Designer Adam Lippes' Calacatta Marble Filled Penthouse

SELLER: Adam Lippes
LOCATION: West 12th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $5,750,000 (monthly maintenance: $2,764)
SIZE: 1,700 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Traditional details were painstakingly restored to the building's original intent. Replicas of floor-to-ceilings rolled-steel windows, specified by architects in the 60's, are now flanked on either side by 8 floor to ceiling glass doors, accessed from every room. Featuring 2 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms & their own private terraces; additional powder room of calacatta vision slab marble; guest bath of pure white sculptural marble, steam shower & Boffi fixtures...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Since Your Mama has been inundated with all kinds of ass-uglee the last couple of days–from supposedly sterile hospitals to Whitney Houston's hot residential mess to Eddie Murphy's mob-worthy mansion in Englewood, NJ–we thought it might be nice to look at a little real estate pretty even if the owner of the property we're going to discuss barely qualifies as a celebrity. While reading the always informative CityFile the other day we learned that up and coming fashion designer Adam Lippes–we know chickens, we'd never heard of him either–who recently listed his dee-voonly done, David Schefer and Eve-Lynn Schoenstein designed Greenwich Village penthouse with the not very up and coming asking price of $5,750,000. And it's gorgeous.

Located atop the white glove building on West 12th Street known the world around as The Butterfield House, Mister Lippes' 5 room, 1,700 square foot pristine penthouse pad has two bedrooms, each with a private pooper, as well as a powder pooper bathed in costly Calacatta slab marble.

The penthouse's front door opens to a generously sized entrance hall with the living room on the left, the kitchen and dining room straight ahead and the private quarters to the right. The sun washed, south facing living room has warm, reclaimed black walnut wood floors that anchor the winter white walls and create a delicious and necessary tension with the monolithic fireplace wall of cold, but drop dead Calacatta slab marble. Custom made, floor to ceiling rolled steel windows open to the Ipe wood decked terrace and custom made black walnut bookcases opposite the fireplace slide open to expose a flat screen boob-toob and surround sound system. Mister Lippes has kept the living room furnishings clean liked and neutral in color giving all the glory over to a goose pimple making view of lower Manhattan.

The dining room, which opens to one of the larger sections of the wrap around terrace through more custom made floor to ceiling rolled steel windows, has hand-painted, embroidered English silk walls–which sounds hideously expensive don't it?–and a glass dining room table lit by a large Pink Blossom Swarovski crystal chandelier by design star Tord Boontje which–in case any of the children would care to know–runs a Birkin bag busting $27,300 at Moss, the design emporium to end all design emporiums. The adjacent galley kitchen is Manhattan sized meaning it's teeny tiny. None the less, no pennies were spared decking out the the itty-bitty space which is well organized with large window for natural light and ventilation and has been fitted Calacatta slab marble counter tops and back splash, a trendy trough sink, and full sized, high grade appliances. As lovely as all that is, Your Mama thinks the most impressive element in the kitchen is the forest's worth of black walnut wood that was not only used for the flat fronted upper and lower cabinets but also as paneling on the walls and on the ceiling. Mar-vuh-luss. It looks like the most expensive trailer home we could ever imagine and, to quote Bravo channel reality tee-vee drama queen Rachel Zoe, we die for it.

The guest room has, according to listing information, a private pooper "of pure white sculptural marble" with a steam shower and Boffi brand fixtures. Above the bed in the guest room, in what appears to be gilded capital block letters are the words, "What would Oprah say?" We can only hope Mister Lippe is being ironic because, quite frankly and even though she is without question one of the most powerful people on the planet who does all sorts of good works in the world, Your Mama does not care a whit about what the Big O might say about anything. As far as we're concerned the wildly rich, pulled herself up by her bootstraps bee-hawtcha has simply gotten too big for her designer britches. She's got a private jet, a forty million dollar weekend house in Montecito, CA and more money jangling around in the bottom of her purse than most people will earn in a lifetime and she thinks she's down with all the regular people who struggle to make a damn car payment? Pleeze. But we digress...

One wall in the master bedroom opens up to custom fitted closets and a second wall opens up to a private part of the terrace. The master bathroom is divided into two spaces, both bathed in black walnut and even more Calacatta slab marble. One side of the master bath contains a sink/vanity, a walk-in Calacatta marble shower and a Calacatta marble soaking tub. The separate wash closet is, unfortunately, without a window, but we covet a divided master bathroom so Your Mama can wash our teeth without having to bear the indignity of hearing the Dr. Cooter tinkle before bed at night.

Other notable amenities in the penthouse, according to listing information, include a multi-zone HVAC system, electronically controlled solar shades, custom lighting and sound throughout the apartment, and custom made bronze terrace containers that are heat and wind resistant on the Gregg Bleam designed terraces. The highly prized, much lauded and very desirable Butterfield House was built in 1962 and offers lucky residents, an on-site manager, full time doormen, a staffed service entrance–which Your Mama loves, a private fitness facility, storage lockers, a bicycle room and a central laundry room not to mention a central location on Greenwich Village's Gold Coast.

Listen chickens, Your Mama has 2 and only 2 real problems with this penthouse. Everything else is a meaningless splitting decorative and design hairs:

1. The laundry facilities appear to be located in a closet inside the powder pooper. While Your Mama and our demanding house gurl Svetlana do appreciate that Mister Lippes and his team of smart architects managed to squeeze clothes cleaning contraptions into the apartment, we do not care to launder our fashions and undergarments in the same room where guests expose their bare asses and set on the damn terlit.

2. Much as we L.O.V.E. all that Calacatta marble in the master bathroom (and in every other room), the slab marble soaking tub is a wee too sarcophagus-like for our personal taste. Since Your Mama don't find anything relaxing about sitting in the filth of bath water and probably would never use that thing for anything other than bathing our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly, iffin we were going to take a soak in the bath, we don't want to feel like we're entombed.

Other than that, we're ready to pack up our Louis Vuitton cases, write a damn check and move back to Manhattan. The only snag in the plan is that pesky problem of not having five and some million clams to spend on an apartment. Maybe one of Your Mama's wealthier readers would like to buy this place for us? We'd make the monthies. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?