Listen Chickens...

...Your Mama is about to put our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly into our big BMW and head on up to Big Daddy's ranch out in the boonies. We regret to inform that there is not, quite simply, any interweb service that we know of for miles around Big Daddy's spread. Therefore, much to our chagrin and perhaps your disappointment, we may be out of touch for a day or two unless we can find some coffee shop–or a kuh-fay as our Grandmammy Rayna used to call them–within a 20 mile radius that has entered the modern age and offers its patrons wireless internet access.

Lyor Cohen Lists Pricey Pad on the Upper East Side

SELLER: Lyor Cohen
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $28,000,000
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama had planned to spend the morning discussing the Hollywood Hills home of a gender-bending fashion critic, the Sunset Strip residence of a wildly successful writer/producer or maybe taking a peep at the pristine Parisian hôtel particular of a rapacious collector of the haute couture. We also considered delving into the rumors and recent reports that frozen faced Oscar winning Aussie actress Nicole Kidman and her country crooning and hair frosting and flat ironing huzband Keith Urban are considering snatching up in a $10,000,000+ river front residence in a particularly posh part of Sydney, Australia where their nearest neighbors would include Oscar winning thespian Cate Blanchett and her playwright man-mate Andrew Upton.

However, last night, while the Dr. Cooter caught up on the last couple of episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race, Your Mama perused the new listings in New York City and came across an irresistible piece of real estate eye candy that we thought the children might like to spend some time droolin' over. Have no worries and don't get all y'alls dander up because Your Mama will get to all the properties we mentioned above. But before we do....

The delicious morsel we decided to discuss, a townhouse just off Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, belongs to music mogul Lyor Cohen who recently listed his fully rehabbed and completely re-did historic house with a very 21st century asking price of $28,000,000.

Mister Cohen, currently the CEO of Recorded Music as the Warner Music Group, was once the right hand man of hip hop impresario Russell Simmons whose Def Jam label was it back in the late eighties and early 1990s. Together they signed and promoted legends like Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Patti Labelle and trouble making rapper Foxy Brown (nee Inga Fung Marchand). Misters Simmons and Cohen cashed out of Def Jam Recordings in 1999, a move that reportedly made Mister Cohen more than $100,000,000. Presumably Mister Simmons came out of the deal with even more moolah in his already bulging bank accounts. Anyhoo, Mister Cohen stayed on at Def Jam as CEO until 2004 when he moved over to run Warner Music where he oversees a bazillon big and not so big name artists including Madonna, Björk, Billy Bragg, k.d. lang, The Magnetic Fields, Green Day and P-Diddy (or Diddle Daddle or Daddy Puff or whatever damn thing he calls himself nowadays).

Mister Cohen, a dee-vorcee with a coupe of kiddies, currently dates fashion designer and social fixture Tory Burch. Miz Burch, also a dee-vorcee with a couple of kiddies, happens to own and occupy a massive, approximately 9,000 square foot Daniel Romualdez designed spread at The Pierre that meets if not exceeds the modern opulence of Mister Cohen's townhouse.

Property records show that Mister Cohen bought his historic townhouse in November of 1999 paying $9,175,000 for the limestone mansion. Listing information indicates the house was built in 1892 but the now elegant and austere façade was re-designed in 1921 by high class architect Cass Gilbert who occupied the house in the early decades of the the 20th century. Mister Gilbert, for those not familiar with the architectural history and lexicon of turn of the century New York City, was a pioneer of the sky scraper and is the man responsible for–among other buildings–the outrageously gorgeous and intricately articulated Neo-Gothic style Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan.

Although square footage information is not included with the listing, Your Mama pressed our trusty ruler and beloved and bejeweled abacus into action to determine that, based on the measurements shown on the floor plan, Mister Cohen's mansion measures right around 8,000 square feet, not including the basement. Listing information states there are six bedrooms and 7 full and 2 half poopers. However, when Your Mama scans the floor plan we count five bedrooms plus two additional rooms–a family room on the third floor and a home fitness center on the fourth–that could be pressed into use as bedrooms number six and seven if the owner so desired. We also come up with a slightly different pooper count. According to the floor plan we tally up 6 full and 3 half poopers for a total of 9 terlits.

Anyhoo, after buying the townhouse in 1999, Mister Cohen spent years and, we imagine, millions giving the place a full face lift and children, what a face lift it is. You know how sometimes women get work done on their faces and they just look like older ladees with too much and not very good plastic surgery–you beehawtchas know who you are–and then there are the women like Sofia Loren and Catherine Deneuve who look nearly flawless well into their senior years due the handiwork of very skilled surgeons? Well, that's what's happened here chickadees, this townhouse is like a Sofia Loren or Catherine Deneuve. It retains much of the history, charm and detail that never lets you forget it's a 100+ year old townhouse but it's fitted with all modern amenities.

Let's have a quick run down of the numbers: The house is 25-feet wide (22-feet on the interior), spans 7 full floors all serviced by a an elevator, contains 5-7 bedrooms depending on how you count, 9 terlits in 6 full and 3 half poopers (or 7 full and 2 half poopers according to listing information), 6 working fireplaces, at least 28 closets and storage rooms, a garden at the back and a terrace at the top that has views of Central Park, and last but not least, a single car garage with direct access to the interior. Now that, celery sticks, is a rare and lovely luxury in Manhattan.

The townhouse is equipped, according to previous reports, with a state of the art electronics and security system that, in addition to a 61-inch plasma monitor plus six more smaller ones, includes a center-channel speaker–whatever that is–that descends from the ceiling at the touch of a button, a high-def satellite dish on the roof that will pull in more than 500 channels, a digital video recorder connected to a T1 line, both interior and exterior security cameras and a video conferencing system that is "one-half Pentagon teleconferencing network, one-half MTV."

We do not know what smart architect is responsible for reconfiguring and/or refining the interior layout of Mister Cohen's townhouse, but whomever it is successfully achieved a smooth flow using a rigorous program of well placed poopers, generously proportioned rooms, heaps and loads of closets and storage space right where you need them, ceiling heights of 9.5 to 12 feet on the 2nd through 6th floors and immaculately and meticulously aligned doorways on the upper floors that allow light to penetrate deep into the interior core that contains the wonderfully wide staircase that wraps around the elevator shaft.

Another set up Your Mama would like the children to take note of is the kitchen. Despite the precarious looking pot rack, the kitchen is well equipped with a heavenly walk-in pantry, double dishwashers, a wide work island with breakfast counter, trio of glass doors that open to the back yard, dumb waiter for lifting food to the dining room on the second floor and a (possibly dangerously steep) back staircase that connects the kitchen to a butler's pantry off the dining room.

One beef with the layout might be up in the master bedrooms where, technically, one must pass through public space in order to get from the boo-dwar and twin-set of walk-in closets to the master pooper, which is divided into two areas on opposite sides of the hall. We don't mind the separation. In fact, we like the separation. Who wants to brush one's chompers while their wife or huzband is terliting themselves? However, we'd like this suite much better iffin there was a way to close off the entire floor to the lower floors thus providing the sort of privacy Your Mama would require in a $28,000,000 townhouse.

Even still, but for some of the day-core and that deeply upsetting Pontiac sized pot rack that threatens to pull the damn ceiling down, there really is little here that Your Mama would change or can beef on about. Let's get real chickens. What sort of piss and vinegar could one possibly muster over that oval dining room with its watery and striated blue rug? (May Your Mama have those olive green tufted chairs that flank the fireplace, please?) Another high note for Your Mama would be the parlor landing on the second floor. We're all goose bumpy over the delicious and manly caramel colored paneling and velvety herringbone patterned hardwood floors that have been paired with the low, modern(ist) black leather bench and the spare painting of a superhero done in a severely restricted palette of black dots on a white background. (Maybe it's a drawing? Anyone recognize this or know the artist?). Seriously people, this may not be the picture of your dream house, but as far as Your Mama is concerned it's insanely and supremely sophisticated in an urban and "I'm not trying to look like I was done by a nice, gay decorator but I was, in fact, did up by a very expensive and nice, gay decorator" sort of way.

It's unfathomable why Mister Cohen might want to sell this townhouse after spending so much time and energy renovating it, but it might have something to do with the many millions of bucks he's likely to pocket if he and his real estate people manage to find someone to cough up anywhere near his asking price.

Previous reports indicate that although Mister Cohen already owns a 6 bedroom and 8 pooper property in super swish Bridgehampton, NY, that he had been shopping around for around $9,500,000 it was widely reported in June of 2008 that he spent $6,800,000 to purchase a waterfront residence on 2.5 acres in the North Haven area of the Hamptons that he planned to knock down in order to build a better version of his vision of a Hamptons hideaway.

Another Real Estate Nightmare for Nic Cage

Poor, poor Nic Cage. It seems the lavish living but (apparently and allegedly) financially strapped Oscar winning actor's real estate dramas and traumas will never end.

Yesterday, Your Mama was yakkety-yakking with a well-connected gal pal whom we'll call Laveenuh Livesinahighrise who, between deep drags on one of her ever-present Virginia Slims, casually and off-handedly snickered that Mister Cage's aristocratic and eccentric residence on swank Copa de Oro Road in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles is scheduled to be auctioned off on the courthouse steps in the early part of April.

We just about knocked our pitcher of gin and tonics over with shock. "AUCTIONED!" Your Mama screeched. "Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?" Miz Livesinahighrise, her words enveloped and blunted by a mouth full of acrid cigarette smoke said, "Yes Mother dear, 'tis true. You oughtta check that shit out." After bidding Miz Livesinahighrise adieu and placing the handset of our worn out but still bedazzled princess phone back into its cradle, Your Mama spent a few minutes peeping and poking around the interweb looking to see what sort of information we could turn up. Within minutes Your Mama hit pay dirt and–lo and behold butter beans–public records we accessed did indeed confirm Miz Livesinahighrise's not exactly financially flattering celebrity real estate gossip regarding Mister Cage's residence on Copa de Oro Road.

According to the 411 Your Mama mined out of the internets, in late 2009 Mister Cage received a nasty Notice of Default on a large mortgage with Citibank secured with the Copa de Oro Road residence. It was recorded on December 16, 2009. How's that for a merry damn Christmas from your bank, Mister Cage? Shooooot, even Your Mama ain't cold enough to wreck up someone's quasi Christian holiday. Anyhoo, an even nastier Notice of Sale–recorded on the 18th of March, 2010–reveals that unless Mister Cage makes good on the defaulted mortgage the posh property will be auctioned on the 7th of April. The auction, which has a minimum bid of $11,004,189, is currently scheduled to take place at 10:30 in the a.m. at a Los Angeles County courthouse in Pomona, CA. Pomona. Pomona! Good grief, child. Surely it is upsetting enough to just lose one's Bel Air mansion–not to mention all the other luxe properties Mister Cage has lost in the last year–but for it all to go down in Po-freaking-mona? Lo-word.

Nicky hunny, call Your Mama, we got a nerve pill or two with your name on it.

Mister Cage's imposing English Tudor style white elephant, first listed in late 2007 with a skin scorching asking price of $35,000,000 and now listed at a greatly reduced but still upsettingly high $17,500,000, was designed by noted Los Angeles based architect Gerard Colcord. The Cage mansion was built in 1940, measures 11,817 square feet and includes, according to listing information, 6 bedrooms and 9 poopers. The sprawling residence, which perhaps looks a little too much like a damn dorm hall at an east coast college for our personal and questionable taste, also includes an 1,800 square foot wine cellar, a home theater, multiple marble fireplaces, original stained glass windows, hidden rooms and staircases, exercise facilities and staff quarters. The 1 acre of manicured grounds encompasses mature shade trees, a massive motor court, a huge heated swimming pool, and an outdoor kitchen with a built-in brick oven.

According to Colcord: Home, an exhaustively researched compendium on the architect Gerard Colcord penned and compiled by real estateophile Bret Parsons, Mister Cage's house was commissioned in 1938 by May Ormerod Harris. Miz Harris, a ladee Your Mama has never heard of before, is–or was–the wealthy widow of a real estate developer named John Wesley Harris who developed parts of the Westwood area of Los Angeles. In certain circles, including that of Mister Parsons, the property is still referred to as Harris House after its original owner.

According to Mister Parsons' publication, the Widda Harris granted the property to the University of Southern California in 1962 (or possibly 1964). The estate was quickly sold by the university for just $200,000 to Beverly Hills banker Stanley Stalford and his wife Joanne who sold it for $250,000 in 1968 to an heir to the Yuban coffee fortune. In 1972 the property was purchased by liquor luvin' crooner Dean Martin. According to Mister Parsons' book, Mister Martin hired Mister Colcord in 1974 to add a 2,500 square foot entertainment complex that includes, "a foyer, curtained stage and movie screen, projection room, sunken wet-bar, large fireplace, two marble baths, and two dressing rooms" plus a children's playroom. In 1976 Mister Martin sold the house to the campy and hairy chested troubadour Tom Jones who owned the property until 1998 when he sold it to our Mister Cage for six and some million clams.

The stately and legendary residence came to be just one of a dozen or more high priced and higher maintenance properties owned by Mister Cage whose property portfolio once bulged with a German schloss (sold in the spring of 2009 for around $2,300,000), a couple of historic mansions in New Orleans (lost to foreclosure in late 2009), a 27-acre estate in Middletown, RI with a 24,667 square foot mansion (bought for $15,700,000, now listed for sale at $9,995,000), a private and undeveloped island in the Bahamas (listed at $6,000,000), a house on Paradise Island in the Bahamas (status unknown), two combined condos in a New York City high-rise (sold last year for $7,750,000), a club-shaped castle outside of Bath in the U.K. (reported to be sold at a million dollar plus loss), a gorgeous Georgian style townhouse in Bath itself (sold at a loss of a couple hundred thousand bucks), a more modest modern house in Baltonsborough, near Glastonbury (bought in June 2006, status unknown), a Las Vegas mansion (bought in September 2006 for $8,500,000, lost to foreclosure in December 2009, and since sold by the lender for $4,200,000), a behemoth bay front mansion in Newport Beach, CA (sold in early 2008 for around $35,000,000), another small house in Newport Beach occupied by his recently deceased father (bought in December of 2006 for $1,700,000 sold in February of 2010 for $1,000,000), a worn out, mid-century modern-ish house above Lake Hollywood (sold in October of 2009 for $1,375,000), and a couple parcels totaling around 400 acres in the mountains above Malibu (listed in late 2009 with combined asking price of around $12,000,000, current status unknown). And that, children, is just the properties Your Mama can scratch off the top of our booze marinated brain.

In the wake of his financial melt-down, Mister Cage filed suit against his now former business manager Samuel Levin claiming his one-time money man led him down a path to financial ruin by allowing him spend money that he did not have on big ticket items that he could not afford. Mister Levin has, of course, filed a counter suit claiming Mister Cage created his own financial quagmire with his wildly profligate ways. According to Mister Levin's suit, at the peak of his spending Mister Cage required an annual income of at least $30,000,000 in order to maintain his immoderate lifestyle of unrestrained spending.

Take a moment to think about that popsicles...thir-tee millon damn clams a year just to pay the bills. That's enough to make Your Mama, a well known financial hypchondriac from way back, want to faint with flabbergast and blanch with pecuniary heebie-jeebies.

Anyhoo, Mister Levin's suit contends that in the year 2007 alone Mister Cage bought 22 cars–a count that included 9 damn Rolls Royces–12 pieces of fine jewelry, 47 pieces of art and three homes totaling more than $33,000,000. And that was just what Mister Cage spent on the big toys, imagine what the man frittered away on the myriad of less expensive purchases not to mention what it cost him to maintain the homes, planes, and boats that he already owned.

Lo-word have mercy piglets, just thinking about his rampant and unrestrained spending makes Your Mama quiver and sweat. We certainly don't begrudge anyone a little luxury in their life but, people, there's really something so vulgar and disturbing about the insanely excessive lifestyle Mister Cage craved. His need for expensive gewgaws and swank real estate seems almost pathological, don't it? For what it's worth and as fer as Your Mama is concerned, there is much more dignity preserved when a wildly rich person knows when plenty is enough than when a money mongering multi-millionaire (or billionaire) spends their entire life sucking up pricey possessions like they actually mean something. Even still, as much as we loathe and can not comprehend Mister Cage's unrestrained lust for conspicuous and superfluous consumption, we do wish him a modicum of real estate peace in the near future and, even more, we hope he's learned a necessary lesson in financial restraint and good sense.

Your Mama would also ask the children to keep in mind that it is quite possible that Mister Cage will or has already managed to make good on his mortgage and thus stave off the auction of his house. But as of this day in March, public records show the auction is on. May we all soon be able to put Mister Cage and his real estate miseries to bed and out of our minds for-evah.

photo: Pacific Coast News

Gary Sinise Lists at a Loss

SELLER: Gary Sinise and Moira Harris
LOCATION: Calabasas, CA
PRICE: $1,875,000
SIZE: 4,366 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to the fine folks over at Celebrity Address Aerial, we've learned that actor Gary Sinise and his actress wife Moira Harris have recently (re)listed their former crib in Calabasas, CA with an asking price of $1,875,000.

For the last six years Mister Sinise has appeared as Detective Mac Taylor on CSI: NY. As nice, lucrative and high profile as that steady gig may be, Mister Sinise's heyday on the silver and small screens seems to have been the early to mid-1990s when he received an Oscar nomination (Forrest Gump), an Emmy nomination (Truman) and and and Emmy award (George Wallace), a couple of Golden Globe nominations, (George Wallace and Forrest Gump), and a Golden Globe award (Truman), a couple of Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nominations (Forrest Gump and The Stand) and three SAG awards (George Wallace, Apollo 13, and Truman). He had also done earned hisself a trio of Tony nominations (The Grapes of Wrath, Buried Child, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).

However, Mister Sinise's real and lasting achievement in the showbiz world–iffin anyone was to ask Your Mama, which of course no one did–is co-founding the famed and respected Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 1974 with Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry. The company's current ensemble includes such notable and recognizable names as Joan Allen, Tom Irwin, John Mahoney, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, the inestimable and quirky Martha Plimpton and of course, Mister Sinise and Miz Harris.

Property records show that Mister Sinise and Miz Harris scooped up their suburban dream house behind the guarded gates of The Oaks development in February of 2004 for $1,951,000. This was not long after they sold their previous residence on Grayfox Road in the Point Dume area of Malibu to Equinox gyms founder Donato Errico for $3,250,000.

According the peeps at Redfin, Mister Sinise and Miz Harris have been trying to sell their real estate white elephant since October of 2008 when they listed the Cape Cod style suburban house with an asking price of $2,195,000. After 529 days and at least half a dozen price adjustments that saw the asking price sink to as low as $1,850,000, the property is currently listed at $1,875,000. A quick consult with Your Mama's bejeweled abacus indicates that based on their purchase price of $1,951,000 Mister Sinise and Miz Harris are on track to lose at least $75,000 plus the fat real estate fees, which could easily total more than $75,000. And that chickens, is if these thespians can manage to get someone to cough up their full asking price, an unlikely scenario given that they were unable to sell the house in late 2009 with an asking price $25,000 lower than the current one.

Are y'all following Your Mama? We have got a lot on our mind this morning and a fat nerve pill we took with our morning coffee means we can't be sure we're making much sense.

Anyhoo, property records indicate the well kept if architecturally uninspired residence measures 4,366 with 4 bedrooms and 4 poopers while listing information shows there are 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers. We don't, natch, know why the discrepancy in the boo-dwar and terlit counts but it may have something to do with the small media room that includes a walk-in closet, private pooper and kitchen area. According to listing information, this room could be pressed into service as a fifth bedroom or possibly as a room for the in-laws or small suite for staff. Loword knows ol' Sveta would l.o.v.e. her own kitchenette to be sure but we'd sooner give up our comfort craving and querulous house gurl than live in a gated community in hot as Hades Calabasas. Don't none of your suburbanites take offense and get your panties all up in a twist. It's just a preference Your Mama has for not living in self-contained suburban tract house developments no matter how expensive or dee-luxe the digs.

The master suite, a long narrow affair with a silly bead board ceiling treatment and a weird faux fireplace–has tan walls, beige carpeting, light khaki colored curtains. There are also two closets with custom organizers and a large pooper drowning in biscuit colored tumbled marble with twin vanities, a spa tub and separate shower. Each of the three other family bedrooms contain a private pooper, a situation that ensures maximum privacy and odor control.

A brick floored and trellised patio off the kitchen/breakfast/family room area leads out to the salt water swimming pool and spa, both of which are surrounded by brick patio. There are also, according to listing information, a waterfall and koi pond in the back yard as well as an outdoor living room that overlooks the swimming pool with brick pillars, a trellised room and an outdoor fireplace.

Listing information indicates the two-story traditional was once a model home and is fitted with hundreds of thousands of dollars in upgrades that include "natural walnut wood floors, crown mouldings, wood ceiling beams, batten and bead board accents." About the only thing we'd keep in there are those dee-voon walnut wood floors. Other features, according to listing information, include a 4-car garage, workshop, a second floor family room area, interior laundry facilities, and monthly home owner's dues of $334 that cover access to the community clubhouse, exercise facilities, and tennis courts as well as courtesy patrol of the area within the gates of the community.

We're guessing that based on the rather lackluster day-core that Mister Sinise, Miz Harris and their three shorties have already left the premises and that the house has been staged for selling. It would appear that the Sinise/Harris family has moved on to the larger and far more expensive house located just a few blocks away in the same damn gated community as this house that property records reveal they bought in December of 2007 for $3,550,000. That house, according to property records, measures 5,199 square feet and includes 5 bedrooms and 4 poopers.

Photos: Everett Fenton Gidley

Nancy Daly's Estate Lists Los Angeles Area Homes

SELLER: Estate of Nancy Daly
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE :$57,000,000
SIZE: 12,785 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: If the children will put on their thinking caps and go back to February of 2008 when Your Mama heard from a number of our better connected sources that word on the real estate gossip grapevine was that philanthropist Nancy Daly–the estranged wife of former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan–had done sold her massive Malibu mansion for around $50,000,000.

A month later, now retired L.A. Times celebrity real estate high priestess Ruth Ryon reported that Miz Daly had sold her behemoth beach house to a couple of very rich Canadians for not fifty million bucks but a bone chilling $68,000,000.

As it turns out, both Your Mama and Miz Ryon were wrong, wrong, wrong. Well, mostly wrong. We can't confirm this, which makes it just rumor and gossip of course, but Your Mama did hear from someone in the position to know–and we presume Miz Ryon heard the same thing also from a reliable informant–that the huge house was being shopped around by a couple of big name brokers and that there had indeedy been a deal thisclose to being done on Miz Daly's ocean front dwelling. However, the jaw-dropping deal died and in the end the residence remained in Miz Daly's property portfolio.

What Your Mama did not know at that time was that Miz Daly had solid and sound reasons for wanting to lighten her real estate load. See puppies, in October of 2009 Miz Daly succumbed to an unfortunate and nasty battle with pancreatic cancer, one of the more virulent and painful ways to go we're sorry to say. Miz Daly died, according to her obit in the L.A. Times, "in St. Louis while traveling back to Los Angeles from New York City in a motor home with her three children." It sounds a little undignified for a woman of Miz Daly's stature, but according to her daughter it was quite okay since she was able to spend her last days and moments with her children.

Now, some six or so months since her untimely passing at the not exactly ancient age of 68, the estate of Miz Daly–presumably controlled or at least heavily influenced by her 3 children and 5 grandchildren–has officially hoisted her major manse in Malee-boo on the market with a blistering and billionaires only asking price of $57,000,000. That's right chickens, fifty seven million smackers, a number large enough to make Your Mama hyperventilate and start in on the gin & tonics before 11 in the a.m.

According to listing information, Miz Daly's beach digs measure in at a mammoth 12,785 square feet and include 8 bedrooms and a dozen poopers. Although our seriously superstitious and demanding house gurl Svetlana would require at least 1 full time terlit gurl to assist her with 12 damn poopers, she would at least approve of Miz Daly's restroom restraint that stopping at twelve rather than an unlucky 13 lavatories.

Miz Daly cobbled her property together over a number of years until finally snagging almost three-quarters of an acre and 180 feet of beach frontage on Carbon Beach, the most coveted, glammy and insane expensive stretches of sand in all of Malee-boo. Miz Daly completed her Carbon Beach castle in 2002 ending up with 9 fireplaces, lavishly sized main rooms including a leviathan double-height living room with a disappearing wall of glass, a sport court and a wide stretch of unnaturally green lawn next to the ocean side swimming pool and spa that is protected by a frameless glass wind screen.

From the few photos currently included with with listing information and marketing materials, it appears that Miz Daly and her team of interior designers and nice, gay decorators did the whole place up in tasteful if not exactly exhilarating shades of ecru with bits of blue that mirror, reflect and echo the shimming blue of the Pacific Ocean.

In addition to the large lawn area and the terrace surrounding the swimming pool, deceased Miz Daly's weekend retreat also comes equipped with a sport court, a couple of balconies and terraces located off guest suites and a deep and wide terrace on the second floor that is accessible either through Miz Daly's master suite or by the stone staircase that leads up from the terrace below.

Miz Daly's nearest neighbors include Jeffrey Katzenberg's Gwathmey Seigel designed compound one one side and former Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel's Michael Graves designed digs on the other. A few other big name and bigger money Carbon Beach property owners includes gay gajillionaire David Geffen, prolific action film producer Joel Silver, restaurant mogul Peter Morton (who has relatively recently completed and dee-voon domicile designed by architect Richard Meier), apparel manufacturing mogul Charles Perez, dueling and dee-vorcing duo Frank and Jamie McCourt who paid $27,300,000 in July of 2007 for the John Lautner designed house formerly owned by architecture buff Courtney Cox and her huzband David Arquette.

The children might also find it inneresting that Miz Daly's in-town residence, on posh Peruguia Way in the swank Bel Air section of Los Angeles, is also up for sale with an asking price of $7,900,000. The 5, 205 square foot traditional was formerly owned by the priceless actress Jean Stapleton, otherwise known as Edith Bunker from the savvy, smart and way before it's time satirical situation comedy All in the Family.
According to listing information, Miz Daly's Bel Air crib (above) includes 2 family bedrooms in the main house, each with private pooper, plus a master suite with massive amounts of closet space and two marble poopers. a staff room on the first floor also has it's own terliting facilities and a two-floor guest house contains an additional two suites each comprised of a living room, bedroom and pooper.

The flat and grassy backyard looks out over the Bel Air Count Club golf course and has secret garden areas, a swimming pool and an adjacent cabana with a fireplace, and a children's playground is tucked down a nearly hidden set of stairs.

Miz Daly's nearest neighbors in Bel Air include Hank Azaria and his baby momma Katie Wright, Talia Shire, the legendary Carole Bayer Sager and her entertainment executive huzband Robert Daly–who happens to be Miz Nancy Daly's ex-huzband–and recently widowed Bren Simon who recently listed her beast of a house at a toe curling $50,000,000.

Sources: Joyce Rey (Bel Air) and Chris Cortazzo (Malibu)

Gossip Queen Janice Min Lists Loft

SELLER: Janice Min
LOCATION: Lafayette Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $7,395,000
SIZE: 3,795 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama plans to spend most of today watching the cacti grow but before we find a shady spot in the yard to plant our fat ass we thought we'd piggy back on Gawker's recent discussion of gossip queen Janice Min listing her loft in New York City's SoHo neighborhood at a ear piercing asking price of $7,395,000.

Miz Min, for those who may not recognize her name, was the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly. She's the ladee responsible for promoting every move, mistake an fart of folks like Paris Hilton, the octo-mom, Kate Gosselin and that sad, washed up Lindsay Lohan gurl who is so desperate to protect her, ahem, good name that she's resorted to suing ETrade for $100,000,000 because they named one of the talking babies in one of their boob-toob commercials Lindsay the "milkaholic." Anyhoo, Miz Min resigned her post as the King of the Gossip Queens last year and it's rumored and reported that she may move on to producing a celebrity-mom based website for butchy butch media tycoon Barry Diller. We can't imagine anything more inane or pretentious than a website on which celebrity mommies give parenting advice to regular, sleep deprived and nanny-free mommies.

Property records show that Miz Min and her schoolteacher huzband paid $4,050,000 for their loft in late October of 2005. It doesn't take much manipulating of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus to see that Miz Min and her schoolteacher huzband are hoping to just about double their money on the 3,795 square foot loft space.

Listing information shows the corner loft is located in a pre-war full-service condo buildings and that a keyed elevator opens directly into the L-shaped dining/living/kitchen/media/den space that has 14 windows, 5 columns, delicious caramel colored hardwood floors, rough hewn oak beams from the 1890s and stretches a staggering 68-feet long from end to end.

Your Mama is not fond of loft living–we prefer actual rooms that provide some intimacy but still flow nicely into each other–and we're a little non-plussed with the rather generic day-core but we are covetous of the multi-colored striped rugs in the dining and living rooms. The gore-may kitchen is fitted with Italian cabinetry in a taupe-y gray color, arctic white counter tops, and a slew of high grade stainless steel appliances that, according to listing information, include "two Miele dishwashers, a 4 burner Viking range with grill, a French door SubZero refrigerator with 4 freezer drawers, a Miele espresso maker, warming tray and combination microwave convection oven."

There are two bedrooms and 2.5 poopers including a gigantic master bedroom with a sitting/exercise area, two standard-sized closets, a third walk-in closet, and a five-piece marble lined pooper that includes a steam shower. Your Mama would have preferred to see slab marble in the pooper rather than the smaller cut pieces that make for an interesting visual grid but also compete with the natural vein of the marble. What we do like in there is the black tile in the back of the shower which makes a nice counter point to all the white marble tile work.

Other residents of Miz Min's high-profile building include David Bowie and his long-necked model wife Iman and boo-teek hotelier Ian Schrager whose 3,990 square foot doo-plex penthouse was listed last year with an asking price of $12,500,000 and is now, according to StreetEasy, in contract.

Chachi Arcola Lists Encino House

SELLER: Scott Baio
LOCATION: Encino, CA
PRICE: $2,895,000
SIZE: 4,403 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen chickens, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter decided to take a last minute vacation so we're phoning this in while sitting next to the swimming pool of a lovely Albert Frey designed house in Palm Springs. That's right. Palms Springs where it's all greys, gays, grey gays most of whom look like gym toned strips of bacon with diamond earrings and pedicures. Anyhoo, being on a much needed and earned vacation, we're gonna keep things as brief as we can without leaving the children with a complete case of the celebrity real estate withdrawls.

Thanks to several sources who have contacted us by way of covert communique over the last few days, we've learned that Scott Baio, better known perhaps as Chachi Arcola from the 1970 and 80s situation comedy Happy Days, recently listed his house in Encino, CA with an asking price of $2,895,000.

Mister Chachi first appeared on the silver screen with ladee lasagna Jodie Foster in the fierce Alan Parker version of Bugsy Malone in 1976. If any of you children haven't seen it, run out and rent it or NetFlix it or whatever it is you kids do nowadays. He then went on to his seminal role on Happy Days that lead, of course, to an unfortunate spin-off called Joanie Loves Chachi. That program ran one season–and one season too long–before it was canceled and Mister Chachi to the greener television pasture of Charles In Charge, which, frankly, was of no better quality but none the less ran a shocking 126 episodes according to the Internet Movie Data Base.

The next 15 years were celebrity purgatory for Mister Baio. He did appear in a number of situation comedies we've never heard of during those years but he was a unquestionably better known in Tinseltown as cocksman of epic proportions dating–or screwing–everyone from Beverly D'AngeloBrooke Shields, tErin Moran, Heather Locklear, Mogan Fairchild, Nicolette Sheridan, Lesley Ann Warren, Pamela Anderson, Liza Minelli, and Denise Richards, just to name of few of the bigger name females he's seen in the nood. He even dated Kristy McNichol and Jodie Foster. Make of that what you will children. In 2005 Mister Chachi appeared in a 4 episode arc on the brilliant but canceled Arrested Development and then, in 2007, he popped up with a reality program titled Scott Baio is 45...and Single. Your Mama, who will watch any damn reality program at least one time, found the show to be utterly pointless other than as a vehicle to restart a career that had all but died. Plus, he wasn't single, he had a ladee friend named Renee to whom he is now married and making babies with.

Anyhoo, property records show that Mister Baio bought his house in Encino way back in 1994 paying $1,385,000 for the single story residence located on the same street that sinking star Ashlee Simpson used to live on before she got too big for her britches and moved to Beverly Hills.

Both property records and listing information indicate the 4,403 square foot residence, situated at the tail end of a gated driveway, sits on just over an acre and includes 4 bedrooms, each with a private pooper, plus an additional half pooper for guests.

From the looks of things, the interior spaces were done up in a not very successfull Kelly Wearstler-lite meets 1995 sort of style with dark hardwood floors, tur-qwaze and swimming pool blue walls in the living and dining rooms, white tufted leather sofas and dining room chairs and at least one Arne Jacobson Egg Chair in white leather that we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly are imitations and not the real thing. It's all rather theatrical and oddly feminine and looks like it's trying (and not succeeding) to look like the lobby of a trend boo-teek hotel. This is not a good look puppies. Despite the off-center fireplace in the living room, it's not the bones of the house that are the real problem, but the suspicious day-fore. Fortunately that will go with the Mister and Missus Chachi when they decamp to their next home.

Just off the formal living room is the family room with it's leopard print carpeting and Z Gallerie brown micro-suede sectional sofa. The kitchen, all 1990s white glossy cabinetry, gray speckled granite counter tops and chunky stainless steel appliances, has an adjacent, glassy breakfast room outfitted with a cool on the footsies flagstone floor, a circular rug from Ikea, a round glass topped table and a couple of hanging paper lantern lights that were a decorative mistake from the get go. The children will note Mister and Missus Chachi's wee Pomeranian puppy tucked into its little dog bed in the corner.

Much of the back of the house opens to the back yard through floor to ceiling sliding glass doors. The grounds consist of a couple of terraces near the house, expansive lawns, planted gardens, an elevated swimming pool, built-in barbecue area, tennis court, koi pond and a gazebo all done up with a projector and flat screen tee-vees.

There were loads of rumors and reports in early 2008, including right here on Your Mama's little online endeavor, that Mister and Missus Chachi had gone and purchased an ass-uglee architectural atrocity in Encino. It seems that on his reality program he and the missus visited a hideous 5 bedroom and 5.5 pooper property on Strawberry Drive and during the visit Mister Chachi moaned and groaned about the mortgage payments. However, Your Mama can find no evidence Mister and Missus Chachi actually bought or moved into the house. They were, quite simply, making "reality" tee-vee.

It seems now, given that their house in on the open market, Mister and Missus Chachi have finally gotten serious about moving. Will Mister Scott Baio remain a valley boy or will Missus Scott Baio encourage a move to Brentwood or one of the other more swish zip codes on the other side of the hills?

source: Ewing / Sotheby's International Realty via Redfin

The Boss Buys and Sells at a Loss in Flahreeduh

SELLER: Bruce Springsteen
LOCATION: Wellington, FL
PRICE: $3,950,000
SIZE: 7,862 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last spring, in May of 2008, music legend Bruce Springsteen scooped up a single story house in the horsey enclave of Wellington, FL for $3,100,000. A few months later he snatched up the house next door for another $4,600,000. Fast forward to March of 2010 when, thanks to the clever sleuthing of Vlad the Revealer Your Mama has learned that Mister Springsteen recently listed the first house for sale with an asking price of $3,950,000 and just this week sold it at a loss. More on that loss later.

Mister Springsteen needs no further expounding, his name alone conjures up all that one needs to know about the gravely voiced American music icon who has sold more that 120,000,000 albums worldwide, won 20 Grammys, 2 Golden Globes and a damn Academy Award . What does, perhaps, need some explaining is why Mister Springsteen and his wife Patty Scialfa would buy not just one buy two side by side residences in the heart of South Florida's equestrian world.

A few minutes clicking and clacking around on the interweb and we turned up several articles that discuss the couple's teenage daughter Jessica who happens to be one of the top junior equestrian riders in all of the U.S.A. who trains, competes and kicks booty at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center.

Previous reports indicate that prior to purchasing a home in Wellington, the Springsteens rented a house in the gated community that's attached to the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center. When the house next door to their rental became available to purchase, they forked over $3,100,000 for the single story house that property records show measures 5,496 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 6.5 poopers.

For what it's worth, one listing Your Mama teased out of the interweb shows the house measures a much larger 8,949 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 6 poopers, a second listing as well as the Palm Beach tax man show it spans 7,862 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 6.5 poopers and yet another listing we dug up indicates the home spans 5,641 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 6 full poopers. Make of that what y'all will children.

What does appear to be consistent across the listings is that the mock-Mediterranean style residence was built in 2002, sits on a .66 acre pond-fronting lot and is built around an interior courtyard of Saturnia marble with a heated swimming pool and spa. A three car, front facing garage opens onto a circular drive and the interiors are, according to listing information, professionally decorated. Since there are no interior photos included with any of the listings Your Mama found we're just going to have to take a leap of faith that the house was professionally decorated in a non-cringe worthy manner.

Other features, according to the slim listing information available, include granite counter tops, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, and hurricane proof doors and windows, which is a good damn thing because hurricanes are to Florida what earthquakes are to California except devastating hurricanes happen far more more often.

We're going to assume that Mister Springsteen and Miz Scialfa put some money into customizing and decorating the home, but a few flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that the New Jersey-based couple were hoping to cash in to the tune of $850,000 even though the Floridian real estate market has swirled down the terlit since they bought the property in the spring of 2008. Turns out they not only did not cash in on the sale of the property, they lost a bit of money. According to an article in today's Palm Beach Daily News, Mister Springsteen sold the property yesterday to a couple of Chicago-based philanthropists for–are y'all sitting down and ready for this?–$2,950,000. The loss of $150,000 plus real estate fees ain't nuthin' to a moneybags like The Boss, but even still it's never easy to watch $250,000 evaporate like mist on the wind.

Anyhoo, the Springsteen family also owns the house immediately next door, which property records show the picked up in September of 2008 for $4,600,000. Based on previous reports, Your Mama thinks–but does not know for sure because we really don't know a iPhone from an eyelash–that this is the same house the family used to rent before buying the one next door that they've currently got up for sale. Are the children following?

Records of file with the tax man show the house sits on a .65 acre pond front lot, measures 6,657 square feet. Interestingly, other online property records we peeped and poked around show the house measures 5,946 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 7.5 poopers and yet another property record resource shows it has only 4,535 square feet. Lo-wards have mercy children, all this confusion about house sizes down in Wellington, FL has our head spinning and a gin & tonic on our lips.

The Springsteen's Wellington, FL home happens to be located in the same gated community where Glenn Close–whose daughter also rides the horsies–also owns a home. Wellington also claims homeowners Tommy Lee Jones and Georgina Bloomberg, that would be New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg's equine obsessed daughter. And, of course, we could never forget that hot to trot polo stud Nacho Figueras also camps out in Wellington when not in Argentina and everyone remember that Her Madgesty Madonna was hanging out in Wellington last year and everyone thought she was going to buy up a big house there but instead she headed out to the Hamptons where she paid somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million clams for Kelly Klein's filly farm.

Mister and Missus Springsteen's primary residence is a large spread in Rumson, NJ and they also own a sizable home in Beverly Hills, CA that sits in the eastern shadow of Mike Ovitz's new and very modern Michael Maltzan designed monster mansion.

David and Gina Chu's Pricey Penthouse Pad

SELLERS: Gina and David Chu
LOCATION: Park Avenue, New York City, NY
PRICE: $32,800,000
SIZE: 7,700 square feet (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After yesterday's extravaganza of downtown New York City floor plan porn Your Mama thought we'd head uptown to have a look-see at the far more traditional but no less impressive Park Avenue triplex penthouse recently heaved on to the market with a blistering asking price $32,800,000 by apparel tycoon David Chu and his philanthropist wife Gina.

Mister Chu, for those who do no recognize his name, is a screamingly-successful 50-something year old Taiwanese born fashion designer whose family emigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s and opened a Chinese food restaurant. Mister Chu grew up to become a fashion designer who in 1983 created the Nautica brand of classic–if not particularly inspired–American sportswear. He pocketed well over a hundred million clams when he sold the company in 2003 for nearly $600,000,000.

Mister Chu did not sit on his laurels and riches for long. In addition to signing on to re-work the upscale Tumi brand of luggage popular with fashionistas around the world, the bizzy beaver took some of the spoils of his success and bought a six floor, 16,894 square foot townhouse on East 22nd Street near Madison Square Park. The townhouse serves as his headquarters from where he now runs his new fashion empire that encompasses several upscale men's clothing lines including David Chu Bespoke where a man of means and dignified taste can go for custom-tailored suits, super 150's worsted wool trousers, spun cashmere sweaters, vicuña overcoats and hand-stitched leather loafers.

Sale prices for apartments sold before 2003 are not (usually) publicly available and in 1999, according to property records, Mister and Missus Chu purchased their penthouse triplex for an unknown amount of money. The three-floored penthouse sits atop the old Mayfair House hotel, a pre-war dowager on the corner of Park Avenue and East 65th Street where the original and legendary Le Cirque restaurant once occupied space on the ground floor. The hotel was converted to condos during the mid- to late- 1990s buy a partnership that included, among others, New York's most hairrifying real estate mogul Donald Trump. The apartments were laid out by architect Kostas Kondylis–(in)famous for his many bland but luxurious apartment towers that blight the New York City skyline–and the public spaces were done by high society decorator Mica Ertegun's company Mac II. Building amenities include 24/7 doormen services, a fitness center, maid services, valet parking and catering is available by Daniel Boulud's culinary emporium Daniel, which now occupies the space where Le Cirque used to be.

Listing information indicates the tri-floored apartment measures a suburban mansion-sized 7,700 square feet (approximately) and includes 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers, although we count 6.5 poopers including the one in the staff suite. Presumably Mister and Missus are selling–and hoping to cash in–because they've decamped to much more modest 1,684 square foot digs at the over-hyped 15 Central Park West that records show they snatched up in August of 2008 for $2,940,000. The couple first put their Park Avenue penthouse pad out for lease in January of 2010 at an eye-popping $75,000 per month while also quietly shopping the colossal condo to qualified buyers. The penthouse is no longer for lease–recent reports reveal there are tenants currently in place–but it has hit the open market with a sky-high asking price that puts it among the top ten most expensive condominium listings in all of New York City.

The apartment's main entrance is on the building's 16th floor where a semi-private elevator landing opens into a blinding, snow white and almost perfectly square foyer from which the entire apartment orbits around like planets around the sun. The generously proportioned rooms include a massive 39-foot long and 700 square foot corner living room with a pretty view down tree-lined Park Avenue, a fireplace and an adjacent wet bar-room situated in the stair hall. To one side of the living room a library is wrapped in built-in bookshelves and on the other–just past the bar-room–a small media room provides a private pooper and walk-in closet.

Beyond the media room is a nicely sized dining room which sits next door to the kitchen complex that includes a huge, windowed kitchen, separate breakfast area, a massive walk-in pantry. It's gratifying to see such a large and family friendly kitchen in a Manhattan apartment but we're deeply concerned about the black granite flooring that would cause our imperious house gurl Svetlana conniption fits trying to keep clean. A back hall that connects the kitchen with the foyer contains the powder pooper, closet space and access to the service elevator. From what we can tell, the Chus have place a scary, carved statue of a caped person at the end of the hall. Lo-ward children, that thing would have Your Mama jumping right out of our skin with fear iffin we caught a glimpse late at night in a darkened house when while we made our way to the kitchen for a midnight snack of Ho-hos and Ding-dongs.

The bedrooms are located on the lower floor and in addition to the nearly 28-foot long master bedroom that includes a generous windowed pooper with separate terlit cubby and two walk-in closets, there are two family bedrooms, each with private pooper and a large bedroom/den, also with private terlit facilities. The children will note the closet within the closet of one of the master bedrooms walk-in closets. The staff quarters, well separated from the family's living quarters, consist of laundry facilities, a separate entrance, pooper and a bedroom actually large enough for a person to sleep in without feeling like they're shacked up in a cell at Riker's Island.

The top floor of the penthouse consists of a small sun room that opens out to the approximately 1,400 square foot roof terrace. Clearly Mister and Missus Chu spent boo-coo bucks having the terrace trellised, planted and landscape and we can only imagine the how much more they've spent over the years having Hugo and Leonardo the urban gardeners up there several times a week trimming the box hedges and wiping all the city grit off the teak dining room table and loungers.

There don't seem to be too many folks out there in the market for $30,000,000+ apartments right now so Mister and Missus Chu might have to sit on their penthouse a while longer or maybe even, heaven forfend, chop the price. Either way they're likely to walk away with more money than most people will ever earn in a lifetime.

Other residents of the building, according to the peeps at Property Shark, include celebrity chef Danial Boulud, Angeles Kozlowski, the ex-wife of former Tyco-head honcho Dennis Kozlowski, Bed, Bath & Beyond co-founder Leonard Feinstein, and financier Gerald Unterman and his wife Elaine who own the second of the building's two penthouse units.

source: Corcoran / Carrie Chiang

Edward Bazinet (re)Lists Leviathan Penthouse Pad

SELLER: Edward Bazinet
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $28,000,000
SIZE: 10,991 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 4 full and 3 half poopers

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Let's begin our New York City floor plan porn tour with a 5-floor TriBeCa penthouse that has (once again) been hoisted on to the market with a sky-high asking price of $28,000,000. The 19-room and 4-terrace building topper is, according to property records and previous reports, owned by philanthropist, patron of the arts, and retired biznessman Edward Bazinet.

Mister Bazinet, according to information Your Mama dug up on the internets, is a native-Minnesotan who made his many millions in the mid-1990s when he sold his company Department 56 for a bank account bulging $270,000,000. According to the Funding Universe website, "The company [Department 56] is perhaps best known for its collection of ceramic and porcelain miniature villages. Also popular, however, are other holiday and home decorative accessories, which include a line of porcelain and pewter figurines known as Snowbabies." Your Mama's going to give the children a moment here to read that again and then another moment to ponder the notion that Mister Bazinet became filthy, stinking rich selling things like this and this and–heaven help us all that there is a market for these things–this.

Are you taking that moment?

Okay. Please take another moment to make sure all that really sinks in and sears a painful sore spot of decorative accessory horror into your memory.

Now then, before we go any further the children need to take note and heed that Your Mama's decorating rule No. 71 states that no home of refined taste or style shall ever, under any circumstances, contain a collection large or small consisting of cutesy porcelain or pewter "figurines" that depict angels, animals, children, Santa Claus, Snowbabies–whatever they are–or any other person, place or thing that falls into a category of animal, vegetable or mineral. Is that clear? Okaaaay?

Moving on and getting back to the real estate, records and previous reports reveal that sixty-something year old Mister Bazinet purchased his penthouse in August of 2001 for $13,150,000. The children may find it interesting to note that Mister Bazinet bought the beastly aerie from interweb tycoon Fernando Espuelas who had only snatched up the colossal condo a year before for $6,100,000. Admittedly, Señor Espuelas made some renovations to the mansion-sized penthouse that justified an uptick in price but for all intents and purposes Señor Espuelas pocketed a good number of millions for little more than the trouble and bother for signing the damn deed. Those were some better real estate days my sweet celery sticks.

Subsequent to purchasing the penthouse in 2001, Mister Bazinet and his Belgian-born photographer man-friend spent millions and years on an ambitious Andrea Ballerini-designed renovation that included adding a fifth floor the to existing four floor penthouse. During the renovation–or maybe it was before or after the renovation we don't know–Mister Bazinet sued the developers of the building for shoddy construction. One of those developers who was sued is none other than Sam Waksal, the founder of ImClone who is currently spending some time in a Michigan pokey on a securities fraud conviction. Mister Waksal is also the former and much older paramour of Martha Stewart's sassy and spoiled daughter Alexis. It was Little Miss Alexis who introduced Mister Waksal to her mogul mommy Martha and it was that little bit of business about her dumping $228,000 worth of ImClone stock that got ol' Martha locked up for 5 months in a ladee pokey down in West Virginia. But we digress...

In April of 2006, right in the thick of the most recent real estate salad years, Mister Bazinet attempted to sell his newly renovated penthouse with a screaming asking price of $28,500,000. But alas, even then, during that scorching and fast moving market when you could sell a 300 square foot basement studio in Harlem for half a million dollars, the penthouse failed to find a buyer willing to go the distance. In October of 2007, according to a New York Sun article from January of 2008, Mister Bazinet de-listed his behemoth digs due to legitimate concerns regarding the construction of the swish Smyth Hotel being built next door. Unfortunately for Mister Bazinet, the now completed hotel towers over the penthouse and obliterates any view from the many windows on the north side of the penthouse. Before any of the children cry too many tears of real estate pain over the loss of Mister Bazinet's northern view, remember that there remain three sides to this penthouse with glorious and open city views.

A quick study of the floor plan included with the listing reveals just 2 proper bedrooms and 4 full and 3 half poopers. Listing information indicates the penthouse measures an elephantine 10,991 square feet while the tax records show a significantly smaller but still massive 8,828 square feet.

The well conceived if grandiose and somewhat eccentric program divides the interior spaces into four distinct zones–work, public, semi-private and private–spread over the five floors. The lowest floor, which is the building's sixth floor, comprises both the work and semi-private zones and a stand alone entrance vestibule allows the floor to function completely independently of the rest of the penthouse. On the north end, according to the floor plan, a suite of rooms designed for a dee-luxe home office makes up the work zone. The work zone includes a reception gallery complete with a built-in receptionist's desk, a half-pooper, large private office, studio space, and a long row of closets in the studio that contain a stacked washer and dryer. In between the office and studio are a dark room, storage room, and a small study wrapped in built-in cabinetry. The south end of the penthouse's lowest floor contains the semi-private zone, a generous guest suite that consists of a large living/bedroom, five-piece pooper with circular shower stall, and a separate kitchen and eating area. The guest quarters, as well as the entry vestibule on this floor, open to a wide south and west facing terrace. While the $28,000,000 asking price seems–and is–quite steep for a two bedroom residence, the work zone could quite simply and affordably be converted into an additional three bedrooms and three poopers or, better yet, two bedrooms, two and a half poopers plus a shared sitting room.

There is not, according to the floor plan, a private stair that connects the lowest floor to the remaining 4 floors of Mister Bazinet's penthouse so moving between them requires a short ride in the private elevator that services all five floors. The public zone, which encompasses both the 7th and 8th floors, includes the main entrance vestibule with its swooping aluminum and glass staircase, a private and well situated guest pooper, a massive living room and dining room combination that opens to a long and wide west-facing terrace, and a sleek kitchen complex with a breakfast room and a greenhouse on the north end that Your Mama imagines now, with the hotel just arms distance away, feels like a damn fishbowl. Also compromised by the hotel is the melodrama of the double height dining room which features a built in cabinet that hides a wet bar and 24-foot high windows on the north wall that looks directly at the south side of the Smyth Hotel. We can only hope that the architects of the Smyth Hotel were considerate enough not to put windows on the south side of the facade because otherwise Mister Bazinet and his dinner guests will have a clear view di-rectly into the hotel suite of all the Fashion Freddys and hoity toity tourist who take up temporary residence at the Smyth.

The 8th floor is comprised of a media room, a L-shaped library lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves, a powder pooper and a very long room marked "reading room." on the floor plan. We're not sure why Mister Bazinet–or anyone else for that matter–would want or need such a large room to read in but perhaps he and his Belgian boypal enjoy having a dozen or so gals and pals over for an elegant evening of quiet reading in the "reading room" while Paul the Piano Man lightly tinkles the ivories on the grand piano downstairs and Lenny the House Boy serves lemon cooler cookies on a silver platter and mixes mint juleps at the penthouse's second built in wet bar.

The entire fourth floor of Mister Bazinet's penthouse–the ninth floor of the building–is given over to the master suite. A large bedroom chamber has a fireplace and windows that open to a another wide, west facing terrace. In addition to the sky lit dressing room that separates the bedroom area from the dual poopers, the children will take note of the dee-voon and well conceived "luggage" storage room. We should all be so lucky to have a separate closet to store our luggage. The identically sized and fitted his and his poopers share a party sized shower.

Just off the hallway that connects the bedroom with one of the poopers is a multi-purpose room with a morning kitchenette, a dumbwaiter station, a stacked washer and dryer and a gigantic, stainless steel jacuzzi tub that looks like a water bowl for a giant damn dog. The jacuzzi tub is surrounded by a curving wall covered in a giant mosaic tile mural of Napoleon's face. Behind the tub sit two aggressively phallic marble (or maybe onyx) obelisks and hanging on the wall above a side table laden with glass containers full of Q-tips and cotton balls is a large painting or photograph of a young, nubile and bare-chested porn stud with unnaturally defined abs and a come hither look in his eye. Oh hunnies, pleeze! Is that just about the gayest damn thing you have ever laid your eyeballs on? Listen puppies, as far as we're concerned there's just nothing right about the "day-core" of this room. We can't think of what scenario would be more psychologically unnerving, a couple senior gentleman sitting in that tub on a Wednesday evening sipping Proseco or two almost elderly men in there on a Friday night with a couple of spring chickens in bathing suits that leave nothing to the imagination.

Oh lo-ward have mercy children, we're gonna take us a nerve pill and try to move on past that dog bowl spa tub thing-a-ma-bobber if we can. Fortunately there is only the fifth and final floor of Mister Bazinet's penthouse, accessible only by the private elevator, contains a glass wrapped home fitness room, a petite pooper, and a wrap around roof terrace.

Given that the real estate markets–even the upper end New York City real estate market–are currently on life support and Mister Bazinet has priced his posh penthouse pad only about 2% less than it was priced at the tippy-top of the market in 2006 and 2007 when there were people actually paying twenty million buck or more for 2 bedroom apartments it seems a bit of along shot that he will get his price. But then again, Wall Street bonuses were big big big this year and there just might be a bachelor trader out there who's willing to pay almost any price to have a stainless steel hot tub in his bathroom.

source: Sotheby's International Realty / Stephen McRae