UPDATE: Kenny Chesney

Country music crooner Kenny Chesney is flipping out in Key West.

Oh mercy children, this Kenny Chesney fella has Your Mama's booze soaked brain spinning faster than a merry go round at one of them Mac-Donalds restaurants.

Late last night, after Your Mama was well into our fourth gin and tonic (and thinking about a fifth), we received a covert communique from a Key Westian (Key Westite?) named Squiggy the Squealer who whispered in Your Mama's big greedy ear that it looks like the historic house in on Caroline Street that's rumored and reported to have been purchased by Mister Chesney is back on the market just ten days after records show it sold for $5,700,000.

Yes puppies, back on the market. How does our man Squiggy know this? There's a brand new "For Sale" sign hanging on the front gate that was not there two days ago.

At first we were all tied up in knots trying to figure out what was going on. Then Squiggy the Squealer sent Your Mama another covert communique with a link over to a story on some radio station's website and they have all the juice.

Turns out Mister Chesney did buy the W. Hunt Harris House but has decided to sell it before even moving in with this explanation in a recently issued statement, "I may've been naive to think I could just go down to the Keys and disappear, because that was the idea. I wanted to find a place where I could just be, and thought I'd found it. But with all the buzz since we signed the papers, the last thing I want to do to someplace I love as much as Key West is change the dynamics, especially for the locals who have been so good to me, so, I'm stopping the insanity before it begins. The 'For Sale' sign is back up, and I'm just not going to be able to take possession of the house."

I wonder if that's what happened last year when the singing superstar scooped up a lovely house on Carbon Mesa Road in the hills above Malee-boo and just two days later put it back up for sale with an asking price $550,000 more than he paid?

UPDATE: Robbie Williams

Back in October of 2008, we chit chatted with a gossipy gal we call Babbling Babette who whispered to Your Mama that British pop star Robbie Williams was gearing up to buy a big ol' mansion in Beverly Park. Although Babbling Babette seldom steers us wrong in the celebrity real estate game and swears on her well stuffed cross your heart bra that Mister Williams was negotiating to purchase the 7 bedroom and 7 bathroom property, in the end he did not buy the hulking house which was listed at $23,995,000 (now listed at $19,995,000).

Now we know why he didn't proceed with the purchase. Reports are starting to surface that Mister Williams is headed back to his native U.K. where in December of 2008 he bought an 18th century country mansion on 71 acres in north Wiltshire that includes 7 bedrooms, a swimming pool, gym, sauna and perhaps most interestingly, a helicopter hangar.

It was Mister Williams' sister who let Mister Williams' geographical cat out of the bag when she told an interviewer that her brother was returning to Britain to because he, "loves British culture and the British people." She went on to say that although Mister Williams has enjoyed living in Los Angeles where the suns shines all the time, it's also a "pretty soulless place." Oh. Ouch!

Might it also be, Your Mama wonders, his desire to return home is at least in part because his attempt of making it big in the U.S. of A. didn't go quite as swimmingly as planned?

Anyoo, Mister Williams, owns several pricey properties in Los Angeles including a couple of parcels on Mulholland Drive where he famously built a private soccer pitch as well as his primary L.A. residence, a 10,681 square foot house (pictured above) which happens to be sugar borrowing distance from the recently robbed Paris Hilton in the guard gated Mulhulland Estates community.

Mister Williams' sister stated that the former boy bander turned solo singer was planning to keep his house in Los Angeles. We heard something different. Your Mama recently heard through the gossip grapevine that Mister Williams' people are quietly negotiating to sell the house to kinky haired and real estate agent suing rock star Slash. We can't confirm that children, so remember, at this point it's just idle chit chat and party gossip. However, when and if you see it written about in a few weeks without credit being given, remember puppies, you heard it here first.

Mister Williams' British property holdings once included a flat in Notting Hill, a 15th floor apartment in the Chelsea Harbour development and a country place in east Sussex, but to be honest children, Your Mama has no idea if he still owns any of these properties.

Tidbits and Whispers

1.
Have the children seen the myriad of reports about how former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld, who reportedly earned close to $40,000,000 in both 2006 and 2007, sold his Jupiter Island, FL hideaway to his wife Kathy in November of 2007 for just $100? That's right chickens, one hundred clams.

Well, we've read all those reports too and the whole thing just makes Your Mama want to puke.

Speculation by many is that the property ownership transfer was an effort by Mister Fuld to protect his ass-ets should irate shareholders and creditors who lost billions in the collapse of Lehman Brothers go after his considerable personal wealth with a furious flurry of lawsuits.

Their Jupiter Island hideaway, for which Mister and Missus Fuld jointly forked over $13,750,000 in March of 2004, isn't the only ass-et the Fuld family is apparently looking to protect and/or liquidate. Just days (Days children! Days!) after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the modern art collecting Missus Fuld was rumored to have put approximately $20,000,000 worth of artwork up for sale at Christies that included works by big shit abstract expressionists like Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Agnes Martin and Barnett Newman. Was the timing just coincidence? Could be. You decide.

Although the demise of Lehman Brothers sucked tens of billions of dollars out of the economy, property records show he and his wife Kathy still own several excruciatingly lavish and expensive to maintain properties including an 11+ acre spread in the hedge fund heaven that is Greenwich, CT (pictured above), a 6,200 square foot fixer upper on Manhattan's posh Park Avenue for which they paid a knee buckling $21,000,000 in March of 2007, at least one property in Ketchum, Idaho near the Sun Valley ski resort, and another just outside of a small town called Cornwall in Vermont. And that's just what Your Mama came up with after poking around property records for less than five minutes.

Your Mama is all kinds of indignant and spitting mad now and we see a fat nerve pill in our early morning future.

2.
All sorts rumors and reports are starting to surface and swirl about that Lauren Conrad gurl from The Hills moving out of her house on N. Orange Grove Avenue in Los Angeles and into a high rise condo along the Wilshire Corridor in Westwood. Your Mama has heard the rumor (rumor children, RUMOR!) that Miss Conrad and roommate–whose name we don't know or care to know–are moving out because they were having a lot of conflict with the neighbors who were hissy fitting about all the unwanted activity on the block that resulted from filming at the house.

Holy Mary Mother of God! Who cares?

Isn't this gurl's Warholian 15 minutes up yet?

3.
You're gonna love this one children. We sure did. Your Mama hears from Nelly Knowsitall that whistle stop wonder Mariah Carey is not the only high maintenance showbiz dee-vah considering shacking up in the San Fernando Valley. Can y'all guess who it is?

Are you ready? Get ready to whoop, holler and gasp for air...

It's Jennifer Lopez.

Can. You. Stand. It?

Miss Knowsitall whispered in Your Mama's big ear that the La Lopez and entourage recently toured several large and lavish homes in the 10,000 square foot range. Well of course she did. Beehawtcha cain't be living up with that wild eyed huzband and two kids in any kind of house smaller than a damn boo-teek hotel.

Miz Lopez and her huzband are making all sorts of real estate news lately as they've recently bought the neighboring property to their Brookville, NY estate and, as everyone surely knows by now, Mister and Missus Lopez also have their Bel Air mini-compound on the market with an $8,500,000 asking price.

4.
It was also recently whispered in Your Mama's big ear by someone who would know that a couple of big name famous folks (1 male and 1 Oscar nominated female, who are not a couple) have been seen peeping properties in the $3-5,000,000 range in the star studded Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. More details to come when we know more.

Does Kenny Chesney Have Island Fever?

BUYER: Kenny Chesney
LOCATION: Caroline Street, Key West, FL
PRICE: $5,700,000
SIZE: 6,888 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 full and 1 half bathroom
DESCRIPTION: ...Stately and elegant, the 5 bedroom, seven and one-half bath house has high peaked Gothic style roof over classical Revival portico and four graciously arched bays. The beautiful arched front door is distinctive and rare in Key West...Large rooms, 13' ceilings, elegant moldings and hardware, formal living and dining rooms, custom designed 1500 bottle wine room, an outstanding kitchen equipped with all gourmet appliances, Carrara marble counter tops and in-kitchen dining.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Okay babies, Your Mama is going to pass along some unsubstantiated celebrity real estate gossip here. We don't normally do this sort of thing, but besides the not so surprising news that security conscious stay at home mommy Jennifer Lopez and her frighteningly skinny salsa singer huzband Marc Anthony bought the house next door to their Brookville, NY estate, the pickins are somewhat slim this morning. So we're going with what we got and we ask that the children keep in mind this information is not yet verified with property records and suggest that if you're going to go around trying to impress your friends with all your celebrity real estate knowledge you best qualify this one as rumor. You got that children? Rue-mer. At least for now. Now then...

Although Kenny Chesney, the diminutive country music crooning superstar, has yet to unload the seven and some million dollar property he bought last year in Malee-boo, CA and just two days later flipped back on the market with a stunning $550,000 increase over what he paid, Your Mama hears from Fanny the Floridian (among others) that the award winning singer/songwriter recently closed on an historic house in Key West, Florida. Your Mama's tipsters all swear on their little sisters' navel rings that Mister Chesney purchased a lavishly renovated property on Caroline Street that is generally referred to as the W. Hunt Harris House. We aren't the only folks who think this neither.

However, before we get to discussing the big ol' house down in Margaritaville, Your Mama has a bone to pick with Mister Chesney regarding his incessant hat wearing. Listen buddy, we all know yer bald under that thing. And despite your (and your handlers) misgivings about it, there ain't nuthin' wrong with bald. In fact, bald can be hot. It's the pretending yer not bald that's not so hot. (Just so y'all know, we are not being defensive due to any follicular issues on our part. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter both have full heads of hair.)

Anyhoo, property records Your Mama accessed do show that the house in question did indeed transfer ownership in mid-January, 2008. Records show the previous owners received $5,700,000 from the new owner. That's a lot of money for an island hideaway but it's not nearly the $6,495,000 listing information shows the sellers were asking for the property.

Listing information shows the fully renovated and restored W. Hunt Harris House measures 6,888 square feet and includes five bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms. For those not schooled on the historical who's who of Key West (and why would you be?), back in the late 1800s Mister Hunt Harris married into one of the first and most prominent families to settle in Key West and proceeded to build himself house which was completed in 1898. At least that's the 411 on Mister Hunt that appears in the property's listing.

The front façade somehow manages to remain dignified even though it is a thorough melange of Southern Antebellum, Greek Revival and Gothic architectural styles mixed with classic Key West features like the arched front door that leads to a narrow buttercup yellow entrance hall.

The main floor, with stately 13 foot ceilings, includes a formal living room that due to its current shockingly bright coral colored paint job screams, "Look at me! NO! ME! Not the dining room, ME!" Other punishable decorative offenses in the living room include upsetting gold colored swagged curtains, a couple of floral printed swooping settees and a cheap-ass looking ceiling fan. Don't nobody misunderstand Your Mama here because we think this house is a gorgeous example of modern day Key West living–if you're a couple of middle aged, empty nesting, heterosexual multi-millionaires–and we totally respect the sellers sensitive and comprehensive restoration of the historic house, but that retina burning coral colored living room set up has got to go.

The dining room, painted the palest shade of baby blue Your Mama has ever seen, features a glittery crystal chandelier and an unfortunately off-center fireplace. Listing information reveals the adjacent wine room holds 1,500 bottles of booze and has its own generator ensuring that when a hurricane takes the power out (and you know it will), the vino stays at a perfect temperature.

The kitchen is large enough for two cookers to maneuver comfortably, has a mix of Carrara marble and wood counter tops which may or may not be teak. Naturally it's nearly impossible for Your Mama look past the monolithic and menacing pot rack without cringing but when we do we spy something for more upsetting than a pot rack. That would be, of course, that stoopid stuffed parrot hanging in the window. Have mercy.

Beyond the kitchen is a breakfast area as well as a window wrapped family room with shiny wood floors, a truckload of white furniture and few more of the same cheap looking ceiling fans we found in the living room. Okay, what's with the cheap looking ceiling fans? We recognize that fans are fantastic for moving the hoo-mid Key West air around and it's obvious this place was not done over on a dime, so can someone please explain these uglee ass fans that look like someone bought them in bulk at a Home Despot clearance sale?

Located on the second floor of the main house, the master bedroom features a large bedroom with a coal burning fireplace (coal?) and some kinda crazy fabric treatment behind the bed, a separate dressing room, a mini-kitchen for late night ice cream snacks, a private balcony that runs the width of the house and is only accessible through the master bedroom and a Carrara marble clad bathroom that successfully manages to merge Old World with new fangled and, perhaps best of all, has a shower built for two.

A guest suite completes the second floor and offers a sitting room, steam shower, walk in closet and private balcony. All that sounds perfectly lovely, but Your Mama fears that with a dee-luxe guest room like guests will never pack up their toiletries and leave. The third floor provides an office area and two more bedrooms with en suite terlits.

The back yard, lush with verdant and steroidal tropical greenery, includes a 42 foot long swimming pool with brick terracing and a commodious wood floored pavilion with a high peaked ceiling that is set up for outdoor entertaining and late afternoon tabloid reading. The guest house/pool cabana, located at the far end of the swimming pool, has been built to withstand a category 5 hurricane, so you know where Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would be holed up with our menagerie when the wind starts a-blowing. The lower floor of the cabana thing is comprised of a gym space with retractable glass walls where Mister Chesney can do his Bikram yoga in the shaded but open air, an attached full bathroom and an outdoor shower (love that!), custom cabinetry with built in desk and a washer and dryer which means, of course, that no stinky work out wear ever need enter the main house. Upstairs, the fifth bedroom suite offers over night guests (or staff) a morning kitchen, entertainment area (whatever that means) and a private balcony.

As far as we know, Mister Chesney continues to make his primary home in a big Cape Cod style mansion that sits on a 48 and some acre farm in Franklin, TN and which records show he picked up in September of 2003 for $2,500,000. And, of course, there's also that house on Carbon Mesa Road in Malee-boo which he was unable to sell last year and which records show he still owns and appears to have been taken off the open market.

Sidney Ponson Lists Fort Lauderdale Mansion

SELLER: Sidney Ponson
LOCATION: Delmar Place, Fort Lauderdale, FL
PRICE: $4,950,000
SIZE: 6,467 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 3 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Incredible 3-story 6br/7ba+3 half bath estate located 1 house from Point w/ great views of Intracoastal & Las Olas Bridge...Media room. Elevator. Fully furnished. 100' water dock.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: When we recently heard from Our Man in Florida who whispered in our big ear that some person named Sidney Ponson listed his Fort Lauderdale mansion with an asking price of $4,950,000, Your Mama had no idea who he is. None. Not one.

A few clicks on our long suffering keyboard and a quick scan across the internets revealed that the Aruban born Mister Ponson is a professional pitcher of baseballs, which pretty much explains why Your Mama did not recognize his name because, he truth is, Your Mama barely knows the difference between a baseball and a football. And you know what? We like it that way, we do not want to hear about our proud ignorance regarding these things.

Anyhoo, according to the information we pulled up on the interweb, Mister Ponson has migrated from team to team to team over the last 10 or so years and most recently signed on with the New York Yankees, a team for which he previously bandied the baseball. By all accounts Mister Ponson can really hurl a baseball but he's apparently also got a bit of a reputation as a hard living troublemaker who earned himself a couple of DUIs back in 2005 and dropped charges for assaulting an Aruban judge who was presiding over a complaint about Mister Ponson's alleged (mis)handling of a powerboat.

Property records show that Mister Ponson picked up his water front property on Delmar Place in Fort Lauderdale, FL in July of 2004 when he forked over $3,750,000 for the 6,467 square foot residence. Listing information indicates the three story house has six bedrooms and 7 full and 3 half bathrooms which means the unmarried Mister Ponson has got 10 damn terlits. Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that his minimum wage house gurl hates him.

Listing information shows the house was all did up by some well known ladee decorator Your Mama has never heard of who filled the place with a lot of beige and brown things. Notable amenities that appear in the listing include a soaring entrance hall that looks more like some damn hotel in Moscow than a private home and a marble floored living room with a "majestic fireplace," whatever that is, and a "detailed ceiling," whatever that is. A library/study offers floor to ceiling custom bookshelves that currently hold more tchotchkes and wine bottles than books, and the gore-may kitchen features the sort of carved cabinetry and granite counter tops that well to do people who drop big bucks on over-sized faux Tuscan style mcmansions seem to favor.

In addition to the family room, which listing information reveals has a custom entertainment system where Your Mama imagines a tee-vee the size of a damn Hummer has been installed, the Ponson pad also offers a private home theater with wall to wall brown leather chairs, vaguely Art Deco-ish torchère style sconces and a screen that appears to drop down out of the ceiling.

The not particularly masculine looking master bedroom has an acre of light beige carpeting, a sitting area with a fireplace and a brocade and fringe settee, dual closets, a big ol' soaking tub, steam shower, a vanity counter and 2 water closets so the owners can do their morning dirty bizness concurrently.

Some of the more interesting features of the house, according to listing information, would be the hidden wine closet tucked under the staircase, the two laundry rooms≠1 up and 1 down–which would surely make our dictatorial house gurl Svetlana crack a rare smile, and last but not least, a panic room, a high-cost feature of increasing numbers of paranoid rich people.

Listing information also indicates the house has been outfitted with satellite tee-vee, a surround sound system, internet connections, and a private security system which can all be manipulated with the Smart House control.

Outdoor recreation facilities include a large tiled terrace on the roof above the second floor where one can stare across the Intracoastal to the Las Olas Bridge, a heated swimming pool and spa with adjacent cabana (with bathroom), an outdoor kitchen and a 100 foot long dock for parking the boat.

Your Mama certainly does not know why Mister Ponson would choose to sell his brown and beige designer done digs. Maybe he's tired of all the vacationing gays that flock to Fort Lauderdale to over tan themselves in very, very small bathing suits that leave little or nothing to the imagination. We tease. Your Mama knows Fort Lauderdale has more to offer residents and visitors than countless gay friendly and clothing optional resorts. We just don't know what those things are.

Cheryl Ladd and Brian Russell List Santa Ynez Property

SELLERS: Cheryl Ladd and Brian Russell
LOCATION: Roblar Avenue, Santa Ynez, CA
PRICE: $5,795,000
SIZE: approx. 7,000 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 1 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Exquisite yet comfortable European inspired country estate on 22 acres with panoramic views of the entire Santa Ynez Valley. This thoughtfully designed and appointed manor features soaring ceilings, grand spaciousness and an open floor plan ideal for formal or casual living.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Before Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu were taking orders on the big screen from a mysterious man named Charlie there was a ladee named Cheryl Ladd who worked her stuff as the high kicking, gun toting and criminal chasing Kris Monroe on the original and iconic boob-toob program Charlie's Angels.

Since her salad days on Charlie's Angels back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Miz Ladd has (among other endeavors) made some records, written a couple of books, hoofed it on Broadway, acted as the spokesperson for some menopause public service thing, advocated for the protection of children, and spent 5 years working her stuff on the recently axed tee-vee drama Las Vegas.

She also left the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and moved to the hoity toity hinterlands of the Santa Ynez, CA where she and her music producer huzband Brian Russell have spent the last 15+ years hunkered down in a vaguely neo-classical Italian country house like mansion that thanks to a source we'll call Vlad the Revealer Your Mama has learned they recently put on the market with an asking price of $5,795,000.

Property records show the couple picked up their 22.5 acre parcel way back in 1989 for just $459,000. Lawhd have mercy children, remember back when half a million clams really bought some real estate and not some crappy studio apartment in Queens or a tract house out in a newly created suburb of Los Angeles that's 102 miles from the office?

Anyhoo, presumably the couple spent the next several years designing and building their 7,000+ square foot house which is accessed up a long Oak tree lined private road that leads to a large gravel motor court with a fountain and a slew of potted Olive trees. Four narrow Cyprus trees flank the front door which opens to a large sky-lit entrance hall. On one side sits a grand piano and on the other a small table and chairs–who would actually sit there, we don't know–and a large and deeply upsetting painting of pears on the other. It has been quite a some time since Your Mama has run across the sorts of pear paintings that seem to pop up in celebrity owned homes in alarming numbers and we really wish it had been longer because while clearly rich and famous people love them, we just do not get the appeal of pear paintings as art regardless of how realistically they are painted.

Listing information shows the single floor residence includes four bedrooms, each with a private pooper, and another half bathroom for guests. The hilltop property offers panoramic views of the Santa Ynez Valley, which is, of course, the same neck of comely California scrub land north of Santa Barbara where notorious property princess Ellen Degeneres has owned several large ranch properties and where, all the children surely recall, Michael Jackson shacked up in an amusement park masquerading as a house called Neverland before he fled the area in the aftermath of an embarrassing child molestation trial.

Other amenities according to listing information and photos is a formal living room with very high ceilings, a wood burning fireplace and a lot of dignified but very ordinary looking beige furniture sitting on spotless beige wall to wall carpeting. The large wood floored dining features high wood beamed ceiling and stone walls which Your Mama hopes are real stone and not some nutty paint treatment meant to look like stacked stones.

Listing information reveals the gore-may kitchen is open to a large family room and dining area that despite the lack of a tee-vee looks like a well conceived and comfortably decorated room with plush velvet sofas, deliciously worn leather chairs and ottomans, a fireplace for warming the tootsies and if the children look really close, you'll note the mesmerizing views out the many large paned windows.

At the rear of the house is a covered veranda anchored by four fat and gorgeously groomed ivy covered pillars. For the most part, the design and day-core of the Ladd-Russell residence is not how Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would choose to spend five and some million clams, but we are luh-ving those ivy wrapped pillars and can easily imagine being happily splayed out on those chaise lounges wrapped in a cashmere throw from Hermes sipping gin and tonics and watching the sun go down over the rolling hills of the Santa Ynez Valley. That, as one of Your Mama's friends we no longer talk to used to incessantly say, would not suck.

While the house is surrounded by lawns large enough to have several booze fueled and concurrent croquet tournaments, apparently Miz Ladd and Mister Russell don't care for tennis, swimming or the horsies because, oddly and despite it's 22 acres, the property does not have a swimming pool, tennis court or stabling facilities. Pity.

Coupla Quick Items To Start the Week Off Right

Listen babies, Your Mama has a list of properties to discuss this week but before we get rolling on that we're going to cut in to our scheduled programming in order to get a couple of joo-see celebrity real estate tidbits off our desk...

1.
Hold on to your britches children because Oscar nominated power pair Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are back in the celebrity real estate gossip columns. Just last week the world learned that the unmarried parents of 40 or 50 multicultural children, who have spent the last year or so traipsing around Europe like a band of very rich gypsies, are getting ready to wing their way back to the U-nited States of America and settle down in a water front monster mansion on the Gold Coast of Long Island in quietly swank Lloyd Neck, NY.

Naturally, these dedicated nomads won't be staying in Lloyd Neck long enough to enroll their 72 children in the local schools. They'll reportedly only be in residence long enough for Miss Jolie to film her next cinematic endeavor, Edwin A. Salt, a film which Your Mama will not likely pay thirteen bucks to see in a movie theater.

When the couple's coterie of personal assistants pack up their well traveled Louis Vuitton cases and load up their multi-culti clan into the family bus and pull out of Lloyd Neck, they reportedly won't be headed back to the shores of Malee-boo where Mister Pitt has owned a spectacular oceanfront estate since about the time he traded in his former wifey Jennifer Aniston to live in sin, make babies with and adopt a small army of foreign children with notorious man (and woman) eater Angelina Jolie.

According to a gal named Courtney Nazlett, who pens The Scoop column for folks at MSNBC, Mister Pitt is planning on putting the modern cliff hanger of a house on the market.

Can the children hear the gasps of shock and awe heard around the world? Your Mama sho can.

Bookies are taking bets on which of the family's many properties they'll settle in next, but word on the celebrity real estate street is that the Jolie-Pitt clan are heading back to Chateau Miraval, the secluded estate in the French countryside where they shacked up after Miss Jolie pushed out those cute twins last year.

2.
Pop star Mariah Carey and her man mate Nick Cannon are rumored and reported to be peeping around at high priced properties in some of the better (and not so better) zip codes of Los Angeles including a 7,000+ square foot house in Studio City that happens to be just around the corner from Alex Trebek's historic spread and walking distance to George Clooney's super private pad.

Although we know there are many swank and expensive areas in the San Fernando Valley where all kinds of rich and famous folks bed down, Your Mama would not have imagined Mariah shacking up in The Valley. If we we're Miss Mariah's real estate agent, and of course we are not, I'd haul her skin tight jean wearing boo-tay immediately over to Jennifer's Lopez's $8,500,000 crib in Bel Air because not only is it celebrity worthy, she could probably save a few pennies on installing security systems because you know that place is already locked down like Fort damn Knox.

Although Your Mama is not a big fan of the whistle stop wonder's ear piercing warbling and we certainly don't care for her trademark belly baring outfits only a streetwalker could love, the high end real estate market in Los Angeles could really use an exuberantly rich gal like Miss Moneybags Mariah running around in a chauffeured Yukon flinging money around like there was no damn recession affecting all the less financially fortunate.

Miss Mariah's current real estate holdings include a giant triplex apartment in the TriBeCa area of New York City which was done up and decorated by Prince of Chintz Mario Buatta and where she reportedly keeps Marilyn Monroe's old piano and has a Hello Kitty themed bathroom, a decorative situation which Your Mama knows deep in our soul is a very, very bad idea. Miss Mariah recently added to her property portfolio when she purchased a compound down on a slim sliver of land in the Bahamas called Windermere Island. In the past, the scale sliding songstress has spent vast amounts of moolah leasing posh properties in Aspen and The Hamptons, but as of today Your Mama is not aware of Miss Moneybags Mariah fishing out her diamond encrusted checkbook to purchase any properties in those locations.

3. Oh dear. Here we go again. Beat up and beleagured Los Angeles real estate agent Josh Flagg, whom the children will recall is the unkempt boozy looking dude from the most recent season of Million Dollar Listing, is back in the news.

Last year, Mister Flagg was arrested for allegedly stealing pricey paintings out of a posh property or two in which he represented the sellers. After heaps and hordes of bad press, the L.A. District Attorney dropped the charges leaving Mister Flagg free to return to pushing properties in the Platinum Triangle with his held held high.

His relief over the dropped charges was short lived, however, because according to a new report on gossip juggernaut TMZ—who seems to be gunning halaciously hard for the guy—Mister Flagg is being sued by the estate of a dead ladee named Marcia Israel for the alleged "wrongful taking of personal property." Oh my.

The estate of Miz Israel is alleging the young Mister Flagg obtained several high value paintings and Jade sculptures that mysteriously disappeared from Miz Israel's Sunset Boulevard mansion after her death and during a period of time Miz Israel's huzband was staying on the property. Miz Israel, a noted L.A. philanthropist who went to meet the big garmento in the sky back in the summer of 2004, was the founder of a successful chain of west coast retail stores Your Mama has never heard of called Judy's.

According to TMZ, a ballsy and unnamed private investigator claims to have taken a few snaps of the missing artworks through the window of Mister Flagg's Beverly Hills home. That's right children, through the damn window!

Mister Flagg's attorneys have reportedly answered back by saying that the estate of Miz Israel has no case against Mister Flagg because the statute of limitations has run out. Huh? Your Mama ain't no kind of lawyer and we are certainly in no position to act as a judge, but that sounds sort of, uhm, odd, don't it?

Now children, we are not defending Mister Flagg because we find him to have a less that lovely and sorta smarmy disposition (at least he did on the tee-vee), but before anyone jumps to conclusions or convicts Mister Flagg in the court of their own mind, let's remember that previous charges against him for similar allegations were dropped. Sometimes where there is smoke there is fire, and sometimes there is just smoke.

Interestingly, Your Mama was contacted last week by a person we'll call Peeping Tom who claimed to have "a hot one" on Mister Flagg but never revealed the details or even the nature of his gossip.

4.
Now that she's finally managed to sell off her house in Malee-boo's Serra Retreat, Your Mama gets an unusually high number of requests regarding the real estate whereabouts of Aussie icon Olivia Newton John. Your Mama freely confesses that although we agree she looked marvelous in shiny leotard back in the 1980s, we are not nearly as interested in Miss Newton John's current location as many of the children seem to be. However, we do like to keep the children pacified, so....

Thanks to several convert communiques by several interested parties including one this morning from a gal we'll call Mary K. Mart, it's our understanding that Miz Newton John recently decamped to the Jupiter, FL area where she's shacking up with her herb pusher huzband John Easterling who owns a 3 bedroom and 3.5 bathroom house in the gated community surrounding the Turtle Creek (golf) Club which, as it turns out, is currently listed for sale at $850,000.

That's all we know folks. And for the record, we do not know–so don't bother to ask–if Missus Easterling is living in the above mentioned house or some other place.

Now then, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on the Move. Again.

Ooo-wee children. Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that pop star/movie star turned stay at home mommy Jennifer Lopez is all kinds of pissed because, until now, she's been the reigning queen of high maintenance a-list celebs living on the natty and nabobish North Shore of Long Island. That's right puppies, Missus Mark Anthony's real estate star is about to be eclipsed by the pathologically peripatetic Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who are rumored to be moving their ever expanding multi-culti clan to her neck of the woods for a few months while the Missus Pitt shoots her next film Edwin A. Salt in the area.

Rumors and reports are popping up all over the damn place that the itchy footed family who have been living an expat life in France and Germany the last year or so is headed back to the U-nited States of America where they're said to have leased Sassafras, a tremendous Tudor style pile on 48 waterfront acres in fancy schmancy Lloyd Neck, NY.

The sprawling estate abuts Caumsett State Park which, thanks to The Social Butterfly we've learned, was once the vast estate of newspaperman and department store scion Marshall Field III. The two story main house is said to measure in at a boo-teek hotel sized 22,000 square feet and includes 8 bedrooms. According to the good people at Luxist, there is also a six bedroom guest house and a staff house with another 11 bedrooms. That should be just enough space for the Jolie-Pitts, their 49 children and their ubiquitous entourage of tutors, nannies, personal assistants, ego strokers and butt wipers, right?

With 25 bedrooms and well over 25,000 square feet of interior space, Your Mama does not even want to know the number of terlits on the property lest we start feeling powerful sorry for the sad minimum wage gurl who spends her 40 hours a week with a terlit brush in one hand a can of Comet in the other. Have mercy.

Other dee-luxe amenities of Sassafras include a private cove with a private dock, a long stretch of private beach, not just one, but two helipads, a gigantic swimming pool with several pavilions surrounding it, a couple of ponds, a a secluded tennis court, a couple of large greenhouses, and enough lawn for the Jolie-Pitt clan to host a damn three ring circus. Oh wait, they are a three ring circus.

Sassafras was previously on the market where it lingered for a number of years with a sky high asking price of $60,000,000. No babies, that is not a mistake...that's sixy million clams.

Now listen to Your Mama here children because we know of what we speak. All those filthy rich blue bloods in Lloyd Neck would sooner slice off your mother's titties than have you roaming the streets and hovering around the secured gates of Sassafras. At the very least they will have the po-po on your peeping pooper faster than you can say the names of all 37 of the Jolie-Pitt children. And you can bet there will be some scary looking guards with pistols and God only knows what else standing at the end of the driveway to deter any fools who dare venture that far out into the genteel wilds of Lloyd Neck. Besides, there ain't nuthin' to see from the street so save yerself the gas money and stay home.

And one more word of unsolicited advice from Your Mama for Mister and Missus Jolie-Pitt: Settle down hunnies. We know you're bizzy as beavers with your Academy Award nominated careers and we know you get hassled and harrassed everywhere you go. However, did you ever stop to think that that traveling United Nations sideshow you got going on sorta creates its own whirlwind of chaos and publicity? Maybe, just maybe, iffin you would put down some real damn residential roots and take the time to become an active part of just one community, you might find that soon enough people will leave you alone to mow your lawn and clean your pool in peace. Just a thought.

photo: Luxist

Matt Sorum Moves On

SELLER: Matt Sorum
LOCATION: N. Doheny Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,975,000
SIZE: 2,395 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Remodeled & beautifully updated w/ maple hardwood floors, 3 crushed glass fp, security & Control4 ent. system. The open floor plan incl. 3 br & 2.5 ba, gym, kitchen w/ custom granite & professional stainless steel appliances, great room & big living room. The whole home opens up w/ hi cathedral ceilings & out thru French doors to lush landscape & a resort like pool area w/ an outdoor kitchen, hiking trail with vu, spa w/ vu, big pool & more!

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last night, while trying to ignore the Dr. Cooter who wanted to yammer about the recent presidential inauguration all night, Your Mama perused all the new listings in the Los Angeles area and several banged the bells our our celebrity real estate intuition including this house which, as it turns out, is being offered for sale by ex-Guns and Roses and current Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum with an asking price of $2,975,000.

Back in 1997 Mister Sorum was reportedly given the heave-ho from Guns and Roses by the always volatile front man Axl Rose for defending ousted gee-tarist Slash (whom Your Mama hears–but can not confirm–is negotiating to purchase the mansion of a pop star who is not Britney Spears). Mister Sorum eventually reconciled with the corn rowed and not aging particularly gracefully Axl Rose, but after being booted from G&R, Mister Sorum, a man who looks damn good for a hard livin' rock star who's pushing up on 50, went on to beat the goat skin and crash the cymbals for legendary rock band The Cult and years later joined the currently on indefinite hiatus supergroup Velvet Revolver.

If Mister Sorum's myspace page did not indicate that he is in a relationship with a blond shorty named Ace, we wouldn't even consider entering his house without first downing a nerve pill and donning a hazmat suit, you know what we're saying? After all, the man is a rock star and has free and easy access to all sorts of skanky cling-ons looking to put another notch in their lipstick case. However, as it turns out Mister Sorum appears to be a one woman man and his crib looks clean as a whistle and appears to be as germ free as a house can be.

Property records show Mister Sorum scooped up his N. Doheny Drive digs only in September of 2006 for $2,575,000. What foolishness would possess the stick wielding wild man to sell the place at the very moment the Los Angeles real estate market is headed down the proverbial terlit is beyond Your Mama's comprehension. It cain't be the money. Or it better not be money or he should fire his bizness people as unceremoniously as Mister Rose fired him.

Anyhoo, whatever the reason(s), listing information for Mister Sorum's Doheny Estates residence shows the remodeled ranch style house measures in a modest for a famous person 2,395 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.

Other features of the open plan pad include a simply but thoughtfully furnished living/dining room with a sloping ceiling, shiny espresso colored wood floors, a black baby grand, a monolithic stacked stone fireplace that Your Mama rather adores, and a vintage Verner Panton capiz shell chandelier hangs (at a proper height, the children will note) over the small round espresso colored dining room table.

The updated and upgraded kitchen has been did over with chocolate brown walls, a thick slab of light colored flecked granite laid on simple white cabinetry, stainless steel appliances, of course, and some serious mood lighting. A adjacent family room continues the dim and moody vibe with a sloping ceiling and a behemoth brown sectional sofa that easily seats six facing the de rigueur flat screen boob-toob mounted above a second fireplace that listing information indicates has been fitted with crushed glass in the firebox, a decorative artifice that Your Mama never really cottoned to.

The master bedroom, which looks like what Your Mama imagines a suite at the W Hotel in Aspen to look like, has a lovely high beamed and peaked ceiling, a third crushed glass fireplace with a bulky river rock surround and hearth and a private outdoor lounging area lined with curtains and a large padded sofa/bench, the perfect spot to smokey smokey some weed before doing the nasty. We're not saying Mister Sorum (or Your Mama) partakes in that sort of nefarious narcotics activity, we're just saying if someone did, this would be a good spot to do it.

The back yard includes an inviting swimming pool surrounded by a stone terrace and backed by a verdant wall of ferns and palm trees. A built in bbq area includes stools for sitting and chomping on rib bones and a flat screen tee-vee mounted on the wall. How do these outdoor televisions not get ruined by the elements? The children will note the elevated sun bed where we are 100% sure the Dr. Cooter would enjoy sun bathing in the nood while our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly paddled in the pool.

Property records show that back in the early 1990s Mister Sorum resided high in the hills above celebrity lined Carbon Beach in Malee-boo and also owned a small condominium at the Shoreham Towers building in West Hollywood. He's since sold both properties. An article from July of 1996 reveals the drummer next moved to home in the Hollywood Hills where Madonna was his next door neighbor. However, Your Mama can not find any purchase records that point to Mister Sorum for that property. Interestingly enough, prop records also show that Mister Sorum owns a multi-unit property on N. Croft Ave. in Los Angeles that he purchased in late 2003 from the troubled and usually annoying comedian Andy Dick.

Another High Priced Pad at 834 Goes on the Market

SELLERS: Leslie and Abigail Wexner
LOCATION: 834 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
PRICE: quietly asking $60,000,000
SIZE: Huge

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Turns out Araxia Buckhantz's $30,000,000 two bedroom sprawler in the unimaginably exclusive apartment house at 834 Fifth Avenue in New York City isn't the only grand apartment for sale in the white glove building. According to the always on top of things Max Abelson at the New York Observer, billionaire retailer Leslie Wexner has quietly foisted his little used doo-plex on to the market with a butt clenching $60,000,000 asking price.

That's right children, sixty million big ones. Your Mama needs a nerve pill just to get our damn mind around a number that big.

For all the children not caught up on the whos and whats about American billionaire biznessmen, let Your Mama school you for a moment. Mister Wexner, a man whom Your Mama indirectly used to work for, started The Limited clothing stores which eventually popped up in just about every mall in America and made the man richer than the damn Pope. Mister Wexner, a man who knows how to mint money, has since bought and started a string of super successful mall brands such as Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, The White Barn Candle Company and perhaps the jewel in his retail tiara, the venerable Henri Bendel department store.

Reports from the time reveal Mister Wexner, who had blue tinted hair, a much younger wifey and an even younger male assistant the last time we ran into him, purchased his 6 bedroom doo-plex fixer upper in 1997 for $9,000,000 after it sat on the market for several years. Years! At 834! The seller was a mysterious gal named Eduarda Crociani, of Italy and Monaco, according to a New York Times article. It was also reported at the time that Miz Crociani owned another apartment adjoining the lower floor of her doo-plex which she sold for $4,200,000 the year prior to selling the big doo-plex to Mister Wexner.

At the time of Mister Wexner's purchase the 16 room apartment was reportedly in sad shape and did not even have air conditioning. A loose tongued and wonderfully catty source even told Mister Abelson, "You almost gagged to death" in the summer swelter. Of course Mister and Missus Wexner had the apartment all did up and did over–allegedly by notoriously autocratic high society architect Thierry Despont–in a style akin to "a grand Virgina home or an English men's club," according to Mister Abelson's bean spiller.

Your Mama recommends the children do not hold their collective breath waiting for photos and floor plans to pop up on the internets because similar to the legendary 30+ room doo-plex apartment at 740 Park Avenue that widowed philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross is reported to be quietly offering to qualified buyers at "over $60,000,000," there will not be any advertising, online listings with photos or online floor plans that Your Mama and the children could swoon and swan over and there will certainly not be any open houses. We'll just have to use our over-active imaginations to picture the stuffy grandeur.

Mister and Missus Wexner undoubtedly have several homes to which they can wing to aboard their private jet, but their primary residence is a vast, perfectly symmetrical and multi-winged Georgian inspired mega-mansion that sits on 300 and some acres of flat farmland in New Albany, OH. The dee-luxe digs are said to measure in excess of 45,000 square feet and the property includes a long, long, loooong tree-lined driveway, several ponds, numerous barns, a large complex of stables and riding rings for the horsies, a swimming pool complex with not one, but two pool houses plus changing pavilions, a tennis court with even more pavilions, a grass volleyball court and a reflecting pond nearly 200 feet long.

As do many biznessmen with big money to burn, Mister Wexner also owns a behemoth boat, called Limitless, which at a staggering 315+ feet was the longest private yacht afloat when it was built in the late 1990s but which has since been eclipsed by a dozen or more mega-yachts including (but not limited to) Paul Allen's 414 foot Octopus, Larry Ellison's 452 foot long Rising Sun and Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz's cruise ship-sized floater Al Salamah which reportedly measures 456+ feet long and features an indoor swimming pool under a glass roof.

photo: New York Observer

Christian Lacroix Lists Paris Apartment

SELLER: Christian Lacroix
LOCATION: Paris, France
PRICE: €2,000,000
SIZE: 2,150 square foot (approx.), 4 bedrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Like all the other real estate gossips, Your Mama peruses the Private Properties column in The Wall Street Journal every week and the paper's most recent column reported that Haute-Couture hotshot Christian Lacroix (that's Luh-kwah, children) listed his Parisian pied-a-terre for sale with an asking price of €2,000,000. A few flicks of the beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that converts to 2,652,500 U.S. clams at today's rates.

Iffin any of the children aren't already familiar with and in awe of Monsieur Luh-kwah's super sumptuous, prodigiously ruffled, cacophonously colorful, fantastically theatrical and hideously expensive clothing confections Your Mama recommends that you haul your deprived hineys immediately over to the couturier's internet portal and spend a some time swooning over the dee-lishus high fashion insanity.

Although we could talk a blue streak about Monsieur Luh-kwah's glorious follies in fabric, it's the real estate we're here to discuss, so let's get to the Luh-kwah's crib located in the gay, gay, gay Marais district in central Paris. Yes children, we know there are lots of Jewish people and Chinese folks and all other sorts of groups living up in the Marais too, but this historic and charming neighborhood is unquestionably a destination for hordes of Parisian homosexuals and their admirers.

Oh dear, we digress yet again.

Listing information and the Private Properties column report reveal the Lacroix apartment, located in a 17th century building near the soo-blime Place des Vosges, spans two floors–plus a mezzanine library accessed via some rickety looking stairs just barely wide enough to fit the slim hips of a visiting supermodel–and measures around 2,150 square feet with wonderfully high 13 foot ceilings. The kitchen and the bathrooms have been renovated.

Four bedrooms occupy the lower floor while the upper floor includes the public rooms which surround a 200 square feet interior courtyard where we wish Monsieur Lacroix had thought to put away the damn ladder before having photographs snapped. The modest and surprisingly restrained apartment retains much original detailing including well worn parquet floors and those unbelievably decadant and dee-voonly gorgeous gilded moldings in the master bedroom.

We can already hear some of the children snickering and having all kinds of righteous hissy fits and screaming that this place is one decorative hot mess. And if you look at it through Architectural Digest eyes, it is. However, Your Mama takes an entirely different view of Monsieur Lacroix's perfectly lived-in Parisian pied a terre. This is so very clearly not the apartment of a person who does up the day-core according to what is appropriate as determined by all dee-zine rag divas who get to decide that toile is the new tartan (which, of course, it is), but rather the very personal and quirky home of a man who does not give two centimes for what's considered "in style" interior design wise. Your Mama gives Monsieur Lacroix a standing ovation for listening to the music that plays in his own head and choosing to be surrounded by objects, artworks and furniture chosen for their personal meaning and inspiration and not for their vanity.

Monsieur Lacroix reportedly purchased and moved to another apartment nearby. Your Mama hopes and imagines his new digs will turn out every bit as personal as this one and we look forward to sipping some tea and fingering next seasons fabric swatches while curled up on that crazy-ass striped sofa that we'd sell our soul to the devil to own.

Your Mama Hears...

...From a gal we like to call Nelly Knowsitall that hi-tech tycoon Halsey Minor recently leased (with an option to buy) the seven-plus acre Singleton estate on Delfern Drive that was listed for sale in 2008 with a mind melting asking price of $85,000,000.

Your Mama wondered why that listing disappeared from the MLS.

Listing information from early 2008 shows the Wallace Neff designed house in the hoity toity Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles measures 15,520 square feet with 10 bedrooms, 12.5 bathrooms, rolling lawns, tennis court, swimming pool and massive motor court.

Miss Knowsitall also whispered in Your Mama's big ear that she hears the Minors have hired a much in the news Los Angeles based interior decorator to do up and do over the dated day-core.

If the children will put on their thinking caps they'll recall that Mister Minor has been trying to unload (at a loss) a troubled white elephant of a mansion on swanky Sarbonne Road in Bel Air that's currently on the market for $11,400,000.

UPDATE: Villa Leopolda

Poor rich Lily Safra.

The jet setting international socialite and mega-moneyed widow prefers to float well under the publicity radar of all the real estate gossips, but rumors and reports keep seeping out about Villa Leopolda, her legendarily high maintenance Belle Epoque estate on Villefrance on the Cote d'Azure that was widely whispered to have been sold last year to a big spending Russian billionaire for a knee buckling and heart stopping £392,000,000. That's 576,283,120 buckaroos to all us Americanos at today's rates, but back in August of 2008–before the global financial markets had a major meltdown–that figure converted to in excess of $730,000,000.

As it turns out, the palatial property was not sold. Or at least not according to a recent report in The Londoner's Diary. Your Mama isn't all that surprised to see this in print since both The Social Butterfly and Nelly Knowsitall, two of our better connected tipsters, told us ages ago that they'd heard on the hoity toity gossip grapevine they're privy to that all the brouhaha about a sale was just, well, brouhaha.

The reported £392,000,000 sale to Russian commodities tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov would have easily set a world record for the purchase price of a single family property. But alas...

Your Mama could certainly understand why Miz Safra, a ladee who knows how to marry well and whose fourth marriage was to Brazilian-naturalized Jewish Lebanese billionaire banker Edmund Safra who tragically perished in a highly suspicious conflagration of the couple's penthouse apartment in Monaco back in 1999, would want to unload this Villa Leopolda place. After all, she's no spring chicken anymore and it surely costs a small fortune and a few migraines each year to manage and pay the gardeners who maintain the gorgeously groomed 20 acre estate (who are oft reported to number 50 even though The Social Butterfly swears on her tiara it is a fraction of that), not to mention the serious doo-cats necessary to pay a full complement of house staff and team of scary security people, who are said to be armed and former members of the Israeli special forces.

The Gilded Lily, who cats around with swells like Prince Charles and that Camilla ladee he's married to and whose lavish lifestyle makes even the very rich look middle class, is also said to maintain posh properties in New York City, London, Monaco and Geneva.

Unless Miz Safra chooses to hand down the labor intensive property to one of her children, it's only a matter of time before Villa Leopolda sells to some billionaire or another whose looking for a trophy property they'll almost never use, but until then, it's pins and needles for all the folks like Your Mama who care about such frivolity as the fate of Miz Safra's celebrated estate.