Don't Forget...

...to join Your Mama on the Facebook (The Real Estalker) and the Twitter (@YourMamaTweets).

We're still working out the kinks–we are virtually illiterate when it comes to social media–so bear with us as we get up to speed.

Bye now.

Does Lady Gaga Have Island Fever?

If the children will jump in their mental time machines and go back to the fall of 2010 they should recall the deafening crush of whispers and reports about global superstar Lady Gaga's (alleged) hunt for a hideaway house on the almost preposterously preppy Martha's Vineyard. It was snitched at the time that Miss Gaga loved the Vineyard and thought it would be a perfect place to vanish and rejuvenate after her Monster Ball tour wraps up in 2011.

It wasn't so long ago that Miss Gaga shacked up in a dingy tenement building on the Lower East Side, just a few blocks from where Your Mama lived for about a hundred years. Miss Gaga–nee the far more prosaic Stefani Germanotta–has earned a vast and growing fortune in a very short time and can now well afford to live how and where she wants but ever since becoming wildly and filthy rich always bizzy beaver has had a somewhat bumpy real estate ride.

Last year Your Mama heard from an unimpeachable source that Miss Gaga considered the purchase of a $16,500,000 house in Beverly Hills, CA that we also heard that Nicole Kidman–who already owns a house in the 'hood–made an offer on. However and instead, the sartorial daredevil leased a mansion in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles for $25,000 per month owned by the same folks at the $16,500,000 house she thought about buying. Her manager–or agent or somebody who makes a lot of money from Gaga's gyrations–gave her a vintage convertible Rolls Royce to drive. Alas, Miss Gaga quickly decided she didn't like life in L.A. and high-tailed it back to her native New York City where she led celebrity property gossips on a wild goose chase as she toured just about every apartment and penthouse in downtown Manhattan with a monthly rent above $20,000.

Last summer there was a lot of confusion and scads of reports that Miss Gaga might be interested in purchasing a multi-million dollar mansion in the Hamptons. Some reports speculated that she'd opted to and already had leased a house for the summer. Your Mama, iffin we're being honest, has no idea if Miss Gaga spent time in the Hamptons last summer or not.

The latest gossip on the topic to come straight out of Martha's Vineyard suggests that Miss Gaga is not buying on Martha's Vineyard proper but building a Haus of Gaga on Chappaquiddick, a separate island at the eastern end of the Vineyard island that feels doubly remote since it is accessible only by ferry from Edgartown. Chappaquiddick, Chappy in local parlance, is perhaps and for better or worse most famous for being the locale where in 1969 Senator Ted Kennedy's car went off Dyke's Bridge into Poucha Pond and killed his lady friend Mary Jo Kopechne.

Anyhoo, according to the latest whispers around Chappy and Edgartown, Miss Gaga is engaged in building a "coo-coo and contemporary" style crib right up next door to the rather attractive island getaway of trout-pouted actress Meg Ryan who had her house featured last year on the glossy pages of Elle Decor.

It's hard to imagine that Miss Gaga and Miz Ryan will become the sort of neighbors who share gardening tips or get drunk together on Thursday afternoons like Your Mama used to do with our sassy and much-missed neighbor Rosemary when we summered on the east end of Long Island. But then again, maybe they'll become fast friends as they lallygag the summer away braiding each other's hair on their rather remote spit of land on Chappaquiddick.

Now kids, keep in mind that this is all just rumor and gossip that floats around on the ferries and gets passed along on the deep shaded porches all around the island. We scooched around in the property records for a few minutes but came up empty handed and there seems to be no available confirmation from her people that Miss Gaga is or is not buying or building a house on Martha's Vineyard. We'll just have to buckle in and wait to see.

Miz Ryan, the current paramour of John Cougar Mellencamp, also owns a spectacular house in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles that sits next door to smoldering fashion designer/filmmaker Tom Ford and is currently leased out to Oscar winner Diane Keaton who recently sold her Beverly Hills house to Nip/Tuck and Glee creator Ryan Murphy who is, we hear through the celebrity real estate grapevine, interested in buying the home of yet another Oscar-winning lady. It is, children, a tangled web these celebrities weave with their myriad and near-constant real estate machinations.

A short list of other notable homeowners on the dee-voon Martha's Vineyard include tech tycoon turned art collector Peter Norton, Naomi Foner and Stephen Gyllenhaal–although with their dee-vorce and alleged money troubles we're not sure of the status of that house, chat show host and Donald Trump mocker David Letterman, Emmy-winning lefty-lib writer/producer Larry David and the most marvelous earth-momma Carly Simon and her big ol' teeth.

Now then, what does a meat dress donning gal like Gaga wear the beach? A bikini of glass shards and butterfly wings? A one piece number made of tin foil with a dangling train of sea shells and bottle caps? A bedazzled burqa? Anyone?

Open house on Sunday, 5/8, 2-5: 4209 Fair Ave., Studio City

More pics and info can be found at JudyGraff.com.  Come see this pristine 3+2 for $749,000, and visit me, on Sunday the 8th from 2 to 5!

Birthday Break

Listen puppies, today is Your Mama's birthday–yes, it really is–so we've decided to give our self a wee break. Instead of working our fingers to the bone like we do most days we're going to spend the day on our back deck, sipping gin and eating the dee-voon white-trash birthday cake the Dr. Cooter made for us.

However, we hate to leave the children high, dry and starving for a celebrity real estate morsel so here are a few nuts and berries to keep y'all busy for a while.

1.
Alternative music maker Moby recently moved from New York City to Los Angeles where he's made house in the legendary Wolf's Lair, a storied castle perched high above Lake Hollywood. Moby bought the fairy tale property last year from divorcing music executive Jay Faires and tee-vee talker Debbie Matenopoulos.

The quirky house had first been listed with an asking price of $7,500,000. Property records show that Mister Moby paid $3,925,000 for the 3.31 acre aerie and according to a recent article in the New York Times, the picayune, pixie-like musician spent another couple million on renovations and restorations that included the installation of a new kitchen, the addition of three bathrooms to the main house, the conversion of a garage into a recording studio and situating a small meditation deck to hover serenely over the lake.

Photos in the New York Times reveal that Mister Moby has sparely but smartly furnished the house with pedigreed mid-century modern furniture that, as far as we're concerned, makes a delicious juxtaposition against the eccentric architecture and historical architectural details.

2.
We're not sure how many people actually care about this but for those who do Madonna's fire-ravaged childhood home in Rochester Hills, MI can now be purchased for just $49,000. Your Mama presumes there are a healthy handful of crazed "fans" who are, at this very minute, pawning their car stereos and selling their 14-karate gold jewelry to come up with the damn down payment. Iffin we were Madonna–and thank heavens we are not–we'd buy the property, raze the house and donate the land for a neighborhood park with taxes paid for the next 99 years. Just a thought.

3.
Your Mama gets a lot of questions about pocket listings: What are they? Why would someone do a pocket listing? Click here for the low-down on pocket listings. Let us know if you have any questions.

4.
It's no secret that celebrities have special real estate desires and needs and the money to buy them. Here's a list compiled by people at Zillow of the top 10 features famous folks look for in a home.

5.
Hip hopper Salt of Salt-N-Pepa listed her Melville, NY mansion with an asking price of $2,295,000. Who?

6.
An unidentified buyer paid a stunning $47,000,000 for a New York City townhouse originally built for one of those lavish living Vanderbilts. The 33-foot wide townhouse was sold as a pocket listing (see above) sans broker, which means no commission will be paid.

7.
Your Mama asks that the children consider the audacious brilliance of the tiger-striped wall-to-wall carpeting in this New York City penthouse at the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Our friends at Curbed think the high-floor corner condo, recently listed at $24,000,000, might belong to Band-Aid heiress Libbet Johnson whose brother Woody–that would be the owner of the New York Jets and father of tragic socialite Casey Johnson–happens to own the penthouse next door.