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.