'Putin's Palace' Mysteriously Sold to Russian Billionaire

Back in late January 2011 real estate gossips around the world were salivating and foaming at the mouth over the scandalicious reports in Russian media outlets that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was allegedly and secretly engaged in the construction of a vast and palatial mansion in the Black Sea resort town of Praskoveevka. The controversy was not that Prime Minister Putin might want a holiday house . He is, after all, a very wealthy man who can surely afford to buy or build a large and luxurious holiday house at the beach. The real scandal was that a man who claimed business connections with Prime Minister Putin publicly alleged in an detailed open letter to a Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that the prime minister was using state funds to pay for the project.

The story got it start back in 2009 but didn't get any real traction in the international media and blogsphere until early January (2011) when a clandestine cache of photographs of a titanic tsar-worthy residence was leaked by an anonymous individual and posted on Ruleaks, a naughty naughty website that publishes Russian translations of documents posted by the naughty naughty folks at Wikileaks.

Despite the publication of what Novaya Gazeta claimed to be a copy of the original contract for the purchase of the property signed in 2005 by Vladimir Kozhin, the Kremlin property manager, Prime Minister Putin publicly denied through his press secretary Dmitri Peskov that he had any involvement in or ownership of the mall-sized mansion.

All the denials by Prime Minister Putin and his people, however, did not stop the press from dubbing the place Putin's Palace. It didn't help Prime Minister Putin's desire to deny ownership that there were first hand reports of the prime minister visiting the property numerous times and it really didn't help that at least one report in the Russian media claimed a desk bearing the Russian coast of arms shown in the leaked photos is identical to one in Prime Minister Putin's Novo-Ogaryovo residence.

The latest reports to slip-slide down the international real estate gossip grapevine reveal that the bloated Neoclassical meets Italianate villa was recently sold. That's right, sold. Now buckle your real estate safety belts, butter beans, pour yourself a stiff gin & tonic and get a nerve pill down in you because the Putin's (alleged) palace was reportedly sold for around $350,000,000. That is an utterly obscene amount of money by any stretch of the imagination but it's also a far cry from the billion bucks it has been reported were spent on the construction of the colossal affair. Either the reports of the billion dollar construction costs were erroneous or the property was sold at a death-defying $650,000,000 loss.

The property was formally owned and sold by a man named Nikolai Shamalov who happens to be a b.f.f. of Prime Minister Putin. It was acquired by Russian billionaire businessman Alexander Ponomarenko who told the Russian media that Mister Putin's alleged ownership was little more than "rumors and journalist fiction" and that the property is slated to be a hotel and commercial complex.

Previous reports indicate the house (or hotel or whatever) measures in at an unbelievable and unrealistic sounding 750,000 square meters, a figure that Your Mama's conversion contraption shows amounts to a ridiculous 8,072,999 square feet. Just to give the children some perspective, that's about 45-times the size of the average Wal-Mart Supercenter and about 325-times the size of one of the 25,000 square foot mega-mansions in the steroidal Los Angeles enclave of Beverly Park.

However humongous the house (or hotel or whatever), the timing of the sale, just weeks after the international media shit storm regarding the costs and alleged ownership, is certainly suspicious ain't it?

photo: Ruleaks

Working with the Weather--art tips!

A very quick sketch near the library on a cold winter day...

I added color later, from memory, when I had more time.  I HAVE had the water freeze in my waterbrushes before, but you can warm and thaw them in your hand if need be.  Just don't stay out too long!

One of the things in our poll at right was dealing with the weather.  I find that I sketch in my journal winter and summer, indoors and out, and it's good to be prepared.  There's nothing wrong with working from your car or out a window, of course...the important thing is to keep making those records in our journals, to keep observing and celebrating life.

Do what you can on the spot, make notes, add color later, take a quick photo and paste it in...whatever's necessary!

You may have seen correspondent Nina Khashchina's post on  Snow Sketching--fun and full of great ideas.

I always go out on January 1, no matter what...for this one I worked fast with a colored pencil, and added the color, again, later.  I'd forgotten water or colored pencils, anyway. 

Some of you may know I offer free art tips on my website, and have for years.  (You can find them HERE at upper left--we're up to #112 now, and old ones are archived as PDFs.)   Since I've done a couple on working with the weather, I thought you might like to see them!

The first one covers sun, wind, heat and rain, for those of you in warmer climes:

http://www.cathyjohnson.info/tips/tip44.pdf

And you'll find "Sketching on the Spot in Cold Weather here:  http://www.cathyjohnson.info/tips/tip84.pdf

Sketching in Nature correspondent Elva Paulson wrote a post about write-in-the-rain paper--you can find it HERE.  Looks like fun!


Please, share your OWN favorite tricks for dealing with weather!

It's Official: Jennifer Aniston Lists Beverly Hills Mansion

SELLER: Jennifer Aniston
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $42,000,000
SIZE: 10,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A couple of weeks ago Your Mama passed along the celebrity real estate news that just months after completing and extensive expansion and flawless multi-million dollar renovation sitcom star and rom-com movie queen Jennifer Aniston had quietly floated her Hal Leavitt designed and Stephen Shadley re-worked residence in Beverly Hills, CA on the market with an astronomical asking price of $42,000,000.

We don't typically like to toot our own horn, hunnies, but toot, toot, toot. Despite that fact that most major celebrity news and tabloid gossip outlets did not credit little ol' Your Mama with breaking the juicy story–you know who you are–we were indeed to first to let that particular cat out of the Bev Hills real estate bag.

Anyhoodles poodles, the official listing for Miss Aniston's Asian and Balinese-inspired single-story sprawler called Ohana has finally hit the interweb and, just as we first revealed, the asking price is set at a bone chilling $42,000,000. Listing information shows the gated and (mostly) private mansion sits on nearly an acre of land and measures around 10,000 square feet with a total of 5 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms including the staff suite and expansive master bedroom outfitted for the perennially single Miss Aniston with two bathrooms that feature steam showers, sunken tubs and a Japanese Ofuro tub.

The voluminous but cozy living spaces include two living rooms–one with a wet bar and the other wrapped in dee-voon rosewood paneling–several dining areas, a gourmet kitchen and a separate catering kitchen for large parties and events.

The wood, glass and stone residence is equipped with state-of-the-art smart house technology, extensive security systems, a home gym, an equipment room (whatever that is), heaps of storage space, a 3-car garage and motor court. The vast walls of floor to ceiling glass seamlessly merge the luxe interior spaces with the resort-style grounds that include large terraces, various water features and, natch, a celebrity style infinity-edged swimming pool and spa with 180-degree views from downtown to the Pacific Ocean.

Miss Aniston purchased the property in November of 2006 for $13,500,000.

Rumors and reports have swirled the last few weeks that the Emmy and Golden Globe winning Miss Aniston is contemplating a move to New York City where she moved with her family in the mid 1970s as a young girl and lived until the late 1980s when she relocated to Los Angeles. Maybe she is and maybe she isn't moving to New York. We don't really know. What we do know is that rumors of Miss Aniston's real estate doings continue to slip down the gossip grapevine and into our inbox. Last week Hermione Hightower–a gal who has been inside Miss Aniston's crib–told us that she heard one of the myriad of reasons that Miss Aniston wants to sell her newly completed crib is that the residents on the north side of the star-studded Sierra Towers building have a magnificent view into her backyard.

Although it's hard for us to actually believe, this week it was whispered in Your Mama's ear by a trusted informant that Miss Aniston recently went for a look-see at the Beverly Park mega-mansion owned by The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Lisa Vanderpump, listed off-market with a spine tingling asking price of $29,000,000. For a woman who publicly stated that–and we paraphrase–that her house was too big and grand for her a mansion in Beverly Park would be little more than jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

listing photos: David Glomb for Coldwell Banker Previews International

Jason Segel Spreads Out Above the Sunset Strip

BUYER: Jason Segel
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,849,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As it turns out late night chat show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel isn't the only high-profile Tinseltowner to recently create a small compound up in the hills behind the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.

In March of 2007, property records show actor/writer/producer/composer/comedian Jason Segel forked over $2,240,000 to purchase a 2,876 square foot Spanish-style casa with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.

Thanks to our friend and informant Lucy Spillerguts we've recently come to understand that in May of 2010, Mister Segel paid another $1,849,000 for the two-parcel spread immediately next door to his previously purchased residence. In addition to the 5 bedroom and 3 bathroom faux French Normandy chateau-style residence called the Villa Chateau (shown above) the property has a private swimming pool with brick terrace that with a nip and tuck could be every bit as sensational as the fabled oval cement pond at the Chateau Marmont.

Put on your thinking caps, children, and recognize that Your Mama does not know or claim to know a damn thing about Mister Segel's real estate motivations as they relate to the purchase of this property. However, we can imagine that it may one day prove a savvy investment. If hotelier Andre Balazs–the cosmopolitan proprietor of the Chateau Marmont–ever wants to expand his historic hotel the proximity of Mister Segel's properties might just make their annexation highly desirable.

Six-foot-four Mister Segel is best known for his affiliation and professional collaborations with budding Hollywood honcho Judd Apatow and his role on the long-running sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

Extra celeb real estate tidbit: Mister Segel's house sits sugar-borrowing distance from the fully-renovated Spanish-style residence that Oscar-nominated actor/artist (and Academy Award show host) James Franco sold in February of 2010 for $3,300,000.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

Jimmy Kimmel Kreates a Kompound Above the Sunset Strip

BUYER: Jimmy Kimmel
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,250,000
SIZE: 1,962 square feet, 3 bedrooms 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in late 2008 late-night talk show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel scooped up a newly constructed and very contemporary crib up in the swanky star-studded hills behind the iconic Chateau Marmont Hotel on the Sunset Strip.

The Jay Leno mocking Mister Kimmel paid, according to property records, $6,000,000 for his crisp and clean-lined wood and glass residence that measures 5,500 square feet includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in the main house. A separate structure offers an office area, home theater and guest or staff quarters with private facilities.

Property records now show that in January of 2011 the same real estate trust associated with Mister Kimmel's kontempo-krib up behind the Chateau Marmont snatched up the property immediately next door paying $1,100,000 for the 1,962 square foot single-story dwelling that includes 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Don't Your Mama know a damn thing about nuthin', of course, so what Mister Kimmel plans to do with the property is a real mystery.

Mister Kimmel's nearby neighbors include celebs like John Krasinski and Cameron Diaz. Emmy winning screenwriter Ryan Murphy (Glee, Nip/Tuck, Running With Scissors) still owns (and badly wants to sell) a Carl Maston-designed mid-century modern-style house just up the hill from Mister Kimmel but presumably the budding tee-vee tycoon has already moved or will soon move to the Ralph Flewelling-designed hacienda in the flats of Beverly Hills that he bought in September 2010 for $10,o00,000 from actress and house flipper Diane Keaton. Miz Keaton, we heard recently from real estate yenta Kenny Kissintell, has set up temporary house in fish-lipped actress Meg Ryan's stunning Spanish style mansion in Bel Air that happens to sit right next door to the Richard Neutra-designed digs of smoldering fashion guru turned filmmaker Tom Ford.

Anyhoo, records indicate that Mister Kimmel continues to own his previous home in the Hollywood Knolls neighborhood of Los Angeles that he bought in May of 2002 for $925,000 as well as a house in the seaside enclave of Hermosa Beach, CA located a short block-and-a-half from the beach and that records indicate he bought in May of 2004 for $1,650,000.

listing photos: Prudential California via NeighborCity

In the style of Gaston Chaissac

You need:

1. drawing paper A3 size
2. tempera paint in primary colours
3. brushes
4. jar with water
5. paper towels
6. bold black marker
7. black construction paper
8. glue or stapler

The French painter and writer Gaston Chaissac was born in 1910. He came from a poor family and was often ill. In 1934 Chaissac moved to Paris and worked as a shoemaker.
He lived in the same house as the German artist Otto Freundlich. It was through the friendship with Freundlich that Chaissac developed the desire to become an artist. He trained himself as an autodidact, supported and promoted by Freundlich. Freundlich also introduced him to the Parisian art scene.

Chaissac exhibited his works in 1938. During his stays at a sanatorium because of his tuberculosis in 1938 and 1939, Gaston Chaissac used the time to paint and draw. After his wedding he moved to the Vendée.

The artist bridged this isolation in the countryside through lively correspondence with gallery owners, authors and artists in Paris. Although Chaissac endeavored to establish a connection with the artist community, he was only valued as an artist by a small circle of gallery owners, journalists, and friends.

As a result, he didn't receive the expected recognition during his lifetime. Chaissac worked as a tireless experimenter and used materials that he found for his works of art - newspapers, shells, peels etc. He painted on every substrate available to him, created pen and ink drawings, watercolours, oil paintings, collages and unusual three-dimensional works. The artist was sometimes classified by Jean Dubuffet with the 'Art brut'. Chaissac himself called his work rather rustic modern.

Gaston Chaissac died in 1964.

Without title, © Gaston Chaissac

View photos of the work of Chaissac and especially the work above. Discuss the salient features: bold black lines that separate colour planes, little depth, simply drawn faces, white planes. What would those white planes mean?

I chose this painter also to repeat colour mixing skills. The students draw on their sheet one head and one or more limbs. Put a pencil mark in these planes, because they have to stay white.
Then divide the sheet with wavy lines into small areas. Students choose two primary colours and use them to mix several colours. Paint the different planes with these mixed colours. Start with the brightest colour and and add more and more of the darker colour.

When the work is dry, outline every colour with a black marker. Bumps will disappear. Finally draw eyes, nose and mouth in the face. Paste or staple the work on black paper.

In the style of Gaston Chaissac, by students of grade 3

Dane and Gayheart Settle in the Post Office

BUYERS: Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $2,400,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen children, Your Mama has a number of celebrity real estate tidbits and morsels that have been cluttering up our trusty laptop computer for too long and it's high time we vanquish them to the 'been-there-done-that' dust heap. We're going to start the arduous process with the Beverly Hills (Post Office) property snatched up way back in June of 2010 by married television stars Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart.

Sadly we know far less about Miz Gayheart's professional achievements than we do about her sometimes bumpy personal life. She got her start in the early 1990s as a fresh-faced model for Noxema but in early 2001 that image was tarnished when she ran over a 9-year old kid in a crosswalk and killed him. It was not, of course, on purpose. She later appeared in a couple of television shows including Nip/Tuck (2004-2006) and Vanished (2006). She hasn't really worked much on the boob-toob the last four or five years but she has performed on Broadway in Steel Magnolias and Boeing-boeing.

Although he's made a few appearances on the silver screen with roles in Burlesque, Valentine's Day and Marley & Me Mister Eric Dane's real claim to Hollywood fame and fortune is, of course, as Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan on the television hospital (melo)drama Grey's Anatomy, a role he's worked and worked and worked since 2006.

The couple made a baby girl they named Billie that was born in the March of 2010, about a month before they closed on their new country farmhouse-style crib in the Beverly Hills Post Office. Eight or so months before that, an embarrassing home video was released that showed the couple frolicking in a hot tub with a former Miss Teen USA. All three of them were nekkid as jaybirds and (allegedly) high as kites. Naturally, a big tabloid brouhaha ensued. Now listen puppies, Your Mama is not the moral po-leese and heaven knows our closet is full of skeletons so we don't fault these two from doing whatever it is they did that night in the hot tub with the former Miss Teen USA. Our issue is that they were stupid enough to video tape the romp. Let Your Mama offer all you young and sexy celebs a word of free and unsolicited but sage advice: If you do not want a video tape of you doing the naughty-naughty or smoking salvia to show up on the interweb then don't video tape your damn self doing that kind of crap. Seriously people. Use some common damn sense for chrissakes.

Anyhoo, as fascinating as their video-taped proclivities may be, it's their real estate doings in which we're actually interested. Property records indicate that in July 2006 Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart paid $1,640,000 to acquire a modestly-scaled if not exactly inexpensive home in the Sunset Plaza area of Los Angeles above the Sunset Strip. Miz Gayheart got herself knocked up in 2009 and like so many other rich and famous folks fixin' to procreate, they started to hunt for a new house in which to bring up baby. According to both Lucy Spillerguts and The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial, the couple settled on what we might call a contempo-country-style house in the rugged Franklin Canyon area of the Beverly Hills Post Office. Property records show Mister and Missus Dane coughed up $2,400,000 for the 3,602 square foot residence.

Listing information Your Mama managed to tease out of the interweb indicates the upscale farmhouse-style abode was built in 2004 and includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers. The walled and gated house sits hard up against the all but traffic-free tail-end of a canyon road where it's nestled into a steep hillside. The drive gate slides opens to reveal a cramped-looking flagstone "motor court" and front-facing two-car garage. Hopefully Mister and Missus Dane moved those potted dwarf fruit trees that lined the driveway when they bought the house because anyone with more than half a glass of wine in them would surely plow through them trying to back out of the garage.

The exterior of the yellow clapboard house is defined by the many over-sized four-over-four sash windows and the interior spaces exude a country charm with wide-plank pine flooring, wainscoting, beamed and vaulted ceilings, and a slew of fireplaces including but not limited to three fashioned from rustic river rocks.

Inside there are formal living and dining rooms and a country kitchen that at the time the couple purchased the property had eggshell-colored bead board-accented cabinetry with a crackled paint treatment, a mix of black granite and butcher block counter tops, a commercial grade range and a prodigious pot rack that loomed ominously over the center work island and breakfast counter. We can only hope and pray they removed the pot rack before it came crashing down on their house maid as she washed out the baby bottles. In the nearby family room French doors and windows line one wall and flank a river rock fireplace on a second wall. The doors swing open to a quaint covered porch that wraps around and runs along the back of the house.

Outdoor spaces are multiple and varied. In the front there's a flat grassy pad perfect for a swing set and/or naked croquet and other party games. On the second floor, a wide vine-draped deck off the master bedroom overlooks the expansive flagstone terrace that wraps around the free form swimming pool, spa and fire pit. At one end of the pool an open air cabana provides respite from the noon-day sun and at the other, a pergola shades a mac-daddy barbecue that probably cost as much as a Toyota. Water spills down a tumble of rocks on the hillside into the pool where a butt-busting and lung bursting stairway zig-zags up the dangerously steep hillside behind the house to a square gazebo set into a small stand of what appear to Your Mama's know-nuthin' eyes to be oak trees. Presumably a lovely view can be enjoyed by anyone with the physical gumption to scramble and drag their booties up the damn hill.

Now, puppies, Your Mama asks that y'all use your real estate noggins and recognize that the listing photos of this house show it as it appeared when Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart bought the property. One imagine's they've but their own decorative stamp, be that what it may be, on the property.

Property records indicate that in addition to their new family next in the Beverly Hills Post Office Mister and Missus Dane have hung on to their previous and previously mentioned residence above the Sunset Strip.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker