wildlife and has several seasonal streams as well as a few flat acres, a California live oak grove (where Miz Hannah appears to have a wigwam set up), a gently sloped fenced pasture for ponies (or what have you), irrigated terraced areas prepped for an orchard or small vineyard, a deer-fenced vegetable garden, an ancient palm grove and a some slivery views of the Pacific Ocean.

As it turns out, this is not the first time Miz Hannah has put her Malibu ranch on the real estate merry go-round. It first appeared on the market in mid-April 2011, was quickly de- and then re-listed until mid-December when it was removed from the market until early February of this year when it reemerged with it's current $4,995,000 asking price.

In addition to her rustic but comfortable hideaway in Malibu, Miz Hannah maintains a off-the-grid rural retreat about 45 minutes by car outside of Telluride, CO that she's owned since the mid-1990s and includes an old stagecoach stop converted to a small residence, a reclaimed and restored barn she uses for art making and other creative endeavors, a tepee and an organic garden.

listing photos: Prudential Malibu Realty

Emmy Winning Writer/Producer Terence Winter Lists Beverly Hills Abode

SELLER: Terence Winter
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,650,000
SIZE: 5,688 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen chickens, we're going to be brief here today—or at least as brief as a long-winded ol' windbag like Your Mama can be—because our much adored gal pal Sheila Sinn is down from the currently freezing state of Alaska and we've got sights to see, kebabs to nosh, and a great big flask of gin & tonics to start in on.

Anyhoo, the other day, while doing our best to ignore the extreme hoopla that surrounds the Superbowl, Your Mama ran across a white stucco residence in Beverly Hills, CA listed at $6,650,000 and owned, as per property records, by Emmy-winning screenwriter and producer Terence Winter and his wife Rachel

Brooklyn-born Mister Winter started up his ladder of entertainment industry fame and fortune in the 1990s writing for a variety of series that include (but are not limited to) Sister, Sister, Xena: Warrior Princess and Diagnosis: Murder. His big Showbiz break came at the turn of the 21st century when he signed on to write for (and later produce) the HBO mega-hit The Sopranos, which was canceled (or brought to a close or whatever) in 2007. A few dry years followed The Sopranos until Mister Winter created, wrote and produced Boardwalk Empire, the much lauded, very violent and labyrinthine Martin Scorsese-directed crime drama set in prohibition-era Atlantic City, NJ.

Property records indicate Mister and Missus Winter purchased their Bev Hills digs in February 2008 when they shelled out $4,062,500 for the desirably-located 1929 Mediterranean manse that sits on a tight-for-the-zip-code .29 acre Utah-shaped parcel in the same Platinum Triangle pocket as billionaires David Geffen and Ron Burkle, well-divorced couture queen Suzanne Saperstein, action flick star Jackie Chan, and rock star Bruce Springsteen, just to name a few. The Winters bought the property from recently departed Emmy-winning screenwriter, producer and Mad Libs co-creator Leonard Stern (The Honeymooners, Get Smart, Operation Petticoat, and etc.).

A high-walled and gated courtyard with original working fountain and deep covered porch makes a peaceful and private transition from the street to the front door that opens into a long entrance hall that stretches gracefully clear though to the rear of the residence. The impressive but reasonably scaled foyer opens to the formal living room finished with coffee-colored wood floors, wood coffered barrel vaulted ceiling, a carved stone fireplace and banks of French doors that open the room to both the front courtyard and the backyard.

The formal dining room, across the entrance hall from the formal living room, does double duty as a library with a full wall of built-in wood bookshelves. A pair of arched French doors allow for easy flow to an outdoor dining/lounging terrace.

Less formal quarters include a family room with beamed ceiling, built-in entertainment center, wet bar, and a separate temperature-controlled wine room lined floor to ceiling with booze bottle cubbies. The family room adjoins the eat-in kitchen with cozy built-in breakfast banquette, high-gloss black cabinetry with glass-fronted uppers, snow white counter tops and breakfast bar, sizable center work island and a complete suite of commercial-style Viking brand appliances.

The adjacent service wing includes a play room with direct backyard access, a guest or staff suite with full (hall) bathroom, a sky lit laundry room, and an office where Mister Winter displays his quartet of gleaming Emmy statuettes. Listing information states the office could be utilized as a "classic 'man-cave,'" but all the children surely know that Rule #14 in Your Mama's Big Book of Decoratin' Dos and Don'ts emphatically declares that, "A private home that aspires to even a shred of style, taste, or dignity can not, by definition and under any circumstances, contain a space referred to as a 'man-cave' or, worse, a 'mantuary.'"

In addition to the grand staircase in the entrance hall, a curving carved wood rear staircases leads to the the second floor comprised of 3 family bedrooms—two share a Jack & Jill style bathroom, one makes use of a hall bathroom,  plus a fourth so-called "junior master" with vaulted ceiling, sitting area and private facility.

The actual master suite has a high vaulted ceiling, sitting area and vintage-inspired spa-style bathroom with high-gloss black cabinetry, emerald green subway tile accents, grey-veined white marble counter tops and tub surround, heated black and white checked marble floor and party-sized steam shower with built-in tiled bench. A super-sized, boo-teek-style walk-in closet and dressing room (plus additional closet space) will make an average clothes horse blind with envy.

We don't, of course, know a coffee filter from a wooden spoon so we don't know if Mister and Missus Winter plan to buy another west coast abode but we do recall reading somewhere recently—we can't recall just where—that the Winter family has decamped for New York, nearer where Mister Winter's Boardwalk Empire tapes.

listing photos: Prudential California / Beverly Hills

Murphy Brown Actress Faith Ford Lists Mandeville Canyon Mini-Compound

SELLER: Faith Ford and Campion Murphy
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,950,000
SIZE: 3,467 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.25 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although invited to a boozy bash at Cuzzin Aunt Poo's crib to view the Superbowl—ugh!—and marvel at Madonna's continued ability to lip sync and turn cartwheels in high heels—more ugh!—we forewent the festivities and instead spent some time napping, working the New York Times crossword puzzle on our iPhone, and absentmindedly combing through a few of the newer listings around Los Angeles. It wasn't long into our property perusing we came across an architecturally eclectic but essentially traditional board-and-batten residence in the bucolic and upscale Brentwood area of Los Angeles listed at $4,950,000 and owned, as per property records, by sitcom actress Faith Ford and her (second) husband Campion Murphy.

It may be that many of the younger children will not have any idea who Miz Ford is but she's been floating successfully around Tinseltown since the early 1980s when, like many actresses, she started up her ladder of fame and fortune with brief stints on day time soap stories, first on One Life to Life and later on Another World. A five-episode arc on the almost cult-like, yuppie-lauding evening-time drama thirtysomething in 1987-8 led to a career-defining 9 year stint as the impossibly perky and frustratingly naive Corky Sherwood on Murphy Brown where—always a bridemaid never a bride—Miz Ford earned five Emmy nominations in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series category.

Since her professional salad days on Murphy Brown Miz Ford has worked her funny stuff on a couple seasons the now-defunct Norm and co-starred with Kelly Ripa on the sitcom Hope & Faith which was canceled in 2006 after just three seasons. In 2011 she appeared on the silver screen in Escapee, a little heard of horror/thriller written and directed by Miz Ford's hubby of almost 15 years who in addition to his not particularly successful Showbidness endeavors is (or was) a personal trainer and a former junior reporter at the Hollywood Reporter.

Property records show Mister Campion and Miz Ford scooped up their long-time Mandeville Canyon-area mini-compound om November 2005 for an undisclosed amount of money—or at least an amount we weren't able to easily tease out of the interweb. Listing information shows the Ford-Murphy property encompasses just over half an acre of thickly-treed and mostly hillside land and includes a two-story, 3,467 square foot main house with 4 bedrooms and 4.25 bathrooms plus a fully detached structure with two-car garage and especially spacious two-story guest house.

Listing information states that oak and walnut wood floors "grace" both the main and guest houses that combined five fireplaces and describes the property as "extremely private & emotional." We j'adore an extremely private property, of course, but Your Mama always feels squeamish and on edge when we come across a home characterized as emotional. Call us crazy—and we've been called far worse—we just get wicked nervous a so-called emotional house will burst in to tears or want to process it's feelings of inadequacy and unresolved pangs of envy and we just could not have such a shenanigan.

The house, set behind a tall fence and high hedge, sits hard up on the street with but a slender brick terrace and gravel courtyard (with fountain) for a front yard. A shallow porch and towering windowed turret both humbly and dramatically signifies entrance to the house.

A carved and curving wood staircase divides the foyer from the formal living room with shallow vaulted wood ceiling and direct access to the dining and lounging terrace(s) that runs along the canyon side of the house. The adjoining tee-vee den skews cozy with a stacked stone wood-burning fireplace, flat-screen tee-vee mounted above the rough-hewn wood mantelpiece and uncomfortably close to the ceiling, walls entirely covered in steely blue-toned wood paneling we're not entirely comfortable with, and the first of several artworks that depict the American flag.

The kitchen, all snow white Shaker-style cabinetry, winter white counter-tops and top-grade commercial-style stainless steel appliances, opens to a adjacent breakfast area with custom-fitted built-in banquette outfitted with the exact sort of very easily stained white-white-white cushions and pillows that would unquestionably drive our persnickety and sometimes tempestuous house gurl Svetlana into convulsing conniptions of frustration. Beyond the breakfast banquette, the intimately-scaled family room features another stacked stone fireplace with flat-screen tee-vee mounted on the breast.

The airy master suite has lustrous, espresso-colored wood floors, a vaulted and beamed ceiling, awkwardly off-center fireplace, a wide bank of French doors to open to a private deck with canyon view, bedroom-sized bathroom with two sinks and soaking tub for two. Dual closets are, as per listing information, "a fashionista's dream."

The multi-level backyard areas include a plunge-sized swimming pool and pie-shaped elevated spa, a koi pond, fruit and vegetable gardens, a natural rock waterfall, meandering pathways, a tree house-like gazebo and a shaded brick terrace that spills out to a deck with built-in bench seating and long views over the treetops across Mandeville Canyon.

The detached guest house offers an unknown amount of bedrooms and bathrooms but does have an unexpectedly cavernous double-height living space with bleached knotty-pine floors, bleached wood paneled walls, a few bits of rustic wood and manly leather furniture pieces, a complete kitchen (with stainless steel appliances, natch), and another framed artwork that depicts a vintage American flag, or maybe it is an actual vintage American flag. Mister Murphy and Miz Ford appear to be very patriotic people.

Listing information states the current price of $4,950,000 includes the furniture. We're not sure why someone would sell their house with all the furniture or, even more puzzling, who would buy a five million dollar house furnished with someone else's things? It would seem to Your Mama's pea brain that anyone who can afford four or five million dollar digs can probably afford another hundred grand to properly furnish the house with sofas, side tables and commodes of their own choosing. But then again, we're never really surprised by the needs, wants and inexplicable real estate activities of the rich and/or famous.

listing photos: Nourmand & Associates

Vincent Gallo Lists Multi-Level Downtown L.A. Loft

SELLER: Vincent Gallo
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,599,000
SIZE: 4,300 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last night while watching those designing dervishes on Project Runway run around and snatch (or pay for) the clothes off the backs and asses of regular folks roaming around Central Park minding their own damn bizness, we received a brief missive from amiga and informant Babbling Babette who let us know that wild-eyed indie film actor, artist, musician, avant garde self promoter, and somewhat freaky-creepy bon vivant Vincent Gallo (Buffalo 66, The Brown Bunny) hoisted a soaring penthouse loft in a nitty-gritty industrial area east of downtown Los Angeles, CA on the market with an asking price of $2,599,000. The penthouse has been on and off the market since February 2011.

Quixotic, exotic and erotic-minded Mister Gallo, a man who makes himself available through his website "to fulfill the wish, dream, or fantasy of any naturally born female" for a fee of $50,000 plus expenses per night (and to "couples of the lesbian persuasion" at $100,000 per night), purchased the the 4-floor penthouse in October 2009 for $2,340,000.

Despite that wacky (if oddly gripping) photo studio tableau with the naked male mannequin torso it was clear at first glance that Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota had been all up in there where her Wand of Decorative Generica. And indeed, according to a well-positioned little birdie, Mister Gallo never inhabited the 2 bedroom and 2.5 building topper, which had previously been leased to Nic Cage, and the furniture does not belong to him. Mister Gallo, we understand, has much less conventional (and far more interesting) taste in comestibles and day-core.

The main entrance to the penthouse, as seen in the above floor plan (lowest level on top), is on the lowest level where wide entrance hall opens into giant, window lined flexi-space suitable for use as a work/office space, art studio, indoor roller rink, Pilates studio or any just about other purpose a person could think of. It could also very easily be carved up into two decent-sized bedrooms with a shared hall bathroom. Experienced and eagle-eyed floor plan will note—and the lazy and the infirm with appreciate—the penthouse conveniently offers residents and guests a physical exertion saving private elevator that serves all four floors of the penthouse. 

The first flight of stairs, a rather prosaic affair compared to the cacophony of floating M.C. Escher-esque staircases that wrap around and cut across the soaring upper levels, leads up to the main living/dining area where over-sized copper-framed windows with long city views punctuate two walls of the schoolyard-scaled room. Both the living/dining room and the adjacent separate kitchen open to an unusually ample if not entirely private wrap around terrace, part of which listing photos shows gussied up as an outdoor movie theater, a fun idea that we imagine might easily annoy the neighbors.

A momentary elevator ride or a long cantilevered flight of floating stairs brings us to the lofted master suite, a sprawling balcony that hangs over the primary living space below. The spacious room has lots of romance and drama but it does not offer so much as a lick of privacy, not even in the attached bathroom where a clear glass panel is all that divides the bedroom area from the shower. This set up is absolutely fine if you don't have children or house guests who could probably hear every whisper and creak in the bedroom from below not to mention would need to traipse through the bedroom to access the stairs that climb up to the roof top terrace. Of course, all the domestic traffic could just take the elevator up to the roof terrace, but still.... Call Your Mama a secretish prude if you like, but we just prefer more rather than less privacy when it comes to the boo-dwar.

Anyhoo, an all-glass pavilion on the roof opens to a large square terrace with all but unobstructed 360-degree views. Mister Gallo, his nice, gay or lady decorator or Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota furnished the roof terrace with a comfy-looking super-sized sectional sofa with nearly two dozen pillows but nary an umbrella in sight to keep the fair-skinned and sun averse from baking like potatoes in the searing southern California sunshine.

We do not, of course, know a cow teat from a tit mouse but an unscientific perusal of public property records suggest to Your Mama that Mister Gallo may (or may not) have had some sort of working relationship with the developer of the Biscuit Company Lofts, a direct hand in developing the downtown building, and/or an uncontrollable real estate urge to invest in the project. Our interpretation of the property records show Mister Gallo has owned a total of six units in the Biscuit Company Lofts complex as well as a lofty 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom condo in the building across the street he bought in February 2009 for $350,000. In addition to the for sale quadruplex penthouse that now encompasses and an adjacent 626 square foot unit on the seventh floor he bought separately from but at the same time as the penthouse for $300,000 Mister Gallo owned a ground floor space he sold for $510,000 to musician Eric Erlandson, co-founder of Courtney Love's old band Hole, a fifth floor unit bought in October 2008 for $280,000 and sold two months later for the exact same price, a second fifth floor unit bought in April 2007 for $675,000 and sold at a substantial loss in February 2011 for $380,000 and, finally, a 2,926 square foot seventh floor duplex spread he sold in July 2010 for $1,300,000.

Mister Gallo has in the past also owned a wide variety of architecturally significant homes and apartments on both the east and west coasts including a couple condos at the star-studded Sierra Towers complex in West Hollywood (one he sold to Cher!), the soo-blime John Lautner-designed Wolff House tucked dramatically into the hills just above the Sunset Strip, and at least one condo in Richard Meier's exhibitionist-friendly (and celebrity-stocked) green glass and white steel towers that lord over the busy West Side Highway in New York City's far West Village and have dead on views up and down the Hudson and across to New Jersey.

listing photos: Keller Williams / Hollywood Hills
floor plan: Biscuit Company Lofts