Anybody wonder just how unreservedly (self-)indulged British racing heiress Petra (Ecclestone) Stunt and her new husband James Stunt worked over interiors of the 50,000-plus square foot faux-French pile in L.A.'s Holmby Hills that she bought in mid-2011 for $85,000,000?
We did too, until yesterday when a clever but anonymous commenter directed us to a website with large, post-redo photographs that show the new day-core not particularly surprisingly skews towards a brooding and occasionally girly kind of glammy that looks to Your Mama like a plush hybrid between a fancy boutique hotel, an upscale gentlemen's club and a high end department store. We suggest y'all peep the pictures right quick before they get pulled from the interweb.
We perused the many lush images of the interior and exterior for seven or eight entire minutes and can only hope that Mister and Missus Stunt have flung a few personal knick-knacks and paddywhacks around the 120-some room behemoth since the photos were snapped because it all looks a little impersonal and comes off as overwhelmingly out-sized, especially considering that just two people actually live there.
The paneling in the airline hangar-sized foyer with its massive sweetheart staircase has all been slathered with crisp, white paint and Candy Spelling's plain ol' buff-colored marble flooring was swapped for a high-impact and super graphic over-scaled black and white marble stripe pattern. There are a number of gilt-framed oil portraits of unknown people affixed to the walls as well a deeply saturated photo of Petra that shows her sitting on the edge of some piece of furniture in an unidentifiable but decadent setting looking somewhat forlorn in a turquoise colored shift dress that probably cost as much or more as her cleaning gal's car.*
There are enough reception halls, living rooms, dining areas and lushly textured lounges on both the main and basement levels to comfortably accommodate dozens of people at the same time. This house, children is so damn big that there could easily be a raucous party working it out down in the bowling alley and a tea party going on in the cavernous, ballroom sized living room and neither party would know the better. The tremendous main kitchen has at least three boxcar-sized work islands and commercial-grade appliances that would probably allow a well-oiled kitchen staff to turn out delectable spreads for both hypothetical parties at the same time plus a midnight buffet for forty.
Both the his and the her bathrooms in the master suite are exceptionally spacious and lavishly appointed. Mister Stunt's is mostly brown and manly while hers is girlishly glitzy with a giant heart shaped mirror and a free standing soaking tub smack in the center of the many-sided room.
Mister Stunt's walk-in closet/dressing is cozy and elegant like an expensive haberdashery with lustrous ebony cabinetry and wall-to-wall carpeting while hers is a gigantic, well-lit multi-level extravaganza with built-in jewelry cases and dressers, a grid of handbag cubbies, several dozens of feet of built-in drawers, motorized shoe racks, and rows of hanging racks set into mirrored walls that ring the upper level. In the center of the room a tufted sled-style sofa sits under a white glass chandelier and is flanked by a pair of headless manikins with a metallic finish.
The two-lane bowling alley in the basement was done over in shades of chocolate brown and a nearby game room with a similar milk chocolaty palette has a pool table, poker table and walls that appear to be upholstered in some sort of (probably and hopefully faux) fur.
Photos show Missus Stunt installed a full service professional grade beauty salon with a dizzying mirrored hallway that leads to a semi-circular reception lounge furnished with little more than an obscene, pink heart shaped settee. The salon itself is equipped with at least one make up vanity, two manicure stations and three hair style stations with platinum-toned tufted leather chairs.
And that's just the inside, puppies. Outside there are several acres of precisely manicured lawns and formal gardens, citrus groves, a resort-like swimming pool complex with and outdoor kitchen and lounging pavilion, vast terraces that would be right at home at the Taj Majal, a tennis court and garaging for a dozen or more of the Stunt couple's extensive fleet of high performance whips.
Public records show the 2012 property taxes alone for Missus Stunt's titanic Tinseltown pied-à-terre were almost $1.1. million. Anyone even want to guess at the annual upkeep costs for a property of this magnitude? Boggles and betwixts the mind, don't it?
*Be smart, children, Your Mama has no idea if Missus Stunt employs a cleaning gal and if so how much she earns or the value of any car she might drive. We also have no idea how much Missus Stunt may have paid for the turquoise dress. We sorta doubt it but for all we know she picked it up off the discount rack at T.J.Maxx.
UPDATE: Kim Zolciak
On camera, Miz Zolciak appeared none to pleased with the situation. She fretted, groused and otherwise brayed ceaselessly about how she was ever gonna fit her pampered family of six—plus a nanny (or two) and her torpid personal assistant Sweetie—into a condo after getting used to living up in a 17,000 square feet mac-mansion.*
While her displeasure about having to squeeze her family into the 3,500 square foot condo may have been authentic the obviously quite fertile Miz Zolciak-Biermann and her clearly very virile husband were not being entirely truthful about their home erecting situation.
Property records and recent reports actually reveal that it was only in mid-November 2012 that Mister and Missus Biermann coughed up $880,000 for a 1.78 acre foreclosure property that backs up to a pond-sized lake in the gated community that surrounds The Manor Golf and Country Club in Alpharetta. At the time of their purchase, the brown stone and brown brick residence of indeterminable architectural style was mostly unfinished but designed, according to listing information we dug up on the interweb, with six bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in 6,907 square feet.
Several celebrity oriented tabs and blogs too Missus Z.-B. to task about the truthiness of her televised statements and eventually—if defensively—'fessed up to buying a unfinished house rather than building a house from the ground up as was the implication she gave both on camera and on the Twitter. Never-the-less, the house did indeed require finishing and its unfinished condition will certainly allow the Zolciak-Biermanns to (re)configure and customize the house to meet their own unique needs.**
Subsequent to all this details discrepancy coming to light in the tabloid media Your Mama received an inneresting covert communique Donnie Bravo, a real estate whippersnapper who has previously proven to Your Mama that he follows The Real Housewives of... series with rare and encyclopedic avidity.
We don't know how he knows this but Young Mister Bravo told us the luxe life pursuing Zolciak-Biermanns are currently in the process of snatching up the 1.41 acre vacant lot next door. Online documentation shows the thickly treed lake view lot was first and unsuccessfully listed in August 2009 for $489,000. In October 2012 the price was hacked down to $275,000 at which point it was immediately put under contract. As of today, there is not evidence in any of the property record data bases we consulted that show a transaction and online listings still show the sale as pending. If Mister and Missus Zoliak-Biermann are indeed the buyers of the vacant lot their new estate will encompass an impressive 3.19 (or so) acres.
This house thing may not have gone down exactly as she intimated on the t.v., and her new digs may be less than half the size of the rented Roswell mansion—and not twice the size like she bragged it was on the t.v.—but it's not like these folks are moving into a shoebox or a hovel. Your Mama has to wonder why Miz Zolciak-Biermann would even bother to stretch the truth about her family's living circumstances when, compared to most people, her actual circumstances are actually quite luxurious? Despite two solid minutes of deep thought on the matter, Your Mama can think of no other reason for Miz Z.-B. to embellish such a thing besides vanity and, well, we just think that's kinda sad.
*Note: Mister and Missus Biermann, their kids and household staff only occupied the six bedroom and ten terlit Roswell mansion for about a year, give or take a month or two.
**Would any of the children be the least bit surprised if Missus Z.-B. installed a temperature controlled wig storage facility with a state-of-the-art biometric security system?
exterior photo: All About The Real Housewives
UPDATE: Howard Marks in Malibu
A bit more than a week ago—Christmas Eve to be exact—Your Mama passed along to the children the pulse quickening real estate rumor that bespectacled billionaire hedge fund fat cat and financial industry oracle Howard Marks and his philanthropic wife Nancy were about to ink an off-market deal to sell their 10-plus acre bluff top estate in Malibu for somewhere around $75,000,000.
Since then we've heard from a number of other snitches and sources who dabble in the high end Malibu market who thoughtfully passed along a few additional bits of unsubstantiated babble making their way down the property gossip grapevine regarding the (allegedly) impending sale of the baronial estate that includes a massive, newly renovated Mediterranean villa worked over by nice-gay and exceedingly successful decorator Michael Smith.*
One canary told us the buyers were an extraordinarily rich Russian couple with "suitcases full of cash" who toured the property multiple times and wanted the property really bad. Another told us she heard the Marks' property had been shown very quietly with an asking price of $125,000,000, that the house was sold furnished and—most interestingly—that Mister Marks has told at least one friend or financial industry associate that after purchase price, renovations, decorating expenses, carrying costs and real estate fees he was gonna take a pocketbook punishing $20 million bath on the property. Imagine, children, having the pecuniary wherewithal to absorb a $20 million loss on a single property transaction and still be sick rich.
Just some juicy high end real estate hearsay and scuttlebutt kids...at least until you read about it in one of the more respectable property gossip columns.
*The bulk of the estate had previously been owned by Herbalife founder Mark Hughes who bought in in the late 1990s from Verna Harrah, the recently deceased widow of casino magnate Bill Harrah.
Since then we've heard from a number of other snitches and sources who dabble in the high end Malibu market who thoughtfully passed along a few additional bits of unsubstantiated babble making their way down the property gossip grapevine regarding the (allegedly) impending sale of the baronial estate that includes a massive, newly renovated Mediterranean villa worked over by nice-gay and exceedingly successful decorator Michael Smith.*
One canary told us the buyers were an extraordinarily rich Russian couple with "suitcases full of cash" who toured the property multiple times and wanted the property really bad. Another told us she heard the Marks' property had been shown very quietly with an asking price of $125,000,000, that the house was sold furnished and—most interestingly—that Mister Marks has told at least one friend or financial industry associate that after purchase price, renovations, decorating expenses, carrying costs and real estate fees he was gonna take a pocketbook punishing $20 million bath on the property. Imagine, children, having the pecuniary wherewithal to absorb a $20 million loss on a single property transaction and still be sick rich.
Just some juicy high end real estate hearsay and scuttlebutt kids...at least until you read about it in one of the more respectable property gossip columns.
*The bulk of the estate had previously been owned by Herbalife founder Mark Hughes who bought in in the late 1990s from Verna Harrah, the recently deceased widow of casino magnate Bill Harrah.
UPDATE: Kelsey Grammer
It was only seven or maybe eight months ago that the 57-year old and still procreating actor dropped $6,500,000 on a walled and gated 1926 Spanish Colonial Revival-style mini-mansion in an area of Beverly Hills often referred to as 'The Flats.'
Soon came a lot of brouhaha in the tabs and courts about how he wanted to lease the nearly 6,000 square foot house out at $30,000 per month and move his new fourth wife and infant baby back into a significantly larger and more grand mansion in the Holmby Hills 'hood that he still co-owns with third ex-wife Camille Grammer, best known as a semi-regular player on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Not surprisingly, Third ex-Missus Grammer balked at the notion since the 10,567 square foot house is currently for sale with an asking price of $15,995,000 and she quite logically thought it might be tougher to sell if there are people living in it. We have to imagine Third ex-Missus Grammer might also have found it icky and upsetting that Mister Grammer would have the gumption to move his new fourth wife and child into a house she once shared with her ex-husband and their two children.
Anyhoo, not only is sitcom star Kelsey Grammer attempting to lease his newly acquired house in the flats of Beverly Hills, yesterday the property popped up for sale on the open market with an asking price of $7,250,000.
It doesn't take a mathematics savant to see that Mister Grammer has increased the price by $750,000 over the $6.5 million he paid for the place less than a year ago. It also doesn't take a decorative genius to see that Mister and fourth Missus Grammer either purchased the house fully furnished and changed little or that their Real Estate is recycling listing photos from the time of his purchase of the property.
Whatever the case, current listing information shows 6,093 square foot residence was designed by some fella named "Ralph C. Fleming" and includes five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms in the main house plus a potential staff suite plus a separate one bedroom and one bathroom guesthouse. The house was actually designed by noted California architect Ralph C. Flewelling and listing information from the time of Mister Grammer's spring 2012 purchase shows the house has a total of six bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms. The more recent—and still active—lease listing shows the house spans just 5,683 square feet and has five bedrooms and six bathrooms. We're not sure why all the discrepancies but let's just suffice to to be somewhat vague about the details and say it's around 6,000 square feet with five or six bedrooms and 6-7.5 bathrooms.
Mister Grammer, who does not currently have a film or television gig nor anything lined up according to his resume on the Internet Movie Data Base, still maintains an expensive apartment residence in New York City and a nearly 200-acre country spread in upstate New York. He and third ex-Missus Grammer also still co-own an 8,000-plus square foot ski house in near Vail (CO) that's long been for sale and currently carries a $6,995,000 price tag. Third ex-Missus Grammer listed her current residence, a sprawling compound in the guard-gated Serra Retreat in Malibu, earlier this year at $17,900,000 but—as far as Your Mama can find—it no longer appears on the open market.
listing photos: Keller Williams Hollywood Hills
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