Bruce Makowsky Flips Out In Beverly Park

SELLER: Bruce Makowsky and 
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $26,500,000
SIZE: 15,193 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was jut five short months ago that ladies' accessories tycoons Bruce Makowsky and Kathy Van Zeeland—married designers and purveyors of boat loads of mid-priced ladies handbags and shoes—paid comedian Martin Lawrence $17,200,000 for his 7 bedroom and 9.5 bathroom mansion on 2.2 gated and landscaped acres in the unapologetically showy Bevelry Park enclave in Beverly Hills, CA.
 
Well, dontcha know booter beans, yesterday Mister M. and Miz V.Z. flipped the 15,000+ square foot pile—current listing information describes it as a "newly renovated...Neoclassical estate"—back on the (open) market with a far more voluptuous $26,500,000 price tag.*

We're not sure what all exactly the Makowsky-Van Zeelands did to justify the astonishing $9.3 million increase in value that their current asking price suggests. However, a quick comparison of current listing photos to those from June 2012, when the property briefly popped up on the the rental market at a sphincter-clenching rate of $200,000 per month, shows the couple did—at the very least—hire Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota to get her decorative claws up in there to re-dress the spacious house in a more streamlined and generically contemporary manner. 

The recent renovations clearly included a minor face lift in the kitchen. The bull-nosed seal gray granite counter tops that look to our boozy eyes like the exact same material as the shiny stone floor  were not replaced but the maple-colored cabinetry were painted a crisp, snow white and the hardware was switched to a chrome-colored material** Mister M. and Miz V.Z., to their decorative credit, also replaced the godawful, circa-1982 panel-style light fixture over the massive center island with a far more elegant, if slightly under-sized pendant with a silver-lined matte black shade.***

The double height foyer appears mostly unchanged with gray-veined white marble floors, a curved staircase, elaborate wrought iron railings and a vast stained glass ceiling. Also mostly unchanged, as far as we can tell, is the wood paneled formal dining room outfitted with a green marble topped table and glittery crystal chandelier that we have to admit is pretty terrific as far as Old School chandeliers go. We can only hope it's some priceless Austrian thing or, maybe, an impressively pedigreed stunner plucked at auction from a 18th century chateau in the Loire Valley. Anyhoo... The current dining room has an adjoining, temperature-controlled wine cellar that we're not sure was or was not there at the time the Makowsky-Van Zeelands acquired the estate.

Multiple living and entertaining rooms include a formal living room with fireplace and an adjoining pub-room with sunken bar and built-in fish tank. A kooky, completely tufted sectional sofa faces an imposing carved stone fireplace in the ballroom-sized family room that also has pale blond hardwood floors and numerous, heavily draped and prominently valanced windows and French doors that extend luxuriously all the way to the heavy-duty ceiling moldings. At the far end of the family room, a carpeted sunken t.v. viewing lounge is set into a curved wall of windows and equipped with a custom-milled media cabinet and a bespoke semi-circular sofa that wraps around a coffee table shaped a tad bit too much like a giant terlit seat for Your Mama's partickaler decorative tastes.

The home theater has disturbing, blood red carpeting, blood red fabric panels set into vaguely Art Deco style columned archways, eight or more chocolate brown leater recliner seats and a marble-floored concession center with a generous selection of candy, a commericial-style popcorn popper and—just as every self-respecting home theater in a grandiose Beverly Hills Macmansion should—a built-in soda dispenser.

The second floor master, entered—natch—through double doors, has beige wall-to-wall carpeting, curvaceous-looking beige walls, a fireplace, and (at least) four sets of arched French doors that open to a wrap around Juliet balcony. There's also his and her bathrooms—at least one of them is lined with not-particularly-private floor-to-ceiling arched windows and has white marble floors, marble-topped make up vanity and a small chandelier hung ominously above a chunky, sarcophagus-shaped free standing soaking tub.

There are additional guest suites and "ample staff quarters," according to current listing information, plus another 1,000 square feet guest house/gym and an outdoor kitchen. At the north end of the property there's a second, rear motor court, a four car garage and a sunken and lighted tennis court with a viewing platform. Down in the sunny south eastern corner of the estate, there's an octagonal pool house—that may or may not be the aforementioned 1,000 square foot guest house/gym, we're not sure—and a broad stone tile terraces for dining, lounging and sunbathing around the swimming pool and elevated spa. We can get pretty snarky about this house—its exactly the sort of house that gives Your Mama nightmares—but, let's be honest children, the view across the pool and beyond the dozen padded sun loungers that flank a vivid yellow and white striped cabana to the distant mountains and palm tree interrupted sky line looks like a too-pricey boo-teek hotel that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter might like to stay in once or twice.

We're not quite sure where Mister Lawrence moved but a reasonably thorough perusal of public and property records available on the internets Your Mama tells Your Mama that Mister Makowsky and, by extension, his wife Kathy Van Zeeland are newly minted real estate ballers of the highest order and with a strong emphasis in Beverly Park. 

According to the well-worn beads of Your Mama's trusty bejeweled abacus, in the last two or three years Mister Makowsky and/or Miz Van Zeeland have shelled out more than $80,000,000 on a heavy duty handful of humongous and hugely high priced residential properties in Beverly Hills and Malibu. That's right, eighty million clams. That means, through their various outlets that include scads brick and mortar retailers as well as at least one major home shopping network, Mister Makowsky must unload more than 300,000 metallic Goodwin Satchels that retail at $268 bucks apiece on at least one online retailer we consulted in order to recoup their combined investments. Looked at another way, Miz Van Zeeland needs to pawn off more than 1,145,000 imported, giraffe-printed synthetic leather zip over satchels**** now available sale on the same-as-above online retailer for $69.99. That is, to be sure, a lot of goddamn satchels.

*Current listing information shows the Lawrence/Makowsky-Van Zeeland mansion encompasses 15,193 square feet while marketing materials from June 2012, when the palatial—if decoratively outdated—property was put up for lease at $200,000 per month, show the bulky X-shaped structure measures 16,178 square feet. Even more perplexing, perhaps, is that at least one property record data base Your Mama accessed shows the "Neoclassical" manse measures 13,835 square feet as does the Los Angeles County Tax Man. Make of those spatial discrepancies whatever y'all will.  

**We have no idea if the hardware is chrome, stainless steel, nickel or nickle-plated. We can only surmise from the listing photos the hardware is, as we described, "chrome colored."

***Your Mama has no idea when the pitiful panel-style light fixture was actually installed. It could have been 1982, 1992, 2002 or any other year before, after and in between. 

****Although we highly doubt they come from Italy—Italians, as a general rule, don't do synthetic leather—Your Mama doesn't know from whence the satchels came. We also are not at all positive that  actually is or was intended to be a giraffe print. 

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

Doctor Dre Lives Large in Los Angeles.

BUYER: Dr. Dre and Nicole Threatt
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $15,400,000
SIZE: 9,696 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Late last week Your Mama received an rapid fire cluster of covert communiques from an obviously well-informed fellow—let's call him Freddie Finefellow—who thoughtfully sought to let us know that his thorough research turned up evidence that wickedly rich* rapper/producer/audio headphone tycoon Dr. Dre—real name: Andre Romelle Young—dropped  a very A-list $15,400,000 on an I-have-arrived style mansion high above the Sunset Strip near the high-priced apex of the celebrity-chic Bird Streets neighborhood** of Los Angeles, CA.

Property records Your Mama peeped and poked around show the off-market deal went down very quietly way back in December 2011 and that the huge hilltop house was purchased through an opaquely named trust that we were easily able to connect to Mister Dr. Dre's real name as well as to several other properties he owns in the Los Angeles area.

The deluxe but architecturally ambiguous house—we'll call it a soft contemporary because we don't know how else to categorize it—wasn't officially on the open market at the time of Mister Dr. Dre's acquisition but older older listings from mid-2009, when the city view estate last sold for $12,800,000, shows the 9,696 square foot house was "newly built in 2001" and "recently cosmetically buffed." 

Listing information from 2009 also indicates the gated and privately situated residence is powerfully sited on a broad, private promontory at the tail end of a quiet cul-de-sac with extraordinary, eyeball shredding 280-degree views that—on a clear day—stretch beyond downtown, over the Baldwin Hills and across the Pacific to the outline of Santa Catalina Island. There are—or were in 2009, according to listing information form the time—six bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

The primary public entertaining spaces include—again, as per 2009 marketing materials—an impress-the-guests style foyer with floating curved staircase, a formal dining room that seats 10 or more and a decidedly grand, double-height formal living room with fireplace, high-gloss wood floors and a towering, two-story wall of windows and glass doors that connect to a shaded veranda that over looks the unusually flat backyard.

Listing photos from 2009 show a giant greenhouse window floods the sleek and shiny center-island eat-in kitchen with natural light and a spacious "garden room" outfitted with a booze hound friendly built-in wet bar.

A view like this—of the sprawling, semi-suburban metropolis of L.A.—might not be every person's preferred cup of property tea but that doesn't take away from the fact that a view like this, from the back veranda of a private mansion in the center of a gigantic city, is goddamn spectacular. You can hate Los Angeles—and heaven knows there are loads of people who loathe Los Angeles for a variety of both justifiable and precocious reasons—but it's just plain boneheaded not to be able to appreciate a view such as this property possesses.

The second floor master suite offers a soaring ceiling and a full wall of city view windows, a sitting area with fireplace, a small private terrace with big views and boutique-sized walk-in closet/dressing room. In 2009 the attached master bathroom was equipped with a shower stall lined on two exterior walls with hip high windows so a person can take in the city views whilst washing their coochie-coos.
 
Wide stone terraces and a deep covered veranda extend the living areas outside and step down to a flat grass pad plenty big enough for a good-sized Rover or two and a dark-bottom, T-shaped negative-edge swimming pool and spa.

In addition to his new, I-have-arrived-style digs above the Sunset Strip, Property records show Mister Dr. Dre owns a number of other properties including a 13,748 square foot mansion with 8 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms tightly wedged onto a wedge-shaped parcel in an affluent gated community in proto-suburban Woodland Hills, CA that he picked up in May 1999 for $2,375,000. For what it's worth, former teen idol, actor and reality show denizen Scott Baio owns a 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom mini-mansion on the same street he and his missus bought in November 2010 for $1,850,000.



In October 2010, property records suggest Mister Dre dropped $4,750,000 on a four-story, 8,843 square foot ocean front house on Malibu's swish and swanky Carbon Beach. The 6 bedroom and 7 bathroom house was—as it turns out, on the open market for most of 2011 and part of 2012 with little or no tongue wagging by the property gossip. As best as we can tell from old listings we squeezed out of the internets, the property was first listed with an $11,000,000 price tag that inexplicably increased to $12,500,000.

*In 2011, Forbes estimated Dr. Dre had a net worth of a quarter billion bucks and last month, they estimated, he'll haul in another $110 million in pretax earnings in 2012. Kaching!

**So called because all the streets are named after—you got it—birds.

listing photos (Sunset Strip): Hilton & Hyland
listing video (Malibu): Areté Estates

A Wee Bit O' End of Week Mish Mash

Normally we love us a little avant garde architectural craziness served up by Pritzker Prize winning lady-architect Zaha Hadid. We really do. But, hunny boo boos, the just about completed residence outside Moscow she custom-did for the occasionally volatile supermodel Naomi Campbell and her downright hunky and soon-to-be-divorced Russian billionaire paramour, Vladisov Doronin, looks like an unholy union of an aerodynamic bicycle helmet and an equally aerodynamic air traffic control tower. Sorry gurl, but it does.

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Don Cornelius was a legend. He created and hosted Soul Train, fer chrissakes. His rustic flaired ranch house above Coldwater Canyon on the San Fernando Valley side of Mulholland Drive that's now on the market for $1,895,000? Not so much a legend maybe.

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We're not sure if husky voiced and titanic tittied reality t.v. cult figure Big Ang's rental macmansion on Staten Island (NY) sustained any damage from that beehawtch Hurricane Sandy but we sure hope it left the wax replica of her dog Louie's birthday cake intact. That's right. Y'all read that correctly.

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Sitcom actor and comedian Tim Allen's new house in Los Angeles thinks it's in Aspen or Wyoming.

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It's kinda old news now but did y'all hear that multi-billionaire hedge fund honcho John Paulson paid Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan $41,000,000 for Hala Ranch, a 90-acre spread near Aspen (CO) originally listed way back in 2006 with an elephantine and in hind sight wildly optimistic $135,000,000 price tag. Mister Paulson—he's the dude who raked in $3.7 billion short selling sub prime mortgages in 2007 and hoovered up another $5 billion in personal income in 2010—paid Prince Bandar another $8,000,000 for an adjacent 38 acre spread known at Bear Cabin that had not previously been up for sale.

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Everybody keeps asking Your Mama who coughed up $19,500,000 for the garishly dressed faux-chateau of bitterly divorcing duo Adrienne Maloof of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and plastic surgeon Paul Nassif. Well, children, as far as we can tell from a somewhat circuitous read of the property records, the 8 bedroom and 11 bathroom behemoth in the guard-gated Beverly Park community was purchased by a corporate entity attached to a Pakistani-American textile tycoon who happens to own another, smaller but no less—ahem—opulent mansion in Beverly Hills on the market for just under $13,000,000.

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Speaking of Beverly Park and Saudi princes....Your Mama can't confirm the scuttlebutt but a little birdie from deep inside the high end Platinum Triangle real estate game recently snitched that Oscar-winning producer Lili Zanuck (Driving Miss Daisy, The 72nd Annual Academy Awards, Cocoon), the new widow of Oscar-winning super-producer Richard Zanuck (Driving Miss Daisy, Dark Shadows, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Cocoon, Jaws, The Sugarland Express) has quietly sold their spacious estate in Beverly Park for about $21,500,000 to a Saudi prince.*

Various resources accessible online show the red brick Georgian style pile—located in the less gaudy, southern section of the bifurcated community—measures more than 17,000 square feet on more than four acres with two full guest houses, a home theater, a fully equipped fitness facility, tennis court, swimming pool and hundreds of specimen trees. Its perch on a gated and private promontory provide the estate with million dollar views that sweep down the mansion dotted canyons and extend across a vast swathe of the L.A. megalopolis from downtown to the Pacific Ocean.

*Property record data bases Your Mama accessed do not, as of today, reveal a transfer of ownership. Additionally, there are more prodigiously rich Saudi princes that Your Mama cares to count so we really have no idea which Saudi prince (allegedly) bought the Zanuck estate.

Matthew Modine Sells in the East, Buys in the West

BUYER: Matthew Modine and Caridad Rivera
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: $2,450,000
SIZE: 2,030 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: First came word, in September (2012), from the real estate focused folks at The Real Deal and the property-obsessed kids at Curbed that 6-foot-4 star of stage and screen Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises, Full Metal Jacket, The Hotel New Hampshire) had hoisted his duplex loft in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood on the market with an asking price of of $2,290,000. (More on that in a minute.)

This week, down the celebrity gossip grapevine, comes news that Mister Modine and his long-time wife, Caridad Rivera, have shelled out $2,450,000 for a very contemporary micro-compound located just a few tiny blocks off hip and hipsterish Abbott Kinney Boulevard in the proudly quirky and still a bit gritty but increasingly expensive ocean side community of Venice, CA.

Property records Your Mama peeped reveal the Venice property was purchased in October (2012) from music industry executive and private investor John Perenchio, the wealthy son of octogenarian multi-billionaire Spanish language television tycoon Jerry Perenchio. Papa Perenchio is, of course, one of the largest landowners in Malibu—he gives Larry Ellison a real estate run for his money—who also owns the Kirkeby Estate, an astonishing, opulent and leviathan chateau-style limestone pile in Bel Air that is most well known by pop culturists as the home of the oil-rich Clampett clan on the genius 1960s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies but was also featured, even more prominently in its high-toned glory, in the 1960 Jerry Lewis movie Cinderfella. Anyoo...

Interestingly, as per documentation easily dug up online, the younger Mister Perenchio and his wife acquired the Venice property only 17 months earlier for $2,200,000. Since Your Mama does not know a ewe for a ewer, we really can't say whether or not the Ketchum, Idaho-based Perenchios purchased the Venice property for their own use or why, after less than 1.5 years, they flipped it back on the market September (2012) with an asking price of $2,395,000.

Did y'all catch that? That's right, butter beans, Mister Modine coughed up $55,000 more than the asking price, an strong indication there may have been at least one other seriously interested party in the two-structure micro-compound that sits on a minuscule, .07 acre parcel on one of Venice's most desirable walk streets* and contains a total of 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in 2,030 airy square feet of bifurcated interior space.

Listing information from the time of its last sale shows the house was completed in 2003 and designed by eco-oriented Venice-based architect David Hertz at the Studio of Environmental Architecture. As a slight aside, handsome Mister Hertz is also responsible for the earthy and airy, U-shaped contemporary prominently featured on the long-running Californication program with David Duchovny.

The somewhat loosely-defined front entrance of Mister Modine's new digs in Venice opens off a small, gated and grassy front yard and into a roomy, open concept living space finished with radiant heated polished concrete floors and a soaring, exposed concrete ceiling that appears to magically float above the walls. An elegantly restrained and muscular steel staircase divides the living space from the dining area and expensively equipped but barely-there in-line kitchen. Clearly, children, this is not a kitchen conducive to the preparation of elaborate, multi-course meals. It is, however, perfectly suited to coffee making coffee, gin & tonic mixing and unpacking take away from Gjelina.

A full wall of floor-to-ceiling glass opposite the front door eliminates any visual distinction between the interior living area and the micro-compound's primary organizing feature, a bridge-crossed courtyard with outdoor lounge area that both separates and links the two-story main house and the additional flexi-use space perched solidly atop a detached three car garage. The outdoor lounge area, tucked under a deep overhang on a slightly raised concrete pad, is well anchored by a massive steel fireplace and chimney breast that not only warms the outdoor area but successfully obscures visibility from the neighboring, two story house.

The open concept concept on the lower floor continues up on the second floor that consists of a flexi-use den/office area, the master bedroom and the master bathroom. The only real barriers between the three spaces are walls that stop well short of the ceiling. This is great thing for air circulation and light penetration but, seriously, if a person farts in the bathroom someone with reasonably good hearing can most certainly hear it and probably smell it in the flexi-use den/office. Crude as that may be to speak about, that's a real damn concern and far as Your Mama is concerned.

A floor-to-ceiling glass slider in the bedroom connects to a small terrace with solid, privacy enhancing parapet wall. Conversely, in the adjoining bathroom there's a much less privacy enhancing shower stall lined from the tits up on two exterior walls with clear glazing. Unless Mister and/or Missus Modine harbor a streak of exhibitionism or can tolerate the nosy neighbor making insinuating and judgmental double entendres about their hair washing techniques,*** this shower window situation will need to be remedied with sometime much more opaque.

The floating steel staircase continues up from the master bedroom into a sky-lit well that pierces the roof and opens to a two-sided terrace with wrap around views. The roof terrace is—to be sure—a fab feature, the perfect place to sunbathe sans suit and/or soak up the salty morning mist that often envelops coastal California communities. However, it should be noted that if Mister and/or Missus Modine want to invite friends and/or family up to the roof top terrace for a sundown cocktail they'll also have to invite them to traipse completely through their bedroom—or their bathroom—to access the staircase. This is not, for obvious reason, an ideal scenario, especially if the homeowner gorged themselves on chili dogs at lunch like Your Mama did.

The flexi-use den/office space has an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and glass sliders that peel back to an open air sleeping porch with fireplace and a bridge that spans the courtyard between the two structures. The bridge leads to another expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows and glass sliders that open to yet another flexi-use room atop the three car garage with private bathroom. The commodious space could easily be utilized for an endless variety of purposes...guest suite, home office, hookah lounge, meditation space, media room, art studio, S/M parlor or whatever other purpose a person may require or fancy.

Your Mama does not know if the new crib in Venice signals a permanent move to Los Angeles for Mister and Missus Modine but we do know that back in New York City, in an area of Chelsea that remains—as far as we know—without power due to the wicked onslaught of super-storm Sandy, the Modine's ground floor and basement level duplex loft remains on the open market with an asking price of $2,290,000.

Current listing information shows the two-floor apartment measures 1,668 square feet and contains one real bedroom and 2.5 bathrooms. There are, according to marketing materials that include a promotional video narrated by Mister Modine himself, 17 foot ceiling on the upper level and Nordic ash flooring throughout the main living spaces except in the kitchen where the wood was replaced with a more durable and easier to clean limestone.

The open plan living space stretches approximately 31 feet, according to the floor plan. There's a wall of windows at the living room end, a dining space in the middle and, at the other end, just off the spacious entrance hall, a sleek, limited edition all glass kitchen manufactured in Italy. By "all glass" Your Mama assumes that means the cabinets are faced with glass and not that literally everything is actually made of glass.

The upper level master bedroom—downright puny by suburban standards but decent sized by New York City standards—opens directly off the main living space and offers two custom-fitted closets, a smaller one tucked inconveniently behind the door from the living room and the other a walk-in and -through situation that connects the bedroom to the small and windowless but well-outfitted bathroom with rusty-looking stone tile flooring, minty-grey glass-tiled walls, a floating wood vanity (with just one sink) and a glass-shielded walk-in shower with one of those really annoying rain head showers and and even more annoying multiple body spray nozzles.****

Mister and Missus Modine—or their lady or nice-gay decorator—have counter-balanced the boxy, unadorned architecture of their master bedroom with warm Mission style furniture, dozens of artworks hung salon style on two walls, and a double-layer of multi-textured curtains, a privacy-protecting sheer under heavy black and white brocade drapes that extend dramatically from the ceiling to the floor.

Mister Modine himself stated in the promotional video he made to help sell the apartment, the flexi-use lower level—marked as a "rec room" on the floor plan—was used by his family as the bedroom for one of his two daughters. The lower level room has a wide wall of windows and glass doors that peel back to an ipe wood decked outdoor space that doesn't look to be completely private.

Besides the fact that there's only a half bathroom on the lower level that means that every time a resident or guest wants to take a bath or have a shower they have to haul their hiny up a full flight of stairs to the bathroom just off the entrance hall. Also a wee bit problematic for those who might use the "rec room" as a bedroom, the laundry room is also down there. That means when Laverne shows up on Thursday morning and wants to wash the week's kitchen linens and under things you had better be up and out of bed because you know that lady don't tolerate a lazy bones who sleeps past seven.

The sale price includes one of the largest storage units available in the building and that the apartment is pre-wired for high-speed internet and cable television, which is kind of ironic since Mister Modine reportedly does not even own a damn television.*****

Listing information shows the monthly taxes and common charges total $3,101 and that the fairly recently converted, pre-war building—formerly the Press building and re-christened as Loft 25—offers a 24-hour attended lobby with a garden view mail pick-up center and residents only screening/conference room and separate fitness center.

There's also a 5,000 square foot pet-friendly roof terrace with barbecue station, outdoor shower and—as it turns out—a head on view of London Terrace, the very building where Your Mama and The Doctor Cooter lived when we resided in New York City. Over the years we lived at London Terrace we occupied several apartments and ground floor office spaces in various sections of the massive, mixed-use pre-war complex but we are 100% certain the 16th floor bedroom of the last apartment we occupied before we packed it up and schlepped it west five years ago had a perfect view down onto this the still not quite finished roof top.

But we digress into a powerful nostalgia brought on by the horrific impact of Sandy on New York City and the surrounding communities, states and regions.

Listing information states that Mister Modine's Chelsea loft is just steps from the High Line park in the heart of Chelsea's gallery district. And it is, which is a good thing iffin you like the High Line. (And who, pray tell, does not like the High Line?) However, what listing information does not indicate is that the building is also directly across the street from a substantial low-income housing project. We lived there for years without giving this proximity to housing project more than a passing thought but we're certain there are uptown types who would step out of a cab and immediately think, "Oh, hell no."

*A walk street residence, just as its name suggests, is only accessible along a lane too narrow to accommodate anything wider than a wheelchair or golf cart. Automobiles are not aloud on a walk street. Automobile access to the property in question as well as most other walk-street residences in Venice is restricted to a separate alley way. 

**We're quite sure that there are swarming hordes of people of all creeds and financial abilities who love them a rain head shower and/or body spray nozzles like nobody's bizness but Your Mama just finds all that a lot of unnecessary hooey. Although we have experienced them, never in our life have we ever sat on the damn sofa and thought it would just be so magnificent and relaxing to stand butt-nekkid in the shower and be pelted by powerful water jets from all angles on every part of our body. No thank you. Anyhoo...

***Naturally, Your Mama has no idea of Mister and Missus Modine's new neighbors in Venice are nosy and/or at all the least bit concerned with their individual hair washing techniques.

****We know some people love a rain head shower and multiple body sprayers like a bear loves honey but, hunnies, we simply do not care to stand butt-nekkid in the shower and be pelted and bruised by waters shooting out of God knows where at every part of our tender-skinned body. No thank you, please.

*****We can not confirm or deny that Mister Modine does or does not actually own a television. We read it on the Internet Movie Data Base. But if he doesn't then we say, "gee-awhed, not another Tinseltowner without a television. Do we spot a trend?

listing photos and floor plan (New York City): Halstead
listing photos (Venice): Pardee Properties