Frankie Muniz Wants to Lease Scottsdale Mansion

OWNER: Frankie Muniz
LOCATION: Scottsdale, AZ
PRICE: $7,250 / month
SIZE: 6,195 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: There are handfuls of high profile people and all sorts of assorted celebrities who, for whatever reason(s), buy and sell real estate at a rate so rapid it boggles some, bewilders many and makes any of number of others about 99 kinds of pissed off. What drives the
the real estate rootlessness of so many famous folks is beyond our admittedly limited capacities to understand but buy, sell, rent, swap and trade they do. Such are the wacky and often inexplicable real estate ways of the rich and/or famous.

One of those famous-y folks who engages in frequent shufflings of his real estate portfolio is Frankie Muniz, the Malcom in the Middle child actor turned movie star (Agent Cody Banks franchise) turned open wheel race car driver. Mister Muniz appears to have put his toe back in showbiz waters with a recently completed starring role as an pizza delivering superhero in an as yet unreleased movie called Pizza Man. Sounds like a real turkey of a movie to Your Mama but we don't hate, children. We all gotta pay the bills, you know?

We have many times discussed the many real estate activities of Mister Muniz who has owned a number of homes in some of the finer zip codes in Los Angeles and in fact still owns a home above the Sunset Strip. Mister Muniz also owns two luxury residences in Arizona. He most recently bought a fancy-schmancy modern mansion near Camelback Mountain in Phoenix but had two years and some months previously purchased a newly constructed single-story mansion in Scottsdale that we've learned, thanks to a tipster we'll call Mary Hadalittledish, has become available for lease at $7,250 per month.

Property records indicate Mister Muniz acquired the faux-Tuscan stone and stucco farmhouse-type mansion in Scottsdale in May 2008 for $2,782,000. That was about the time he was busting up with one long term lady friend and gettin' with his current gal pal (and publicist) Elycia Turnbow. Mister Muniz and Miss Turnbow made all the tabloid headlines earlier this year (2011) after it was revealed the po-po were summoned to their Phoenix residence to deal with some sort of domestic disturbance. Lots of reports stated they hit each other and he stuck a gun to his head and threatened suicide in front of her. The couple–through Mister Muniz's publicist according to a report on CBSNews.com–acknowledge the police showed up but deny there was any hitting or gun-toting. His publicist? Isn't she his publicist? Oh, who cares? Whatever the facts of the private matter Mister Muniz recently tweeted to his fans, friends and family that "After four years together" Miss Turnbow had agreed to be his lawfully wedded wife. Mazel tov!

Listing information for the residence indicates the acre-plus mini-estate, nestled into the geologically dramatic northern slope of Scottsdale's Pinnacle Peak, sits behind the 24-hour guarded gates of the swanky, golf-oriented Estancia Club. The pricey and pristine master-planned Estancia Club community weaves in and around a private 18-hole Tom Fazio-designed golf course open only to it's 325 members and their invited guests.

A long driveway swoops from the street along the side of the house to a substantial motor court with circular paver-stone design and front-facing three car garage. The front door opens into a voluminous entrance hall with stone tile floor, vaulted ceiling with exposed wood beams and trusses and mottled, mock-suede taupe colored Venetian plaster walls. 

The entrance hall opens into the a double-height formal living room with fireplace and towering arched window with desert-y view over the perfectly aligned swimming pool and towards the craggy mountain tops of Pinnacle Peak. A few steps up from the entrance all there's a formal dining room with high wood-beamed ceiling, wood floors, and a view of the motor court.

Less formal family quarters includes a tile floored family room with French doors and a fireplace surrounded by built-in cabinetry outfitted with flat-screen tee-vee, tchotchke display shelves and enclosed cabinets for hiding the cable television equipment and the Wii (or whatever). The family room opens to a colossal and well-equipped center island kitchen with granite counter tops, snack bar and custom cabinetry with integrated professional-grade appliances. The Like the formal dining room the informal dining area that adjoins the kitchen  also has a view of the motor court.

In addition to the large television over the fireplace in the family room, the mansion has a wood-paneled home theater with large screen and two rows of tiered seating with eight caramel-colored reclining leather seats with built-in drink cups.

The master suite has wall-to-wall carpeting almost exactly the same color as the mottled taupe Venetian plaster walls, a tray ceiling, over-sized wall-mounted flat-screen tee-vee and a teeny-tiny sitting nook with carved stone (or maybe molded concrete) fireplace. The attached master bathroom has a lot of beige stone and tile work, double sinks, separate make-up vanity, shower cubicle with built-in bench for leg-shaving and etc., and a soaking tub for two.

The family room opens to an L-shaped veranda with wood-beamed ceiling supported by chunky wood posts that frame a head on view of Pinnacle Peak. The veranda has a couple different areas for lounging and dining plus a built in barbecue station.

Just a couple years after snatching up the Scottsdale property, Mister Muniz and, we presume, soon to be Missus Muniz caught a case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and paid $2,650,000 for a newly completed contemporary crib almost 23 miles to the south in an upscale neighborhood near the red sandstone cliffs of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. Listing information shows the boxy concrete and glass residence (above) sits on more than a half acre, measures 5,438 square feet and contains 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Additional celebrity-style amenities include a 31-foot long master bedroom with sitting room, media room, exercise room with sauna, game room, den/ office, 4-car attached garage, and a resort-style back yard with swimming pool, spa, built-in barbecue station and a sport court wedged uncomfortably into the front corner of the front yard separated by a wee patch of grass from the basketball hoop-equipped motor court.

In addition to his Phoenix and Scottsdale residences, Mister Muniz maintains a residence in Los Angeles that he bought in January 2006 for $3,499,000 and has had on and off the market since October of 2007 when it was listed at $3,875,000 and as late as March 2011 when it was listed with a price tag of $3,195,000. The house was taken off the market when it was leased to Cee Lo Green in March (2011) for an unknown amount of money–Mister Muniz was asking $10,000 per month–for an undisclosed period of time. Mister Green is part of the R&B/hip hop duo Gnarls Barkley and most recently appeared as a judge on reality show singing contest The Voice with Christina Aguilera, country music's Blake Shelton and Adam Levine of Maroon 5.

Anyhoo, it wasn't long after acquiring the Scottsdale residence that Mister Muniz and, we presume, soon to be Missus Muniz got ants in their real estate pants. Property records show in August 2010 Mister Muniz through a trust dropped $2,650,000 on a newly completed contemporary crib in Phoenix (AZ). Listing information shows the box concrete and glass sits on more than a half acre, measures 5,438 square feet and contains 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Additional celebrity-style amenities include a 31-foot long master bedroom with sitting room, media room, exercise room with sauna, game room, den/ office, 4-car attached garage, and a resort-style back yard with swimming pool, spa, built-in barbecue station and sport court.

Your Mama does not know a heating pad from a javelina so we know zip, nada and zilch about Mister and soo-to-be Missus Muniz's future real estate plans. However, iffin we were the betting type–and we're not–we'd wager they'll soon be packing their bags for destination(s) unknown. Not only has it become young Mister Muniz's pattern to buy and sell homes a fairly quick clip, marriage happens to be one of the many reasons rich and famous folks alike think they need a new house in which to start their new life of betrothed (if sometimes allegedly turbulent) bliss.


listing photos (Scottsdale): Sotheby's International Realty (via Hot Pads)
listing photos (Phoenix): Independence Realty Professionals, Inc. (via Redfin)

Celebrity Interior Designer Ron Wilson's Bev Hills Manse Goes on the Market

SELLER: estate of Ron Wilson
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $7,295,000
SIZE: 7,580 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The celebrity real estate well continues to run a bit dry so today, rather than discuss the home of an actual famous person, we point our attentions on a mansion owned by noted and recently deceased interior designer Ron Wilson who did up digs for a number of high profile people and whose secluded and historic Beverly Hill, CA estate was recently pushed on the market with a celebrity-sized asking price of $7,295,000.

Mister Wilson's (still active) website explains his roster of clients "come primarily from the private sector" but he none-the-less described himself as a "celebrity interior designer" with name brand clientele such as Princess Diana, Michael Landon, and Johnny Carson–all three dead now–Tom Selleck, Eddie Murphy and country music king Kenny Rogers for whom he designed and decorated two legendary Los Angeles estates. First he did Lionsgate for property mad Mister Rogers and then The Knoll, one of the trophiest of Tinseltown's trophy estates now owned and in the final stages of a gut renovation by tool tycoon Eric Smidt who purchased the approximately 45,000 square foot mega-mansion in 2005 for an undisclosed but rumored and reported $46,000,000, give or take a few million.

Doing over Lionsgate and The Knoll are certainly feathers in any high-flying decorators cap but Mister Wilson's biggest claim to decorative fame wasn't, children, his association with Kenny Rogers but rather with uni-named international showbiz super nova Cher. Mister Wilson's website claims he did the day-core for 19 of Cher's homes beginning in the 1970s when he slapped his magic on a Bel Air mansion she shared with then-husband Sonny Bono and clean on through the 1990s when he did the day-core for the Gothic meets Moroccan mansion the Emmy-, Oscar- and Grammy-winning entertainer had custom-built on a bluff in Malibu in the late 1990s. Cher continues to own the Malibu mansion that at one time in the not so distant past was listed with an elephantine asking price of $45,000,000 (later reduced to $41,000,000).

In author Michael Gross' just released non-fiction book Unreal Estate, a snappy and sassy Mister Wilson–described as "estranged" from and a "former friend" of Cher–drops a number of savory bon mots about various subjects and clients. He's quoted–perhaps cattily, perhaps not–of his longtime client and benefactor Cher, '"She was sure she was a descendant of an Egyptian...so she started changing her face and built her Egyptian house [in the Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills]. She simply liked to change."'

Anyhoo, property records are a big vague on the matter but it appears to Your Mama that Mister Wilson acquired his 1930 Mediterranean mansion, privately situated high above the street on a ridge top behind double columned gates at the tail end of a winding cul-de-sac lined with impressive estates, as recently as 1997 and perhaps as long ago as 1981. Listing information shows the two-story residence measures 7,580 square feet and contains a total of 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.

Note children that the day-core, while elegant in that swish and casually fussy upper crust southern California sort of way, is hardly our cup of decorative tea but we're loathe to speak (too) ill of the dead, particularly the recently passed, so we're not going to carp and harp too much about that sort of thing.

The front of the house wraps around a large courtyard that connects the motor court and garages to the wrought iron and glass front door that opens into a double-height entry. The party-sized public rooms include a somewhat narrow but very long formal living room with massive carved stone fireplace and banks of French doors that open to a pergola-shaded terrace with panoramic and leafy views over the tree tops from downtown to the Pacific Ocean. The formal dining room, with saltillo tile floor and peach colored walls comfortably seats 30 as per listing information.

Less formal gathering areas are contained in a suite of three rooms comprised of a family room with fireplace, beamed ceiling, and French doors, a media lounge and a bar room, which we presume is a room set aside specifically for the imbibing of boozy beverages. The nearby kitchen complex includes a lounging area, casual dining area and a large and well-equipped if stylistically snoozy center island kitchen with miles of wood cabinets and a menacing, Mercedes-sized pot rack.

Upstairs there are two guest/family bedroom suites plus a third guest suite with exterior access via an ivy-covered stair in the entry courtyard. The peach-colored master bedroom, larger than most people's living room, has hardwood floors, fireplace, Juliet balcony with city view, dressing room, and an updated bathroom with marble (or maybe it's onyx) floor, trough-style sink with two taps, separate soaking tub tucked into a mirrored corner and a very sexy glass-enclosed shower with double shower heads. Listing information goes on to state there are "generous add'l staff quarters."

Just beyond and elevated from the central courtyard, a rectilinear swimming pool with inset spa is surrounded by more saltillo tile terracing, thick carpets of green lawn and lush tropical foliage both potted and planted in terra firma.

This is not the first time in recent years the house has been on the market. Mister Wilson attempted to sell his historic house high above Benedict Canyon and Beverly Hills in early 2008 when it was listed with an asking price of $11,500,000, later reduced to $8,500,000. He also put the property out for lease at a rate of $35,000 and it appears, based on information gathered from Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills, that Mister Wilson did lease the estate out in the fall of 2008 for an unknown amount of money for an unknown period of time to an unknown person or persons.

Some of the nearest notable neighbors to Mister Wilson's residence include New York Giants co-owner/executive and Oscar-winning film and television producer Steve Tisch (Forrest Gump, American History X, Snatch, The Pursuit of Happyness); financier Lawrence Post; entertainment industry bigwig Sid Sheinberg and his actress wife Lorraine Gary (Jaws franchise, Ironside, Kojak); and Oscar-nominated director Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Nine 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction). The property is just a couple hundred yards east as the crow flies from the 5.2 acre property super-producer Jon Peters sold in the fall of 2009 to Prince Abdulziz ibn Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz al Saud who has the dander up of a number of his high- and well-heeled neighbors who are having a bit of a snit over the titanic 50-60,000 square foot compound–already scaled down from 85,000 square feet–the luxe-livin' Saudi prince wants to build on the prime piece of hill top property.

Property records indicate Mister Wilson has long maintained a high-hedged retreat in the swanky Old Las Palmas area in Palm Springs, CA. Records show the .61 acre estate property was acquired in April 1988 for $235,000 and includes a 5,012 square foot residence with 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms and a large swimming pool surrounded by sun bathing terraces and a shaded loggia. The property does not appear on the (open) market as far as Your Mama can tell.

Mister Wilson is survived by his long time man-friend and business partner Joseph Guidera who, according to property records, owns two adjacent (and presumably combined) ocean front condo on Malibu's Los Flores beach purchased in late 2003 for $1,389,000.

Misters Wilson and Guidera also own a 2,100 square foot ocean front house on sandy Corral Canyon Beach also recently put on the market with an asking price of $4,350,000 (above). Records indicate the house was acquired in March 2006 for $4,700,000. Current listing information shows the two-story beach house contains three en-suite bedrooms in the main house plus a separate staff room and bath with outside entrance. Other amenities include a three car garage, Brazilian walnut floors, open plan living/dining/kitchen with wrap around floor-to-ceiling windows and two ocean side decks with long views up and down the coastline.

Thanks to a heads up from long time informant we call Junebug we learned Misters Wilson and Guidera have owned a residence in Westwood/Holmby Hills (above) since August of 2007 when property records show they paid $3,694,000 for a 1932 Monterey Colonial style residence that measures 3,928 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. Misters Wilson and Guidera restored and revived the property and according to old listing information provided by Junebug shows the two gentlemen briefly put the property on the market in June 2010 with a $4,199,000 price tag.

Mister Wilson at least once dabbled in the flipping of property. Property records Your Mama peeped and perused indicate the decorating dervish purchased a residence on Bel Air's Chantilly Road in June 2001 for $1,130,000, flipped it back on the market and sold it less than a year later for $1,950,000. The house was acquired by financier Blaine Lourd and his wife Crystal who in turn sold the house to McDreamy Whatshisface from Grey's Anatomy in July 2006 for $3,100,000. Mister McDreamy–that would be Patrick Dempsey–listed the house in March 2009 for $3,595,000 and sold it at a significant loss in late August of the same year for $2,571,500 to its current owners, uber (music) agent Kirk Sommer and his wife Chloe.

listing photos (Beverly Hills): Teles Properties
listing photos (Malibu): Coldwell Banker Previews International
listing photos (Westwood): Prudential California

Sandy Williams -- I surrender, for now!

Where did the summer go!? The time and the garden seem to have gotten away from me!

Sandy Williams , An Uninvited Guest

We recently had an uninvited guest, one who evidently followed our cat home.  Fortunately, an odiferous situation was avoided!

Yosemite Ranger Shelton Johnson

by Gay Kraeger

My business partner and I got a last minute invite to hear a presentation by Yosemite ranger Shelton Johnson. He was featured on the Ken Burns PBS special on National Parks. He certainly made history come to life for us. We were all transported back to 1903 to learn about the buffalo soldiers in Yosemite park. It was great!

Tuesday Tidbit: Updown Court

Your Mama somehow missed all the many mid-October (2011) reports–we blame the lapse on gin and nerve pills–that revealed the opulent monster mansion in the U.K. known as Updown Court was sold–Sold!–for £35,000,000 to an as yet unidentified "foreign businessman."

Thirty five million pounds–$56,202,300 at today's rates according to our currency conversion contraption–is by any and all standards a serious and significant amount of money to cough up for a private residence. It is none-the-less, chick-a-doodles, nowhere near the hefty (and approximately) $145,000,000 at which the 50,000-plus square foot pile was first listed six or so years ago.

The gilt-trimmed 58-acre Updown Court estate was developed by a gentleman named Leslie Allen-Vercoe who may (or may not) have spent as much as £50,000,000 purchasing the land and constructing the massively monolithic but–in our humble and meaningless opinion–architecturally challenged mega-mansion that boasts such extravaganzas as a triple-height entrance hall that has more in common size-wise with a mid-sized suburban shopping mall than a private home.

Sometime in 2005 the property was listed with an asking price of about $145,000,000, making it the highest-priced house on the market in the U.K. In June 2011 the property was re-listed with an asking price of £75,000,000, a figure that then converted to just over $123,000,000. The new price was twenty million clams lower than the original price but still well more than twice what the "foreign businessman" buyer reportedly paid for it.

As have many property developers who had a lot of money on the line, Mister Allen-Vercoe ran into some financial troubles set off by the global real estate slump triggered in large part by the 2007 sub-prime mortgage meltdown in the United States. Unable to make his meet his mortgage obligations the hotel-sized house fell into the hungry jaws of foreclosure and was seized by the Irish government earlier this year.

The Irish government apparently didn't have any need for the 40-plus room white elephant in the upscale rural London suburb of Surrey and quickly heaved it back on the market.

The scale and scope of the four-floor house flabbergasts and nearly defies imagination. Floor plans included with marketing materials for Updown Court show it was built with such necessities and conveniences as a marble driveway, a dozen or more fireplaces, two-lane bowling alley, indoor squash court, home theater, panic room, underground parking for at least seven cars, and a house-sized master suite with glass elevator that connects to a private indoor swimming pool and spa. The massive mansion and estate has four more swimming pools including a negative edge number on a fourth floor terrace shared by two titanic guest apartments that each comprise 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.

Note: The above is just a teaser. Your Mama suggests y'all steel your nerves with some liquor before you click through but any of the children who have yet to peep or would like to revisit Updown Court's floor plan full monte can view them here.

listing photo: Updown Court
floor plan: Savills

Tuesday Tidbit: Courtney Cox

Word recently slipped down the West Coast celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that sitcom star Courtney Cox (Friends, Cougartown) has added to her impressive real estate portfolio with a condo in the storied and star-stocked Sierra Towers building (above) on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, CA.

Property records show Miz Cox, separated from but still working with husband David Arquette, dropped $2,050,000 on the high floor residence in the full-service building. Records show the unit contains 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms in 1,672 square feet of interior space as well as a long balcony with views to the north and east. Miz Cox acquired the condo-crib from a not-famous short-term owner who, according to records we peeped, purchased the unit less than six months earlier for $1,450,000.

Property records also show that just weeks after Miz Cox purchased her Sierra Towers aerie former cast mate Matthew Perry–himself on a bit of a real estate roll–dumped a 2 bedroom condo in the building he'd bought in April 2005 for $3,200,000 and sold at a huge loss in late September (2011) for $2,850,000.

Some of Miz Cox's new neighbors at Sierra Towers include a lot of high profile peeps like Cher, Elton John, Joan Collins, Diahann Carroll, and diet guru/social doyenne Nikki Haskell. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne currently lease a unit in the building, which they had worked over by Million Dollar Decorator Martyn Lawrence Bullard, and past renters have included the likes of tabloid fixture Lindsay Lohan and stylist to the stars Rachel Zoe.

In early 2007, after selling a spectacular John Lautner-designed house on Malibu's Carbon Beach for $27,500,000 to dueling divorcees Frank and Jamie McCourt, Miz Cox (and Mister Arquette) spent $17,150,000 on a much more private bluff top compound she had worked over by architect Michael Kovac and much published nice, gay decorator Trip Haenisch. The spectacular and casually posh property (above) was featured in the July/August 2011 issue of Elle Decor magazine.

In addition to their Malibu spread and a West Hollywood office building where their production company is based, Miz Cox and Mister Arquette also own two Beverly Hill residences located just a half a mile away from the Sierra Towers building. In June 2004 they spent $5,450,000 on a a sleek mid-century modern originally designed by A. Quincy Jones they they had done over by architect Cory Buckner (above) and in late 2008 property records show they scooped up an adjacent property for an unknown sum and unknown reasons.

Back in mid-September (2011), just about the same time she was closing on her new condo at the Sierra Towers, Your Mama heard from an informant we'll call Ivana Blowarealestatewhistle that the Cox-Arquette crib–the A. Quincy Jones house with the dee-vine circular swimming pool–is being readied for sale with an asking price of around $20,000,000 but that's just celebrity real estate rumor and gossip at this point children, just rumor and gossip.

photo: (Sierra Towers): Pacific Coast News
photo (Malibu): Simon Upton for Elle Decor
photo (Beverly Hills):  Cory Buckner Architects