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.