Scarlett Johansson Catches A Case of the Real Estate Fickle

SELLER: Scarlett Johansson
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,995,000
SIZE: 4,352 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama would like the children to put on their thinking caps and try to remember way back in April of 2009 when Your Mama floated the real estate rumor that actress Scarlett Johansson (He's Just Not That Into You, Vicky Christina Barcelona, The Other Boleyn Girl, Lost In Translation) was gearing up to list her Los Angeles crib. Our trusted informant Winnie Baygo snitched that the asking price was going to be, "around $5,100,000."

It only took 10 months, but Miss Johansson did finally and indeed list her house but not with an asking price of $5,100,000 but rather–are y'all sitting down with an especially stiff cocktail?–$4,950,000. Did anyone just hear Your Mama gasp and fall right down on the floor with with convulsions of shock and awe? Well, we did.

See puppies, Miss Johansson–who is also Missus Ryan Reynolds–purchased her 1931 Spanish style casa in the Outpost Estates neighborhood in May of 2007 for $7,000,000. That's right, seven million smackers. A couple quick flicks of the well worn beads of our bejeweled abacus reveals that even if ol' Lady Luck takes up Miss Johansson's real estate cause as a special case and the bee-stung lipped star manages to land a buyer willing to pay the full asking price she'll still be taking a financial blood bath to the tune of $2,050,000. And that, butter beans, is not even counting the boo-coo bucks she's laid out on what listing information calls the recently completed "extraordinary restoration" that included all new windows and doors and "massive system upgrades" including installation of a solar system for all the electric stuff. It also does not count the fat real estate fees she'll be forking over to her super successful celebrity friendly real estate agent that could easily be another two hundred grand.

We're positive some of you real estate Chicken Littles will jump for joy and puff your chests out with righteousness at the 28% drop between what Miss Johansson paid and its current asking price. But all Your Mama can think about is that most people won't ever even have two and some million clams let alone that much money to lose on a damn house because they caught a serious case of The Real Estate Fickle that seems to plague rich and famous people. What is wrong with these people? Honestly. We don't understand why Miss Johansson and Mister Reynolds don't just suck it up and live in this damn house even if its not the house of their Barbie dreams. Isn't that better than losing a couple million bucks? No? Yes?

Anyhoo, listing information indicates Miss Johansson's walled and gated mini-manse measures 4,352 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers. According to the taxman, the house has 7 bedrooms and 7 poopers. We're not sure why that discrepancy but it might be that the larger numbers include the staff quarters and/or that one or more of the original bedrooms has been put to use as something other than a bedroom.

The driveway of the double gated property passes under a porte cochere and leads around to the motor court and four car garage. Many of the interior rooms, including the living room and dining room open to a loggia that wraps around a vast atrium space with tile floors and a soaring glass ceiling. Your Mama can only hope that glass ceiling is treated with some sort of reflective material and/or that electronic shades have been installed to modulate and ward off the harsh rays of the southern California sunshine otherwise that atrium will heat up and go hoo-mid like a damn hot house.

It appears to Your Mama that the kitchen has been recently remodeled by Miss Johansson and her team of nice, gay decorators. Complementing what may or may not be the original teal tile work are lower cabinets in a matching teal and white upper cabinets. According to listing information, the cooker is kitted out with "Big Chill" style appliances, which means they look retro. Not a choice Your Mama would have made for a five million clam casa but maybe Miss Johansson likes retro. At least some of the property's poopers retain their original tile and fixtures. One, according to listing photos, has yellow tile with green accents and another has pink tile installed all the way up the walls and over the barrel vaulted ceiling. This pooper has green tile accents and a yellow sink and bathtub. It's all a little visually assaulting and somewhat disturbing to imagine being nood in, but it's also kind of great if you care for a quirky vintage look.

Terraces with canyon and city views at the back of the house cascade down the hillside and there is a a long, dark bottomed lap pool and spa, winding gravel and rock lined pathways, several grassy areas and gardens.

We're not even sure Miss Johansson ever occupied this house in any kind of meaningful way because as sure as we are that there's a couple of bottles of gin chilling in the freezer right this very minute we know that the interiors of this house were staged. We'd be surprised if Miss Johansson or Mister Reynolds owned a stick of the furniture or a swatch of the fabrics in the house. Had the two of them occupied the house–and maybe they did, maybe they didn't, what do we know?–they would have been surrounded by famous neighbors including the soon to be single Charlize Theron, happily married Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, Orlando Bloom, and director David Lynch.

This is not the first time in recent real estate memory that Miss Johansson has taken a loss selling a property. In April of 2008 she sold her 66 Leonard Street loft for $52,000 less than the $1,950,000 she paid for the place in January of 2006.

In the spring of 2009, when all this whispering about Miss Johansson selling her house Los Angeles began, Your Mama had a chit chat with The Easter Bunny who told us that he heard through the celebrity gossip grapevine that Miss Johansson and her huzzbund Mister Reynolds were hightailing it to Noo York City where, in April of 2008, she forked over $2,100,000 for a 2 bedroom and 2 pooper penthouse apartment on East 53rd Street.

photo: Pacific Coast News

Jeffrey Katzenberg's Big Real Estate Deal

BUYER: Jeffrey Katzenberg
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $35,000,000
SIZE: 8,704 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We can't resist a big-ass real estate deal, partick because they've become so few and far between since the economy went swirling down the terlit largely due to exploding real estate markets and some sort of freaky financial instrument called a credit default swap that even most Wall Streeters can't explain in a manner a lay person let alone a booze house like Your Mama can understand.

Anyhoo, word is starting to slip and slide down the gossip grapevine that Jeffrey Katzenberg, wildly successful film producer and the co-founder and current CEO of DreamWorks Animation, has dumped somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000,000 for a 6.34-acre hilltop estate in Beverly Hills. The house, located on a promontory above the famed Greystone Mansion, was sold by Simon "Si" Ramo, the 90-something year old physicist/engineer otherwise known as the father of the Intercontinental ballistic missile.

The taxman shows Mister Katzenberg's new crib, a single story contemporary sprawler built in 1965, measures 8,704 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 8 poopers, 1 fireplace and a 5-car garage. A massive motor court large enough to park a charity event's worth of luxury whips fronts the house and there are also, natch, a tennis court and a swimming pool and spa where Mister and Missus Katzenberg can paddle about while looking out at the glittery lights of Los Angeles below.

Since the property was not on the open market, that's about all Your Mama knows until we hear from one of our well connected snitches who feeds us a little more 411 about some of the properties details and finer aspects.

Mister Katzenberg, who is believe to be worth about eight or nine hundred million dollars, will be moving from a 5 bedroom and 6 pooper mansion in the Bev Hills flat that records show contains 9,173 square feet not counting the square footage in the two-story structure adjacent to the swimming pool. The house sits directly across from the mansion that television talking head Larry King–who has been married 8 times to 7 women and looks about 30 years older than he is–and his much younger wife Shawn bought in February of 2007 for $11,500,000.

Mister Katzenberg and the Missus also own a uber-modern Gwathmey Siegel designed spread sitting on 150-feet of Carbon Beach, Malee-boos most expensive stretch of sand. The forbidding front facade that faces Pacific Coast Highway peels open to a courtyard flanked and surrounded on one side by the main house and on the other the guest quarters. Together the two structures form an ocean side courtyard with a swimming pool, and a good sized swathe of unnaturally green grass. Property records show the compound contains almost 10,000 square feet of interior space with 5 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. Lo-ward have mercy, that's a lot of damn terlits in a weekend house. Anyhoo, Gwathmey Siegel also designed a Utah wilderness house for Mister Katzenberg, although we're not certain where exactly that house is.

Your Mama wonders if Mister Katzenberg has already sent Mister Siegel a retainer...Hmm. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Eddie Cibrian Selling at a Loss in Calabasas

SELLER: Eddie Cibrian and Brandi Glanville
LOCATION: Calabasas, CA
PRICE: $2,349,000
SIZE: 6,610 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to The Rolling Stone we've learned that ack-tor Eddie Cibrian and his soon to be ex-wifey Brandi with and "i" Glanville have recently listed their Calabasas, CA residence with an asking price of $2,349,000.

Oh mercy, children, where does one begin with this Mister Cibrian person? Sure, he's a tall drink of beefy water if you like a bulging manscaped chest and a booty so big and firm it looks like a couple of damn basketballs. But, let's get serious here for a jiffy. After his tawdry extra marital affair with cuckolding country music super star LeeAnn Rimes that began while they were making film flop Northern Lights and the nasty name-calling and subsequent feuding with Brandi with an "i" that has been over-publicized in the tabs, do his professional achievements even matter?

Just in case any of y'all do care about his career as an small screen sexpot, Mister Cibrian began his boob-toob life in the mid 1990s as a–surprise!–a soap stud on The Young and the Restless and then later on Sunset Beach. He went on to regular roles on Third Watch, Vanished, and Ugly Betty. He currently works his "acting" stuff on CSI Miami. Your Mama does not know what Miss Brandi with an "i" does (or did) for a living but we do know she popped out two shorties with Mister Cibrian and in addition to working the stripper pole in the former couple's master bedroom, we imagine she's bizzy raising up them kids and, by some accounts, poisoning their little minds with negative references to their father.

Property records show the Mister and soon to be ex-Missus Cibrian paid $2,500,000 for their big tract house located in the gated Mountain View Estates community in January of 2008. This was shortly after they sold their previous house–an ass-uglee residential beast in Encino, CA–for $4,300,000 to controversial comic Carlos Mencia who is often accused–usually by comedian Joe Rogan–of stealing jokes. Anyhoo, Mister Mencia's material aside, a quick consult with Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals that Mister Cibrian and Miss Brandi with an "i" are looking at taking at least a $150,000 loss on this house and that's before any of the fat real estate fees are paid.

Listing information indicates the 6,610 square foot quasi-Italianate includes 6 bedrooms and 6.5 poopers including a master suite with fireplace, custom closets, beige wall to wall carpeting, two poopers and, the children will please note, a stripper pole mounted at the foot of the damn bed. Now that, my precious pets, is what klassy with a "k" is all about. But, of course, what else might one expect from a gal whose name is Brandi with an "i" and a man who (allegedly) made a bad habit of sleeping around on his wife? Listen babies, we're all for folks getting down, dirty and fuh-reeky in the bedroom, but let Your Mama offer all you married ladeez a word to the wise: Iffin your man wants to install a stripper pole in your marital bedroom, you can be pretty damn sure he's going to want to see scantily clad beehawtchas who are not you working that thing. Don't believe Your Mama? Install a damn stripper pole and let us know what happens.

Anyhoo, the sort of Italianate, two-story suburban mansion has a tile roof, a soaring arch over the front porch and quoins. That's right, quoins. Like in most of these ballooned up tract houses out in Calabasas, the front door opens into a grand, double-height, impress the guests style entrance hall with a black and white checkerboard pattern marble floor and a curving, Norma Desmond style staircase. We're sure the children will skewer and lambaste Your Mama for saying this, but we rather like the floor. It's classic, elegant and gives the house a dose of dignity.

To the left of the entry is the living room that has herringbone patterned wood floors, a coffered ceiling, fireplace with a limestone surround and some swagged red drapery that looks like something straight out of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. We're also not pleased that someone thought it wise to put a pool table in the formal living room. It wasn't. There is also a formal dining room and a very 1990s upper end tract house kitchen with white cabinetry, dark colored counter tops and a huge work island threatened by a pot rack loaded up with plants and a few itty bitty looking pots and pans.

The Cibrian's back yard, which backs up to open space, is a classic suburban paradise if you like a classic suburban paradise. There is a dark bottomed swimming pool, surrounded by boulders and baby palms trees and waterfalls, a spa, a couple of covered seating areas, a built in barbecue center, and fruit trees. Who doesn't love a tree of fruits?

According to the always impeccably well informed Lucy Spillerguts, Mister Cibrian has decamped for a 5 bedroom and 5.5 pooper Spanish style residence in the gated Mont Calabasas community. It appears to Your Mama that Mister Cibrian has leased the 4,709 square foot house that based on our wee bit o' research was last listed with an asking price of $10,500 per month furnished.

Our sources indicate that Miss Rimes has relocated her Nashville area mansion–that she listed for sale in May of 2009 with an asking price of $7,450,000–to the star studded and guard gated community of Hidden Hills where since October she's been shacked up in a horsey house with 5 bedrooms and 6 poopers that happens to be just down the street from the high priestess of the lezbeeuhn rocker chicks Melissa Etheridge and her wife, former actress Tammy Michaels. It does not appear that ex-Missus Sheremet purchased the property that was recently listed for purchase at $2,999,000 and for lease at $10,000 per month.

Given that Miz Rimes and Mister Cibrian are still humping around with each other and given that both of them are on their way to the court of dee-vorce in order to shed their respective spouses Your Mama certainly wouldn't be surprised if one of these officially moves in with the other. The only question is will it be Hidden Hills or Calabasas? We shall see, we shall see.

photos: The Shevins / Prudential California Realty

ABOUT ME

My name is Leslie. I am a Home Maker.

I am also a homeschooling mom and housewife.

I am also a Certified Interior Decorator, Home Stager and Home Organizer.

But, my main career is homemaking.

I live with my loving & tolerant husband, Mark, a really funny 16 year-old daughter & another part-time (a sophomore in college, she usually comes home on the weekends) really logical 20 year-old daughter. My four-legged children are playful ferrets named Claire & Sylvia (whom we call the little sisters) & a four-finned red Betta named Buster.

We live in a cul-de-sac in a white house with a red door & a bistro set on the front porch in Greenville, SC, with spiral (think Disney World) evergreen trees on either side of the porch & hydrangea bushes of every color in the backyard.

I spend my days in various places around the house: spending quiet time in the morning with my Lord, doing laundry or organizing something, sewing a slipcover here & a button on there, trying a new recipe, planning the week's menus or loading the dishwasher, laughing & chatting in our basement cafe' with new & old friends, listing things on etsy, eBay, Amazon or browsing Craigslist, hovering over the younger daughter as we homeschool & tinkering in the yard.

When I'm not doing those things, I'm usually daydreaming, taking a nap, taking pictures, making piles throughout the house of this & that, painting anything that's not moving or reading a book.

All of these simple, mundane tasks added up over the past 20 years* have turned a house into our home.

I love vintage cottage-y things, ironstone & toile, flea markets & estate sales, birds & bunnies, a hot cup of Lady Earl Grey & Jim's Organic Coffee, baking fresh triple berry scones & dark chocolate anything, seashells & cloches, parties and celebrations of life, travelling & then coming back home, hugs & kisses, but most of all I love turning ugly & abandoned things into beautiful & useful ones, for this is what Jesus' love has done for me!

(Our Eat-In Kitchen island before)

 

(and after)

What am I talking About?

Here you will find inspiring, creative, thrifty and fresh ways to make your house into a home. You will discover that what truly matters is not the furniture, the wall colors, the flooring or the accessories within the house--or even the house itself--but the heart that gets put into the making of a home.

When I talk about home making, then, I don't mean merely the keeping & decorating of a house & its rooms, but of our letting Jesus be keeper & maker of our heart & the "rooms" in it.

He is the One who transforms the messes into methods, clutter into calmness. He transforms the places in our hearts to reflect His likeness: love, redemption, grace, peace & holiness, and He wants to live in and be welcome there. Ephesians 2:22 says so: "And because you belong to him, you too are being built together. You are being made into a house where God lives through his Spirit."

Interior decorating is really His specialty!

So, as Jesus transforms us on the inside, 
may our house be transformed into a home as well!

(Most of the pictures here will be of my own home and homes that I have helped others add their hearts to. If they aren't my pictures, I'll tell you so and put the link with them.)

I'm so glad you stopped in & you are welcome here any time!

*Over the last 20 years, these are a few of the activities I have had: MOPS coordinator, Wilton Cake Decorator, Interior Redesign/Home Staging/Organizing, homeschooler (12 years so far), crisis pregnancy counselor, Financial Peace University Class Coodinator (with Mark), built 2 homes, seamstress, Once a Month cooker.

Your Mama Takes On Tracey Ullman's House

SELLERS: Tracey Ullman and Allan McKeown
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,350,000
SIZE: 5,574 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Who doesn't love a little kismet? Over the weekend Your Mama watched–on the TiVo–the opening episode for the third season Tracey Ullman's State of the Union on the Showtime. Within minutes of the program ending–BLAM!–we received a covert communique from The Rolling Stone who whispered in Your Mama's big ear that Miz Ullman and her producer huzband Allan McKeown recently listed their Pacific Palisades pad with an asking price of $5,350,000. That's kismet, kiddies. Kiz-met.

Being a British gal and all, Miz Ullman started up her ladder of fame across the pond appearing in a number of sketch comedy programs including Girls on Top with the dee-voon Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. In the mid-1980s she had a number of hit songs–yes she did–and in the late 1980s, the funny ladee hightailed it for Hollywood where she did it up royally on The Tracey Ullman Show. Some of you children may be too young to remember this showbiz tidbit, but the high-sterical and wickedly satirical animated series The Simpsons–which happens to be the longest running sitcom in television history–was spun off Miz Ullman's program. Yes it was. Anyhoo, Miz Ullman went on to do Tracey Takes On... in the late 1990s, became an American citizen in 2006 and most recently she created and stars in Tracey Ullman's State of the Union in which she lovingly skewers political, social and pop culture in America.

Your Mama don't care what anyone else thinks about this, but we are of the satirical (and maybe cynical) mind that American life could use a little lampooning every now and then and we think beehawtcha is 12 kinds of smart and funny. Miz Ullman's 11 American Comedy Awards, her Golden Globe Award, and her 6 damn Emmys plus 11 more nominations think she's funny too. Not bad for a high school drop out.

Property records show the Mister McKeown and Miz Ullman–whose is officially, legally, Missus KcKeown–purchased their 1920s Spanish style mansion on a palm tree lined street in the Riviera section of sleepy, family friendly Pacific Palisades in September of 1988 for $1,800,000. Listing information indicates there are 5 bedrooms and 6 poopers in the walled, gated and high-hedged hacienda, although it appears to Your Mama that one of the bedrooms and one of the poopers is contained in a detached guest house that also includes a full kitchen. Our space craving and tyrannical house gurl Svetlana would pee her pants with glee iffin Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter put her up in her own little house tucked up at the back of the property. But alas...

Miz Ullman's house is clearly not nearly as funny as she is although it's not without it's quirky and even whimsical decorative moments. The front door opens into a dramatic, double height foyer with traditional Spanish tiles on the floor and overhead a small rotunda that from the exterior is perfectly appropriate but from the inside looks a bit heavy handed to Your Mama. Particularly when paired with the theatrical almost farcical staircase that splits in the middle to become two staircases and the monumentally sized arched window at the rear.

In addition the the large living room decorated in a manner that sort of makes Your Mama feel like no one ever ever ever goes in there, there is also a dining room with an antique chandelier and a Biedermeier-esqe dining room table surrounded by eight chairs with leopard print cushions. We do so prefer to see a rug on the floor in dining rooms and strongly feel this room would benefit from something deep and dark colored on the floor to ground the space and really set the details of that table off. Your Mama was not going to mention the wine-rack/boo-fay thing on the back wall, but we can't help it: Tracey, hunny, no. Do not let the movers pack that up and move it anywhere but the dumpster. Seriously. And the orchid? Jeezis. Really?

The family room and the kitchen are open to each other. In general we ain't got nuthin' to beef about in there and in fact we love that sofa built into the large, curving wall of paned glass that's evocative of the sleek streamlined moderne style. We also find the cooker to be sufficiently gore-may with commercial style stainless steel appliances with loads of white cabinets including the glass fronted uppers to soar all the way to the ceiling. Nice touch. What we find more than just a wee bit disturbing are the bleached wood floors. It's not that we don't like bleached wood floors it's that the rest of the house has honey colored wood floors. With all the Spanish tile and all the honey colored wood, the addition of a third floor color seems a little disconcerting, even schizophrenic. That issue, however, is easily fixed Anyone who can afford a five million dollar house can surely afford to install new wood floors that match the rest of the house.

Your Mama loves and appreciates the Miz Ullman and Mister McKeown have chosen to maintain the original tile in at least some of their six poopers. We well realize that a certain type of bathroom sybarite will find these vintage 1920s poopers to be insanely out of date and lacking in a few modern conveniences–like, say, counter space–but we love them. We particularly cotton to that blue one with the yellow shower curtain. But then again, Your Mama isn't much of a groomer–tis true–so we don't really require much counter space for lotions and potions and bottles of elixirs that promise eternal youth. We can easily get by with a few inches on either side of the sink for the toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.

Out back, beyond the central courtyard and across a patch of green grass are a swimming pool and spa with an adjacent guesthouse and spa facilities that include a sauna and indoor spa room painted up in a particularly alarming shade of acid green. Ordinarily we hoot and holler and clap like crazy when we come across a house wherein someone had the decorative cajones to work some bright colors into the palette. Lo-ward knows Your Mama is so sick and ti-erd of all these tone on tone beige houses that subscribe with an almost religious fervor to the damn fool notion that a home needs to be done up in a neutral manner so as not to offend the decorative sensibilities of all the people who don't even have any decorative sense. We thinks that's hogwash.

However, when you take that acid green and marry it to rose colored accents and baby blue tile work, you've got yourself a real live four alarm decorative fire. So, while we do give Miz Ullman deserved credit for stepping way outside the beige box of banal day-core, this particularly egregious crime of chromaticity is not one that Your Mama cares for nor is it one we can safely recommend replicating in your own home. Lo-ward Miz Ullman, iffin we were you–which we are clearly not–we'd be paralyzed with fear of being sued by a guest walking into that room and going instantly blind from charred retinas. In the interest of public safety, Your Mama feels that we must suggest to Miz Ullman and her real estate people that they put a big bucket of dark glasses and a strongly worded warning next to the door letting people know that they're about to be physically and mentally assaulted with a powerful and potentially painful phosphorescence. It's the decent thing to do.

Anyhoo, why Miz Ullman and Mister McKeown would, after all these many years shacking up in there Spanish mansion, decide to sell up is a mystery. Perhaps they're looking for something even more celebrity style? Or maybe they're downsizing now that both of their children are college age? Perhaps planning on spending more time their home in the U.K.? Whatever the case, Your Mama sincerely wishes them a happy new home, much success with her funny new tee-vee programs and the good sense not to take any extra cans of that acid green paint to their next home.

source: Sotheby's International Realty

The Find

Sitting on the curb, amidst the overgrown weeds, is a piece of furniture. At least that's what it looks like at first glance.
The brakes squeal, the pick-up truck slows to a stop.
The driver hops out on to the street and makes his way around the backside of the truck, stopping to let the tailgate down.
As he approaches the abandoned cast-off, he smiles, knowing that this is exactly the conversation piece he has been looking for.
He imagines what color it should be re-painted.
He imagines what hardware it needs.
He imagines what its use will be.
He imagines where it will be placed in his home.
Upon closer inspection, he realizes that this piece is really rather ugly.
It is chipped from use and is in serious disrepair.
Years of abuse have carved irregular, misshapen tracks in the surface that will need to be sanded and patched.
The chipping paint reveals so many layers that the original finish is unrecognizable.
A faint, strange odor emanates from it.
As the restorer leans down to scrutinize it with keen eyes, he runs his hand over the surface, and realizes that this is actually a rare work of art.
He can't wait to get to work refurbishing it!
He carefully lifts and carries it to the flatbed and carefully slides it in.
A sigh and knowing nod of liberation of this heirloom, accompanies the slamming latch as it locks.
On the drive back home, the rescuer drives delicately, so as not to disturb the find.
His driveway welcomes the gravel-crushing wheels of the pickup, but this time, when the driver hops out, he skips to the tailgate, releases and delivers his new belonging to his workroom.
The craftsman lifts the find to the top of his dropcloth-covered workbench and pulls the cord above the bench to illuminate the area.

He then flings the windows open wide and switches on an old fan that hums as it sweeps fresh air across the room.

His first order of business is to remove the heavy layer of dirt and grime covering the surface.

A gentle wash with soap exposes the true irregularities.

He pulls on a pair of well-worn gloves and takes a just as well-worn brush and applies varnish remover across the entire outer surface which instantly dissolves the first layers of paint.

After inspection, the refinisher decides that this procedure must be repeated twice more, over the top and down the sides.

The fumes permeated the air more quickly than the fresh air could dissipate them, yet he cannot leave his endeavor until it's true finish could be seen.

After considerable scraping of the loose material, sanding, wiping of the dust, brushing of the intricate areas until all the residue is gone, the man grins in delight.

After all, to him patience is the best refinishing technique.

The first glimpses of the original hidden luster are spied!

It's time for revitalization with an oil.

Soon, the workroom is filled with the sweet-smelling fragrance of this distinctive balm.

After the find has received its new covering, the man steps back and with his whole countenance beams his approval.

The delicate intricacies of the carvings now gleam in the light, its unique designs once again, revealed.

Promptly, he takes up the find and carries it inside his home with pride.

As he transfers his new treasure to its new spot, he tenderly sets it down, and gently whispers to the find.

He tells her that never again will she be abused and neglected.

Never again will she be set outside as rubbish and abandoned.

He tells her she this is her new home and invites her to stay with him forever, all the while, calling her by her name: Leslie.

.

Timothy White's Picture Perfect Penthouse

SELLER: Timothy White
LOCATION: W. 54th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $4,495,000
SIZE: 4,101 square feet, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen buttercups, Your Mama is all kinds of mad crazy with a bunch of tidbits and this and thats that we can no longer shove to the bottom of our hunny-do list. Therefore we can't spend as much time as usual rambling and exercising over celebrity owned property today. None the less, we don't like to leave the children without their fix so we're going to offer up a wonderful little piece of New York City real estate porn in the form of a penthouse pad in Hell's Kitchen that y'all can drool over and grouse about.

According to property records, the 4,101 square foot penthouse high atop a West 37th Street building known as the The Glass Farm House is owned by a man named Timothy White. Now children, Your Mama knows that unless you're in the glitzy and glammy world behind the scenes of the ugly machine that spins regular people into high powered celebrity products you probably haven't got a clue who this Mister White person is. We can, however, promise y'all that you've seen Mister White's handiwork more times than the number of gin bottles in Your Mama's recycling bin. And there are, lads and lassies, a lot of bottles in that bin.

Mister White is, in fact, a celebrity photographer who has shuttered and snapped the mugs of just about anyone who is somebody who might grace the pages celebrity-centric magazines, walk the red carpet, appear in an advertisement or be splashed up on a billboard pushing a movie or selling some shit. A short list of Mister White's long list of famous folks who have sat for the flash of his bulb and the snap of his lens might include Nic Cage, Halle Berry, Samual L. Jackson, Jim Carey, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Drew Barrymore, Ashton Kutcher, Liza Minelli, and Queen Latifah,

Mister White's work may not have the surreal deliciousness of David LaChapelle, the sexed-up charm of muscle-bound Mike Ruiz, the raw emotion Richard Avedon or the glossy adoration that meets a messy kind of self-consciousness that Your Mama feels Annie Liebovitz's work does, but he's none the less a screamingly successful photographer with a less edgy and more celebratory vibe and enviable Rolodex that reads like a who's who of Hollywood.

Mister White first moved into the building way back in 1984 when he rented two apartments in the building, one for living, one for working. In May of 1991 he paid $300,000 for a penthouse and a year later bought the adjacent penthouse, also for $300,000. He worked in one and lived in the other. Sometime around 1997, according to previous reports, he moved his photo studio to a West 54th Street carriage house and subsequently merged the two penthouses into one large penthouse. In the early 2000s, he renovated. Based on a New York Times article from 1999, it appears he scaled back his original plans which involved adding a second floor.

It used to be that Mister White's neighborhood was called Hells Kitchen. It just so happens that Your Mama is a mite more than a little familiar with the area having, in the early nineties, briefly shared a dumpy triplex apartment with an unbalanced young lady who really knew how to cop a 'tude over no damn thing and possessed some of the ugliest knees Your Mama has ever seen. That's right babies, she had ass-uglee knees. (You know who you are bee-hawtcha.) Anyhoo, way back then the long blocks and night time corners of the far West 30s crawled with some of the devil's delights: streetwalkers and drug dealers. Nowadays that neck of the Manhattan woods still a bit gritty but mixed with any number of high priced condo buildings with doormen who like to keep the riff-raff moving right along. Developers and gentrifiers have tried to re-dub the neighborhood as the much more benign sounding "Clinton" but it'll always be Hells damn Kitchen to Your Mama.

But we digress as usual. The folks at Street Easy reveal that Mister White first put his penthouse on the market way back in March of 2007 with the fat asking price of $5,800,000. There is also some evidence Your Mama squeezed out of the interweb that indicates the top floor unit was available even before 2007 with an unlikely asking price of about eight million clams. Whatever the case, as time as rolled by, a harsh kind of real estate reality began to set in and the priced dipped and dropped to it's present price tag of $4,495,000.

The children will note that although listing information indicates this is a 2 bedroom and 2 pooper penthouse, one quick look at the floor plan reveals that, really, it's a 1 bedroom and 2 pooper property unless there is some damn fool willing to pay four million bucks for a penthouse that requires them to walk right through the guest bedroom in order to enter the master bedroom. No. Thank. You.

One of the architectural situations Your Mama would like to call y'alls attention to is the all glass ceiling that's not only hovering above the 43-foot long living/dining area but also the "guest" room, the master bedroom and the master bathroom. We are certain that electronically controlled shades have been installed that help filter and soften the harsh light of the sun and we'd be surprised if the glass itself was not treated with some sort of reflective bizness but we can't help but to think that after a long night of gin & tonics a person could quite easily forget to close the shades thus frying them like a bug under a microscope come morning time.

The highlights of Mister White's penthouse include the full wall of built in cabinetry that flanks the fireplace, the nearly 1,400 square feet of south facing terrace space, and the double dressing rooms on either side of the sky-lit master restroom. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter can comfortably share a pooper but, have mercy children, had we to share closet space it would get messy between us real fast. We don't mean messy as in clothes on the floor, we mean messy like claws out cat fighting that would most definitely end in blood and tears not to mention a d.i.v.o.r.c.e.

Mister White has had his penthouse on the market for coming up on three years–at least–but given that Wall Street is handing out huge bonuses this year maybe he'll get a little real estate lucky and some bachelor hedge hog with a wad of cash the size of a Cadillac will come along and finally take his picture perfect penthouse off his hands.

The children may find it interesting to know that for most of 2008, Mister White was performing a real estate double whammy. In March of 2008, after his penthouse had been on the market for at least a year, Mister White also listed his above mentioned photography studio, housed in a four floor limestone and brick carriage house (plus basement) on West 54th Street. He first listed the property at an almost suicidal $10,200,000. The asking price eventually sank to $8,600,000 but the fully renovated and unsold commercial space was taken off the open market in September of 2009. The 25-foot wide and 7,500 square foot building does, however, still appear to be for sale or for rent for an undisclosed amount of money.

The building includes a very desirable curb cut with a drive-in garage with oak floors on the ground floor where, according to a New York Times article from 2008, Mister White housed his antique car collection. The garage holds up to five cars, which would be more than enough for most Manhattanites most of whom don't even own 1 car, but in 2008 Mister White's car collection had ballooned to 25 so that deeply desirable 5-car garage became not quite so functional for him. He planned, at least he planned to in 2008, to move his photography operation to the Hamptons. We don't know if Mister White made this move and we're, in all honesty, too bizzy to check right now.

Mister White's luxurious work space also includes, according to marketing materials, a state of the art kitchen, 3.5 high end poopers, a dressing room and a dressing area, several studio spaces–one of which has a fireplace–a floor through office area, and a forth floor space with a roof terrace on the north side and an even bigger roof terrace on the south side.

Should Mister White manage to unload either his penthouse or his studio space he'll likely come out ahead of the financial game, but until then he's sitting on a couple of quite pricey white elephants that have been for sale for a long time with no takers serious enough to sign on the multi-million dollar dotted line. Good luck darlin'.

We were not, as usual, nearly as compendiary as we planned and we are late, late, late so we gotta run, run, run.