Michael Jordon Lists Multi-Wing Mega-Mansion

SELLER: Michael Jordon
LOCATION: Highland Park, IL
PRICE: $29,000,000
SIZE: 32,683 square feet, 9 bedrooms, 15 full and 4 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Simmer down tater tots. We know we're a bit late to this particular rodeo. That's because, for better and/or worse, Your Mama spent this morning frying up a very different celebrity real estate fish.

While Your Mama got busy shucking, jiving and making petty jabs about Little Kimmy Kardashian and her recent (and alleged) real estate activities, the celebrity real estate pooper scoopers over at The Wall Street Journal revealed that long-ago-retired but still much-beloved professional basketballer and sports world entrepreneur Michal Jordon pushed his multi-wing mega-mansion in the upscale Chicago suburb of Highland Park (IL) on the market with a super-sized and publicity-ensuring $29,000,000 asking price.

Even Your Mama, who does not know a tight end from a power forward in the athletic sense, knows well that Mister Michael Jordan is one of America's most adored, accomplished, and highly paid professional athletes and product endorsers with a half billion dollar-plus fortune and fat property portfolio to prove it.

Mister Jordan was expensively divorced from his first wife Juanita in 2007; It reportedly cost him close to $170,000,000 or, seen another way, ten million clams for every 17 years they were married. At about the time of their legal severance of marital ties the family's long-time Highland Park estate was transferred in to a trust. Unfortunately, Your Mama has no specific intel about whether Mister Jordan (along with his new fiancée Yvett Prieto) or ex-Missus Jordon occupied and maintained the premises over the last five years. Whatever the case, the suburban estate with its mall-sized mansion is now up for grabs.

The electronically-controlled front gates bear the number 23, which Your Mama thought might be the property's street address until we did a little due diligence and discovered '23' was the number that appeared on Mister Jordan's jersey throughout his illustrious career on the hardwoods. The gates swing open to a tree-lined black top drive that swoops across the thoroughly landscaped 7.29 acre estate and around to a massive, tree-shaded circular drive that has far more in common with the motor court out front of some random resort hotel than it does the driveway of average American home. The snaking drive continues beyond the circular drive, past two separate (but attached), climate-controlled, three car garages, curves around to a pair of small parking lots and winds up at a rear motor court where there appears to be another three-bay, climate-controlled garage.
 
Listing information shows Mister Jordan's mega-mansion measures in at a titanic 32,683 square feet with a total of 9 bedrooms and 15 full and 4 half bathrooms. It doesn't take a bejeweled abacus to figure out that's a total of 19 terlits, an amount that ensures the owner/resident of this beast of a house employ a full-time minimum wager tasked only to locate and lave all 19 bathrooms on a twice weekly basis. The Wall Street Journal pegged the manse at "more than 56,000 square feet of space," an figure we think—but can not confirm—probably includes the colossal compound's "indoor basketball complex" and "three bedroom guesthouse."

The Wall Street Journal also reported the mansion was constructed between 1993 and 1995 and images show it retains its original, well maintained and liberally curvaceous 1980s-minded exterior articulation. The interior was extensively renovated in 2009 with a decidedly sleek and very contemporary aspect that skews vaguely corporate due in part to the large scale of some of the rooms. Interior spaces, according to listing information, marketing materials and/or previous reports, include hotel ballroom-proportioned 1,056 square living room and an almost 800 square foot family room with floor-to-ceiling glass sliders on two opposite walls and a massive triangular sky light that runs like a spine down the center of the 37-foot long room.

A circular dining area's soaring ceiling is topped by an octagonal sky light and the adjacent, sculptural kitchen has a huge center island (with cook top) that appears to float in the center of the room, full-height pantry and storage cabinets, and—one imagines—the most expensive appliances money can buy. We realize this kitchen will not appeal to those who see kitchens as the emotional heart of the home but for all those folks who prefer their cooking centers be more Maserati than mini-van, this one will surely make them pee their pants with culinary equipment desire.

Listing information indicates Mister Jordan's mansion also contains a 500-plus square foot second level library, a 600-plus square foot den on the main level, an office and a study also on the main level, and at least one laundry room the size of what would pass for a good-sized bedroom in a modest suburban ranch house.

The various and vast patios and terraces that extend off the back of the house drop down to high-maintenance manicured grounds that encompass acres of flat lawns with an amoebic putting green, tucked away tennis court, suggestively-shaped deep-water pond, and a children's playground with two elaborate jungle gyms. Both The WSJ and listing information we peeped indicate Mister Jordan's estate includes a swimming pool although we're unable to locate it listing photos and/or aerial images of the property.

The property's pièce de résistance—and also perhaps it's bête noire due to the obvious fact that so few people in the Chicago area who can afford it will actually want to own or maintain it—would most certainly be the fully custom, state-of-the-art indoor basketball complex completed in 2001 and equipped with, as per The WSJ, "a full-size regulation basketball court with specially cushioned hardwood flooring, adjustable backstops and baskets and competition-quality, high-intensity lighting. The complex has a sound system tuned to provide perfect acoustics within the court space."

As best as we know from our research, in addition to the Highland Park beast Mister Jordan heaved on to the market this week His Airness currently maintains a penthouse pad in Charlotte, NC (where he's part owner of some professional basketball team or another that we know nothing about), a major mansion in the a gated, golf community in Jupiter, FL that is either newly completed ought to soon be completed, and a substantial ski house on almost 4 acres in posh Park City, UT.

aerial photo (top): Bing
listing photos: Baird & Warner

FHA loans are about to get more expensive

Uh-oh.  Here's from lender Dana:

Hey Everyone … if you have clients looking to purchase with FHA loans, this might motivate them to buy before rates start going up.    The monthly premium amounts are going to be raised and also the up-front mortgage premium.   Sounds like it’s going to start happening in April and June:

FHA to Increase UFMIP to 1.75 for New FHA Loans

6:03PM

As part of ongoing efforts to encourage the return of private capital in the residential mortgage market and strengthen the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, Acting FHA Commissioner Carol Galante today announced a new premium structure for FHA-insured single family mortgage loans. FHA will increase its annual mortgage insurance premium (MIP) by 0.10 percent for loans under $625,500 and by 0.35 percent for loans above that amount. Upfront premiums (UFMIP) will also increase by 0.75 percent.

These premium changes will impact new loans insured by FHA beginning in April and June of 2012. Details will soon be published in a Mortgagee Letter to FHA-approved lenders.

“After careful analysis of the market and the health of the MMI fund, we have determined that it is appropriate to increase mortgage insurance premiums in order to help protect our capital reserves and to continue encouraging the return of private capital to the housing market,” said Galante. “These modest increases are one of several measures we are taking towards meeting the Congressionally mandated two percent reserve threshold, while allowing FHA to remain a valuable option for low- to moderate-income borrowers.”

Your Mama Hears...

...through the Tinseltown celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that reality television denizen Kim Kardashian has packed up her industrial-sized booty and moved into a leased mansion located just down the road and around the corner from a number of other trouble-making tabloid superstars like Paris Hilton, Charlie Sheen and Robbie Williams.

Hardcore celebrity real estate mavens and reality television aficionados may recall Little Kimmy Kardashian followed up the $885,000 sale of her 3 bedroom Los Angeles, CA kondo krib in January 2010 with the February 2010 purchase of a nearly 4,000 square foot faux-Tuscan villa high up above Beverly Hills, CA. The 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom mansion, gated, heavily secured and set very close to the street on a cul-de-sac that runs up a narrow ravine just below Mulholland Drive, cost K.K., according to property records, $3,400,000.

In late January of this year, in the turbulent wake of poor K.K.'s quickie marriage and divorce from some hunky Midwestern fella whose name we can no longer recall, an unhinged fan—let's call him Mister Delusional—showed up at front gate of K.K.'s Bev Hills home with luggage in tow. Mister Delusional claimed he'd flown into town all the way from North Carolina to work on the one of K.K.'s reality programs that include the long-running and exceedingly lucrative Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Kourtney and Kim Take New York , a program we've never seen but are absolutely sure is nothing less than scintillating and truly meaningful. Clearly Mister Delusional was, well, delusional and K.K.'s team of quick-thinking security guards snatched the wannabe intruder up and rang the po-po who, natch, escorted from moe-ron from the premises and—we imagine but don't actually know—served the nimrod with a well-deserved restraining order.

It wasn't long after that ugly incident all the gossip glossies and celebrity-based blogs reported K.K. was so freaked out by the whole thing that she wanted to move from her current residence in Bev Hills to a nearby guard-gated community that would provide her with an extra layer of security in addition to her body guard(s).

Well, dontcha know butter beans, according to an often in the know source (and the peeps The Daily Mail who beat us to the punch), that's just what K.K. did. The entertainment industry global superstar and entrepreneur—who does not, as far as Your Mama can tell, sing, dance, act or have any other showbiz-y talent besides near-shameless self promotion—(allegedly) leased a 6,775, square foot mock-Med meets Asian-infused Craftsman-style mansion in the celebrity-filled and guard-gated Mulholland Estates community. Some of the other high profile residents/homeowners in the 'hood include Vanna White, Judith Light, and rock 'n rollerSlash who pushed his 11,000 square foot Mediterranean manse on the market as a pocket listing in mid-2011 with a $9.5 million price tag, since cut to $9.1 million.

Although it's absolutely a luxury development where the tree-lined streets are lined with multi-million dollar (mc)mansions, some of the children will surely see Mulholland Estates as a somewhat curious choice for someone concerned about their security since the community has over the years been a bit of a hotbed of crime: Paris Hilton's high-glam house was burgled by the infamous Bling Ring in 2008 and in 2010 some guy showed up on her doorstep with a knife; Besides all the illegal activities that surely took place inside his house Charlie Sheen has had not just one but two Mercedes Benz stolen right out from his damn driveway and run off a cliff in to a nearby ravine.


Anyhoo, listing information for the house in question Your Mama managed to tease up out of the interweb shows the 4 bedroom and 6 bathroom mansion K.K. (allegedly/reportedly may have) leased in the Mulholland Estates community was built in 2003 and last on the open market as a fully-furnished rental with a hefty hefty hefty $40,000 per month price tag. We can't say for sure if K.K. rented this house but our research did turn up evidence the nearly half acre, Balinese resort-inspired spread, owned by a brainy businesswoman/philanthropist/heiress to a billion dollar-plus biomedical fortune, was also available for purchase an asking price of $10,950,000.

Interior spaces (shown above) include an intimately-scaled foyer that bursts dramatically into a double-height entrance hall with celeb-style curved staircase and stunning Lagos Azul limestone flooring that continues into the formal living room. The cocktail-party friendly living room, divided into two section by a pair of columns, has a fireplace, several sets of Craftsman-style glass doors that open to lushly landscaped gardens, and a grand piano just in case K.K. wants to tinkle the ivories.

Another pair of columns stand between the entrance hall and formal dining room where there's more blue limestone underfoot, another fireplace and over-sized windows with backyard and swimming pool view. The limestone carries on in the chef-friendly, eat-in kitchen complete with sizable center island, snack counter, a full complement of high-grade stainless steel appliances, and custom Shaker-style mahogany cabinetry topped by bull-nosed granite counter tops.

The floor material switches to wide-plank wood in an adjacent family room spacious enough to accommodate a pool table and a seating area oriented towards a paneled wall with fireplace surrounded by five—that's right 5—flat screen televisions, one big one in the middle with two smaller ones stacked on either side. Wide, Craftsman-style glass doors on two walls open the room (with its mostly beige, black and burnt orange day-core) to foliage ringed patios and terraces.

If the lavish-living K.K. really did rent this residence she no doubt fell head over Jimmy Choos for the sprawling master suite privately situated at the back of the house where it takes advantage of canyon and city views through huge windows and glass doors. A chunky and very contemporary three-sided concrete-faced fireplace separates a private sitting room (with Juliet balcony) from the bedroom area where there's a small, built-in shelving and entertainment center tucked into the corner next to the fireplace with wall-mounted flat screen tee-vee for watching Jimmy Kimmel, Chelsea Handler, Saturday Night Live and/or more lusty and lurid fare.

The over-sized attached master bathroom has stone flooring (that we can only hope has radiant heat), two sinks and vanities, a concrete-lined and glass-enclosed steam shower with long concrete bench, and an oval-shaped stone soaking tub set into an elevated deck in front of a full wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. A pair of custom-fitted, boutique style walk in closet/dressing rooms surely appealed to a clotheshorse like K.K. who does not, it seems to Your Mama from what we see in all the tabs and gossip glossies, leave the house for any reason whatsoever without the laborious and expensive efforts of a wardrobe stylist, hair doer and make-up gal. All the image effort seems positively reedonkulous to Your Mama who can't be bothered to put on a proper pair of shoes most days, but we get it. When yer a reality tee-vee lightening rod of controversy like K.K. is you always always always gotta look on point for the public who will gleefully shred a publicity seeking beehawtch for showing up at at the CVS in Calabasas or proto-suburban Sherman Oaks looking the least bit janky.

The lower level of the house opens out to a variety of patios and entertainment areas that include a curtained and vine-draped pergola lounge area that flows out to a second lounge area under the stars. At the other end of house a dining area nestled into a crook of the house has built-in bench seating, and a Palapa-shaded outdoor kitchen/barbecue center has bar seating. A sensuously curved sunbathing terrace snacks along the rim of a black-bottomed swimming pool and wood bridge spans a narrow arm of the pool to an elevated terrace with sunken spa set into a ring of palm trees from where night time hot tubbers can see down the house-dotted canyon and across the sparkly carpet of lights of the pancake-flat San Fernando Valley.

As it turns out, way back in early February after it was reported K.K. might want to move house, the leggy lady at Trulia suggested K.K. might want to consider this very house.

For the record, Your Mama has no direct knowledge of K.K. looking at or moving in to this house and, it should be noted, she recently tweeted the following:

So funny I was reading some magazine that showed pics of my new home...home is nice, but never seen it before! LOL who makes this stuff up?

Make of that what you will.

aerial photo (at top): Pacific Coast News
listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Beverly Hills South

Houston Real Estate

The prices for real estate in Houston can be quite unaffordable for some people. Leasing of real estate in Houston can be a good option for those who can not avail itself of its housing loans, but not yet decided whether the form of life in Houston and are now enjoying Houston without investing their money in real estate projects. There are many ways for consumers to choose the rental of real estate in Houston. To the best decisions to find rental, there are some important factors to consider.

When renting real estate, guests are welcome to stay focused and engaged in the leasing process. Smart tenants carefully weigh the advantages and comfort of the tenant before he / she makes a decision. Careful planning, sound advice, professional, buy enough time, the tenant's effort, for the right properties, and a good credit rating is very important when deciding to move to Houston and, possibly leasing property.

It is also helpful to appoint an agent to represent a tenant to tenant. Agents with the needs of the tenants are tenants in mind and are committed to update these needs. The services offered to the agent of a tenant is entitled to the best deals at reasonable prices. They also offer consulting and leasing options innumerable.
Those who rent property, you should first check the ability of tenants to pay rent. Good credit is very important when renting property. Credit needs are can still controlled by the owners of real estate leasing more expensive than buying real estate.

Houston Real Estate Leasing also depends on the position of a major. Rent necessarily be more expensive than renting in other places less elite in exclusive neighborhoods. Decide where to rent and accessibility to schools, workplaces, hospitals and business districts of most of the value and exclusivity of the neighborhood would benefit more to prospective tenants.

From the Archives: Emma Roberts

BUYER: Emma Roberts
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,250,000
SIZE: 2,142 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Yesterday Your Mama discussed a Los Angeles, CA post-modern perched on a ridge above Laurel Canyon and recently purchased by rock star and reality tee-vee judge Steven Tyler. Today we fish into our previously un-discussed celebrity real estate archive and come up with a modestly sized contemporary a few, short but twisted blocks away from Mister Tyler's new nest scooped up way back in December 2010 by up-and-coming young actress and Showbiz scion Emma Roberts.

A little nepotism never hurts in Hollywood and Miss Roberts, the 21-year old daughter of actor Eric Roberts and niece of Tinseltown royal Julia Roberts, got her big break as a teenager in 2004 when she landed the starring role as a high school art nerd in the very popular (and long ago canceled) teen-oriented sitcom Unfabulous, a program Your Mama had never before heard of until today. The well-connected lass went on to do a bunch of coming of age movies Your Mama ain't never heard of (Wild Child, Lymelife) and most recently she's dabbled in a growing list of rom-coms and dram-coms like the syrupy Valentine's Day and other silver screen gems we've never heard of like The Art of Getting By and Celeste and Jesse Forever.

for better or worse, Your Mama, more likely to read a gossip glossy than pay good money to see a romantic comedy our too-cynical and too-fat ass will most assuredly not appreciate, is far more familiar with Miss Roberts' date mates than we are her professional achievements. While still in her teens she was romantically squired by English actor/model Alex Pettyfer who hastily tattooed Miss Roberts' name on his wrist and just weeks ago rather ludicrously stripped down on Ellen Degeneres' daytime talk show while a bunch of lusty women and a few gays hooted, hollered and shrieked like there was no tomorrow. Miss Roberts, apropos of nothing real estate related, was widely reported to have recently split up with pouty-mouthed blond Chord Overstreet from Glee who Miss Roberts had long treated, so the salacious story goes, like her boy-bitch.

Sometime in 2010 and for reasons unknown to Your Mama, young Miss Roberts, then not even old enough to drink legally in a barroom, decided it was high time to decamp her rented West Hollywood condo and buy a single family house. Presumably she looked at any number of properties but according to multiple reliable sources eventually settled on a modestly-sized (if not exactly inexpensive) residence tucked discreetly into a fairly non-descript cul-de-sac high in the hills above Laurel Canyon.

Property records reveal pretty Miss Roberts, almost as generously lipped and wide mouthed as her Auntie Julia, paid either $1,246,000 or $1,250,000 for the gut-renovated residence. Listing information shows the low-profile but highly stylized house was originally built in 1949 and completely re-designed from 2008-10 by low-key L.A. based interior designer A.J. Bernard who may be modern-minded in his approach to living situations but kicks it Old School and does not appear, as far as Your Mama can tell, to maintain a professional presence on the interweb. The designer does, we were assured by someone we know who would know, have a email address for anyone who might like to engage his decorative and design talents and services.

Anyhoodles poodles, the sharply articulated but warmly finished single-story residence measures in at 2,142 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in the main house with another bathroom in the attached, two-room guest house that extends off the back of the house.

Listing photos suggest the previous owner used the smaller of the two rooms in the guest house (bottom two photos at top) as a fitness room/yoga studio and the larger room, with a pair of wood-framed French doors and canyon view, as a music studio. The variegated, medium-dark wood floors in the guest house—reclaimed from an unnamed French chateau according to listing information—are even more decoratively delectable than the undeniably magnificent (and straight-up expensive) 12-inch wide plank French oak floors that run throughout the main house.

A solid wood door with stainless steel—or maybe nickel—hardware and accents opens into a fairly narrow corridor that connects primary living/dining/entertaining areas that include a living/family room with marble-topped wet bar, puzzle table with a pair of Nakashima (or Nakashima-like) chairs, and a complete wall of custom-built, floor-to-ceiling oak cabinets that house and hide (among other things) state-of-the art audio and visual equipment. Hinged pocket doors open to reveal a flat screen tee-vee and smartly slide back and disappear into the cabinetry. Wood-framed glass doors stretch along one entire wall fold back accordion-style to a slim terrace that steps off to a flat expanse of lawn perfect for piddling pooches and child-sized Slip 'n Slide but missing, as far Your Mama is concerned, a spa and/or a plunge-sized swimming pool.


The dining area of the eat-in kitchen, anchored and defined by a massive concrete fireplace with raised hearth and inset display niche instead of a mantel, has a built-in buffet and a single, very minimal (and completely appropriate) floating shelf for the uncluttered display of knickknacks, gewgaws, bagatelles and/or other hoozymagoozies and what-have-yous.

A center island with two-seat snack counter and unusual, in-line range top separate the dining area from the sleek but hardly sterile kitchen where custom oak cabinets hold a plethora of integrated Euro-style stainless steel appliances. The counter tops, according to listing information are book matched Calacatta gold and make Your Mama's skin go goose pimply with real estate envy. The children will note how Mister A.J. Bernard thoughfully thought of that household's animal occupants and designed the island's marble counter top to water fall dramatically over the edge and connect to a swank marble pad set into the floor for the dog or cats food and water bowl.

Each of the two bedrooms in the main house has access to a private and well-equipped and -conceived if not particularly huge bathing, ablution and evacuation facility. The guest bedroom—with but a sad, sliver of windows set above eye level—makes use of a standard-sized bathroom with Old-Timey honeybee tiles on the floor that, to be totally honest, feel a bit tense against the graphic linearity of the much more contemporary feeling (and lovely) custom-built oak vanity.

Like the living room the master bedroom, large enough for a separate sitting area with built-in floating bookshelves and various other niches, spills out to the backyard through a complete wall of folding floor-to-ceiling wood framed glass doors. The attached sky lit master bathroom has a marvelous Calacatta gold marble vanity and a curtain wall of frameless glass that separates the bathroom area from the over-sized steam shower with built-in marble bench.

The backyard may be far from huge but it is notably large and flat for a house in the Hollywood Hills and probably large and flat enough for Miss Roberts to install on small in-ground swimming pool were she so inclined.

Prior moving on up to the tippy-tops of Laurel Canyon Miss Roberts shacked up for a short time in the legendary Granville Towers building in West Hollywood, a 7-story, French Normandy confection once home to scads of other medium- and high- profile entertainment industry peeps like Nicole Scherzinger, Portia di Rossi, David Bowie, Rock Hudson, Mickey Rourke and Marilyn Monroe.

Not content, perhaps, with just a west coast abode, Miss Roberts was also spotted as recently as last September poking and peeking around for a pied a terre in New York City's tourist- and shopper-packed SoHo neighborhood. It's not clear to Your Mama if Miss Roberts was looking to lease or purchase a pad in the The Big Apple and, since we don't know a donkey from hand puppet, Your Mama has absolutely no idea if the second tier starlet leased or purchased a place in New York City.

aerial photo (top left): Pacific Coast News
listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Beverly Hills North

I'm excited about my new Pasadena listing at 1585 Knollwood Terrace!

On March 1, my new Pasadena listing will launch in the multiple listing service and be available for showing.  Isn't it pretty? You can see more pics on my website at JudyGraff.com and even more pics can be found on all the public sites once it lists.

The home is located in the Linda Vista area of Pasadena, on the hill to the west of the Rose Bowl.  The area features much old-growth greenery, stately homes, tranquility, wildlife (see pictures of deer on the mls listing) and yet quick access to freeways, downtown LA and Pasadena, and La Canada.  I would rather live in the Linda Vista area than at the beach.  Really.

The house itself is a mid-century ranch (built in 1955) with pool (as you can see).  It's 2235 square feet and is located on a 24,000 sf lot (most of which is hillside).  It is up a long driveway which makes it extra private.  Huge windows fill the home with light and also enable you to enjoy a view from just about every room.  The house has four bedrooms, one of which is being used as an office and has its own fireplace (there's another fireplace in the living room).  All three baths have been remodeled. The pool and spa are solar-heated.  The kitchen has lots of upgrades and cabinets, the hardwood floors gleam and...I guess I'm gushing, but it's a fabulous property in a fabulous location.  List price is $1,049,000 and the first open house will be from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm on Sunday.  Come see!

Double Whammy: Steven Tyler (2)

BUYER: Steven Tyler
LOCATION: Kihei, HI
PRICE: $4,800,000
SIZE: 3,000 square feet (approx.), 2 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As far as Your Mama knows we were the first to "report" the details of a property purchase in Los Angeles, CA by Aerosmith front man and American Idol judge Steven Tyler but we are far from the first property gossip to get around to going on about the $4.8 million ocean front hideaway on the Hawaiian island of Maui the sixty-something and still rocking rocker and long time lady-pal and soon-to-be-third wife Erin Brady scooped up in December 2011.

We're not sure which snitch is responsible for letting Mister Tyler's Hawaiian real estate cat out of the bag but it it appears it may have been the well-connected gals who pen the Private Properties column for The Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ and listing information provided to Your Mama by a kind soul shows the gated, pentagonal-shaped dwelling sits all by itself on a promontory of just over a quarter acre of ocean front property. The house measures about 3,000 square feet and contains a pair of bedrooms multimillion dollar ocean views and 3.5 bathrooms. Listing information also reveals Mister Tyler's and/or his people negotiated a serious as a heart attack 25-plus percent discount on the property purchase as the pristine beach pad was last listed at $6,495,000.

Wood-framed floor-to-ceiling glass panels on both floors slide back and completely open the traditional pole-built residence to the elements. When completely open, the redwood and ipe wood structure functions as a luxuriously appointed covered terrace with flagstone floors and a floor-to-ceiling (and costly to maintain) aquarium on the lower level. Breezy, open air sleeping porches on the second floor have vaulted, exposed wood beamed ceilings, wood floors and postcard perfect ocean views.

The kitchen area has exquisite, custom ipe cabinetry that (one hopes) tolerates the damp and salty seaside air and includes shiny black granite counter tops with long expanses of prep area, a 4-person snack/booze counter, and top-of-the-line, commercial-quality appliances. Marketing materials we saw do not show any of the 3.5 bathrooms but listing information does state there is "marble in the bathrooms" and we expect they are as spiffy and ship-shape as the kitchen.

The upper level bedroom open to a narrow balcony that runs around the residence and the lower level living/dining/kitchen area spills out to a lava rock-lined, black-bottomed infinity edged saline swimming pool and grassy terraces girdle by rugged lava rock walls and connected by steps carved into the lava rocks.

Although the house and grounds appear to be quite and pleasantly private, it also appears from Your Mama's research that there's a very small but very public beach/swimming area located just outside the gates of Mister Tyler's residence.

Mister Tyler and his soon-to-be new Missus were photographed by the paps in late December (2011) taking part in some of house blessing ceremony with leaf-crowned woman believed to be "a local religious official."

listing photos: Century 21 / All Islands

Feroli, Harris, Sufi and West on Housing and the Transmission of Monetary Policy

I will share a link when I find one.  Let me pull out a couple of paragraphs from the executive summary:

In this report, we focus on weakness in housing. Our analysis makes two broad points. First, weakness in housing and residential investment is a main impediment to a robust recovery. Second, problems related to housing have affected the transmission of monetary policy. More specifically, the unprecedented decline in house prices and residential investment has introduced headwinds that may require a more aggressive monetary response than in normal downturns. Further, problems related to housing markets may reduce the sensitivity of real economic activity to the interest rates that monetary policy can affect. Or in the parlance of textbook intermediate macroeconomics, housing problems have likely shifted the IS curve leftwards and steepened the slope of the curve by introducing a gap between policy rates and effective rates. For both of these reasons, problems related to housing introduce significant challenges to monetary policy-making.
There are six steps in our analysis:
1. We begin by placing housing in the context of the broader economic recovery. The overall recovery in GDP has been one of the weakest in the postwar period even though the recession was the largest in the postwar period. Residential investment has been a particularly dismal performer. Further, the other weakest components of GDP--consumption of services and state and local government expenditures--can also be closely linked to weakness in housing markets. Focusing just on the direct impact of housing—home construction and housing service consumption—the sector accounts for about a third of the shortfall of growth relative to a typical recovery. Obviously the full impact of the housing crisis is bigger if we include indirect impacts on local governments and consumption of housing-related durables. We also show evidence from other countries that a collapse in housing is associated with subsequently weak recoveries....

If one looks at business cycle histories (see here, here and here), it is hard to imagine full recovery without housing market recovery.  Warren Buffet this morning said it was time for one.  I hope he is right.

Still playing consumers for suckers

So I am having a lazy Saturday watching ESPN, and see an ad where the husband says, "I need the TV," and the wife says, "We can't afford more credit card debt," and the announcer says--"you can have your TV and not take on credit card debt--by renting."

Of course, by renting, consumers are paying an implicit interest rates to RAC, the company peddling the scheme.  The price of renting a Sony 55" television is $29.99 a week.  The cost of a Sony 55" is $1899 on Amazon.  Let's say the expected life of a Sony is four years (it is probably longer).  That is an implicit IRR of 1.51 percent per week, or 117 percent per year.  There used to be a word for this kind of thing, and the word was usury.

This is different from legitimate rental businesses, that rent out equipment for short periods and that have to keep inventory that often sits idle.  But to suggest to consumers that they are better off not using their 24 percent APR credit cards for this scheme--it is disgraceful.

Let's Pause...

...for a wee gander a some serious SoCal architectural gorgeous, shall we?

The Schwimmer Residence, designed by innovative and experimental architect John Lautner and set into four desirable hillside acres high above Benedict Canyon in the 90210, was commissioned and built in 1982 by a Dr. Alden Schwimmer and his interior designer wife Nina.

Doctor and Missus Schwimmer sold the castle-inspired house—Lautner reportedly described it as a "horizontal castle"—in 1998 to former fashion designer Harriet Selling-Canepa who renovated and updated the house and, property records indicate, sold it off for an unknown amount of money in January 2009 to L.A.-based real estate executive Fred Droesch who currently has the eye-popping and iconic crib up for lease at $35,000 per month.

Situated well above the tree tops for picture perfect panoramic canyon and city views, the architecturally taut and nature-minded house hugs the hillside with its gentle curved shape, measures around 6,000 square feet, and contains, according to listing information, 4 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.

The main living areas include a voluminous open-plan living/dining area with fab stone floor, two massive stone fireplaces, wood-framed glass doors that connect to cantilevered terrace and runs along the back of the house, and a soaring, high-drama, rib-like wood ceiling with curved rafters. A more intimately scaled den—also with soaring, high-drama, rib-like wood ceiling with curved rafters—has herringbone patterned wood floors, a second massive stone fireplace and built-in bookshelves and desk space.

A series of hollowed out turrets made of Bouquet Canyon Stone solidly anchor the cantilevered two-story structure and serve a variety of purposes. One is a wet bar, another is a pantry, a couple house bathrooms and storage spaces and the one in the master bedroom functions as a pee-in-your-pants perfect sky lit shower enclosure.

Certainly Miter Lautner's Schwimmer Residence hasn't been maintained as a time capsule or museum piece, a fact some architectural purists will surely point out and poo-poo. Any number of alterations (improvements and upgrades) and have been made such as in the very airy, center island kitchen outfitted with sleek wood cabinets we suspect may not be original to the house and high-grade appliances that include full-sized, side-by-side fridge and freezers that are most definitely not original to the house.

Alterations aside, we are in unrequited and deep real estate lust-love with this house. Although it seems utterly preposterous to anyone frugally inclined like Your Mama to spend $35,000 a month on rent even if you can well afford to spend $35,000 a month on rent, were Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter ever to be in the position to pay $35,000 a month to rent a house—and we don't expect to ever be—we would be powerfully tempted by this house.

Some of the larger nearby estates are now owned by the somewhat mysterious Igor Greensberg whose mega-mansion rivals those in Beverly Park in both size and opulence and Dr. Phil McGraw.who dropped $29,816,500 for his 16,000-plus square foot mansion around the corner in July 2010. At the bottom of The Schwimmer Residence's hair pin-like gated driveway is the famous (and sadly bulldozed) Falcon Lair, a stunning Spanish style residence built in the 1920s by silent film stud Rudy Valentino and owed for nearly 50 years by American heiress Doris Duke. And just down the hill a bit more is the property where Charles Manson's minions murdered a handful of people including Sharon Tate in 1969. That property is now owned by sitcom writer/producer Jeff Franklin (Laverne & Shirly, Full House).

The ever-industrious kids at Curbed toured The Schwimmer Residence last summer and posted a couple dozen drool worthy photos that show other parts of the house not shown here that include a red-carpeted spiral staircase, the most decadent and dee-voon laundry room Your Mama and our imperious house gurl Svetlana have ever seen, and a sensually serpentine entry lined with curvaceous Richard Serra-like Bouquet Canyon Stone walls.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

UPDATE: Kristen Bell

A couple of weeks ago Your Mama discussed the secluded Studio City, CA residence of young actress Kristen Bell (House of Lies, Gossip Girl, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Veronica Mars) falling into the ugly maw of foreclosure.

Yesterday Miss Bell's former pad popped up on the open market as a bank owned property with an asking price of $1,995,000. A couple of quick clickety-clacks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's a significant $1,105,000 less than the $3,100,000 Miss Bell paid for the 2.6 acre spread in November 2006.

Current listing information shows the privately situated and somewhat bedraggled two-story house, built in 1969, measures 3,867 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms plus a possibly unpermitted wing with an additional 2 bedrooms, study, 2.5 bathrooms, and a laundry closet.

listing photo: Parsi Group Realtors

Paula Abdul Gonna Give Up Her L.A. Mock-Med

SELLER: Paula Abdul
PLACE: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,899,000
SIZE: 4,679 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Although this dish was surreptitiously whispered to Your Mama ten days or so ago at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, CA, we are hardly the first property gossip to get on the Paula Abdul real estate train and discuss the Sherman Oaks, CA mock-Med mini-mansion the Emmy- and Grammy-winning singer/dancer/choreographer/reality television personality officially listed just yesterday with an asking price of $1,899,000.

Miz Abdul started her long and circuitous slog up the slippery ladder of fame as a cheerleader for the the L.A. Lakers. She eventually became Emmy-winning choreographer and Grammy winning pop star who, after a long professional dry spell in the 1990s and early 2000s, emerged in 2002 as the sincere and compassionate but sometimes downright wacky acting judge on singing show juggernaut American Idol. She sat in that seat next to blunt-tongued Simon Cowell for 8 seasons before they both went on to the judges table on the first season of the American version of The X Factor. Miz Abdul, bless her heart, was unceremoniously axed from The X Factor after the first season. No doubt Miz Abdul was straight up mad as a cat in a crick but we suspect she'll be just fine. No stranger to staging a comeback she'll whip up a cheer leading-based exercise video or twinkle her toes on Dancing With The Stars and be right back in The Big Business of Show.

Miz Abdul purchased her Sherman Oaks property in September 2000 for $1,285,000 and, alas, it has been the scene of a number of ugly situations for the tabloid controversy magnet. While taping her (blessedly) short-lived reality program Hey Paula in 2007, a gal named Jill Kohl slipped, fell, and busted up her back but good in the sloped driveway. Miz Kohl eventually sued and the busy gossip beavers at E! reported just yesterday that Miz Abdul—more accurately, her home owner's insurance company—agreed to pay $900,000 to settle the legal matter without a trial. (The production company for Hey Paula reportedly agreed to cough up another hundred grand for Miz Kohl's pain and suffering.)

Celebrity watchers and tabloid readers will recall that in late 2008 wannabe singer and disturbingly obsessed "fan" Paula Goodspeed was found d-e-a-d-dead of a drug overdose in her car parked on the street a few doors down from Miz Abdul's abode. No doubt that rattled Miz Abdul's cage. How could it not? Given all the tragedy that's taken place out front of the house, it's no miracle to Your Mama that Miz Abdul has finally decided she's gonna give the house up. We only wonder what took her so damn long to git to it.

Anyhoo, perhaps in anticipation of her impending move, Miz Adbul had an estate sale at her home during which she sold her select pieces of furniture, fashions, footwear, a fancy antique clock or two, several gee-tars, tray after tray of sparkly (presumably costume) jewelry, various vases, and other objet and ephemera.

Current listing information shows the gated, two story abode, situated near the tail-end of a long, ridge line street above ur-suburban Sherman Oaks, measures a good-sized but far from grandiose 4,679 square feet and contains a total of 5 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. Your Mama has it on good authority that Miz Abdul has vacated the premises and that nearly all (if not every bit) of the perfectly ordinary furniture and day-core seen in listing photos was placed there by Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota.

Of course the property and house have a serious, celebrity-style security system but as far as we can tell the surprisingly low metal gate at the street doesn't provide any real security or even an illusion of privacy for the front of Miz Abdul's mock-Med mini-manse which sits fully exposed well above street level. The electronic gate slides open at the push of a button or entry of a code to the aforementioned sloped driveway that bends up to a front-facing two-car garage and raised entry portico with red tile roof held up by a pair of slender black columns. Double front doors—wood doors, thankfully—open to an airy, eager-to-impress-the-guests-style foyer where twin staircases with elaborately scrolled wrought-iron banisters flank an arched doorway that Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota in turn flanked with a couple of curlicuing (and probably fake) miniature cypress trees, or whatever they are.

Luscious looking mahogany-finished hardwood floors in the foyer—which may or may not be mahogany—extend through the wide archway opposite the front doors into the "formal" living room with over-sized fireplace, surprisingly low ceiling with glitzy black glass chandelier, and a contiguous series of wood-framed glass doors that connect the living room to a deep, covered dining terrace that overlooks the backyard swimming pool.

A second archway stuck into a corner of the living room, this one adorned with black faux-columns no doubt meant to mimic the black columns at the front entrance, link to an open plan dining room/kitchen where a black glass chandelier identical to the one in the "formal" living room looms over a perfectly serviceable if very ordinary table likely selected by Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota or one of her minions.

On one side of the dining table a wall full of wood-framed glass doors open to the backyard and swimming pool. On the other, a peninsula with rounded end separates the dining area from the country style kitchen outfitted with high-grade commercial-style stainless steel appliances, green-flecked granite counter tops, and honey-colored cabinetry. Upper cabinets have glass doors for displaying comestibles and cookware and lower cabinets have what appears to be a (most upsetting) series of crafty-looking, hand-painted tin panels set into each of the many doors and drawers.

A bedroom and attached bathroom behind the kitchen provides direct access to the garage and could be used for any number of things that include a guest room for over nighters who don't rank high enough to sleep upstairs, a home office, hair and make-up room, Pilates or painting studio or, natch, live-in domestic staff quarters.

The meant-to-impress but entirely unnecessary twin staircases in the foyer ascend to a second floor landing with inset display niches. One end of the landing opens to a large den/media room with vaulted and cross-beamed ceiling overhead, striped two-tone beige wall-to-wall carpeting like one might expect to find in a conference room a mid-priced business hotel underfoot, and some unpleasantly swagged brick red fabric hung over a wide wall of windows.

Double doors at the top of the stairs, included, we imagine, to make a grand entrance, open to a long, rectangular master bedroom with more lustrous hardwood floors, a raised ceiling, fireplace, and row of wood-framed glass doors that open to a terrace with backyard, canyon, and San Fernando Valley views. The master bathroom looks impossibly out-dated with it's awful and so un-chic (but well-maintained) coral and beige tile color scheme. It is, however, sufficiently sized and appropriately equipped with double sinks, make-up vanity, over-sized soaking tub set into a bay window, separate steam shower with built-in tile bench for leg shaving and other things, and a separate windowed cubby for the evacuation and ablution apparatuses. Naturally, Miz Abdul's boo-dwar contains a celebrity-style walk in closet with built-in center island dresser/dressing table and floor-to-ceiling shoe racks for storing the ABCs of female celebrity footwear: Atwood, Blahnik and Choo.

The second floor encompasses three additional secondary bedrooms and two more bathrooms. One of the three guest/family bedrooms has lovely canyon views through wood-framed glass doors that open to the terrace that runs the full width of the second floor at the back of the house and at least one of the other bedrooms opens to a narrow balcony with tree top view over the driveway.

Lower level living areas spill out to a covered dining and entertainment terrace that surrounds a fairly (and oddly) narrow swimming pool nestled into a visual gully between a tall row of hedges along one side and and a curving concrete wall that holds back a slope that flattens out to a tree-shaded grassy pad with canyon view. The canopied Tibetan prayer house meetsswinging park bench thingermabab set into the trees on the backyard's upper level is probably a perfectly shady place to whittle away a summertime cocktail or two but otherwise we find it an unspeakable mistake.

We're not quite sure to where Miz Abdul has decamped but, as mentioned earlier, we have it on good authority that she's done decamped for greener real estate pastures, whatever and where ever they may be.

Miz Abdul's immediate neck of Sherman Oaks isn't known for its big name residents but there are a couple notable neighborhood denizens who include (as the crow flies) Tinseltown's big daddy of celebrity gossip Ted Casablanca and Emmy-winning former child actor (and recently out of the closet lesbian) Kristy McNichol, her long time lady-mate and—ironically—their mini-dachshunds. Think about it for a second. Right...You got it: lesbians with wiener dogs. You can't make this stuff up.

With that, butter beans, we're off to the market and other errands require to prepare the house for the undoubtedly cacophonous arrival this evening of our dear Sister Woman, Brother In Law Man and their pair of sassy, hair-obsessed pre-teen off-spring.

listing photos: Postrain Productions for Coldwell Banker / Beverly Hills North

2007 N. 6th Street, Burbank, has closed. Hooray!

The probate fixer at 2007 N. 6th in Burbank has closed for $450k.  This property is rough and I wish the new buyers all the best for this.  Yes, they plan to re-do it and sell it. 

We received a total of 11 offers and all of them were cash.  And, surprise surprise, we got into a late bidding war (usually bidding wars happen at the beginning of the listing).  Three buyers duked it out (and wanted to duke me out) over about $1000 dollars at a time. 

The house had been vacant for many years and had holes in the ceiling, holes in the floor, etc.  Yes, it was jungle-y around the outside which is why the picture above isn't better. We worked around break-ins, trash-outs, board-ups, etc.  The probate attorney was a real asset (don't be afraid of probate, buyers!) and some of the sellers were, too.  I'm sure the new house will be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

Real Estate Tycoon Donald Abbey Lists Bradbury Behemoth With Beastly $78,000,000 Price Tag

SELLER: Donald Abbey
LOCATION: Bradbury, CA
PRICE: $78,800,000
SIZE: 47,182 square feet (total), 5 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The 90210—that's Beverly Hills butter beans—may get heaps of press and glory as one of Southern California's most expensive and exclusive communities but it's the much lesser known 91008 community of Bradbury where some of the country's most expensive properties are bought and sold.

Believe it or not my little ponies but itty-bitty Bradbury, nestled into the rolling foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains a bit east of Pasadena and surrounded by far less affluent communities that include Duarte, Monrovia, and Azusa, is consistently ranked by the fine folks at Forbes as among the most expensive zip codes in all of the U-nited States of America. Although we did not spot the 91008 among the top 50 most expensive zips in the list compiled by Forbes for 2011, in 2009 Bradbury came in at #4 with a median home price of $3,44,773 and in 2010 the zip code ranked in at the #1 spot in 2010 with a staggering median home price of  $4,276,462.

Earlier today, thanks to The Bradbury Barker Your Mama learned what is easily Bradbury's largest and most lavish estate, built over the last 8 years by a real estate tycoon named Donald Abbey, hit the market to screams of flabbergast and a crash of cymbals with an whopping $78,000,000 price tag. No, puppies, Your Mama did not drunkenly add an extra zero. Mister Abbey's palatial pile actually carries a price tag of more than seventy-eight million bucks.


Let's run this opulent beast by the numbers and otherwise let the listing photographs speak for themselves: somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 landscaped acres; a 600-foot long gated driveway and double circular drive; Three-story, approximately 32,000 square foot mega-mansion main house with two-story library, behemoth reception hall/ballroom with 40-foot ceiling and built-in bar, and a colossal kitchen with copper range and barrel vaulted ceiling (that is perhaps lined with copper sheeting).

Listing information shows there are five bedrooms including two titanic master suites in the main house, one completely swaddled in a rather disturbing green (or maybe it's blue) stained wood paneling and the other with a gargantuan rotunda ceiling with trompe l'oeil architectural detailing and hand-painted frescos.

Other features of Mister Abbey's great estate in Bradbury include a 2,000 bottle wine cellar; six fireplaces; 3D theater and poker lounge; 10 car garage, a cross-shaped infinity-edged swimming pool (that may or may not be meant to make some sort of religious statement) and party-sized 15-person spa; sprawling house with lavish lounge, fitness and spa facilities; guest house, tennis court, temperature controlled trout pond with two-story waterfall, and a subterranean firing range.

And, let's not forget, a jaw-dropping price tag of $78,800,000, a number that may or may not be realistic—we don't know—but certainly guarantees to set all the property gossips tongues a-waggin'.

For the full photographic monty, listing agent Bob Hurwitz at the Hurwitz James Company set up a virtual tour sure to delight and/or mortify anyone interested the real estate affliction known in Your Mama's circle as Real Estate Size Queenery.

listing photos: Hurwitz James Company

Oprah-owned Penthouse at Place 57 Up for Grabs

SELLER: Oprah Winfrey
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $7,900,000
SIZE: 2,530 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In January 2008 the juicy dish making its way down the New York City celebrity real estate gossip grapevine was that Oprah Winfrey's b.f.f. Gayle King—currently the co-anchor of CBS This Morning—coughed up a very considerable 7.1 million clams to acquire a glassy penthouse pad atop a sleek, newly built Midtown Manhattan tower called Place 57.

When all the deeds and documents were finally filed and recorded a few months later it was revealed by the New York Observer that the penthouse was more likely bought by Miz Winfrey and not Miz King. The evidence cited included that the names two of Miz Winfrey's known associates—accountant Lisa Gardina and Aspen-based attorney Gideon Kaufman—are listed in the purchase documents. However, in truth, Mister Kaufman's name also appears on the deeds and docs for Miz King's 10,000-plus square foot mansion in bucolic and baronial Greenwich, CT. More telling perhaps, as noted in the New York Observer and elsewhere, the Place 57 penthouse was purchased through a trust that seems to have been named after Miz Winfrey's beloved (but now deceased) cocker spaniel Sophie.

It was all very confusing, as these things sometimes are, but in spring 2011 Miz King invited the
cameras of decorator turned talk show hostess Nate Berkus for a somewhat limited tour of her New York City residence and the apartment shown is most certainly not the nearly all-glass penthouse pad on East 57th Street.

Anyhoodles poodles, late last night while grappling with a little insomnia Your Mama stumbled across the Oprah-owned penthouse at Place 57, now back on the market with an asking price of $7,900,000.

Current listing information shows the 36th floor spread has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, 2,530 square feet of glass-wrapped interior space, and an additional 750-ish square foot wrap-around terrace with pulse racing and knee-bucking city views. Listing information shows the monthly common charges and taxes come up to a hefty but hardly unheard of $4,958 per month, more money than most people earn in a month but a relative pittance for a woman of Miz Winfrey's extraordinary riches.

The apartment, blessed with lofty 12-foot high ceiling, opens into an unforgivably slender, chute-like entrance hall that explodes in to a scalene triangle shaped dining and living space where two long walls of floor-to-ceiling glass converge in a (melo)dramatic (and perhaps a wee bit ham-handed) manner to provide a gigantic, birds-eye view that stretches from the George Washington Bridge, over Central Park, west towards New Jersey and south to the glittering towers of Midtown.

A swinging door in the dining area swings open to a light, bright, modern and expensively equipped but somewhat petite kitchen finished with flat-fronted cabinetry (that may or may not be white oak), charcoal-colored counter tops of unknown material, and chunky center island that does not, we note with chagrin and surprise, have a built-in breakfast bar component.

Two guest/family bedrooms, one with private bathroom the other with access to a hall bath as per the floor plan included with current listing information, occupy the northeast wing of the aerie. A short corridor behind the kitchen and off the entrance hall has a stacked washer/dryer closet and connects to the relatively petite master suite occupies that the southeast wing and includes three walk-in closets (two with windows), a spa-style pooper with jetted tub, separate shower and cubby for the terlit and bee-day.

The unfurnished penthouse gleams with newness and looks to Your Mama's admittedly tired and boozy eyes like it's never been lived in. Of course, we don't know a pea hen from a microwave oven so we really haven't an iota if Miz Winfrey—or Miz King or anyone else for that matter—ever spent a single night up in the Place 57 penthouse. For all we know the all but undecorated penthouse was used for little more than cocktail parties. Listing information does reveal, however, the walnut floors are "brand new" and the "state-of-the-art" kitchen is "barely used," language that indicates Miz Winfrey (or somebody) did at least a little cooking up in that kitchen.

Two guest/family bedrooms, one with private bathroom the other with access to a hall bath as per the floor plan included with current listing information, occupy the northeast wing of the aerie and the relatively petite master suite occupies the southeast wing and includes three walk-in closets (two with windows), a spa-style pooper with jetted tub, separate shower and cubby for the terlit and bee-day.

The Place 57 tower, located between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in the no-man's land between Fifth Avenue and Sutton Place, has a Vincente Wolf-designed Baccarat Crystal Lobby, whatever that is, and offers residents white glove services that include 24-7 doorman and concierge services, a fully equipped fitness center, thematically designed children's playrooms, residents-only conference rooms, and a Baccarat Crystal Garden, whatever the decorative devil that is.

As mentioned earlier, Miz King owns a 10,000-plus square foot mansion in Greenwich, CT she unsuccessfully attempted to sell back in June 2008 when it was listed with a $7,450,000 price tag. Although we can't be certain, it does not appear that Miz King's krib in Connecticut is currently on the (open) market.

Miz Winfrey, as billionaires typically do, owns a number of other high priced and high maintenance properties that include (but are not necessarily limited to) a four-unit duplex at the Water Tower Place complex in downtown Chicago, a plantation-style mansion on the island of Maui in Hawaii, and a massive 23,000 square foot mansion on 42-manicured acres in supah-swank Montecito, CA she picked up in 2001 for a mind altering $50,000,000.

Miz Winfrey also owns a number of small (and not so small) homes and condos in places like Douglasville, GA, Franklin, TN, Merrillville, IN and Elmwood Park, IL all of which we presume were acquired for use by various family members and/or close personal friends.

In 2007 Miz Winfrey dropped $5,600,000 on a 4,607 square foot condominium with 2 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, and 2 car parking in a particularly posh Beaux Arts-style building in Chicago's swanky Streeterville neighborhood. The former chat show superstar, media mogul and generous global do-gooder reportedly never moved into the apartment that she put up for sale for about 6 months in 2008 for $6,000,000 and put up for lease late last year (2011) at $15,000 per month. The 6th floor Lake Shore Drive apartment remains listed for lease at $15,000 per month.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Matthew Yglesias says low income people face lower inflation

More specifically, he writes:

At the same time, it’s worth noting that stagnating real working-class wages are calculated by using a meaningless overall average rate of price inflation. Some things—college tuition, apartments in Manhattan, health care—have gotten more expensive much faster than average. This means that people who buy a below-average amount of those things are better off than the statistics show.

So I repeated an exercise I did a few years back--I looked at expenditure shares for different goods for each income quintile, and then looked at price dynamics for each expenditure category in the CPI (the matches between the CES and CPI are not perfect, but they are close.  I am not sure what to do with the expenditure categories "cash contributions" and "pension contributions.").

In any event, I find that the effective CPI for each income category is pretty much the same for 2009-2010: the CPI increase for the lowest quintile was 1.6, for the second lowest was 1.4, for the third 1.7, the fourth 1.8 and the highest 1.7.  These differences look like noise to me.

I will try to figure out something using longer term data, but since expenditure shares change over time, it will be harder to glean meaning from differences in CPIs.

 

Daphne Guinness At Home

Vacationing Out West

Image via WikipediaWith the longer days and increasingly warmer weather we are getting out in Oregon, it is hard to ignore that the summer season is right around the corner. Every couple, family or individual deserves to take some time off and enjoy the nice weather, so why not make a vacation out of it out west! Here are some fun vacation ideas and recommendations to help start your planning.

Take a Hike!
Hiking is a great way to discover the most beautiful places in the world, with the freedom to choose when are where you want to go. If you are in the learning mood, you can take a walking tour of a national park or landmark location. Quite often they are free or at a low cost, and they make you appreciate your surroundings even more.

Climb Every Mountain!
There are no shortages of mountains out west. The Rockies run from Mexico to Canada, and have a great deal of variety to meet your novice or advanced mountaineering needs. It is usually best to refer to a local guide book or resource when choosing mountains to hike or explore. Always make sure you've done your research so you are never in over your head!

Rivers Galore
With mountains come rivers, and with rivers come endless activities. Some of the more popular activities include whitewater rafting tours, fly fishing tours and river side camping. Like mountain activities, river activities out west have a large range in experience level. Always know what you are getting yourself into!

Know where to Stay
With all the activities you will put yourself through, plan out a place to stay in advanced based on your comfort needs. If you plan on sleeping out under the stars, that may seem like not much effort, but do you research and find a park or location that allows overnight camping. If you're more like me, and appreciate a warm and cozy night, take a stay in a condo. If you're coming out to Oregon, I would take a look at some Oregon condo vacation rentals. This site has locations in Depoe, Newport, Gleneden and Bend Oregon, but also has locations all over the American West.

Best of luck to your vacation planning and happy travels!

Bacon and Sedgwick Snag West Coast Pied a Terre

BUYERS: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,500,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We know we aren't the first property gossip to ride this particular bull at the celebrity real estate rodeo—that honor goes to a long-legged gal at Trulia—but we're giving a go around anyways...

Some of the many high profile people and celebrities who lost their proverbial shirts in the dirty terlit swirl that developed after the implosion of disgraced Wall Streeter Bernie Madoff's pernicious Ponzi scheme were long-married actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.

Obviously Your Mama ain't privy to the exact amount of dough lost by Mister Bacon and Miz Sedgwick but it was significant enough that she described the pocketbook punishment in 2009 to the people at People as "painful." Miz Sedgwick went on to point out that many "lost a lot more" and acknowledged that despite their losses she and Mister Bacon "have a lot of things to be grateful for." That there, children, is some capital C Celebrity Class for y'all. The lady showed her fans the respect of honesty about her situation and humbly recognized she remains one of the financially and professionally fortunate.

Anyhoo, whatever pecuniary pinch they may have felt due to Old Man Madoff's Machiavellian monetary maneuvers seems to have been rectified as evidenced, perhaps, by the $2,500,000 the East Coast-based couple coughed up in early December (2011) to acquire a very contemporary pied-a-terre in Los Angeles, CA. Certainly the Showbiz veterans have together and separately spent a great deal of time in Los Angeles but this is, as far as Your Mama knows, the first residence Miz Sedgwick and/or Mister Bacon have owned in Tinseltown.

Records we peeped reveal the property, which cleaves a steep hillside and offers a direct view across a wide canyon to the south slope of Mount Hollywood and the gorgeous Griffith Park Observatory, was sold by Lia Vollack, a hard-charging music/film industry executive who showed up in January (2012) at a very respectable number 51 on the Billboard Power 100. Miz Vollack purchased the property, as per Property Shark, in March 2007 for $2,450,000.

Not all online listings for the property indicate the square footage of the two-and-some story hill climber but the Los Angeles County Tax Man puts it at 2,760 square feet, a figure that may or may not be accurate. Trulia shows the house has 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms while listing information on Redfin states the updated, upgraded and fully re-worked residence was originally built in 1957 and contains a total of 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, a count we're pretty sure (but not certain) includes the lower level guest suite and separate flex-use space suitable for use as any number of things such as (but far from limited to) an office, gym, Zumba studio or model train making workshop.

A set of concrete steps climb from the street up the lushly landscaped hillside to the front door, an over-sized wood and glass thing that looks to Your Mama like it may have been inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright or some such person. The airy, light-filled lower level through entry has some sort of tile underfoot we suspect is limestone or some other luscious material and not some plain old ceramic stuff. A floating, geometrically-minded switchback staircase dramatically constructed with a glass, wood and steel framework and what may or may not be terrazzo treads connects to the main living/entertaining spaces on the upper level.

The open plan space has an architecturally warm palette of wood and stone and includes a step down "formal" living area with chunky stacked stone fireplace, expensive looking hardwood floors—teak? mahogany? ipe?—the run perpendicular to the wood slats on the high pitched ceiling, and two walls of floor-to-ceiling wood-framed glass sliders that provide tree top, canyon and Griffith Park Observatory views.

For better or worse, a grid of pot lights stand in stead of a proper chandelier or pendant fixture in the terrazzo-floored "formal" dining area that's open to the well-equipped kitchen over a boxcar-sized center work island with breakfast bar. The adjoining family room/den has built-in bookcases along one entire wall and on another a row wood-framed sliders that lead to a terrace tucked into the hillside with built-in barbecue center behind which a cantilevered staircase winds up to a brilliant roof deck with panty-dropping view across the canyon to the Griffith Park Observatory.

The master bedroom itself, in which the previous owner quite curiously installed deep periwinkle wall-to-wall carpeting, isn't particularly large but does includes a variety of choice amenities such as a sky light or two, a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that slide open to a balance beam-slim balcony with canyon and Griffith Park Observatory views and, as per listing information, his and her closets and bathrooms.

A little known addendum to Your Mama's Big Book of Decorating Do's and Don'ts offers the children additional anecdotal guidance on the mercurial art of harmonious and stylish living. Suggestion 1 says, of course, "A well-stocked booze cabinet is a person's best defense against loneliness and isolation since even the least self-destructive hooch hound will drive ten or maybe even 12 miles out of his or her way for a few free drinks."

Suggestion 7 reads, "Everyone needs their own private Idaho to store their undergarments and outer fashions. If (and always when) space allows, cohabitating couples, those married before God and government and otherwise, ought not share closet space or dresser drawers." Your Mama—who is all but slovenly—and the Dr. Cooter—who is decidedly not—would surely be divorced by now iffin we had to share closets. But we digress.

Both the "formal" living and dining areas open through wide expanses of windows to the adult-oriented outdoor areas that include a small, free-form swimming pool, raised spa set into flagstone terracing and, at the front of the property, a lounging deck eclipsed by a dead-on view of—you got it—the Griffith Park Observatory.

Property records and other online databases show Miz Sedgwick and Mister Bacon also maintain a couple of homes on the east coast that include a roughly 40-acre rural spread in Sharon, CT it appears they scooped up in the late 1990s as well as a sprawling high-floor co-operative apartment in a particularly stunning Beaux Arts building built in 1906 and situated directly across the street from Central Park.

listing photos: The Agency via Trulia