Max Weinberg Flipping Out in the Hollywood Hills

SELLER: Max and Rebecca Weinberg
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,399,000
SIZE: 2,916 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Anyone who pays embarrassingly close attention the celebrity real estate scene knows that for the last 5 or so years big shit drummer Max Weinberg and his wifey Rebecca–not to be confused with style maven Patricia Field's Emmy winning long term ladee-friend Rebecca Weinberg–are prolific flippers of high priced properties for which they paid big bucks and quickly sold, usually with only a slim profit. It should come as no surprise then that the real estate fickle Weinbergs recently flipped the sleek but warm Hollywood Hills contemporary they purchased in February of 2009 back on the market with an asking price of $3,399,000.

From 1974 to 1989 Mister Weinberg banged on the skins in Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen's famed E Street Band. In 1993 he accepted the role as the bandleader of The Max Weinberg 7 for the now defunct New York City based Late Night with Conan O'Brien chat show. When "The Boss" reformed the E Street Band in 1999 Mister Weinberg got on The Boss's boat and somehow managed to work out a complicated touring and recording schedule that allowed him to keep his "day job" on Late Night....

When he was hired to replace Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien decamped to the west coast where he paid $10,750,000 for a newly constructed 6 bedroom and 8.5 pooper pad in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. Mister O'Brien famously brought much of his New York City based staff to California with him including Mister Weinberg who became the leader of the not very creatively named Max Weinberg and The Tonight Show Band. While the television gig would require Mister Weinberg to be in Los Angeles for long stretches of time he and the wifey maintained their long time primary residence in the upscale community of Red Bank, NJ.

When the couple purchased the glass and wood Hollywood Hills house they just flipped back on the market it was hardly their first foray into the high end real estate scene in Los Angeles. No siree Bob, butter beans. These two, according to property records and previous reports, had been buying and selling posh properties in some of Tinseltown's finer zip codes since at least the mid-2000s.

In 2005 the real estate mad pair paid $5,823,550 for one of a trio of houses designed by noted Los Angeles architect John Byers in 1928 on Palisades Beach Road in Santa Monica. The Weinbergs sold the 3 bedroom and 3.5 pooper property that includes a separate 2 bedroom guest house in the spring of 2007 for $6,400,000. The property, now owned by race car driver/advertising executive Tomy Drissi and his abstract artist wife Lacy according to property records, appears to be currently available as a rental with a rate of $40,000 per month.

In July of 2006 those real estate crazy Weinbergs paid $7,028,070 for a 8,085 square foot contemporary home at 1345 Vista Moraga in the guard gated Moraga Estates area of Brentwood. The property records are twisted and perplexing as all get out but it appears to Your Mama that the transaction also included a vacant lot across the street and a rugged 31.66 acre lot at the tippy top of Moraga Drive. The Weinbergs quickly flipped the property–or properties–back on the market at $8,200,000 and records show they unloaded the 6 bedroom and 6.5 pooper modern mansion, which we're not sure they ever even even occupied, in March of 2007 for $7,900,000. The peeps at Redfin show that the properties were sold–again as a group–in April of 2009 for just $2,908,000, a strange and inexplicably low number. In early 2010, the Weinberg's former low slung modern mansion in the Moraga Estates was again listed for sale by the current owner(s) with a price tag of $13,900,000. The property was de-listed just a few months later and, as might be expected, it's not clear to Your Mama if the most recent listing was just for the house or for the house and the two other parcels that have repeatedly been sold with it.

In March of 2007 the Weinbergs were back at the real estate rodeo in Los Angeles when they shelled out $8,650,000 for a 1.71 acre spread with a 5,636 square foot Marmol Radziner designed contemporary crib at 1288 Lago Vista Drive in the Beverly Hills Post Office area. Property records reveal that the itchy footed couple sold the property just a year and a half later for $9,000,000 and the all-knowing Lucy Spillerguts whispered in Your Mama's ear that the 6 bedroom and 5.5 pooper beauty was bought by a handsome young tech tycoon with a big toothy smile.

The Weinbergs have not limited their property flipping to the west coast. Once again sorting out the property records was like untying a Gordian Knot but as best as we can sort and suss out from records and previous reports, in 2004 the Weinbergs paid $540,000 for a parlor floor 1 bedroom and 1 pooper condo apartment in a tiny townhouse at 10 Bedford Street in New York City's once boho now swank West Village neighborhood. The previous year they had forked over $1,500,000 for the 3-story carriage house with 2 bedrooms and 2 poopers located behind the teeny townhouse. The two units are not physically adjacent and one must traverse an exterior walkway that overlooks a private garden in order to get from one to the other. That sounds like real bother until Your Mama realizes that it's a lovely and advantageous set up for guests...give them their own apartment and you'll never have to hear them or smell them, iffin you know what we're sayin'. Sales records are, once gain, fuzzy, but there are reports that indicate the Weinbergs sold the two units together in the fall of 2005 for $2,450,000. Although we can't be sure, Your Mama suspects the buyer was a celebrity or some other high profile person because the property is owned through a trust connected to an Los Angeles attorney known to do a lot of business with the famous folk.

Phew! Are the children following along?

Now than, let's get back now to the Hollywood Hills house that Mister and Missus Weinberg recently hoisted on to the open market with an asking price of $3,399,000, shall we?

The Weinbergs bought the Runyon Canyon adjacent property in February of 2009 from director Stephen Gyllenhaal (Numb3rs, Army Wives and etc.) and screenwriter Naomi Foner (Bee Season, Running on Empty and etc.) who at the time were engaged in a bitter and ugly dee-vorce. Mister Gyllenhaal and Miz Foner are, of course, the parents of Oscar nominated actors Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Your Mama first discussed the 5 bedroom and 3 pooper property–of which we were and still are quite smitten–way back in the Dark Ages of June 2007 when Mister Gyllenhaal and Miz Foner quietly put the property on the market as a rental with a monthly asking price of $20,000.

The second time we discussed and gushed over the elder Gyllenhaal's former marital home was in February of 2008 after they'd heaved the 2,563 square foot on to the sales market with a now ridiculous sounding asking price of $4,200,000.

The third time Your Mama poured over the pictures of the pretty property was in March of 2009, shortly after the Weinbergs took the property off the hands of the warring Gyllenhaals for $2,888,000, a large number by any standard but far, far, far less than the original asking price of $4,200,000.

Your Mama spent a few minutes flicking and clicking the beads on our bejeweled abacus and figured out that the current asking price is a smidgen over 17% what the Weinbergs paid for the property just 18 months ago. We expect that some of the children–not to mention all the Chicken Littles looking for a double dip in an already sagging economy–will surely have something to say about that desired double digit increase in value during the rough real estate patch of the last few years.

Since Your Mama has gone on and on (and on some more) about this particular bit of architectural pretty, it seems like a snooze and a serious beat down of a dead horse to once again talk on the architecture and day-core. If y'all want to know what we think read our previous discussions. What we will say, however, is that we think it's a real damn shame that the Weinbergs ripped out some of the xeriscaping done up by the soo-blime Jay Griffith and replaced it with water sucking lawn.

Yes, puppies, we know unnaturally green lawns are pretty and popular amongst Angelenos and other southern Californians who like to pretend they don't live in a damn desert. However, since water in southern California is a precious commodity in ever shrinking supply and Your Mama predicts it won't be too long before a green lawn is a luxury affordable only to the financially favored, we feel it would have been prudent not to mention environmentally responsible just just leave the drought tolerant landscaping in place. Your Mama will probably take a verbal knife for saying that from all the many folks who seem to think that being an American means having the capital "G" God given right to use (and over-use) natural resources in any quantity and manner they see fit. But that's cool. We'll just have to wait and see who gets to say, "We told you so" when it costs 2 bucks just to flush your damn terlit, won't we?

Anyhoo, let's jump down off of that soap box which is really another beef for another place and back to the Weinberg's real estate matter at hand. Of course Your Mama don't know a candle from a cookie jar but we presume that the Weinbergs have opted to sell their California crib because after Conan O'Brien was deposed from The Tonight Show in an ugly but extremely lucrative coup, Mister Weinberg no longer has a need for a full time residence in Los Angeles. Then again, if real estate history were to repeat itself, Mister and Missus Weinberg are already out hunting for a new house in Los Angeles they can buy and flip back on the market 18 months from now.

Despite their real estate whirlwind in California and irrespective of whether they buy another west coast outpost or not, there is no question that the Weinberg's primary residence remains, as mentioned above, a 34+ acre spread in Red Bank NJ that happens to be just a hop, skip, and a stumble from the waterfront compound of pop-rock superstar Jon Bon Jovi.

Keith and Kidman Get a New Krib in Manhattan

BUYER: Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $10,000,000
SIZE: 3,248 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Word on the celebrity real estate street is that bizzy as a beaver Oscar winning Aussie actress Nicole Kidman (Nine, Bewitched, Cold Mountain, The Hours) and her Grammy award winning country-pop music crooning huzband Keith Urban are moving into the same high profile New York City building as the Dolce and Gabbana boys.

Last fall it was widely reported here, there, and everywhere that smooth pated Italian fashion queen Domenico Dolce, through a trust, forked over a blistering $29,500,000 to purchase two doo-plex penthouse units of the critically acclaimed Annabelle Selldorf designed building recently erected on the corner of 11th Avenue and West 24th Street, at the edge of the heart of the Chelsea Arts District and across the street from the Gagosian Gallery. 14 of the building's 16 apartments, some of the children may recall, comes with a private 300 square foot "En-Suite Sky Garage™", accessed by driving one's luxury automobile into a giant key-lock elevator that magically lifts the car up to the same level as the the apartment to which it's deeded.

According to the most recent reports, the Australian born Kidman-Urbans plunked down some big American bucks for a doo-plex unit that measures 3,248 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms, 3.5 poopers, and two city view loggias. Miz Kidman and Mister Urban appear to have drove a hard real estate bargain because the puffy lipped actress and her flat iron loving husband reportedly snatched up their new doo-plex pied a terre in the Big Apple for $10,000,000, a figure that our bejeweled abacus indicates is a 20% reduction off the $12,500,000 asking price.

The main living spaces are located on the doo-plex unit's upper floor and include a 20-foot by 22-foot living room with western views over the Hudson River towards New Jersey, and a combination dining room and a gore-may kitchen with folding oiled teak panels that when closed conceal the kitchen equipment. Just beyond the kitchen/dining room, a large study/bedroom with walk-in closet and private pooper has Hudson River views to the west and opens to one of the two covered covered loggias that anchor the eastern corners of the doo-plex . A breezeway–a hallway really–with built in storage closets and a powder pooper links the two loggias and opens into the kitchen as well as to the single car garage in the sky.

The lower floor is accessed by a dramatic staircase that descends from the living room down into a double height great room with two walls of floor to ceiling glass with double glass doors that slide open to glass balustrades that obliterate any visual barrier between the interior spaces and the glittering and enviable views. A guest bedroom with en-suite pooper sits in the north east corner and the master bedroom includes a wall of closets, dressing area and large windowless pooper with teak cabinetry and floors, double sinks sitting on a counter top of imported French glazed lavastone Pyrolave, acid etched mirrors, separate glass enclosed shower, and freestanding honed granite soaking tub.

Amenities in the sleek stainless steel and cast gunmetal glazed terra cotta clad tower that was carefully designed to maintain an architectural dialogue with the industrial lofts and buildings that surround it include a 24/7 attended lobby, key-lock elevators, cold storage for food deliveries, a second floor fitness center with treatment room, Hudson River views, and terraces, and, of course, those private garages.

In addition to Domenico Dolce and the Kidman-Urbans, other owners of residences in the state of the art building include interior designer Jamie Drake, a man blessedly unafraid of color who sold his exuberant Flatiron District loft last year for $2,945,000, and real estate agent extraordinaire Leonard Steinberg.

Prior to coughing up the cash for this new doo-plex condo, Miz Kidman leased a number of high profile apartments including the old Lenny Kravtiz penthouse in SoHo just picked up by Alicia Keyes and Swiz Beatz, another penthouse in SoHo formerly owned by tennis ace Boris Becker and now owned by chat queen Kelly Ripa and her hunky man-mate Mark Consuelos, and another large apartment in the same Chelsea building that Your Mama and the Doctor Cooter once called home.

The alabaster skinned actress and her diminutive huzband own several luxurious residences around the world including a contemporary pile in the same Beverly Hills neighborhood as Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, and Jessica Simpson and a 10,925 square foot beast with 7 bedrooms, 8 full and 2 half poopers in Nashville, TN that originally all us real estate gossips thought was purchased by Jessica Simpson.

Miz Kidman and Mister Urban also own a few plum and pricey properties Down Under. In the summer of 2008 it was widely reported that Mister and Missus Kidman-Urban dropped around $6,500,000 (AUS) for a 110 acre spread called Bunya Hill in Sutton Forest, a sleepy and swank enclave in the Southern Highlands about 1.5 hours outside of Sydney.

In the spring of 2009 Miz Kidman dumped her digs in the Darling Point area for $13,200,000 (AUS) after first listing the 4 bedroom waterfront villa a year before with the rumored asking price for $20,000,000 (AUS). The Kidman-Urbans subsequently scooped up a $6,500,000 (AUS) doo-plex penthouse apartment on the 21st floor of a converted office building with panoramic views of the scenic Sydney Harbor.

listing photos and floor plan: Prudential Elliman

Keys and Beatz Close on Kravitz Penthouse

Back in late January and early February of 2010 it was widely rumored and much reported in all the celebrity real estate gossip columns that preggers Grammy winning singer/songwriter Alicia Keys and her babydaddy/fiancée, the ridiculously named music producer Swizz Beatz, were in the process of purchasing the downtown New York City penthouse apartment that musician Lenny Kravitz had been trying to unload since the dawn of time. And buy Mister Kravitz real estate albatross they did.

The StreetEasy folks show the 5,818 square foot doo-plex digs were last listed at $14,995,000 and the peeps at Property Shark show that in late February of 2010 preggers Miss Keys and Mister Beatz negotiated a substantial price reduction paying $12,750,000 for their new downtown digs located in the same boo-teek condo building in SoHo where Courtney Love once lived and irritated at least one of her neighbors with her I'm a rock star so I can act like a damn fool antics.

If the children recall, Mister Kravitz first listed the 5 bedroom, 7 pooper, and multi-terraced spread way back in 2002 and over the years the asking price soared to as high as $19,500,000 and dipped to as low as $12,000,000. Mister Kravitz's glammy crib was taken off and put back on the market more times than Your Mama cares to count, underwent at least one million dollar renovation courtesy of Mister Kravitz's eponymous design firm, and was reportedly leased out to a couple of high profile individuals including Academy Award winning Aussie actress Nicole Kidman and Oscar winning actor Denzel Washington.

In the early naughts when the Crosby Street building was being converted to condos, it was both touted and mocked in the press as a kind of celebrity dormitory with dee-luxe amenities such as an aromatherapy system in the lobby 24-hour concierge, a "smart" recycling system that automatically separates paper from plastic, and private wine cellars in the basement. Nowadays instead of famous folks it's filled with a bunch of Wall Street and big bizness types such as credit default swap swami Greg Lippmann, former Bear Stearns banker Mark Van Lith, private equity pasha Nathan Kornfeld, new media mogul Dan Pelson, and porcine homosexual bon vivant and restaurateur Laurence Isaacson whose published, Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz designed basement maisonette has been on and off the market for more then 4 years and is currently listed at $7,000,000. (Don't be fooled by previous reports that call his unit a penthouse, it's located on the ground floor and basement levels no matter how many times large livin' Mister Isaacson calls it a penthouse.)

In mid-June 2010, having closed and perhaps moved into her new SoHo spread, it was revealed that Soon to Be Missus Beatz listed her long time mansion in the leafy and upscale Long Island enclave of Syosset, NY with an asking price of $3,850,000. Although some reports show Soon to Be Missus Beatz paid $3,950,000 for her 15-room residence situated on 2.02 gated acres, property records pYour Mama accessed show she bought the 9,000+ square foot suburban sprawler in December of 2005 for $2,933,380.

Listing information shows Soon to Be Missus Beatz's two-story, vaguely chateau-esque style manse encompasses more than 9,000 square feet and includes bedrooms and 6.5 poopers, an old-school gallery with black and white checked marble floors, a curving staircase, 3 fireplaces, a pine paneled family room with built in wet bar, eat in kitchen, office, full basement, attic, 2 large motor courts, and a 3 car garage. The fully landscaped grounds are ringed with mature evergreens and include large lawns, a vast 2,000 square foot terrace off the back of the house, and a 50-foot long swimming pool, spa, and adjacent pool house.

Lady Gaga Gets Down in the 90077

Listen chickens, Your Mama was away on our vacay a day or two longer than planned because, perhaps not surprisingly, we got stranded in the wilds of northern Arizona after our recently rehabbed friend Fiona Trambeau fell off the wagon and ran off with some socks with sandals wearing German tourist in a rented RV. She also, much to our horror and dismay, took off with the keys to her Lezbaru tucked deep into her tube top. Eventually ol' Fiona came back, worse for the wear and reeking of Pilsner, dripping in chunky turqwahze jewelery and shouting out things like, "Auf dem wasser su zingen!" After giving Fiona a verbal dressing down that would wither even the most bitter drag queen and an arduous 11 hour trek across 4 states, 2 time zones and temperatures reaching upwards of 110 degrees, Your Mama has finally returned home to our hideway in the Hollywood Hills.

Anyhoo, vacation dramatics aside, Your Mama is back in the saddle at the celebrity real estate rodeo and ready to go. Let's get our post vacation feet wet with some recent real estate doings of a gal named Stefani Germanotta, better known to the young people as the provocative pop star Lady Gaga. Besides taking up the button pushing mantle of the middle aged music icon Madonna–a story line the Kabbalah Kween might take umbrage with–Miss Gaga recently made became the darling of the tabs and gossip glossies after the beer swilling high priestess of wannabe shocking brazenly flipped off photographers at a Mets game at Shea Stadium and then showed up a couple weeks later at a Yankees game in little more than a bra and panties where she proceeded to get sauced, sweet talk her way into the team's clubhouse, and cause a ruckus with some word slurring and (alleged) breast fondling.

As tantalizing as Miss Gaga's wacky ways may be, it's her real estate bidness that concerns Your Mama. While away on vacation, not so patiently awaiting the return of our trampy pal Fiona Trambeau, Your Mama received an unexpected covert communique from one of our better connected informants–let's call her Rhonda Ratsemout–who whispered in our big ear that New York City based Lady Gaga maintains a super swank nest in Los Angeles.

That's right bunnies, Lady Gaga is going Hollywood, or rather she's going Bel Air. According to Rhonda, last October Miss Gaga leased a 6 bedroom and 8 pooper residence in the hills above Bel Air at around $25,000 per month.
Property records and previous reports reveal Lady Gaga's leased residence is owned by Canadian real estate developer Lorne Leibel whose car fanatic son Cody is the bidness partner of restaurateur, nightclub owner and hotelier Sam Nazarian who owns celeb friendly Hollywood hot spots such as Hyde Lounge, Katsuya, The Abbey and the SLS Hotel. Property records reveal Mister Leibel paid a hefty $3,150,000 for the property in January of 2004 and last had the property on the open market in 2009 for $4,750,000.

According to listing information the high-walled and gated residence sits at the tail end of a quiet cul-de-sac and measures 6,143 square feet. Interior amenities include an impress the guest style double height entry with marble floors and a curving staircase that would make Norma Desmond swoon with melodrama, a two-story living room wrapped in French doors and warmed by a fireplace with an intricately carved stone mantel piece and a family room with another fireplace and another intricately carved stone mantel piece and brown and cream colored vertical striped wall treatment. There is also an office/library with built-in shelving and French doors that open to the pool terrace and a gigantic gore-may kitchen with separate breakfast area and an adjacent outdoor eating area.

The hillside property has a resort-style swimming pool and spa that practically hangs over the canyon with unobstructed and panoramic views of the Los Angeles. With a pair of binoculars, Miss Gaga can probably look across the canyon and up at Heidi Klum's former house that Nick Lachey currently owns has listed with an asking price of $6,800,000 although we don't imagine Miss Gaga has much use for someone as musically vanilla as Mister Lachey who, Your Mama thinks, beehawtcha could chew up in about 12 seconds flat.

Your Mama freely admits that we don't know where Miss Gaga currently resides in New York City although we do know that she used to live not so far from the Lower East Side tenement where Your Mama lived for about 1,000 years. However, since first hearing from Rhonda Ratsemout, we've heard that Miss Gaga actually tried to by Mister Leibel's other house in the Hidden Valley enclave of Beverly Hills (Post Office) that was last listed at $16,500,000. In the end she decided to lease the less expensive house in Bel Air, all of which makes Your Mama wonder if Miss Gaga is planning on relocating to Los Angeles sometime in the near future. Only time will tell chickadoodles, only time will tell.

NOTE: This posting has been amended for its original form. Your Mama got our wires crossed as to the exact house Miss Gaga leased. We've got out ducks in a row now. We apologize for the gross error.

Weekend This and Thats

1.
Your Mama's a little late to the rodeo on this one, but in case y'all missed it, details about porn purveyor Bob Guccione's old Manhattan townhouse–bought by hedge hog Phil Falcone and his wife Lisa Maria for $49,000,000–are starting to seep out of the limestone.

Among other ridiculously dee-luxe amenities, the Falcone's 25,000+ square foot double-wide townhouse mansion will have two elevators–one for the staff, natch–a swimming pool, and a press room. No puppies, that's not a room for on-site publicity peeps, but a room in the basement where Lurleen the Laundress will spend her days and nights ironing sheets and working the stains our of the Falcone's napkins and undergarments.

Another tidbit about the townhouse that Your Mama found inneresting, is that one of Missus Falcone's two dressing rooms will include a wet bar just in case the ladee of the house feels like getting drunk while getting dressed. Lo-urhd knew we do sometimes.

2.
Brace yourselves butter beans because another "housewife" from The Real Housewives of New Jersey has hoisted her hideous home on the market.

Earlier this week a listing for too tan Teresa Giudice's church of conspicuous consumption popped up that showed her mansion listed at $3,999,999. Tee-tee subsequently tweeted that her mansion of marble is not for sale and the online listing has since vanished. Make of that what you will.

This time it's former stripper turned suburban soccer mom turned sex tape maker Danielle Staub. Miz Staub, a woman who comes off on her reality program as being about as stable as an earthquake, had her house on the market in the fall of 2009 for $1,495,000. It's now back on the market at with a hugely reduced asking price of $1,095,000.

Maybe Danielle and Tee-tee should consider going in together on an affordable two-family in Union City or something. Ugh.

3.
The deal is reportedly done on property developer Mohamed Hadid's insanely ginormous Bel Air mansion Le Belvedere. However he's being a bit cagey on the final sale price of the 10 bedroom and 14 pooper property telling the L.A. Times only that the buyer paid between fifty and $72,000,000.

Transaction records have yet to clear but while peeping and poking around the public property records this morning, Your Mama unexpectedly turned up an unexplained name on some recent records, that of a man named Sarp Turanligil. A quick search on the interweb indicates there is a man named Sarp Turanligil who is the chairman of Divan Hotels, a Turkish hotel group.

Listen puppies, Your Mama is not sure if the Mister Turanligil shown on the property records is the same Mister Turanligil of Divan Hotels. We're also not sure if Mister Turnaligil's name showing up in the property/title records is some sort of error, if he was an investor in the property, loaned Mister Hadid money, or if perhaps he's the deep pocketed buyer.

Basically we don't know nuthin' other than that name now appears on the property records. Time will tell and we shall see.

UPDATE: Records show the house transferred for fifty million clams.

4.
Although he may be living there all by his lonesome, the very contemporary Jupiter Island, FL home being built by bed hopping professional golfer Tiger Woods looks like it's nearing completion. Like his nearby neighbor Celine Dion's new Jupiter Island home/water park, Tiger's got two side by side swimming pools too.

Tiger's spread includes a 10,000 square foot main house and a 9,500 fitness facility that recent reports reveal will include an oxygen therapy room, whatever the hell that is.

5.
Legendary country crooner–and plastic surgery victim–Kenny Rogers has hoisted two Georgia mansions on the market. One beast of a house in the Buckhead area of Atlanta previously carried and asking price of $7,950,000 and is now listed at $5,900,000, and another, a kind of Polynesian paradise sort of place located just outside of Athens, is listed at $3,200,000.

6.
In other Hotlanta celebrity real estate news, actress/activist/fitness video maker/born again Christian Jane Fonda listed her Atlanta, GA loft condo a just over a month ago with an asking price of $4,500,000. Somebody must have hit her with the sensible stick because thanks to Georgia Justwantsyalltoknow Your Mama has learned that Miz Fonda Vadim Hayden Turner has slashed the price of her 4,700 square foot doo-plex by a whopping $2,000,000. The 3 bedroom and 3 pooper condo with it's bee-zar womb-like entrance hall is now listed at a far more reasonable $2,500,000.

Your Mama's west coast sources say that big, bad Barbarella has leased herself a dumpy 1 bedroom apartment in the star-studded Sierra Towers building in Los Angeles where her neighbors include other old-school divas such as Cher, Elton John and Joan Collins.

Celine Dion's Private Water Park

Buckle up your safety belts butter beans because some mind-altering new photographs of overly impassioned Canadian singer Celine Dion's newly completed watery wonderland in Jupiter Island, FL are coming out and, lo-wurhd have mercy, is this place ever a doozy.

In June of 2005, Miz Dion and her May-December man-mate/manager Rene Angelil dumped $12,525,000 on a 3.7 acre ocean front spread on Florida's fancy schmancy Jupiter Island. In January of 2008, they snatched up the undeveloped 2-acre lot next door for another $7,032,000. A few flicks of the well worn beads reveals that the wildly wealthy Miz Dion spent $19,557,000 on the two properties that combined total 5.7 acres. She then proceeded to knock down the existing structures and rebuild her own private water park with a mansion in the middle at a cost that surely ran to many millions of smackers.

Previous reports reveal the main house, a 2-story, Bahamas-style affair, measures 9,825 square feet and includes 6 bedrooms and 8 full poopers including a master suite with at least one private balcony, an outdoor spa, three fireplaces, and a 460-square foot closet/dressing area. The house, according to recent reports, also includes an octagonal, ocean view living room, a sound-proof tee-vee room, an elevator, and a basement level for laundry facilities and staff quarters. Oh dear. All it would take for Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's temperamental house gurl Svetlana to go all hara kiri is to tell her that Celine Dion, a woman so rich she could probably outspend the damn Pope, is relegating her live-in staff members to basement accommodations on a property plenty large enough to house them in separate, dignified, and above ground digs. It's no wonder some of these staff people end up calling the tabloids and ratting out their employers. Do rich and/or famous folks really think they can stick the help in cell sized basement bedrooms and expect loyalty? Pleeze.

There are also two guesthouses including one with 8 damn bedrooms, an underground garage, tennis court, vast swathes of flat, green lawns that extend from the road to the beach, a poolside cabana, and an octagonal beach cabana where, it has been widely reported, Miz Dion will keep her body torture devices, otherwise known as exercise equipment. There are, according to previous reports, a total of 15 bedrooms and 14 full and 6 half poopers, enough that Mister and Missus Dion will surely need a full time terlit gurl.

But it's the three swimming pools that really sets Miz Dion's estate apart from all others. In addition to the rectangular shaped swimming pool between the main house and the ocean, there's another vast paddling pool that butts up against the front of the house and includes a swim up bar and a gigantic gazebo that juts out into the water. Beyond that is yet another, free-form swimming pool complex with three bridges–or four, depending on how you count–two gazebos including one that is two full stories tall, a tree house like thing, two water slides, and some crazy thing called a "lazy river," a meandering channel with a slow current that carries swimmers around the loop without them having to exert any effort.

Your Mama recommends that y'all consider poppin' a nerve pill and downing a stiff gin & tonic before doing so, but the new photographs can be seen by clicking here.

Property records show that the 5-time Grammy winning Miz Dion owns a 6,608 square foot mansion with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers near Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, NV that was purchased in August of 2003 for $5,056,256. Unless she buys a bigger and better crib, Your Mama assumes this is where the currently preggers with twins ladee will live when she starts back at Caesar's Palace in March of 2011 singing her heart out and pounding her chest like she's giving herself the CPR. She also owns the property next door that includes a parking area, guesthouse, and a jungle gym or two for her young tot. Presumably she and Mister Dion also own a house in Montreal or somewhere around that area but Your Mama don't know nuthin' about that.

UPDATE: Alan Jackson

If the children will put on their thinking caps and try to remember all the way back to June of 2009, they may recall the day Your Mama prattled on about country music star Alan Jackson and Sweetbriar, his sprawling estate in rural Franklin, TN that he had listed with a husky and exuberantly optimistic asking price of $38,000,000.

Word is now slip sliding down the gossip grapevine that Mister and Missus Jackson have pulled a rabbit from a real estate hat, unloading their lavish 135-acre spread and its nearly 19,000 square foot mansion for a record breaking $28,000,000 and change.

While the sale price is a titanic ten million clams less than Mister and Missus Jackson had hoped and aimed for, it's still many millions more than any other residential property in the Nashville area has sold for in recent memory and well over double the $11,500,000 that tech and entertainment tycoon Todd Wagner laid out in 2007 for Deer Park Farm, country queen Tanya Tucker's 22,600 square foot behemoth on 500 acres in Arrington, TN.

The new owners, according to property records and recent reports, are Willis and Reba Johnson. Mister Johnson founded a company called Copart, Inc, a Fairfield, CA based operation that auctions busted up automobiles for insurance companies and other entities with bunches of wrecked up cars to sell. According to recent filings, Mister Johnson's stake in the publicly traded company adds up to a whopping $340,000,000, making him more than financially qualified to buy and maintain an estate of this magnitude.

Property records show that among various other properties, Mister and Missus Johnson own a monster mansion on a 79-acre vineyard in the pristine Suisun Valley, just outside of Fairfield, CA. As it turns out, Your Mama has–or rather once had–a vague connection to the Suisun Valley. About a hundred years ago, when Your Mama was just a baby-faced pipsqueak attending university in northern California, we had a short but large chested and ostensibly heterosexual roommate who worked as a stripper in the local gay bars whose grandfather was an eccentric muckety-muck in the Suisun Valley. This multi-millionaire, while nine kinds of strange, was nothing but kind to Your Mama. In fact, he once purchased us a pair of sneakers at the local flea market because he didn't like us running around barefoot on his tennis court and he would sometimes do head scratching things like drive over to the local vegetable stand in his vintage convertible Rolls Royce–white with red leather interior, natch–in nothing but an itty bitty Speedo style bathing suit. We speak the truth, kiddies.

Anyhoo, in addition to the colossal colonial style mansion with its 6 bedrooms, 9 terlits, 5 fireplaces, and 20-car garage, Mister and Missus Johnson's super-sized new digs in Franklin, TN include an entrance hall with two circular staircases, a hotel lobby-like living room with a Chevy-sized chandelier–or, as Your Mama's Big Daddy would say it, a Shivvy-sized shandaleer–a paneled office suite, country kitchen, double height family room, and a sun porch that overlooks the swimming pool and spa.

The extensive grounds contain a barn-like building that houses an indoor tennis/basketball court, numerous pastures, a fish stocked 10-acre pond with sandy beach and three bay boat house, a barn with 2 bedroom apartment, and a massive entertainment terrace with outdoor fireplace. Just in case that isn't enough to maintain, there's also an ATV/go-cart track, an grass airplane runway, and a 2-bedroom log cabin that sits next to the Harpath River that winds along the edge of the property.

In June of 2009, Mister and Missus Jackson told a local newspaper that they were looking to downsize into sometime more manageable and less high maintenance.