Brigitte Nielsen Buys Hollywood Hills Fixer Upper

BUYER: Brigitte Nielsen
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $600,000
SIZE: 1,539 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Several months ago we received an unexpected communique from long-time informant Babbling Babette who tattled to Your Mama that platinum-haired model/hacktress/reality star Brigitte Nielsen and her much younger fifth husband Mattia Dessi were house hunting in Sherman Oaks, CA, the spiritual if not geographical heart of Los Angeles' ur-suburban San Fernando Valley.

We promptly forgot about the matter until a couple weeks ago when Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter went to visit a couple of effervescent (and hard partying) spinsters with whom we're acquainted. Out of the blue, over multiple shots of Russian vodka at noon, one of our always entertaining hostesses let it slip the six foot tall Danish-born d-list celebrity had recently completed the purchase of a very modest ranch style fixer upper in a little known and not particularly glittery pocket of the Hollywood Hills known as the Hollywood Manor.

Your Mama well realizes many of the children under the age of 35 may not have a clue who Miz Nielsen is but, once upon a time, back in the mid-1980s, she was a punishingly stunning and somewhat androgynous Amazonian model turned budding action flick bad ass (Red Sonja, Rocky IV) who briefly hitched her marriage wagon to Sylvester Stallone (with whom she had dinner at the White House in 1985), had a much-publicized romance with hairy-chested New York Jet Mark Gastineau (which resulted in the production of the second of her four children), and who several times bared her taut and bulbous naughty bits in the glossy pages of Playboy. She was, for a hot minute, the shit. Alas, Miz Nielsen's showbiz career hit the skids almost as quickly as it began but not before she managed to eek out a sporadic if not entirely unsuccessful music career, mostly in Germany, Austria and Spain.

Alas, the the fickle interests of Hollywood turn on a dime and the intoxicating glamor of fame subsequently evaporates. Like so many washed up entertainment industry types the last 5 or 10 years Miz Nielsen eventually turned to reality television. She's appeared in a frightfully long list of tawdry reality programs in both the U.S. and Europe, most notably on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (2008) and The Surreal Life (2004) where she met and embarked on a bizarre (and, one hopes, faux) romance with insanely annoying rapper Flavor Flav. In 2008 she had a slew of plastic surgeries taped for and aired on German television and she currently stars on sixth season of Ich bin ein Star—Hold mich hier raus!, the German version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! It all seems a little depressing to Your Mama but, let's get real, who are we to judge? We spend out days writing about celebrity real estate for Christ damn sakes.

Anyhoo, after we sobered up from our mid-day hooch-fest with the spinsters we had a poke around the property records which do indeed reveal Miz Nielsen paid an even-steven $600,000 for a rather motley looking two-story house in the Hollywood Hills not so far from Universal Studios. Listing information we dug up off the internets shows the 1,539 square foot house was originally built in 1939 and has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and peek-a-boo mountain views.

A fenced and tree-shaded courtyard with fountain on the street side of the house ensures Miz Nielsen's neighbors can't peep in her front windows and leads to wood-floored interiors spaces that include a small "formal" living room with green marble fireplace surround, dining room, sun porch, and a green and white-tiled galley-style kitchen that listing information energetically and generously describes as a "COOKS KITCHEN!"

Many of the house's rooms open through French doors to the various courtyards, terraces and patios that surround the house. The various and multitudinous outdoor spaces include a narrow, awning-shaded strips of lawn with small pond, tended to but still somewhat unruly looking shrubbery clumps, a wide deck with lattice-screened pergola-shaded lounge area, and terraces beds planted with apple, pear, avocado and peach trees.

Additional amenities (and "amenities') include an attached 2-car garage with direct access to the house, sky lights and stained glass windows, two fireplaces, central heat and air, and solar panels on the roof that listing information surprisingly specifically indicates will save Miz Nielson "APPROX 25% OFF" her utility bill.

Your Mama has it on very good authority that Miz Nielsen, who reportedly maintains a house in her husband's native Italy and is sometimes reported to live in Palm Springs, has long leased a house in the Hollywood Manor 'hood that happens to be all but across the street from the one she just purchased.

Other resident celebrities—or "celebrities" depending on your point of view—of the Hollywood Manor enclave include inestimable helmet haired actress Morgan Fairchild, bespectacled tee-vee carpenter Paul DiMeo (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) who owns a Spanish casa once owned by Tinseltown cowboy Tom Mix, and pretty brunette actress Erin Daniels from The L Word who is not, as it turns out, a lesbian.

listing photos: Realty Source

Better graph with more recent data

In comments, a complaint was lodged that I used a graph with a linear y-axis for demonstrating change in income over the past 40 years.  The problem with such a graph is that if everyone has the same percentage income growth, the slope for high income earners will still look higher.

So here is a graph where the y-axis is logarithmic.  It also contains more recent data:

The point doesn't change: from 1969 until 2010, income at the top of the bottom quintile essentially hasn't moved (it changed from 26,289 to 26,685).  Income at the bottom of the top five percent has moved quite a lot (from 121,516 to 200,354) .
  

A modest proposal for tax reform

Let's just start by designing a code that requires that as adjusted gross income rises, the effective tax rate may not fall.  That way taxpayers would be able to look at their own effective rate, and know that everyone with higher incomes would pay at least as high a rate.

Brandon Boyd Double Whammy: Two

BUYER: Brandon Boyd
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: $2,750,000
SIZE: 2,909 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Earlier today Your Mama discussed the somewhat unconventional Venice, CA residence that Brandon Boyd, much-inked visual artist and comely lead singer of the radio-friendly rock bank Incubus, currently has up for sale with an asking price of $3,195,000. Mister Boyd listed his long-time abode back in August 2011 at a notably higher price ($3,495,000) and although the situation was much covered by many of our celebrity property gossip compatriots Your Mama did not, for reasons we don't recall, delve in to the matter at that point and time.

Mister Boyd may have yet to sell his quirky (and deluxely done) crib near the beach but it was recently tattled to Your Mama by an informant we'll call A. Nonny-Mouse that the slim-hipped (and apparently long-haired) singer-artist has already purchased another property, also in Venice.

Making use of very specific information provided by Missus Nonny-Mouse Your Mama was able to confirm the same trust and trustee Mister Boyd used to acquire his house in Venice—purchased from actress Maria Bello in November 2005—now shows up as the new owner of a fully fenced, gated and secured property just a momentary stroll off busy Abbot Kinney Boulevard, the primary arty-farty/hippy-dipy and increasingly upscale commercial heart of the still rough around the edges, left leaning Los Angeles beach community of Venice, a geographical and historic magnet for (among others) political radicals, hippies and hipsters, successful creative types, assorted freaks and geeks, arty-farty showbizzers, and a sizable and very visible homeless population. Resources and documentation available online indicate the lofty-residence in question, somewhat smaller that Mister Boyd's commercial conversion just over a mile to the north and west, went for $2,750,000.

Listing information Your Mama teased up out of the interweb shows the 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom residence measures 2,909 square feet, a figure that may or may not include an office space above the detached 2-car garage. The house was custom designed and built in 2007 "by a prominent interior designer." Said designer turns out to also be the seller who property records reveal as Amy (Devault) Acuna and her fashion designer/wardrobe stylist huzband René Acuna who acquired the property in the final days of 2002 for $573,000.

A gated walkway shoots up the side of the property and house to a brick-lined inset entryway where a black steel-framed commercial-style glass door swings open to a proper and intimately-scaled entrance hall with radiant heated polished concrete floor and full wall bathed in a high-glam, white silhouetted silvery wallpaper that we like because it's shiny and we like shiny things but also worry its well past its Warholian 15 minutes. The cozy-compact foyer explodes into the voluminous main living space with staggering 30-foot high exposed wood bow truss ceiling, bleached wide-plank wood floors (unnecessarily) laid at a 45-degree angle, a wood-burning fireplace, vast expanses of white walls for bouncing light and displaying artwork, and a pair of french doors with custom hand-forged hardware that open to a decked, fenced and high-hedged courtyard where a cushioned built-in bench hugs a tire-shaped concrete fire pit.

The kitchen, tucked under the stairs and open to the dining area of the main living space, seems a wee bit wee maybe for a 3,000 square foot loft-style residence but is generously equipped with a chunky white marble-topped center work island with snack counter, ebony flat-fronted cabinets with thickly veined black marble counter top, high-grade stainless steel appliances, and an awkward built-in buffet with plenty of space for cook books as if anyone actually uses cook books anymore. We tease. A butler's pantry with under-counter wine fridge connects the kitchen to the foyer and a bathroom facility that may be uncomfortably close to where food is prepared and served for Your Mama's preference but does offer dinner and drinks guests a relatively private place to do their dirty business.

An open stair leads up to a loft/den with grey-brown hardwood floors underfoot—notably different that the bleached stuff on the floor in the living room below—a built-in entertainment/storage cabinet at one end and a built-in desk and book shelves on the other.

A double-wide wood door in the loft/den slides back on sleek barn-inspired hardware to a wide corridor and master suite. A bedroom-sized walk-in closet with custom built ins and spa-like earth tone bathroom with separate soaking tub and over-sized shower flank the broad corridor that connects to the wide (if somewhat narrow looking) bedroom outfitted with wood beamed ceiling, gigantic concrete wood burning fireplace, and an extra wide sliding glass door that join to a small private balcony.

A grassy patch runs up the side of the house to a professionally landscaped postage stamp-scaled courtyard that separates the main house from the aforementioned alley-facing detached 2-car garage with office space above. A small deck between the two buildings marks the outdoor shower area that is, as best as we can surmise, totally open to the rest of the small but usable backyard area. Now listen, hunties, no one loves an outdoor shower in the cool evening of summer time more than Your Mama but, have mercy puppies, there does not seem to be a shred of privacy for the showeree here, just a too visible corner of the yard where people can just stand and around gape and guffaw while you inelegantly try to wash beach sand out the crack of yer damn ass.

Anyhoo, in addition to the 2-car garage there are four more off-street parking spaces (one of which doubles as a fenced dog run). Now children, we realize some of y'all are gonna gripe about the gangs in Venice and how it's little more than an expensive and glorified ghetto but regardless of what one may think of the admittedly sometimes less than savory shenanigans that go on in Venice it's impossible not to take not of the rare and valuable luxury six off-street parking spaces is in a tightly packed and parking challenged community where some of the otherwise often liberally-minded homeowners and residents literally fight with the essentially homeless (and not always respectfully hygienic) occupants of the scads of campers and RVs that sometimes dot and line the narrow streets of Venice.

Your Mama, who does not know a balloon from an artificial hip about Mister Boyd's actual plans as regards to his new digs, would bet both our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly the office space above the garage will wind up converted into a music/art studio where thirty-something year old Mister Boyd can brandish his paint brushes, blow his didgeridoo and sing his pretty heart out.

Whatever Mister Boyd does to customize his new house and whatever real estate and home day-core traditionalists might think of his idiosyncratic (but hardly avant garde) decorative ways, Your Mama fully expects the end result will be thoroughly infused with his well-honed personal style that exudes an authentic-seeming (if inescapably curated) modern day bohemian point of view.

listing photos: Abbot Kinney Real Estate