Your Mama has a bit more mish mashing to do this Friday morning. We are going to try to be brief today (which we rarely are) because Your Mama has to run out to the LAX to pick up our finely feathered and usually drunk friend Fiona Trambeau who is winging her way down to celebrate her 147th birthday. And children, trust Your Mama when we tell you that we absolutely must not be late or else there will be trouble. See, our little lamb is terrified of flying and last time she headed down for a visit she steeled her worked nerves with half a dozen early morning Bloody Marys and ended up on the baggage pick-up turnstile in just her pantyhose and tube top squealing like a pig because her pie-eyed mind thought she was riding the damn Matterhorn at Disneyland. Well, we do not need to tell the children, Your Mama does not care to have a repeat of that ugly situation.
Okay then, here we go...
1.
Even since before high-haired super star singer Rihanna vacated her colorful rental house in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, she was out shopping for a new house to buy. Your Mama kept hearing whispers coming down the gossip grapevine that she was peepin' and a pokin' around very contemporary cribs in the Hills of Hollywood in the five to six million smackers neighborhood.
Next came rumors and reports that Miss Riri scooped up a big ol' house in Bel Air for twelve million dollars. Not true. At least not as far as we could figure. Then she disappeared from Your Mama's celebrity real estate radar until yesterday when she popped up in the Gimme Shelter column of the New York Post which reported that Miss Riri is relocating to Noo York City for the summer and will be forking over $18,000 to shack up in a Soho building with a part time doorman.
Listing information for Riri's rental shows the 2,305 square foot spread includes a living/dining room with 4 windows over looking Greene Street, a small but well equipped kitchen with sparkling white counter tops, a master suite that occupies on its own floor and includes a sitting area, bedroom, walk-in closet and a windowless bathroom. Downstairs there are two more windowless poopers, a windowless office space and two bedrooms, one of which opens to the 464 square foot terrace that Your Mama can promise the children offers not a bit of privacy so it's a good thing Miss Riri is planning on tenting the terrace. At least that's what the Post is reporting she's a-gonna do. Enjoy New York City Miss Riri and be sure to tell The Chicken Your Mama said hello when you see her.
2.
A couple of weeks ago we gave a run down on all the wildly rich residents of 820 Fifth Avenue which is, as all the children now know, one of the most exclusive buildings in all of Manhattan. At the time we were stumped as to who owns the 10th floor. We know that part of the 1oth floor has been doo-plexed the the ninth floor unit owned by financier Michael David-Weill but we couldn't sort out who owns the remainder of the 10th floor. Turns out, the owner/occupant is Belgium, at least according to an informant we'll call Le Échotier. Apparently, the government of Belgium uses the co-operative unit as the residence for the Consul General and has set the place up with "a small amount of office space, a waffle iron, and Belgian and American flags intertwined here and there." A waffle iron! That was funny.
3.
Yesterday Your Mama mentioned that porcelain skinned and cold-eyed Australian actress Nicole Kidman sold off her Darling Point digs that clung to a hillside overlooking the glistening waters of the Sydney Harbor for $13,200,000 (AUS)*.
Since then a couple of kangaroos have whispered in Your Mama's ear that Miz Kidman and her country crooning huzband Keith Urban snatched up a 420 square meter** duplex penthouse for which they reportedly laid out around $6,000,000 (AUS).***
The Lavender Street apartment complex, according to recent reports, is just a hop, skip and a jump from the Greenwich Peninsula homes of Miz Kidman Cruise Urban's parents and television presenter sister Antonia Hawley and her litter of little ones. The two floor aerie is said to include 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, open plan living areas that open to wide terraces that overlook the Sydney Harbor.
* $13,200,000 Australian equals $10,308,012 at today's rates
** 420 square meters equals 4,521 square feet
*** $6,000,000 Australian equals $4,685,460 at today's rates
4.
Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills just rang our bell to let us know that noted Los Angeles property developer John Bersci has finally gone to escrow on his historic personal residence which he first listed with an asking price $11,495,000 but has had to slash all the way down to $7,995,000 before a buyer presented him or herself. Well, good for Mister Bersci.
5.
Speaking of house flippers, back in mid-April of 2009, Your Mama had a sit down with our gabby gal pal Kenny Kissentell who let it slip that talent manager turned high end house flipper Sandy Gallin was fixing to put his latest Bel Air project on the market with an asking price so high we dared not repeat it when we relayed the rumor to the children because our ears simply could not believe the figure Kenny was passing along to Your Mama was correct. Turns out, Miss Kissintell was right. We should have known. Beehawtcha always is.
Miss Gallin rarely puts his posh properties on the open market, but times are tough for sellers of 8-figure residential real estate extravaganzas in the Platinum Triangle so he's listed the Siena Way residence with a couple of high profile real estate agent men named Kurt and Ernie who are marketing the entirely over-hauled house with a hair raising asking price of $32,000,000.
Some of the children may recall that Miss Gallin purchased the Siena Road residence from the estate of Emmy winning Hollywood actress Jane Wyatt back in the spring of 2007 for about eight million clams. Anyhoo, ever since then he and his team of smart architects and nice gay (and probably well-built) decorators have been bizzy as beavers giving the elegant and dignified Paul Williams designed manse a full face lift, a fine set of veneers and a really good boob job, meaning he gussied up and restored what he could, replaced what was not, and added a huge new wing that increased the size of the stately estate to a reported (and huge) 12,000+ square feet. Your Mama hates to call Miss Gallin a real estate size queen, but when the shoe fits...
The newly rehabbed residence, according to listing information, includes 7 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms including an entire wing devoted to a master suite with dual bath suites so that the owners need never bear the indignity of pooping in the same terlit. The front door, flanked by two perfect oval windows, opens to the front hall where Your Mama was thrilled to see that Miss Gallin retained the original curving staircase. Well done chappy. The living room opens into what listing information calls a "living lounge" which opens to a serene and commodious covered porch with a cobblestone floor, fireplace, and vines that cling to the chunky square pillars.
In addition to all the expected rooms, listing information indicates the house includes a kitchen of stone and stainless steel (with a large and potentially lethal pot rack), a billiards pub (which sounds like a conscious attempt to man up the house), a glass-encased wine room (hello!), a media room with a gigantic u-shaped sectional sofa, a ginormous gym (y'all know how the gays and Hollywood hotties like to work them muscles), steam room (ahem...), a fully equipped guest house and a yoga room. Good heavens, does every rich person in L.A. still do the yoga?
The grounds too, natch, have been completely re-worked and including a narrow driveway and motor court of crushed pebble–which surely sounds dee-voon under the tires of a $400,000 Rolls Royce Phantom–and a back yard of unnaturally green and prairie flat lawns that are accessible from many of the main rooms. The swimming pool is a heroic 100+ feet long. Think about that for a second...one hundred feet long. There are also, according to listing information, fountains that flow over river rock and "concealed" spots under garden arbors for quiet contemplation and gin and tonic drinking.
Listen kids, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are not nor ever will be in the thirty-two million dollar housing market, but if we were, this isn't so far from what we'd want even though we think thirty two million is a hell of a lot of money for this house. None the less, we swoon over traditional shells with properly and masterfully modernized interiors...minus the gym and the yoga room of course, because we'd prefer to leave all that pushing, pulling, gyrating and pretzeling to all the body fascists and youth chasers that people the streets of Los Angeles, of which Your Mama is neither.
Now then, we gotta go gas up the big BMW and haul it down to the aeropuerto to snatch up Miz Trambeau before...well, you know.
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