Thursday, June 30, 2011
Simplifying my kit again...
I did this little video MONTHS ago, and never got around to uploading it! I'm always looking for ways to simplify and lighten my load.
Naturally, I've tweaked a bit since then...
I was doing this with the camera in the right hand and moving my stuff with the left, hence the slight...um...weirdness.
UPDATE: Jennifer Aniston, Lucky Lady
Thanks to a covert communique from Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills Your Mama has learned that the deal is done done done for Ohana, the Beverly Hills, CA mansion sit-com star and rom-com queen Jennifer Aniston heaved on the market in March 2011 with a hefty asking price of $42,000,000. That's right, kids, Miz Aniston sold her luxury real estate puppy in just over three months time.
According to a document provided by Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, the transfer was recorded on the 24th of June for an as-yet undisclosed amount of money. The spendy buyer's identity, not surprisingly, is shielded by a corporate trust. More on that later.
Despite Miz Aniston's optimistic-seeming asking price, qualified buyers flocked to the property and–we heard through the Platinum Triangle real estate gossip grapevine–at least two offers in excess of $30,000,000 quickly surfaced. Intel we received from friends and sources led us to speculate that the buyer might be Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich or maybe even Russian banking and fertilizer multi-billionaire Andrey Melnichenko.
We also heard whispers from the real estate peanut gallery that the buyer was not a Russian at all but rather a New York-based financier. At one point we heard something so odd and outlandish that we never mentioned it in any of our many previous discussions on the topic; We heard from a woman we'll call Stacy Outinleftfield who told us the buyer was a money man from Orange County (CA).
Well, dontcha know that according to the aforementioned document provided to Your Mama by Our Fair Godmother in Beverly Hills, Miz Aniston's estate was purchased by an entity that calls itself the Banana Trust that links back to the offices of a Goldman Sachs subsidiary in–tah-duh!–Irvine, CA.
We quickly put out a few feelers with some of our most well-informed informants. Within minutes of sending an email we heard back from a plugged-in real estate insider we know–let's call her Chatty Cathy–who floated the name of–are y'all ready for this?–a billionaire mutual fund manager from Orange County named Bill Gross.
After a scoot and scout around the interweb and a some drilling down into scads of public property records we found at least one other property in Orange County owned by Mister Gross and his wife–a gal named Sue–that links back to the same Irvine office as the Banana Trust. Coinky-dink? No. We consulted our all but omniscient informant Lucy Spillerguts who was able to confirm with absolute certainty that the buyers are Mister and Missus Gross.
Mister Gross, co-founder of Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), manages the Pimco Total Return Fund that maintains assets of nearly a quarter trillion dollars. No, babies, that is not a slip of our nubby fingers; Mister Gross's monster mutual fund actually holds assets of more than $240 billion. In 2008 Mister Gross's Pimco Total Return Fund profited an astonishing $1.7 billion dollars from the near-collapse of home loan juggernauts Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Forbes recently estimated that Mister Gross has a personal net worth just above two billion bucks.
A spin through Orange County property records reveals Mister and Missus Gross own several very posh pads in the OC that include (but are not limited to): An ocean front house in a gated enclave in Laguna Beach they've owned since at least 1989; Another, nearby house in Laguna Beach bought in December 2008 for $4,500,000; A cliff side house in Corona del Mar with panoramic ocean vistas he and the Missus snatched up for $8,100,000 in August 2006; A Newport Beach records show was purchased for an undisclosed sum in June 2007; And a perfectly ordinary tract house in an inland gated development in San Clemente they picked up in late 2006 for $1,040,000.
Records show Mister and Missus Gross also own an 11,316 square foot mansion that backs up to the golf course of the Vintage Club in Indian Wells, CA, a condo in Park City, UT and a condo in Cupertino, CA. They also, as per prop records, lay claim to a spectacular 7,091 square foot house on 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, CA that backs up to one of the famous fairways of what is arguably the most famous golf course in all of the world.
Although their property portfolio bulges with extraordinary properties, Mister and Missus Gross's real estate story didn't get really interesting until July 2009 when they spent a reported $23,000,000 to acquire an 11,000-plus square foot mansion on the gated Harbor Island enclave in Newport Beach, CA. The couple proceeded to demolish the 9 bedroom and 12 bathroom house but seem to have had a real estate change of heart and just this month flipped the now bare parcel back on the market with an asking price of $26,500,000.
Did Mister and Missus Gross catch a classic case of The Real Estate Fickle with the Newport Beach property? Did they decide they didn't want to deal with the hassle and time involved with building a mansion from the ground up? Or did they decide on entirely different digs, say, a newly renovated move-in ready celebrity-owned mansion in Beverly Hills?
Your Mama contacted Mister Gross's office for comment, confirmation or denial in regards to the purchase of Miz Aniston's Ohana, but have not yet received a response.
As for Miz Aniston, well, beehwatcha made out like a bandit. She paid $13,500,000 for the 9,000-plus square foot gated residence in Bev Hills, originally designed by architect Hal Leavitt, on November of 2006. Rumor and report has it she sold for somewhere around $37,000,000 although at one point we we're leaked the number $35,500,000. Of course her profit decreases dramatically when the massive renovation costs and fat real estate fees are considered, but Your Mama would not be the least bit surprised if Miz Aniston walked with ten million big ones.
Last month Miz Aniston purchased a pair of small apartments in New York City that she plans to combine into a small-ish but stylish duplex penthouse. The upper level–formerly the wee penthouse pad of hair honcho Sally Hershberger–spills out to a wrap terrace with seven million dollar views west to the glittering Hudson River and north to the twinkling Midtown skyline that includes the Empire State Building and–even better–the Chrysler Building. We hear she has a third unit, adjacent to the lower of the two she just bought, in contract as well but we don't have any proof of that, hunties.
Your Mama does, however, have it on quite good authority–two good authorities, actually–that Miz Aniston plans to maintain real estate roots in Los Angeles and has peeped a number of properties in the Sunset Plaza and Beverly Hills areas. Miz Aniston plans, it seems, to live a bicoastal life, the ultimate geographic real estate dream of almost everyone Your Mama knows.
Lucky lady.
According to a document provided by Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, the transfer was recorded on the 24th of June for an as-yet undisclosed amount of money. The spendy buyer's identity, not surprisingly, is shielded by a corporate trust. More on that later.
Despite Miz Aniston's optimistic-seeming asking price, qualified buyers flocked to the property and–we heard through the Platinum Triangle real estate gossip grapevine–at least two offers in excess of $30,000,000 quickly surfaced. Intel we received from friends and sources led us to speculate that the buyer might be Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich or maybe even Russian banking and fertilizer multi-billionaire Andrey Melnichenko.
We also heard whispers from the real estate peanut gallery that the buyer was not a Russian at all but rather a New York-based financier. At one point we heard something so odd and outlandish that we never mentioned it in any of our many previous discussions on the topic; We heard from a woman we'll call Stacy Outinleftfield who told us the buyer was a money man from Orange County (CA).
Well, dontcha know that according to the aforementioned document provided to Your Mama by Our Fair Godmother in Beverly Hills, Miz Aniston's estate was purchased by an entity that calls itself the Banana Trust that links back to the offices of a Goldman Sachs subsidiary in–tah-duh!–Irvine, CA.
We quickly put out a few feelers with some of our most well-informed informants. Within minutes of sending an email we heard back from a plugged-in real estate insider we know–let's call her Chatty Cathy–who floated the name of–are y'all ready for this?–a billionaire mutual fund manager from Orange County named Bill Gross.
After a scoot and scout around the interweb and a some drilling down into scads of public property records we found at least one other property in Orange County owned by Mister Gross and his wife–a gal named Sue–that links back to the same Irvine office as the Banana Trust. Coinky-dink? No. We consulted our all but omniscient informant Lucy Spillerguts who was able to confirm with absolute certainty that the buyers are Mister and Missus Gross.
Mister Gross, co-founder of Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), manages the Pimco Total Return Fund that maintains assets of nearly a quarter trillion dollars. No, babies, that is not a slip of our nubby fingers; Mister Gross's monster mutual fund actually holds assets of more than $240 billion. In 2008 Mister Gross's Pimco Total Return Fund profited an astonishing $1.7 billion dollars from the near-collapse of home loan juggernauts Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Forbes recently estimated that Mister Gross has a personal net worth just above two billion bucks.
A spin through Orange County property records reveals Mister and Missus Gross own several very posh pads in the OC that include (but are not limited to): An ocean front house in a gated enclave in Laguna Beach they've owned since at least 1989; Another, nearby house in Laguna Beach bought in December 2008 for $4,500,000; A cliff side house in Corona del Mar with panoramic ocean vistas he and the Missus snatched up for $8,100,000 in August 2006; A Newport Beach records show was purchased for an undisclosed sum in June 2007; And a perfectly ordinary tract house in an inland gated development in San Clemente they picked up in late 2006 for $1,040,000.
Records show Mister and Missus Gross also own an 11,316 square foot mansion that backs up to the golf course of the Vintage Club in Indian Wells, CA, a condo in Park City, UT and a condo in Cupertino, CA. They also, as per prop records, lay claim to a spectacular 7,091 square foot house on 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, CA that backs up to one of the famous fairways of what is arguably the most famous golf course in all of the world.
Although their property portfolio bulges with extraordinary properties, Mister and Missus Gross's real estate story didn't get really interesting until July 2009 when they spent a reported $23,000,000 to acquire an 11,000-plus square foot mansion on the gated Harbor Island enclave in Newport Beach, CA. The couple proceeded to demolish the 9 bedroom and 12 bathroom house but seem to have had a real estate change of heart and just this month flipped the now bare parcel back on the market with an asking price of $26,500,000.
Did Mister and Missus Gross catch a classic case of The Real Estate Fickle with the Newport Beach property? Did they decide they didn't want to deal with the hassle and time involved with building a mansion from the ground up? Or did they decide on entirely different digs, say, a newly renovated move-in ready celebrity-owned mansion in Beverly Hills?
Your Mama contacted Mister Gross's office for comment, confirmation or denial in regards to the purchase of Miz Aniston's Ohana, but have not yet received a response.
As for Miz Aniston, well, beehwatcha made out like a bandit. She paid $13,500,000 for the 9,000-plus square foot gated residence in Bev Hills, originally designed by architect Hal Leavitt, on November of 2006. Rumor and report has it she sold for somewhere around $37,000,000 although at one point we we're leaked the number $35,500,000. Of course her profit decreases dramatically when the massive renovation costs and fat real estate fees are considered, but Your Mama would not be the least bit surprised if Miz Aniston walked with ten million big ones.
Last month Miz Aniston purchased a pair of small apartments in New York City that she plans to combine into a small-ish but stylish duplex penthouse. The upper level–formerly the wee penthouse pad of hair honcho Sally Hershberger–spills out to a wrap terrace with seven million dollar views west to the glittering Hudson River and north to the twinkling Midtown skyline that includes the Empire State Building and–even better–the Chrysler Building. We hear she has a third unit, adjacent to the lower of the two she just bought, in contract as well but we don't have any proof of that, hunties.
Your Mama does, however, have it on quite good authority–two good authorities, actually–that Miz Aniston plans to maintain real estate roots in Los Angeles and has peeped a number of properties in the Sunset Plaza and Beverly Hills areas. Miz Aniston plans, it seems, to live a bicoastal life, the ultimate geographic real estate dream of almost everyone Your Mama knows.
Lucky lady.
Glenn Beck Takes it to Texas
WHO: Glenn BeckLOCATION: Westlake, TX
PRICE: around $20,000 per month
SIZE: 7,904 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We hesitate to write about this bit of celebrity real estate bizness because we always get the most vile hate mail when we discuss right wing political pundit and crybaby conspiracy theorist Glen Beck. However, we're going to take our chances and let the chips fall where they may since, you know, sticks and stones and all that.
In late 2005 Mister Beck and his wife Tania spent $4,250,000 for a luxurious mansion in sleepy but swank New Canaan, CT. Four years later, in late 2009, Your Mama prattled on about the huge house–dubbed Waterford Manor–that was then on the market with an asking price of $3,999,000. They had previously and unsuccessfully attempted to sell the house with an asking price of $4,999,000.
In early April 2011 Mister Beck got into some boiling hot water for his increasingly frequent anti-Semitic harangues. Not even Fox News, which promotes a socially and politically conservative agenda, could excuse or tolerate Mister Beck's race theories and and fear baiting ways. So they canned him. Everyone publicly made nice-nice about the matter but, make no mistake, Fox News sent their teary-eyed cash cow and his highly contentious notions packing. Mister Beck's last show on Fox is, as it turns out, today. He will switch his often controversial commentating over to GBTV, an acronymically-named internet-based network.
It wasn't long after he was very publicly axed that Mister Beck announced on his show that he'd sold his Connecticut mansion and planned to leaved the New York City area. We don't know how many folks in lefty-lib New York City mourned the loss of the Mister Beck–who lived in New Canaan but filmed his show in Manhattan–but we do know that property records and title information we peeped at do not reflect a sale of his Connecticut estate. In fact, our entirely unscientific research reveals Mister Beck's trés traditional mansion remains on the market with a reduced asking price of $3,650,000. Current listing information shows it stands on 2.8 acres, measures 11,320 square feet over four floors and includes 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 3 half bathrooms, 5 fireplaces, front and rear staircases and–natch–a "super" security system.
If he's leaving the New York area as he said, inquiring minds want to know, where or where will Mister Beck go? Well, buckle your safety belts, bunnies, because well-placed sources tell sassy Dallas-based real estate gossip Candy Evans that Mister Beck is headed her way, to the Dallas suburb of Westlake, TX where it's rumored and reported on the Second Shelters blog that he's leased a large house in the swank guard-gated Vaquero Club community.
According to Miz Candy Evans, the well-maintained mansion where Mister and Missus Beck will (allegedly) set down temporary Texas roots was first put up for lease at $15,000 per month before it was raised to $20,000. Presumably Mister and Missus Beck are paying somewhere in that rent neighborhood.
The Hill County-style house, owned by professional ball player Jorge Piedra and Swarovski crystal heiress Vanessa Piedra, stands on about 1.71 acres of manicured grounds, measures 7,904 square feet and includes 7 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms plus a separate guest/pool house with living room, bedroom and bathroom.
A curving wall extends across the front of the property where a perfectly circular drive at the front of the house wraps around to a rear motor court and four-car garage. A wide set of shallow steps makes a grand procession from the driveway to the front door. The clean-lined contemporary interior spaces include a double-height entry with travertine tile floor and built-in knick-knack display cubbies and a formal living room with hardwood floors, corner fireplace and a built in flat-screen tee-vee surrounded by built-in knick-knack display cubbies. Very chic steel-framed glass doors open the living room to the covered dining terrace that overlooks the back yard.
Not surprisingly, a pink Swarovski crystal-encrusted Tord Boontje-designed Blossom chandelier hangs in the high-ceiling dining room. A butler's pantry connects the dining room to the commodious kitchen outfitted with wide-plank wood floors, steel-blue flat-fronted cabinetry topped by black counter tops of undetermined material, a large work island and snack counter with white marble counter top and a built-in breakfast banquette with more built-in knick-knack display cubbies.
Other notable interiors spaces, according to listing information, include a study with even more built-in knick-knack display cubbies, a fitness room with mirrored wall, and a sun room with steeply vaulted ceiling from which hang two more pink crystal-encrusted Tord Boontje-designed Blossom chandeliers.
The children will note at least one more goddam pink crystal-encrusted Tord Boontje-designed Blossom chandelier that hangs over the deviled egg-shaped freestanding soaking tub in the master bathroom that also includes separate shower, double sinks and a built-in floating vanity table. Your Mama adores Mister Boontje's Blossom chandelier and would love to own one if we could stomach (and afford) the prodigious price tag which can run as high as $30,000+ depending on the size. We also recognize that Miz Piedra is representin' the family business. But, puppies, too much is too much and four Tord Boontje-designed Blossom chandeliers all in one house–and not all in the same room–is just too much.
Anyhoo, the house wraps around a terraced backyard that includes various patios, one with built in fire-pit ringed by a semi-circular built-in stone bench. An extra-wide stone staircase descends gently and grandly down to the swimming pool, spa, cabana and adjacent guest/pool house that features a pergola-shaded raised porch. Wide pooch-friendly lawns surround the pool and terraces and stretch back to the community's highly-rated golf course that winds through the Vaquero Club community.
Should Mister and Missus Beck find they like the house, it's currently listed for sale with an asking price of $3,900,000. Listing information indicates the seller is willing to finance a sale but it seems unlikely that Mister Beck–a multi-millionaire many times over–would need another rich person to assist in the finance of a real estate purchase. He is, let's get real, a rich and generously compensated white man; We're quite certain their are any number of banks and other financial institutions who would love to lend him a few million bucks to buy a big house in suburban Dallas.
The fancy-pants Vaquero Club enclave,"smack dab next to D/FW Airport" according to Miz Candy Evans, has long been popular with professional athletes such as golfers Brian Watts and Todd Hamilton, baseballers Dave Berg and Josh Hamilton, and pigsknner Henry Ford who all own (or owned) mansion inside the gates of the Vaquero Club at one time or another. The parents of pop trio and tween heart throbs The Jonas Brothers also own a substantial house in the upscale golf community.
listing photos: Keller Williams
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Katy Perry and Russell Brand Do It Again
BUYER: Katy Perry and Russell BrandLOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,500,000
SIZE: 8,835 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are not the only titans in the music and entertainment industry making real estate headlines this week, so are increasingly powerful showbiz young guns Katy Perry and her bawdy British comedian hubby Russell Brand.
It was only in December 2009 when the pop star and the comedian–then not married–shelled out $3,250,000 for a fully renovated and updated four story house with 4,706 square feet and a city view in the historic Los Feliz area of Los Angeles nestled into the foothills just below the magnificent Griffith Park.
Just about 2.5 years later, in May 2011, the button-pushing pair put the 4 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom house on the market with an asking price of $3,395,000. The fact that young Missus Perry-Brand's security team had to call the po-po in March 2011 after some moe-ron fan sat suspiciously out front of the house for several hours may or may not have had something to do with their decision to sell the gated but not particularly private property.
Listing information shows the couple's Los Feliz house is now in escrow and recent reports reveal that Miss Perry and Mister Brand–now husband and wife–have just acquired a much pricier and more private a-list type of residence about 5.5 miles due west in the lower Laurel Canyon area.
Property records show the couple's new crib, a double-gated 2.98 acre estate perched on a private promontory, was purchased just this week for $6,500,000. Listing information and previous reports on the property–sold by former National Lampoon CEO Danial Laikin who was sent to the slammer last year on a fraud conviction–shows the three-story main mansion was built in 1925 and measures 8,835 square feet with 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and at least 5 fireplaces. The expansive estate also includes two detached guest residences that could also be used for staff, office space or a recording studio.
Although without much ornamentation on the exterior, the tile-roofed Mediterranean mansion drips with exquisite (and original) architectural detailing on the inside. The two-story circular entry has a sweeping staircase with intricate wood and wrought iron banister, inlaid marble floor and faux-stone walls, or at least we think that block pattern is a paint treatment but in truth we really aren't sure. A pair of arched doorways lead into the magnificently proportioned living room that includes wood floors, double-height hand-painted wood-beam ceiling, monolithic stone mantelpiece and minstrel's balcony. A soaring arched window that makes Your Mama tremble with envy has towering side lights that open to a small terrace with panoramic view of the urban carpet that is Los Angeles. The adjacent formal dining room also has gorgeous city views but who can look out the window when the ceiling is blessed with an antique hand-painted honey-comb pattern ceiling?
Other living areas, according to listing information, include a vast eat-in kitchen renovated with great expense but middle-brow style, a family room with antique carved stone corner fireplace, billiard room, a media room with wide-screen projector system and built-in snack counter. But of course, the new Mister and Missus of the house may opt to redecorate and re-purpose rooms so the day-core and utility of the rooms shown in the above listing photos is all but irrelevant.
At the front of the house a broad lawn at the front of the house encircled by a circular driveway makes a rather grand statement while the various tiled terraces, patios and balconies that surround the house provide more intimate lounging, dining and entertainment areas. A grotto-style swimming pool, tucked behind the detached garage and guest house off the front driveway, nestles into the steep hillside that drips with lush foliage and a small stream spanned by a Japanese style arched bridge tumbles down a rock waterfall into the pool.
Your Mama wonders if Miss Perry plans to install the vintage-looking pink fridge/freezer at the new house that she had put into the kitchen of her old house in Los Feliz.
listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty / Beverly Hills
Ustad Guntur Bumi Bantah Hadiahi Rumah Rp 3.5 M untuk Puput
Rabu, 29/06/2011 22:19 WIB
Dre@ming Post______
sumber : detik
Jakarta Baru-baru ini beredar kabar setelah menikah dengan ustad Susilo Wibowo atau lebih dikenal dengan 
sebutan ustad Guntur Bumi, Puput Melati diberi hadiah rumah seharga Rp 3,5 miliar. Ustad Guntur pun buru-buru membantah kabar tersebut.
Hal itu disampaikan di rumahnya di kawasan Bintaro, Tangerang, Rabu (29/6/2011). Ia menjelaskan harga rumahnya itu hanya Rp 250 juta.
"Nggak benar itu, orang harganya aja cuma Rp 250 juta, itu aja belum lunas," tuturnya seraya tertawa.
Ustad guntur juga memaparkan bahwa dirinya bersama sang istri
tidak pernah membahas masalah harta yang mereka miliki. Namun ia menambahkan sebetulnya wajar jika istri meminta sesuatu kepada suami, dan kewajiban suami untuk memenuhi permintaan sang istri.
"Tapi wajar kalau perempuan itu materialistis. Karena saya sanggup, ya kewajiban saya untuk memenuhi. Tapi sebelum dan sesudah (menikah) Puput tak pernah meminta dari saya," ungkapnya.
sebutan ustad Guntur Bumi, Puput Melati diberi hadiah rumah seharga Rp 3,5 miliar. Ustad Guntur pun buru-buru membantah kabar tersebut.Hal itu disampaikan di rumahnya di kawasan Bintaro, Tangerang, Rabu (29/6/2011). Ia menjelaskan harga rumahnya itu hanya Rp 250 juta.
"Nggak benar itu, orang harganya aja cuma Rp 250 juta, itu aja belum lunas," tuturnya seraya tertawa.
Ustad guntur juga memaparkan bahwa dirinya bersama sang istri
tidak pernah membahas masalah harta yang mereka miliki. Namun ia menambahkan sebetulnya wajar jika istri meminta sesuatu kepada suami, dan kewajiban suami untuk memenuhi permintaan sang istri.
"Tapi wajar kalau perempuan itu materialistis. Karena saya sanggup, ya kewajiban saya untuk memenuhi. Tapi sebelum dan sesudah (menikah) Puput tak pernah meminta dari saya," ungkapnya.
Dre@ming Post______
sumber : detik
Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne On the Move...Again
SELLERS: Ozzy and Sharon OsbourneLOCATION: Hidden Hills
SIZE: 10,930 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6 full and 4 half bathrooms
PRICE: $12,999,000
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Doddering but charming rock legend Ozzy Osbourne and his busy-busy ambitious wife/manager Sharon sold their religious icon-laden mansion in Beverly Hills, CA in August 2007 for $11,500,000 to dirty songbird Christina Aguilera. Since then, Miz Aguilera made a baby, separated from her music exec hubby Jordan Bratman, signed on to a smash hit reality program The Voice, and heaved her no-longer happy marital house on the market in March 2011 with an asking price of $13,500,000.
The Osbournes, ex-pat Brits who live primarily stateside nowadays, decamped the meticulously manicured streets of Beverly Hills for the horsey guard-gated semi-rural/über suburban Los Angeles community of Hidden Hills. Property records and previous reports show the Prince of Darkness and his high-glitz power princess-wife/manager paid $12,388,500 for a substantial mansion with gorgeous vistas across the surrounding hills and towards the Pacific Ocean.
After a bit of bedroom reconfiguration and a doozy of a decorative do up by famed (and famous) nice, gay decorator Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, Missus and Mister Osbourne had their rambling, country-glam digs in the celebrity-packed suburban sticks photographed for the June 2011 issue of Architectural Digest. Missus Osbourne herself commented in the article that she and the mister get real estate "itchy feet" and have never lived anyplace longer than seven years. It should come as a surprise to no one then–least of all the folks at Architectural Digest–that yesterday Missus and Mister and Osbourne hoisted their mansion in Hidden Hills on the market with an asking price of $12,999,000.
Your Mama did a few quick and rudimentary calculations on our bejeweled abacus that indicate that even if the Osbournes manage to secure a full price sale–and what's the likelihood of that?–they might squeak by with a sliverish profit once they fork over the fat real estate fees that by our unscientific estimation could easily run upwards of half a million smackers. And that's not counting the high renovation and day-core costs that surely ran well upwards of a million clams.
Property records show the Missus and Mister Osbourne's Hidden Hills estate encompasses 2.25 mostly manicured acres and includes a mansion that measures 10,930 square feet. Current listing information shows the multi-pronged pad contains 6 bedrooms and 6 full and 4 half bathrooms plus a guest/staff apartment with kitchenette. The Architectural Digest article states that after they purchased the property, Missus and Mister Osbourne embarked on a renovation that narrowed the bedroom count down to three in order to make way for an expanded master suite that now includes extensive walk-in wardrobes, two luxe bathrooms and a pair of private offices, a paneled one for him and another for her decorated with black and white Cecil Beaton fashion photographs.
The children will–or should–recognize Martyn Lawrence-Bullard as the English guy on Million Dollar Decorator. Mister Lawrence-Bullard, bless his fey heart, is prone to grandiose statements like, "Symmetry is purity and purity is delicious" and swans around and calls everyone "daaahhhhrling" in a vaguely not-British accent. We love him and his hammy ways. Mister Lawrence-Bullard's heavily-processed decorative fancies have appeared in every shelter magazine known to (wo)mankind and he's well-known in the design and day-core industry for his high wattage celebrity clientele who include (but are far from limited to) Elton John, Cher, Kid Rock, Daisy Fuentes, and soft-core porn purveyor Joe Francis. Whatever one may think of his theatrical eclecticism, when it comes to putting a room together famous folks will spend big bucks–and we mean BIG bucks–for the scruffy designer's signature dramatic (and sometimes melodramatic) decorative flourishes.
Mister Lawrence-Bullard thankfully thinned the truckloads of religious iconography that Missus and Mister Osbourne had stuffed into their Beverly Hills mansion, which featured prominently in the family's early- to mid-2000s ground-breaking reality program The Osbournes. He did not, however, restrain the decorative pomposity for which he's famous (and good at) and the result is a madcap and often enchanting mix and match of old-school English country house, Gothic glam and Shabby Chic farmhouse, all of which is washed over with a hefty twinge of Versailles. It's terribly nouveau, really, but it's so damn quirky and, despite its lustrous sheen of artificiality, so deeply personal that it works...for the Osbournes. Mister Lawrence-Bullard recognizes that the house belongs not to his flights of fancy but to the Osbourne and as such peppered the couple's casually ritzy residence with their many kooky collections that include antique tea sets, cow-shaped things and dolls.
A curving drive climbs up to a stone motor court at the front of the house that has more than a few barn-like architectural garnishments such as the gambrel roof line and silo-like form that marks the main entry. Even though Your Mama's Big Daddy' lives in a house that looks suspiciously like a converted barn–it was never actually a barn–we don't care for this particular vernacular. Iffin we wanted to live in a damn barn we'd be a horse.
Anyhoodles poodles, the mansion's decorative lasciviousness smacks a person across the face immediately upon entering the house through the the double-height circular foyer that features a towering two-story wall of windows and a floating staircase painted jet black that curls like a kitten around a gilt-edged table that Architectural Digest described as "19th-century French." Your Mama, on the other hand would describe the table in a far less educated manner, perhaps, as a gilt-accented antique table that probably cost more than our BMW.
The formal living room–all red, rose and pink–features a fireplace with, ahem, a gilded angel statuette in front of it, a bowed wall of French doors, crystal chandelier and a lot of over-scaled brocade and silk upholstered furniture. In the formal dining room–which, in truth, looks magical in the glossy pages of Architectural Digest but a little frumpy in listing photos–French doors on either side of a Directoire-style fireplace with carved stone chimney breast open the room to the cool ocean breezes that sometimes drift over the mountains. Light from (a-may-zingly decadent) crystal wall-mounted chandeliers and a 19th-century French chandelier that hangs over the Lawrence-Bullard-designed table and chairs reflects and multiplies off the silver-leafed ceiling and the walls covered in a Chinoiserie-style silver painted-silk wall treatment.
The more intimate areas of the house include an exquisitely paneled library with fireplace, built-in bookcases and a tufted sofa covered in midnight blue velvet. If Your Mama knows Mister Lawrence-Bullard–and we do not know Mister Lawrence-Bullard–it's probably yummy-yummy and atrociously expensive silk velvet. The cook-friendly eat-in country kitchen has a large work island/snack bar with distressed red stools, an adjoining breakfast nook wrapped in windows with expansive view, walk-in pantry and commercial-grade stainless steel appliances. The kitchen was not, it seems, designed with a cubby for the microwave since listing photos show one sitting on the counter next to the stove. Call us persnickety but for thirteen million bucks, hunnies, we want to the microwave to have a built-in place of its own.
A pair of sliding barn doors open the kitchen to the white-washed family room with vaulted ceiling with exposed beams and trusses, antique brick fireplace surround, reclaimed wide-plank wood floors and, because this is the Osbourne's crib and everything must drip with glam, a trio of glittering antique crystal chandeliers. Mister Osbourne, according to Architectural Digest, likes to paint in this room. A narrow staircase near the kitchen, lined with Mister Osbourne's many gold and platinum albums, descends to the lower level outfitted with a home theater and state-of-the-art recording and rehearsal studios.
The master suite–probably larger and certainly far more glitzy than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's house, contains a sizable separate sitting room furnished with angels and velvet covered things and a large bedroom with vaulted ceiling, French doors that open to a private terrace, high gloss painted wood floors, and a fireplace flanked by a pair of stunning oval windows. We could do without the floral-printed balloon shades that look like the bottom of Marie Antoinette's dress, but the elliptical windows are, to use Mister Lawrence-Bullard's favorite word, fabulous. The master suite, as mentioned above, also includes his and her bathrooms, custom-fitted walk-in closets/dressing rooms and a pair of offices.
In classic southern California-style several terraces at the rear of the house extend the living space to the outdoors. A stone-walled covered patio with archways that frame the mountain views, has a soaring wood-beamed ceiling, outdoor fireplace and–for the always necessary glam factor–a chandelier. Adjacent to the infinity-edged swimming pool and spa–which includes a shallow kiddie pool too–a pergola shades a lounging/dining area with built-in barbecue center, terliting facility and outdoor shower.
We haven't heard a whisper from any of our sources inside the celebrity real estate game about where Missus and Mister Osbourne might next be headed but iffin we were the betting type–and we're not–we'd put all our chips on red 57 that they'll pack up their vintage tea set and doll collections and head on back to on of the high-toned zip codes in the Platinum Triangle: Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Holmby Hills. We shall see, buttons, we shall see.
listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Interview #12--Meet Laure Ferlita!
I first "met" Laure Ferlita online...no big shock there...and the better I know her the more impressed I am at her creativity, drive, organization, talent and helpfulness! If you've taken one of her classes, you're lucky enough to know her even better.
As I've identified things that I needed on location, I've added in those items. An example of this is a clear wax crayon to use as a resist. It's great for saving highlights and simple shapes like clouds. This saved me from trying to mask, reclaim or lift the highlights through scrubbing or scratching! Keeping your equipment to a minimum and knowing your tools intimately is one key to being successful sketching on location—whether it's virtual or in the real world!
--------------
-----------------
Thanks much, Laure, it's my pleasure, and I'm delighted to share you and your work with everyone!
Again, don't miss Laure's website:
http://www.laureferlita.com/LaureFerlita/Home.html
Or her blog:
http://paintedthoughtsblog.blogspot.com/
Or her wonderful classes! http://www.imaginarytrips.com/ImaginaryTrips/Welcome.html
 |
| This glorious piece is one of Laure's small watercolors--check her website for more! |
Laure is an accomplished watercolorist living in sunny Florida with her best friend and husband, Chris, as well as a host of critters. She fell under the spell of painting watercolors at the age of 15, as she watched a woman painting a Macaw parrot at an art show. However, it was to be years before Laure actually started to paint.
After a lengthy recovery from a car accident in her mid-20s, Laure decided to go in Graphic Design. As computers had not yet revolutionized the industry, Laure went to a trade school to learn to use an old-fashioned t-square, paste-up board, ruby acetate and a wax machine. (For those unfamiliar with those items, please use Google!)
Fast forward through 20+ years of design work for Fortune 500 companies to late 2007, when Laure learned her job was being outsourced. The opportunity to make a break from the bleak, gray cubicle walls presented itself 2 years earlier than she'd planned. Since Laure had been scheming and dreaming of an escape from Corporate America at the end of 2009 anyway, there was little doubt she was on her way out the door to another chance at an artistic life.
After some time off and the chance to get a read on her internal compass, Laure found herself with an unusual idea—the possibility to paint virtual locations without having to travel! After numerous conversations with artists, computer geeks, and friends, Laure decided to make a go of it. Loving travel, watercolors and journals, she couldn't think of anything much better than a life that combined the three and shortly afterwards, ImaginaryTrips.com was born.
Imaginary Trips has met with uncommon success and continues to grow in leaps and bounds with trips and visits to more than a dozen different locations as well as the Artful Journaling series that helps artists get started with watercolor journaling. Now, 18 months later, the sibling company, ImaginaryTripsMadeReal.com has just launched with an inaugural trip to New Orleans in November 2011. These adventurous trips are designed to allow the artist to take their newly honed skills to actually paint live in the locations originally painted virtually.
 |
| She even makes garden gloves look beautiful... |
So let's get right on to the interview!
Q - How long have you kept a journal, and why did you start?
A - Well, I've kept a written journal seen my late teens. It wasn't until about 5 years ago, when I saw some beautiful journal pages that incorporated both art and the written page, that I realized I was missing out on some fun! After just a few tries at combining art with my written thoughts, I was hooked!
A - Well, I've kept a written journal seen my late teens. It wasn't until about 5 years ago, when I saw some beautiful journal pages that incorporated both art and the written page, that I realized I was missing out on some fun! After just a few tries at combining art with my written thoughts, I was hooked!
 |
| Her skill with watercolors is astounding... |
Q - You’re a wonderful watercolorist—did the journal come first, or after?
A - I've been painting for 20 years. Journaling was a tough nut for me to crack....I have purchased dozens of beautiful journals throughout the years, each time thinking "This is the one! I'm going to fill this one!" However, those beautiful, pristine pages held me captive for the longest time. As a recovering perfectionist, I just knew I would mess them up! It wasn't until I made my own journals and started filling them, that I moved past the paralysis of the white page.
A - I've been painting for 20 years. Journaling was a tough nut for me to crack....I have purchased dozens of beautiful journals throughout the years, each time thinking "This is the one! I'm going to fill this one!" However, those beautiful, pristine pages held me captive for the longest time. As a recovering perfectionist, I just knew I would mess them up! It wasn't until I made my own journals and started filling them, that I moved past the paralysis of the white page.
Q - How did you come up with the idea of imaginary trip journals? (I’m using a bit in this chapter, which includes travel journals, and mentioning your classes.)
A - Imaginary Trips came about because of conversation with a cyber friend. This friend asked me if I taught and I replied "no, not yet." She next told me she would soon be moving to Europe, and if I was interested, she would host me! I decided I needed to get busy with the teaching, except I couldn't find any local venues for my classes. So I decided to go virtual. After running the idea by several artists, friends, and a couple of computer geeks, Imaginary Trips was created!
A - Imaginary Trips came about because of conversation with a cyber friend. This friend asked me if I taught and I replied "no, not yet." She next told me she would soon be moving to Europe, and if I was interested, she would host me! I decided I needed to get busy with the teaching, except I couldn't find any local venues for my classes. So I decided to go virtual. After running the idea by several artists, friends, and a couple of computer geeks, Imaginary Trips was created!
Q - How long have you been offering them?
A - Imaginary Trips has been offering classes since September 2009. There is a full lineup of classes for the next six months now at ImaginaryTrips.com, with a few more still to come. A quick Christmas in July starts on July 7th and then in August, we're going to Italy, then Paris and the NOLA!
A - Imaginary Trips has been offering classes since September 2009. There is a full lineup of classes for the next six months now at ImaginaryTrips.com, with a few more still to come. A quick Christmas in July starts on July 7th and then in August, we're going to Italy, then Paris and the NOLA!
Q - Do you do much actual travel?
A - I used to have travel quite often when I worked in Corporate America. Most of 2009 and 2010 have been dedicated to getting Imaginary Trips up and running.
A - I used to have travel quite often when I worked in Corporate America. Most of 2009 and 2010 have been dedicated to getting Imaginary Trips up and running.
I will be getting in more travel now as I have just launched a new venture, Imaginary Trips Made Real! This new company gives artists the chance to paint on live location using the skills acquired in the online classes.
Once again, the new company has been met with great enthusiasm. The inaugural trip to New Orleans in November 2011 only has two spaces left! I am so excited to begin traveling again and in the company of other artists! If anyone is interested in more information on the trip, they can visit www.ImaginaryTripsMadeReal.com.
 |
| This is one of Laure's evolving kits--she tells me she's tweaked it and moved on to new supplies, but still considers this very workable. You can click on it to see things more closely. |
Q - How do you choose what art supplies to suggest? As if people were actually traveling? What do you tell them to get?
A - When I first started to learn to sketch on location, I would haul half the studio with me (whether I was going to my own backyard, the beach, the mountains or another country)! I quickly learned that less really is more—all that stuff gets h-e-a-v-y! I also began to realize it seemed to come down to a few choice tools I used over and over. I didn't need the vast majority of the stuff I was dragging around! One of the things that helped greatly with this was realizing that I was going to sketch, or to capture the essence of a place rather than a finished painting created on location. By identifying the activity as sketching or plein-air painting, I could then sort out the equipment I needed for my adventure.
For someone new to sketching, I suggest using the same sketching tools over and over again whether they're going to the backyard, around the block or to the other side of the world—a basic palette, journal and a few well chosen tools like a waterbrush, mechanical pencil, white eraser, etc., permanent black pen and a white gel ink pen. Learn the capabilities of those tools by pushing them to see what they can and cannot do. Test each item thoroughly to see if it has enough value to stay in the kit. If you don't use a tool, why haul it around with you?
 | |
| You can see Laure's strong design background in many of her journal pages. |
--------------
And a personal note to me from Laure, which I'm including because she appreciates our fellow journal keepers:
Kate, I would like to take a moment and say thanks to you for this fantastic book and the opportunity to help people realize the fun there is in journaling, whether on location or at the kitchen table. I am so very proud to part of this book as well as humbled to be in the company of so many fabulous artists! I know you feel strongly about journaling. In the last five years, I've come to share those feelings as well. I simply can't imagine not keeping a journal. Again, thanks for including me and a tip of the hat to you for creating such a FANTASTIC book, the group blog, Facebook group and resources to help any artist get started or re-engaged with journaling!-----------------
Thanks much, Laure, it's my pleasure, and I'm delighted to share you and your work with everyone!
Again, don't miss Laure's website:
http://www.laureferlita.com/LaureFerlita/Home.html
Or her blog:
http://paintedthoughtsblog.blogspot.com/
Or her wonderful classes! http://www.imaginarytrips.com/ImaginaryTrips/Welcome.html
The short 2008 version...
 |
| As usual...I am IN the ocean! |
 |
| At Fisherman's Wharf... |
I spoke to the first International Sierra Summit in San Francisco in 2005, a wonderful, delightful, humbling experience! My sweetie met me there and acted as support and facilitator and carrier...and made sure I was FED. We really did the town! (You CAN get too much garlic, we discovered after eating at The Stinking Rose...
I got a new computer that didn't like my version of MovieMaker, but I've finally gotten an update and have been working hard to finish this project! I asked Sierra Club if I could make a slideshow CD of my presentation and they graciously agreed...
So...the new, complete version will be available on a CD, greatly expanded with PDFs and other bits and bobs...it's over 18 minutes long, at present, but I thought you might like to see a taste...
Thank you, Sierra Club!
Philanthropist Barbara Davis Lists L.A. Condo at a Loss
SELLER: Barbara DavisLOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,885,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week a little birdie whispered to Your Mama that Los Angeles doyenne Barbara Davis–octogenarian widow of oil and entertainment tycoon Marvin Davis–wants to move house. Sho enuf, puppies, her condo crib in a Wilshire Corridor high-rise near Century City in Los Angeles was just listed with an asking price of $1,885,000.
Helmet-haired charity types know the formidable but friendly Miz Davis as the she-rah behind the long-running bi-annual Carousel of Hope Ball, a lavish fundraiser for childhood diabetes that the L.A. Times once described as the "biggest, richest, puttin’-on-the-ritziest, arguably most successful and longest-running good-deed society event in town."
Tabloid and gossip glossy readers best know Miz Davis as the wealthy grand-muhmaw of a Tinseltown club hoppers and frequent trouble makers Jason and Brandon Davis. And, of course, the real estate fiends out there recognize Miz Davis as the gem-encrusted former chatelaine of The Knoll, a hulking Roland Coate-designed mansion perched on a gated 10-plus acre promontory above Beverly Hills, CA. The 25,437 square foot Georgian mansion was originally built for wildly wealthy widow Lucy Doheny Battson who moved from the legendary and even larger Greystone estate next door. The Knoll has had a succession of high-profile owners since the Doheny-Battsons including Oscar-winning producer Dino De Laurentis and country king Kenny Rogers who sold the high-maintenance estate in 1984 for $20,250,000 Mister and Missus Davis.
The Davis fortune was was once estimated to be as high as five or more billion bucks but the financial gossips have more recently pegged their shrinking fortune to somewhere in the neighborhood of half a billion clams, still wildly rich by any standard except that of someone who used to be worth five billion big ones.
After Mister Davis went to meet The Great Speculator in the Sky in 2004, The Knoll was put up for sale with an elephantine asking price of $59,000,000. It was sold in early 2005, according to property records, for $39,352,500 to tool and die tycoon Eric Smidt. Mister and Missus Smidt, who own one of the largest multi-parcel spreads in the steroidal Beverly Park community, hired mega-mansion specialists Hablinski + Manion to transform the white-brick Georgian into a Regency-style residence of epic proportions. The children may find it interesting to note that the 2008 taxes on The Knoll–which may or may not still be called The Knoll–ran a staggering $436,505.71 according to public records.
Anyhoo, in perfect west coast style, after Miz Davis sold The Knoll in 2005 she reportedly moved into a bungalow at the casually elegant (and sort of campy) but always fashionable Beverly Hills Hotel, which her husband, dontcha know, once owned. Eventually Miz Davis tired of hotel living and moved to The Wilshire apartment tower along the Wilshire Corridor near Century City. Title records show Miz Davis purchased the pad in May 2006 for $2,295,000, a number that means that even with a full-price sale Miz Davis faces a significant $410,000 loss.
This is not the first time Miz Davis has donned her silver lamé cowboy boots and rode the mechanical bull at this particular honky tonky; She's had her condo at The Wilshire on and off the market since March 2010. Current listing information shows the mid-floor unit measures 2,257 square feet–probably smaller than her bedroom at The Knoll–and includes 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.
A private elevator landing furnished with a rococo console–or maybe it's baroque, what do we know?–matching mirror and a framed photograph of Mister and Missus Davis sets the stage for the black and white marble floored foyer and main living spaces that include a "formal" living room with floor to ceiling windows, white wall to wall carpeting, flat-screen tee-vee mounted above the fireplace, built-in bookshelves and glass doors to the balcony. The day-core, somewhat particular to agéd west coast society matrons , mixes "modern" things such as the white roll-armed sofas and glass and chrome coffee table with fussy and stuffy 18th- and 19th-century antiques (and antique reproductions).
The black and white marble floor in the foyer continues down the long thin corridor that leads to the bedrooms as well as into Miz Davis's dining room furnished with a blackamoor or two, florid giltwood mirror and gilt-accented dining room chairs. Glass doors open the room to a small planted terrace with panoramic views. The dining room connects to the perfectly serviceable and well-equipped if out-dated galley-style kitchen with adjoining service entrance and laundry room.
It appears to Your Mama that Miz Davis uses the second bedroom–with private en suite facility–as an office which would be a far better place for the gigantic treadmill she has sitting right up next to her bed in the the master suite. Listen, children, Miz Davis is an old woman and we applaud her for getting herself some goddam exercise instead of just sitting around letting her bones go brittle. However, we just don't know how a person–particularly one who fancies herself a refined lady of dignity and elevated social stature–can close their eyes and drift off to a peaceful slumber with that body torture device looming over them in the most menacing of manners. In addition to the treadmill–which we imagine Miz Davis will take with her–the master bedroom includes built in bookcases, two walk-in closets and a beige marble and mirrored bathroom with two sinks and separate shower and jetted tub.
The Wilshire building, 27 stories tall and built in 1990, offers its well-heeled residents the ease and convenience of condo living in a city where high-maintenance landscaping is de rigueur and white-glove services that include doormen, on-site parking with valet services, 24-hour concierge and fitness facilities that include a swimming pool. Former famous residents of the building include Farrah Fawcett and Charlie Sheen.
Miz Davis and her Real Estate face some stiff condo competition right in her own building where a 2,084 square foot unit with 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms carries a price tag of $1,999,000. Another unit with 2,776 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms is currently listed at $1,885,000.
We hear through the high-society gossip grapevine that Miz Davis is considering a move two blocks down the road to The Carlyle Residences where–we're told by a snitch we'll call Willie Wilshireboolayvard–showbiz widda Candy Spelling recently leased temporary digs. Miz Spelling, currently in the process of selling her white elephant in the Holmby Hills for somewhere around eighty million clams, needed a place to camp out while the interior fittings of her new 16,000-ish square foot penthouse at The Century are completed.
listing photos: Unlimited Style Real Estate for Sotheby's International Realty
Monday, June 27, 2011
Plaster mask
Made by a student of grade 6
You need:- bandage plaster
- vaseline
- towel
- jar with water
- scissors
- canvas
- cloth tape
- tempera paint
- brush
- stuff to decorate, like feathers, stones, shells, ribbons
- glue
Work in groups of two students. 1. Put a towel around the shoulders and pull the hair off the face.
2. Coat the face well with vaseline, especially hair line, eyebrows and eyelashes.
3. Cut the bandage plaster in strips. Make the strips one by one wet and cover the face. Be sure the strips overlap a little. Leave the nose open.
4. Provide three layers plaster for a solid mask.
5. Remove the mask after 15 minutes.
6. Close the hole of the nose with a last plaster strip.
Outline the mask with a pencil on a canvas. Cut a hole in the canvas about 1 centimeter smaller than the mask. Push the mask through the hole from the back of the canvas and stick it to the front and back with cloth tape.
Paint the canvas and face with tempera. Decorate the artwork with feathers, ribbons, shells or strass stones.
Students of grade 6 with their masks
Some Good Ol' Fashioned New York City Floor Plan Porn
SELLER: Estate of Victor ShaffermanLOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $49,000,000
SIZE: 17,150 square feet, 15 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We are, perhaps, more than fashionably late to this particular real estate party so we ask that all you New York Times and New York Social Diary readers bear with Your Mama while we exercise our own thoughts about an immaculate and opulent New York City townhouse dropped on the market last weekend to great fanfare and media attention with a hefty asking price of $49,000,000.
Just after the turn of the century–we mean when the 1800s became the 1900s–a banker and railroad baron named Henry Cook built himself a right-proper robber-baron style townhouse directly on Fifth Avenue with a dignified Stanford White-designed limestone façade and Central Park views. Of course, when the palatial pile was built, Fifth Avenue was a charming tree-lined idyll bustling with carriages and buggies. Today it's an impressive tree-lined urban-idyll with a near constant flow of honking yellow cabs and idling black town cars.
The New York Times labeled the house an Italian Renaissance Palazzo sort of thing, which is probably exactly what it is. The august-looking townhouse was completed in 1907 but, sadly, Mister Cook went to meet the big bidnessman in the sky in 1905 so never saw his real estate fantasy in its final and exquisite form. He lived, and died, in a house a few doors down that was eventually razed and replaced by a Horace Trumbauer-designed monument to the wealth and power of tobacco and power tycoon James B. Duke, daddy of the legendary heiress Doris.
The townhouse in question last changed hands, according to property records and previous reports, in 1977 when a man named Victor Shafferman acquired the exceptionally well-preserved mansion for just $600,000. That's right, kiddos, six hundred thousand dollars, less than the price of a good one bedroom apartment in today's New York City. You have to remember, pets, that in 1977 N.Y.C. was not the glittering temple of consumerist gentrification that it is today but rather a nitty-gritty city suffering desperately through a tight economic squeeze. Back then a person could pick up prime real estate in The Big Apple for what is now just pennies on the dollar. Sort of makes a person rue the day they nixed the purchase of a $100,000 classic-six co-op on Central Park West in 1978 that today would be worth more than enough to maintain a luxurious early retirement.
Mister Shafferman, who went to meet his maker in the fall of 2009, was a somewhat odd character about whom not a lot of details are known by many. According to the New York Social Diary, Mister Shafferman scooted about town in a chauffeur-driven burgundy and black Rolls Royce and frequently told people he was an heir to the CIBA-Geigy pharmaceutical fortune. He was not, apparently, an heir to that particular fortune. It was later revealed to those who run in that uptown crowd that Mister Shafferman was actually born in Palestine and educated at public school in Canada. It's not entirely known how he came to his financial station but he was, later in life, a real estate investor who owned a building or two and plainly had the dough-re-mi to bed down in a vast private house on one of the most desirable and expensive streets in the world. He was also, incidentally and according to a pal we'll call Patty Cake, a Friend of Dorothy with a long-time significant other 30 years or so his junior.
Together the refined and somewhat mysterious man-couple did up the day-core in a flamboyant splendor rare even for über-urbane New York City. It's not really possible for a rube like Your Mama to speak with any kind of education or knowledge about about the fine particulars of Mister Shafferman's sumptuous old-school day-core that's peppered with 18th-century marble-topped gilded consoles, hand-stenciled commodes of terrifying value, bèrgeres by the dozen, elegant hand-milled boiserie–no doubt some of it shipped over from some 17th-century French chateau, monumental plaster moldings and scads of antique chandeliers that we'd bet our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly each cost more than Your Mama earns in a year.
The townhouse, one of precious few remaining single family homes situated directly on Fifth Avenue, sits near the busy corner of East 79th Street sandwiched between the Ukranian Institute housed in the majestic Charles P.H. Gilbert-designed Fletcher-Sinclair mansion and the French Consulate, designed by Stanford White for American scion Payne Whitney.Mister Shafferman's mansion stands six stories above ground and, according to earlier discussions, retains the original bifurcated layout defined by a baronial and mesmerizing floating elliptical staircase at the center of the house. The gracious haute-glam staircase, lined with leaded glass windows and carpeted in a plush, near lurid red winds with a taut sensuality from the ground floor all the way to the fifth floor. An elevator, able to lift and lower the infirm, lazy and/or glutially weak from the basement to the sixth floor, is discretely tucked into the hallway(s) off the stair landing(s) .
At about 25-feet wide and with seven full floors of living space plus a partial sub-basement with wine cellar, the mouth-watering mansion measures in at a titanic 13,775 square feet above ground with an additional 3,375 below street level. Wooden doors with lion head knockers open into a street level vestibule that in turn give way to into a hardcore impress-the-guests-style foyer that features the first of the mansion's many fireplaces; We counted nine fireplaces on the floor plan. Just beyond the foyer, the aforementioned high-drama stair hall, and beyond that a living room with fireplace. One flight up on the parlor level, a generous room-sized stair landing and barrel vaulted corridor separates the formal dining room at the rear of the house–with fireplace, natch–with an elegant if somewhat turgid mint-colored paneled drawing room with marble fireplace surround, gilded ceiling and moldings and towering windows that reach almost to floor and allow an over the tree tops view of Central Park
A small kitchen–blessed with a generous pantry uniquely located on a mezzanine level directly above–is wedged into a tight cranny behind the staircase, elevator and staff staircase. Yes, puppies, this house has a separate staircase for the staff so the filthy rich residents and their pampered guests won't have their eyes sullied by the paid help as they huff and puff up and down the architecturally righteous main staircase with armloads of a linens and terlit cleaning supplies. Floor plans show a second, larger kitchen in the basement, but it does not, unfortunately, show a dumb waiter that would connect the two kitchens and provide a direct link between the kitchen in the basement and the formal dining room two long flights up.
The more intimate and casual–if still a wee bit fussy–third floor library has paneled walls, wood-beamed ceiling and carved stone fireplace surround with what appears to be a hulking faux-stone chimney breast. Two over-sized windows offer park views and built-in bookcases filled with actual books, the sort of books that look like someone might actually have read them. Call Your Mama old fashioned–and goodness knows we've been called things far more vulgar–but we far prefer the warmth of books displayed this way, in their "natural" state, as opposed all covered the same colored paper jacket as done by so many of today's most popular decorators, i.e. Mary McDonald of Million Dollar Decorator. Far be it from Your Mama to knock a decorative trend promoted by many top designers but we think covering books in the same color paper jacket is little more than a cheap trick that sucks the soul from the books and downgrades them to decorative props.
A quick pass over the floor plan included with the property's marketing materials shows the monumental mansion contains a total of 15 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms. There are four principal bedrooms divvied up nicely for privacy on the third through the fifth floors. Each of the four main bedrooms has its own dressing room and private facility. The two largest bedroom suites–one on the third floor and another on the fourth–are connected via a secret spiral stair. When this house was built it was not uncommon for the Mister and Missus of the house to maintain separate boo-dwars. This clandestine spiral staircase, let's just call it a "nookie stair," made it possible for the homeowners to make booty calls without the live-in staff–who see everything and we mean every-damn-thing that goes on in a house–catching wind of their activities.
A children's suite at the back of the fifth floor contains three smaller bedrooms that share a single bathroom. The rabbit warren-like sixth floor–the staff quarters–encompasses 8 small bedrooms that share just two bathrooms. There's also a kitchenette and several walk-in closets for storing out of season uniforms. There is not, however, a communal lounge where the staff can all get together and gripe and gossip about their wealthy employers. Any of you people with live-in staff who thick they don't whisper about you behind your back are just being foolish. Of course they do.
Anyhoo, no doubt there's a short parade of high-toned, well-shod and financially-qualified buyers–some of them, no doubt, just filthy rich looky-loos–who are lined up to tour the Cook-Shafferman house. At the rate things have been going in the increasingly brisk extreme high-end of the real estate market, Your Mama would not be the least bit surprised if the listing agent called in all offers next week due to the significant and intense interest. We shall see, butter beans, we shall see.
listing photos and floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)