Samuel L. Jackson (Allegedly) Picks Up New York City Pied a Terre

BUYER: Samuel L. Jackson (allegedly)
LOCATION: Crosby Street, New York City, NY
PRICE: $4,350,000 (asking)
SIZE: 2,578+- square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: 2578 +/- sq ft grand loft in this highly exclusive prewar condominium building represents chic Soho at its best and offers state of the art living. Elevator opens directly into this superbly proportioned living and entertaining space. An exceptionally appointed eat-in kitchen with sleek services. Soaring 13 +/- ceilings, enormous 8 ft windows throughout, abundant wall space for your art collection, impressive columns and beautiful cherry wood floors throughout. A magnificent 15 +/- foot wide gas fireplace is a remarkable feature, contemporary yet classic. Full size laundry room. The enormous master suite with huge walk-in closet and en suite Waterworks bath with deep soaking tub and huge shower is an oasis. A second bedroom and bath complete the picture.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama is in a New York City state of mind today so let's discuss the SoHo condominium that all the Manhattan real estate gossips are whispering was recently purchased by Oscar nominated actor Samuel L. Jackson (Snakes on a Plane, Star Wars, The Incredibles, Kill Bill, Do the Right Think, Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Pulp Fiction).

Now listen chickens, although Your Mama hears through the real estate gossip grapevine that the costly condo is being purchased by Mister Jackson for his adult daughter Zoe, keep in mind that property records for the 2,578 square foot condo at the Crosby Street building dubbed The Bayard do not yet reflect a property transfer so all this chatter about Mister Jackson being the new owner ain't nuthin' but rumor and gossip at this point. Just rumor and gossip, alright?

Anyhoo, it was in the New York Post (via CityFile) that Your Mama first read about the Kangol cap wearing thespian allegedly scooping up a 2 bedroom and 2 pooper condo in SoHo that was last listed with an asking price of $4,350,000. The Post reported that Mister Jackson snagged the condo at somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,100,000. A few flicks of the well worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals that comes out to a dramatic $1,687 per square foot. The light and bright loft-condo carries monthly maintenance and taxes that, according to listing information, total $3,554. The high asking price and steep monthlies are a result of the itty-bitty five unit pre-war building having a few dee-luxe amenities–such as a doorman–that few buildings of this size have.

Listing information indicates the condo features a 13-ish foot ceiling, three 8-foot tall windows in the living room and another in the master bedroom, three exposed columns, a 33-foot long living/dining room and one of those new-fangled (gas) fireplaces that features a 15-foot wide firebox and a not so big television recessed into the wall above it. A key-lock elevator opens directly into the apartment which currently has chestnut colored wood floors and gallery white walls.

The generously sized gore-may kitchen, tucked into the north west corner of the condo, includes gleaming white, flat-fronted cabinetry with towel bar pulls, concrete colored counter tops, the kind of stainless steel appliances that combined cost as much as a small Mercedes and a heavyset work island that includes a breakfast counter where several sassy stools upholstered in ice blue with wacky cushion-tube-things for back rests facilitate conversing and imbibing with the cook.

A small–quite small, really–second bedroom has sliding panels that open the room to the living/dining room and the master bedroom, entered through double doors, has walk-in closet the size of many Manhattan bedrooms and an unusually configured and unfortunately windowless pooper which is currently being positively punished with a beige tumbled stone tile floor and an unholy combination of blood red, mirrored walls and a pair of far too country-style medicine chests above twin pedestal sinks.

The itty-bitty five-unit building is a bit of a celebrity magnet. It just so happens that the condo allegedly being bought by Mister Jackson occupies the same floor as that of Gawker founder and new media mogul Nick Denton. Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein owned the full floor loft directly upstairs which he sold in December of 2007 for $8,000,000. The penthouse has also seen it's fair share of famous residents. Once owned by tennis ace Boris Becker and leased by porcelain skinned actress Nicole Kidman Cruise Urban after she busted up with rock star Lenny Kravitz and had to move out of his Crosby Street white elephant, the 9,865 square foot penthouse is now owned and occupied by sinewy talk show queen Kelly Ripa and her rather hunky huzband Mark Consuelos who spent a spine tingling $9,500,000 on the place in June of 2005. This was six months before they sold their fifth floor loft in the same building for $7,250,000 to former Goldman Sachs honcho Michael Rubinoff who flipped the beehawtcha 10 months later at a stomach churning $550,000 loss. For what it's worth, the buyer subsequently sold the 5,262 square foot fifth floor unit 18 months later to another filthy rich financier at a $2,000,000 profit. So goes the ever-spinning wheels of New York City real estate.

As far as Your Mama knows, Mister Jackson and his long time ladee-wife Latanya live in an 11,738 square foot mansion in the gated and guarded Beverly Park community in the Hills above Beverly that records show they bought from loud-mouthed comedienne Roseanne Barr in June of 2000 for $7,500,000.

Christina Ricci Lists in Los Feliz at a Loss

SELLER: Christina Ricci
LOCATION: Los Feliz, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,250,000
SIZE: 1,891 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1.75 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Sophisticated traditional. Recent renovations further improved w/ custom finishes & detailing. Property features master suite w/ formidable dressing rm (office/nursery), chef's kitchen w/ top top-of-the-line appliances, ample den, newer skylights, gorgeous pool + spa, ample access to outdoor spaces, all on a generous 12,000 sqft parcel. Updated systems and many more amenities.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although Christina Ricci and her former fiance Owen Benjamin have reportedly gone their separate ways, it would appear that all those real estate rumors from back in March of 2009 about the art house actress house hunting in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles must have some truth to them because she recently listed her current home in the celeb-friendly Oaks neighborhood in Los Feliz for $1,250,000.

Itty-bitty Miss Ricci got her start in Tinseltown at a very young age, appearing in Mermaids with La Cher and later in the Addams Family film franchise. She went on to quirky and often dark roles in movies like The Ice Storm, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Opposite of Sex. Her more recent professional activities include a few turns on the boob-toob (Saving Grace), an unfortunate role in the major flop Speed Racer and a role in New York, I Love You opposite Orlando Bloom.

Property records show that Miss Ricci purchased her residence on Red Oak Drive in December of 2005 for $1,505,000. Unfortunately for her this was just about the very apex of the now popped southern California real estate bubble. It only takes a few flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's beloved and bejeweled abacus to see that even if Miss Ricci and her real estate peeps manage to get a full price sale–which is certainly possible but unlikely in this era of bargain hunters and bottom feeders–she's looking at a stomach churning $255,000 loss. And that's on top of whatever fat fees and charges she'll be required to pay the real estate folks for their time and efforts.

Listing information shows the modest, Mellenthin-style ranch house measures 1,891 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 1.75 poopers. Presumably, only about 4 of the children know what a Mellenthin style house is so let Your Mama provide a wee bit of schooling on the matter. Starting in the 1930s, the Mellenthin Company built hundreds of homes in Los Angeles, mainly in the Sherman Oaks and Valley Village areas of the San Fernando Valley. Mellenthin homes are characterized by by a vague and idealized rusticity, small front porches, diamond paned windows and pine paneled kitchens. They are, some might argue, the architectural epitome of the real estate dreams of a typical 1950s suburban Los Angeles nuclear family: hard working daddy, stay at home mommy, a couple of kids, a Lassie and two boat-sized cars in the driveway. Some people love Mellenthins for their nostalgic charm and others write them off as uninspired tract houses with difficult to clean windows and cramped, country style kitchens.

Anyhoo, Miss Ricci's house may or may not be a Mellenthin House–and more than likely it is not–but it does bear some of the Mellenthin hallmarks including a low-rise hip roof, a teeny-tiny front porch and large diamond paned windows. The traditional exterior belies the in interior spaces which have been given a modern make-over with ashy, chocolate brown wood floors, boldly printed wallpaper in several of the rooms and more damn animal skin rugs than Your Mama cares to count. Miss Ricci's formal living room has a lovely wood burning fireplace and has been furnished in a casually eclectic hipster with some money manner with a sharp lined, deep sea foam green sofa, an upright piano for Saturday night sing-a-longs, an organically shaped glass coffee table, a dramatically long mid-century modern credenza and a glittery and glammy tubular chandelier.

Beyond the dining room, which orbits around a gorgeous and lavishly glossy Parsons style table sitting atop a deep cocoa colored animal skin rug, is a cozy, skylight lit den/family room. The children will note that the mantel and surround of the corner fireplace is pleasingly identical to the one in the living room. This kind of uniformity appeals to and soothes the constant chaos that infects Your Mama's mind. Furnished sparingly with little more than a beige sofa with a chaise kick out, a wee coffee table and a wall mounted flat screen television. Listen chickens, these wall mounted tee-vees that every Tom, Dick and Sally have nowadays can be a bit difficult to successfully incorporate into day-core unless the rooms entire focus is devoted to the damn tee-vee. However, here Your Mama thinks Miss Ricci–or her nice, gay decorator–has managed to minimized the tee-vee by making it appear to be part of a mis-matched collection and differently sized artworks. We're certain some of you neatniks will whine and complain about the cable box and all the exposed wire on the floor below the television. However, a far bigger concern for Your Mama is the lack of a rug. We happen to think something like this from Angela Adams might go beautifully in the Miss Ricci's den/family room, but our suggestion is really neither here not there since she's soon moving on to a new house.

A galley kitchen connects the dining room and the breakfast room where Miss Ricci has placed an Isamu Noguchi Cyclone table surrounded with four Eames Eiffel Tower wire base chairs. Gold and brown flecked granite counter tops sit on flat fronted white cabinets. The kitchen is outfitted with the sort of high grade, stainless steel appliances one can expect in a million dollar house, but those beige tile floors set on a 45-degree angle have got to go.

The modestly sized house has a surprisingly massive, three-room master bedroom with a sitting area, bedroom and one of the more decadent dressing rooms Your Mama has seen in a long time. The blood red dressing room, furnished with rose colored couch, a mammoth mirror propped up in one corner and another damn animal skin rug, is a shoe fetishist's wet dream. One entire wall has been fitted with custom, floor to ceiling shelves where Miss Ricci keeps and displays her extensive and enviable footwear collection. Given the graphic nature of the master bedroom's black and blood red wallpaper treatment, the master bathroom is surprisingly, uhm, let's be nice and say neutral. Twin pedestal sinks with small round mirrors flank the large window which allows for proper ventilation, and a sky-lit walk-in shower is constructed of frameless glass panels and sand colored stone tile.

A large covered terrace on the back of the house, accessible through the kitchen, the family room and Miss Ricci's dee-voon dressing room looks out on the swimming pool and spa which have been tiled in different colors. To be honest chickens, it would never have occurred to Your Mama to have the pool and spa reflect different colors but we rather love it. We also love the lights strung across the pool, a decorative outdoor lighting drama that we've always liked.

The bummer about this house, clearly, is that there are just two bedrooms which will undoubtedly turn off a lot of potential buyers. Even still, if Your Mama had to predict, we'd guess this house will get snatched up quick by a young, childless couple or a couple of queens who will pee their pants with glee when they see the dressing room. We shall see.

Not only is this not the first house Miss Ricci has owned in the star-studded Oaks neighborhood in Los Feliz–she owned a house up on Park Oak Drive which she sold in 2004–it's also not the first time she's taken a significant financial hit on a house in the Oaks. In June of 2006 the diminutive indie-film favorite sold the speck-tac-u-ler Lloyd Wright-designed Samuel-Novarro House on Verde Oak Drive for about $150,000 less than she paid for it just a year earlier in June of 2005. Here's hoping that Miss Ricci does better on her next real estate transaction.

The Oaks is also home to a number of other big name Hollywood types including musician Adam Levine and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. It's also home to Flipping Out's Jeff Lewis who occupies a house he was hoping to flip for a major profit but failed to do so due to the collapsing real estate market.

A Little Holiday Reading...

...From our Friends at ShelterPop.

––The Jonas Brothers Leave Bel Air, Shack Up in a New House

––Rob Lowe Trades One Montecito Estate for Another

––Ellen Degeneres Dances Her Way to Real Estate Riches

––Lindsay Lohan's New Condo and the House She Left Behind

––James Franco Selling His L.A.Home

––Dixie Chicks' Emily Robison Selling Her Texas Home

––Speidi' New Nest

UPDATE: Villa Leopolda

The other day Your Mama prattled on about a recent report from the folks at Forbes which listed the 10 highest priced homes on the planet. Listed at number four was Villa Leopolda, international socialite Lily Safra's legendarily high-maintenance estate in the South of France, which the folks at Forbes reported had hit the open market with an asking price of $102,000,000.

But alas babies and butter beans, just as Your Mama suspected, the folks at Forbes got it all kinds of wrong. Somehow, the folks at Forbes managed to mix up Villa Leopolda with Villa Schiffanoia, another high-priced property in the South of France that is currently on the market with a one hundred and two million clam price tag. The Forbes folks rather shocking failure to fact check caused a feeding frenzy among all the global real estate gossips, including Your Mama who jumped in that pool eyes closed and feet first. We really should have known better, but clearly we didn't.

So listen up chickens, not only is the Villa Leopolda not currently for sale, according to a representative of Miz Safra, the palatial estate never was. Miz Safra's representative told Your Mama, "A purchase proposal was spontaneously–and repeatedly–made by one potential buyer and was finally accepted last year. However, the purchase was never completed. The residence is not being sold and was never offered for sale." Furthermore, according to Miz Safra's representative, the purported and oft reported price of the incomplete sale– a gasp producing $750,000,000– is quite simply, "pure fantasy."

So there y'all have it, straight from the horses mouth. Well, straight from the horses hired mouth anyway. While Your Mama understands Miz Safra's real estate doings ain't nobodies bidness but her own, it would be so much simpler, cleaner and more efficient if all the parties involved in the aborted transaction would just release a statement with the damn details. Then all this nonsense over Villa Leopolda could really be laid to rest and all us real estate gossips would move on to other matters at hand. Just a thought.

Halle Berry Lists Beverly Hills Hideaway

SELLER: Halle Berry
LOCATION: Benedict Canyon Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $5,000,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: One-of-a-kind rustic & private Old-World Mediterranean graced by magnificent gardens, al fresco dining and seating area, fire pit and sumptuous stone spa in a verdant canon setting. The vibe is majestic but casual, with vaulted heavy wood-beamed ceilings, wide-planked wood floors, fireplaces, a dramatic staircase, banks of French doors/windows & a master suite tub carved out of stone. Gourmet cook's kitchen. State of the art Crestron system.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Former Miss USA contestant turned Academy Award winning actress Halle Berry has been on a bit of a real estate whirlwind the last few years. In October of 2008 the dee-lishus diva and her equally dee-lishus male model baby daddy Gabriel Aubry reportedly purchased a country getaway in St. Hippolyte, a teeny-tiny town in the Canadian boonies about an hour or so north of Montreal. A couple years earlier, in early 2006, the possibly preggers silver screen queen sold a Doheny Place property she shared with her professional bat swinging ex-huzband David Justice for $4,150,000.

Six months earlier, in July of 2005 she gave child actor turned race car driver Frankie Muniz $5,995,000 for his N. Doheny Drive domicile which she proceeded to gut and remodel. In October of 2004, the very well paid actress spent a reported $8,000,000 on a 5 bedroom and 4 pooper ocean front contemporary on Malibu Cove Colony Drive that records show she still owns.

But even before that, in October of 2001, shortly after she married that moe-ron Eric Benét who philandered his way to dee-vorce and virtual obscurity, property records reveal that Miss Berry bought a casa on lower Benedict Canyon Drive in the Bev Hills for $2,275,000. It's that house, my butter beans, Your Mama is gonna discuss this morning because thanks to Big Dave at Celebrity Address Aerial, it has come to our attention that Miss Berry has listed the secluded and serene property with an asking price of $5,000,000.

Listing information and property records show the pleasantly private property spans 1.33 hillside acres that climb up the canyon and includes a main house built in 1948 that measures 2,274 square feet. We happen to know–don't bother to ask why because Your Mama's lips are sealed–that it was not Miss Berry or her team of nice, gay decorators, ladee deeziners and smart architects who transformed this 2 bedroom and 2 pooper property into a rustic, elegant and ancient-looking Mediterranean with sand colored stone walls, wide plank wood floors, wood-beamed vaulted ceilings, antique wooden doors, and intricately scrolled wrought iron banisters. That was done some time before she snatched up the place. It's our understanding that Miss Berry now lives in the above mentioned estate she bought from Frankie Muniz so Your Mama is going to assume that the lovely ladee and her real estate people had this property staged because it's almost beyond our admittedly limited capacity to imagine that when Miss Berry vacated the premises that she left a lap blanket not so casually laid across a deep, upholstered chair on the terrace, stacks of books on the tables in the living room, jars of lotions and potions in the master bathroom or a bottle of wine sitting on the kitchen counter top.

A long, gated celebrity style stone driveway gently climbs the hillside and makes a hairpin turn before terminating in a large motor court and two-car garage. A pathway lined with lush landscaping leads to the antique wood front door and a gracefully curving and prom dress worthy staircase with wrought iron banisters. The modestly sized house contains a living room with a fireplace flanked by French doors that open to a terrace, heavy wood-beamed and wonderfully vaulted ceiling and a lot of comfortable looking beige upholstered furniture and knick-knacks that look like they might have come out of some remote and rusty Italian villa. It's all a bit fussy looking and reminiscent of what a decorator might think a modern day castle ought to look like, but it's also a well conceived with lots of beige and muted shades of red. See children, there really is a way to do all-beige or mostly beige day-core in a manner that does not scream suburban mcmansion in an over-priced and homogeneous gated community. Anyhoo, the slightly too narrow dining room, done up in a Gothic, Knights of the Round Table sort of thing, has towering stone walls, a row of windows that open to the property's gardens and a dee-voonly over sized chandelier.

The galley kitchen may be narrow and without proper windows for ventilation, but it's fitted with a granite counter tops, expensive commercial grade appliances and honey colored wood cabinetry that looks like it's been stripped and pickled. Besides that mac-daddy range, this isn't what Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would ever choose to do with a kitchen, but at least it's not one of those cookie cutter numbers being oppressed with copious amounts of carved detailing, unnecessarily complicated corbels, and black granite or, jeezis help us all, one of those horrid tile murals of "Tuscany" installed on the wall behind the range. A cozy, nearby breakfast nook is lit by skylights.

There are more wood-beamed and vaulted ceilings in the master bedroom which has been did up all romantic-like with a fireplace, gold mirror, chandelier, and big bed, a real Utopian vision that's only missing rose petals and 100 candles. The amorous mood moves into the master pooper which mixes a monumental, free standing stone bathtub for two with a crystal chandelier and a view of into the tree tops.

The grounds and gardens of Miss Berry's Bev Hills hideaway climb up the hillside and are lavishly but comfortably done with stone pathways, potted plants, inviting terraces, an "L" shaped fire pit surrounded by a stone bench with comfy cushions and a half moon spa set up against the hillside and surrounded by verdant vegetation.

Although it's not clear to Your Mama when Miss Berry last occupied the residence–maybe this is where she shacked up while doing over her N. Doheny Drive digs?–some of the areas newest residents include Oscar nominated actress Amy Adams (Julie & Julia, Doubt, Sunshine Cleaning, Junebug) and her not nearly as accomplished but just as fetching fiancé, actor Darren Le Gallo, who recently scooped up a renovated ranch home on Benedict Canyon Drive for $1,825,000.

What's also unclear is if Miss Berry and her baby daddy have a New York City residence. The last Your Mama heard on that matter was way back in 2007 when our dearly departed friend Braden Keil wrote in his Gimme Shelter column in the New York Post that the comely couple checked out an $8,500,000 condo at at the Jean Nouvel designed 40 Mercer Residences in SoHo. It does not appear they picked up that condo but we would not be surprised to learn from Max Abelson at the NY Observer or one of the other New York City celebrity real estate watchers that Miss Berry bought something else.

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud Flips Out In Turin

SELLER: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
LOCATION: outside of Turin, Italy
PRICE: approx. €19,000,000
SIZE: 175 acres, 40+ rooms
DESCRIPTION: The renowned Castel of Castagneto Po, located on the slopes of the famous Turin hills, is in a lovely towering position and offers a beautifully panoramic view. The dwelling is surrounded by an English-style park with age-old trees of more than 70 hectares. The Family Bruni Tedeschi started important renovation works and turned it into one of the most refined dwellings in Europe as well as the venue of exhibitions and events of special artistic interest...

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: All the international real estate columns and blogs are atwitter and abuzz over Saudi billionaire biznessman Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud flipping the childhood home of fetching French first ladee Carla Bruni-Sarkozy back on the market just months after he purchased the historic 40+ room beast in the hills above Turin, Italy.

According to previous reports, the lavish living Saudi royal laid out around $25,000,000 for the humongous house in early 2009. Although some parts of house date back to the 11th century, listing information reveals that over the last several hundred years the regal residence has been rebuilt, remodeled, restored several times. The property stretches across approximately 70 hectores while the manse measures approximately 2,000 square meters, according to listing information. In Americanese, that's a whopping 21,528 square feet for the house and 173 acres for the land which includes orchards, flowering terraces, vegetable gardens, ancient greenhouses, a caretaker's cottage and a farm building of one sort or another.

The Castel of Castagneto Po was purchased for around $1,500,000 by arty-farty Italian industrialist Alberto Bruni Tedeschi–who was also an opera composer–in 1952. The Bruni Tedeschi family, whose wealth comes largely from tires, vacated the property in the early 1970s fearing reprisals and attacks by Marxist guerrilla groups who, at the time, were scaring the buhjeezis out of rich Italians. The family decamped for Paris but hung on to the historic property until early in 2009 when Miz Bruni-Sarkozy's mother Marisa Bruni Tedeschi sold it because, according to one report, "Nobody went there anymore."

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, who is worth more than a dozen billion dollars, clearly and quickly had a real estate change of heart after buying the castel because he reportedly never even moved a stick of furniture or a single dishdasha into the massive mansion before hoisting it back on the market with a reported asking price of around €19,000,000. According to Your Mama's trusty currency conversion contraption, nineteen million Euros translate to 28,396,070 American clams.

The Saudi prince lives like, well, a damn Saudi prince. He reportedly shacks up a 317-room palace complete with 1,500 tons of marble, gold-plated faucets, four kitchens, a 45-seat cinema and a bewildering 250 boob-toobs. The prince is said to own upwards of 250 automobiles and takes to the seas on arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi's former yacht, which he picked up when American real estate mogul and global blowhard Donald Trump went bankrupt for the second time. Apparently The Donald's 282-foot yacht is not quite big enough for the mustachioed mogul's platinum plated taste because he's reportedly commissioned a $500,000,000+ yacht expected to measure between 530 and 560 feet long when it gets dropped into the water sometime in 2010. Think about that children...that's almost twice as long as a football field which means it's not a yacht its a damn cruise ship.

The air travel options for the prince are no less mind boggling and booty clenching. The 50-something year old already scoots around the globe in a behemoth Boeing 747 custom converted to private use but he's also ordered an Airbus A380 to the tune of three hundred million smackers or more. For all the children who do know know, the Airbus A380 is a double-decker, wide body airborne beast that will seat as many as 850 people during commercial flights. Of course, Mister Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud's Airbus A380 will seat far fewer once he's spent $100,000,000 or more after having his over-hauled for private use. If rumors and reports are accurate, the flying mansion is scheduled to include a 600 square foot master suite, a game room, a desert themed lounge, and a damn whirlpool tub that can be emptied in seconds should it become necessary. Sorta makes this little castle in Italy seem like nuthin' but a little real estate child's play, don't it?

Oliver Hudson Lists West Hollywood Hideaway

SELLERS: Oliver Hudson and Erin Bartlett
LOCATION: Norma Place, West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $1,035,000
SIZE: 1,438 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Priced to sell!! Romantic and elegant updated 2+2 Spanish Home with detached guest house. Gated entry with Flagstone courtyard and fountain. Beamed ceiling, authentic style arches, picture window and fireplace. Updated, light filled kitchen featuring Granite countertops and office area with French doors leading to grassy backyard. Separate studio with kitchen and bath.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A couple of weeks ago, in late October 2009, Your Mama discussed the Los Angeles property recently acquired by Hollywood scion Colin Hanks, son of Tom. Today we're going to discuss the Los Angeles crib of another beneficiary of Tinseltown nepotism, Oliver Hudson. Mister Hudson is, of course, the son of Goldie Hawn and her ex-huzband Bill Hudson and the brother of Kate Hudson who is fast becoming better known for her dating activities than her acting chops. Anyhoo, about two weeks ago, the usually scruffy-faced Mister Hudson and his ack-turuss wifey Erinn Bartlett listed their West Hollywood, CA house with a price tag of $1,035,000.

For the past couple of years, Mister Hudson has starred in the silly sitcom Rules of Engagement opposite the diminutive comedian David Spade who, as far as Your Mama is concerned is one of the more spectacularly unfunny comedians making mountains of moolah in Hollywood. Mister Hudson previously appeared in The Mountain, Dawson's Creek and My Guide to Becoming A Rock Star, none of which Your Mama has ever seen. That's right butter beans, Your Mama never bothered to tune in to even a single episode of Dawson's Creek and we ain't afraid to admit it. Mister Hudson is married to and making babies with a blondie named Erinn Bartlett, a former beauty queen turned ack-tress whose rather lusterless resume includes one time appearances on the boob-toob programs Navy NCIS, Four Kings, How I Met Your Mother and Out of Practice as well as a bunch of petite parts in mortifying movies like Little Nicky, Raising Helen, and The Benchwarmer, a cinematic clunker in which she portrayed–the poor little lamb–the character "Salad Girl/Sarah."

Property records show the Norma Place property was picked up in January of 2004 for $912,000. The would have been, according to 411 we dug up on the interweb, just before the lovebirds made their engagement public. According to listing information, the Spanish casa measures 1,438 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 2 poopers plus a separate studio/guest house with another pooper.

The Hudson house is located in the tightly packed West Hollywood neighborhood known as The Norma Triangle. To the west is Beverly Hills, to the north the Sunset Strip and to the south and east the gay, gay, GAY city of West Hollywood. Your Mama loves nothing more, real estate wise, than a forbidding front facade and Mister Hudson's WeHo house presents a sufficiently and pleasantly unfriendly vibe with high hedges and solid wood gates that bar access to both the front courtyard and the back part of the driveway.

As in so many of the small casas in Los Angeles, the front door opens directly into the living room which has a huge arched window looking out at the fountain in the front courtyard, wood floors, a fireplace with a flat screen tee-vee mounted where there ought to be art, and a vaulted, wood beamed ceiling that is so dee-lishusly dark it almost looks charred. A trio of arches separates the living room from the dining room where a large arched mirror that mirrors the front window has been hung on the wall behind to the dining table which has been shoved up into the corner of the room. The dining area of the dining room is done up in a style that Your Mama might call "Mario Buatta goes to the Pasadena flea market" with mint green farmhouse chairs and built in benches lined with mint green and floral pillows.

Two walls in the dining room are covered with collections of mismatched framed photographs, presumably of the comely couple and their famous friends and family members. While we do think it's just lovely that Mister and Missus Hudson care enough about their peeps to have pictures of them in their home, we're is afraid all them bug eyed and smiling faces looking down towards the dining room table while we're trying to get our grub on would make Your Mama feel like an animal at the damn zoo. Perhaps this sort of homey photographic display is better left to a room where one does not eat...or evacuate, because let's be honest, most people don't care for an audience when performing that particular task either.

Beyond the dining room, a long kitchen has been fitted with blond maple cabinetry and flecked, black granite counter tops. Although it's all a tad country for Your Mama's particular decorative sensibilities and we loathe that freestanding piece of furniture in the middle of the room, it's really a nice sized kitchen for such a small house and we do love that baby Viking range and the French doors open the house to the back yard.

The ho-hum day-core makes a not entirely successful effort at sophistication in the cramped master bedroom and renovated bathroom where crisply white walls are set against chardonnay colored linens in the bedroom mottled champagne colored tile in the pooper. Someone rang up West Elm and ordered a $99 capiz shell chandelier for the ceiling and someone else thought it wise to mount a monstrous flat screen tee-vee mounted on the wall at the foot of the bed.

The small but cozy back deck has apartment house style wrought iron railings and leads down to a wee patch of grass dotted with swaying Queen Palms and the separate studio space which appears to be all done up like some kind of damn man cave. Lo-ward have mercy children, is there anything worse than the term "man cave?" Seriously, think about it. Mister Hudson's eyeball punishing "man cave" has putrid and patterned red wall to wall carpeting and a soul crushing butterscotch and brown vertical striped wall paper. Tucked behind a wall is a refrigerator and a stacked washer and dryer and pushed up against one wall is a poker table surrounded by six chairs with wheels–wheels!–that is lit by a stained glass light fixture so ass uglee Your Mama wouldn't wish it on the blind. It's all so damn tawdry and depressing it has Your Mama reaching for a gin & tonic and a big, fat nerve pill.

Listing information boldly declares the property is priced to sell at $1,035,000. We wonder if Mister Hudson knows that a beautifully renovated and similarly sized 3 bedrooms and 2 pooper house just two blocks away was listed on the 10th of October for $1,239,000 and closed just 19 days later at a significantly lower $975,000 negotiation? Something for him to think about when he gets his first offer. Presumably Mister and Missus Hudson are hunting for or have their eyes on bigger digs that will better accommodate their growing family. Your Mama wishes them all the best in their next home, wherever that may be.