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SELLER: Anna Kournikova
LOCATION: Miami Beach, CA
PRICE: $9,400,000
SIZE: 6,630 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Anna Kournikova, a robust Russian beauty with a thick and silky mane of flaxen hair, was once a top tennis player on the world circuit. She had better luck on the doubles court–she took two grand slam titles with mouthy Martina Hingis–than she did on the singles court where for a brief moment in 2000 she reached the number 8 slot on rankings board. Ultimately it was not tennis but her healthy good looks and athletically curvy chassis that catapulted comely Miss Kournikova to swimsuit model fame and fortune. She became and remains of the most searched athletes on the interweb and has many times been named to various (men's) magazine's hottest and sexiest lists. Most recently she replaced Jillian Michaels as the trainer on The Biggest Loser, a professional move we never would have predicted.

Miss Kournikova, a wily minx if there ever was one, is perhaps best known in Gossipland as a master of obfuscation as regards to her romantic life. In the late 1990s it was reported the 18-year old tennis beauty was engaged to 28-year old Russian ice hockey pro Pavel Bure. Both Bure and Kournikova deny they were ever engaged.

Shortly after busting up with Bure, Kournikova hooked up with Sergei Fedorov, another Russian professional ice hockey hunk. He says they were married in 2001 and divorced in 2003. She says they never officially hitched their wagons. Your Mama hasn't any idea whatsoever if Miss Kournikova and Mister Fedorov were ever married in the eyes of God and government but we do know that together they held title to at least one Miami, FL area property. More on that later.

In late 2001, at the height of her white hot success Miss Kournikova got with suave and sexy pop star Enrique Iglesias. Anyone familiar with a calendar can see this would have been when–according to Sergei Federov–she was married to Sergei Federov. Make of those dates what you will. Several times over the years multiple rumors and reports surfaced that the couple were engaged. In 2007 Mister Iglesias told the press he and Lady K had broken up. She–no surprisingly–denied they split up. The following year the crooner claimed he'd married the tennis pro turned hottie model in 2007 but that they were (then) separated. In 2010 Miss Kournikova told British talks show hostess Graham Norton that she and Mister Iglesias had been coupled more than 10 years but had no plans to marry and as recently as late May 2011, the pair were photographed scooting around on a boat in Miami.

Are they married? Not married? Gawd, who cares? It's just exhausting. Personally, we think all the efforts of celebrities and other public figures to perplex the press and public only intensifies fans' interest in the intimate details of their personal lives. But then again, what do we know?

Anyhoo, property records show that Miss Kournikova acquired her water front residence in Miami Beach, FL in July 2000 for $5,000,000. She would have just turned 20 years old at the time. The purchase of her mansion in Miami Beach, now on the market with an asking price of $9,400,000, was not, it seems, her first time getting on the bronco at the real estate rodeo.

As might be expected given Miss Kournikova's penchant for surrounding her public image with confusion, property records for a certain Miami Beach penthouse are tangled. The Miami-Dade Tax Man shows that in October of 1997 Sergei Fedorov paid $2,275,000 for a penthouse pad at the luxe and amenity-laden Portofino Tower condo complex at the southern tip of South Beach. Title records we looked at show that in May 1999–long before Miss Kournikova was reported to be hooking up with (or perhaps married to) Mister Fedorov–he transferred the 5,680 square foot penthouse into her name for just $100. Something about that seems erroneous and/or fishy but that's what the docs show. In August of 2003 Mister Fedorov, according to the documents we peeped, paid Miss Kournikova $1,625,000 to assume sole ownership of the 4 bedroom and 6 bathroom penthouse. Records indicate the penthouse remains in Mister Fedorov's property portfolio. Confused? We are too.

Whatever what the deed and title situation with the penthouse at the Portofino Tower and whatever the current living situation of Mister Iglesias and Misss Kournikova, it's clear that the racket swinger has after nearly six years of ownership decided to dump her Miami Beach mansion in a gated island enclave in the Biscayne Bay and recently heaved it on the market with a $9,400,000 asking price.

Listing information shows Miss Kournikova's ivy-covered Mediterranean style mini-compound includes a 6,630 square foot two story main house that wraps around a central courtyard, a two-story guest house atop a poolside cabana and additional living quarters–perfect for staff or office–above the two car garage with kitchenette and private pooper. The property, walled and gated for security and privacy, includes a total of 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms according to listing information.

An arched wood, glass and wrought iron door opens from the motor court into an interior courtyard ringed by a loggia with a gurgling fountain. A proper grand entry with sweeping staircase leads into the mansion's main rooms that feature soaring ceilings with exposed beams and trusses, marble floors, fireplaces, wood-framed French doors and carved wood architectural details.

The well-equipped but not particularly special eat-in kitchen has white, antiqued raised panel cabinetry with glass-fronted uppers, an L-shaped island, light-colored granite counter tops and breakfast bar, and commercial grade stainless steel appliances including two side-by-side fridge/freezers. Wood-framed French doors connect the adjacent dining area to the backyard and outdoor entertaining areas.

Upstairs the waterside master suite has wood floors, a wood ceiling, and a trio of wood-framed French doors that give way to a narrow planted terrace that hangs over the backyard and looks out beyond to the shimmery bay. The attached bathroom has double sinks set into a carved wood wood commode (which we hope is antique is probably not), a barrel-vaulted ceiling, stone-tiled walls, separate shower with rain head and a jetted tub with bay view.

Although packed tightly onto the wedge-shaped lot the property boasts considerable outdoor and entertainment areas including a generous motor court, center courtyard entrance, a swimming pool and spa surrounded by coral rock terrace which in turn is surrounded on two side by flat lawns and towering palm trees, an outdoor living/dining area with built-in barbecue and a private dock for parking the water craft. A tall row of high-hedges along the water font keep any potential looky-loos from peeping in on Miss Kournikova (and Mister Iglesias) as they lounge poolside, grill up hot dogs or tinker in the garden.

One wonders if Miss Kournikova's new gig on The Biggest Loser will draw her to the left coast even though Miami is and has always been the home base of her long-time man-friend (and possible husband) Mister Iglesias. We haven't heard a word about Miss Kournikova hunting for a house in Tinseltown–we really hear so little about these things–that for all we know she's already settled into gated mansion in Pacific Palisades or one of the other uppity zip codes on the West Side. Stranger things have happened, candy bars.

Listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International

type='html'>Rock-n-roll heiress Lisa Marie Presley–only daughter of Elvis and Priscilla and ex-wife of both Nic Cage and Michael Jackson–sold her compound in the upscale guard-gated community of Hidden Hills, CA in November 2010 for $5,000,000. The new owner, a Los Angeles-based physician, apparently had little use for Miz Presley's 8,000-ish square foot mansion and its multiple outbuildings. Thanks to a snap-happy snitch we'll call Heidi Hidesoutinhiddenhills the good doctor razed LMP's mansion and much of the landscaping that once surrounded it in order to make way for his own–no doubt steroidal–version of Barbie's Dream House.

Not long before she sold her house in Hidden Hills, Princess Presley and her fourth husband, music producer Michael Lockwood, plus their young twins and her two young-adult-aged kids from her first marriage to musician Danny Keough, decamped for the U.K. The blended family reportedly settled into the humongous and historic Coes Hall, a sprawling estate in East Sussex very near a somewhat (in)famous estate called Saint Hill Manor, which happens to be Britain's Scientology headquarters.

Of no particular relevance to this discussion but fascinating none the less is that Mister Keough served as the best man at LMP's nuptials to her current husband. That children, is so damn civilized and modern that we just can't stand it. Truly. Our point of view on the matter might seem odd to some but it is deeply informed by the friendly nature of our own blended family in which the children of Your Mama's Big Daddy's third wife–that would be our step-momma's children from a previous betrothal–used to spend a week every summer at the beach with Your Mama's Momma who was Big Daddy's first wife. Does that make sense, bunnies? 'Tis true.

Anyhoodles poodles, property records and previous reports reveal that the formidable but low-key (and wildly wealthy) Miss Presley paid $2,600,000 for her horsey Hidden Hills compound back in December 1993 when she was a dewy lass in her mid-twenties with the same swarthy and smoldering visage of her famous father. At the same time she bought the compound she paid another $625,000 for the adjacent property, a thickly-treed 1.47 acre parcel with a 2,842 square foot house tucked down a long drive at the back of the property that butts up to the Ahmanson Ranch. It's widely reported that Miz Presley's first hubby, Danny Keough, occupied the property in order that both parents could remain a constant presence in their childrens' lives.

Miz Presley first got ants in her real estate pants sometime before October 2009 when she officially listed her 3.07-acre equestrian compound with an optimistic asking price of $8,995,000. The property was de- and re-listed several times and by July 2010 the price tag had plummeted to $6,995,000.

The property encompassed a main residence with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in about 8,000 square feet of interior space, a one bedroom guest house and a recreational annex with recording studio. A three-stall barn had an attached bedroom and pooper perfect for a beau-hunky live-in groomsman. The grounds, before they were scraped up by the present owner (see photo above), had broad rolling lawns with mature shade trees, an orchard, several outdoor entertaining areas, and a free-form swimming pool and spa with a water slide that swooshes through an imposing pile of boulders. Iffin we're being honest, and we always are, we have no idea if the new owner kept of demolished the swimming pool area.

At the same time she listed her compound she put the house next door–where Mister Keough lived–on the block with an also optimistic asking price of $1,995,000. As mentioned above, Miz Presley sold her compound to a SoCal healerman for five million clams and property records show she sold Mister Keough's crib in February 2011 for $1,200,000.

Other residents/property owners of the Hidden Hills include Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Melissa Etheridge and her ex-wife Tammy Lynn Michaels, David Boreanaz, Nicolette Sheridan, former tween and pre-tween heart throb Shaun Cassidy, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne and back in the saddle pop phenom Britney Spears who recently leased a resort-like estate inside the gates of Hidden Hills that includes a 19,107 square foot mansion with 10 bedrooms and an unlucky 13 dirty business cans. Hidden Hills is also the family seat of the Kardashian clan.

Coes Hall, where Miz Presley and family may or may not currently reside –we really have no idea if they've maintained their expat status or scrambled back to the good ol' U.S. of A.–includes a substantial updated mansion with sections that date back to the 15th-century. The residence contains 11 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, 9 receptions rooms, a state of the art sound system and a cinema while the expansive and bucolic grounds offer a tennis court, a swimming pool complex with spa, parterre gardens, paddocks for the ponies and a private lake.

photo: Heidi Hidesoutinhiddenhills

type='html'>All the Nashville and country music media are going hog wild with the news that former American Idol turned Grammy-winning pop-country superstar Carrie Underwood and her lantern-jawed professional puck pusher hubby Mike Fisher have snatched up more than 400 undeveloped acres in the scenic and semi-rural suburbs of Nashville, TN.

According to all the many reports on the matter, Mister and Missus Fisher paid around $2,900,000 for 354 acres in the foothills south of Nashville. They reportedly paid another $350,000 for an adjoining 50-acre spread.

Presumably the comely couple will build a big ol' house with a swimming pool (and and ice rink?) where they can raise up a passel of fine lookin' youngins in the lap of country luxury.

Last year it was reported in all the big tabs and gossip glossies that the newlyweds were in the process of building a house of marital bliss in Ottawa, Canada where Mister Fisher, at the time, played hockey for whatever hockey team it is they have in Ottawa. Conveniently, early in the year Mister Fisher was transferred to the professional hockey team in Nashville, his wife's home base. We're sure there were no calls made or strings pulled to make that happen. Your Mama really has no idea if the Underwood-Fishers will keep their crib in Canada where, we imagine, Mister Fisher still has scads of family and friends.

As far as we know–and property records reveal–Missus Underwood-Fisher's property portfolio currently includes the Brentwood, TN mansion that she bought in May 2007 for $1,353,000. The house, according to records and research, sits at the tail end of a cul-de-sac in the gated Governors Club golf community and measures 5,683 square feet.

The country queen also, according to records, still owns a 2,956 square foot house in a suburban development in Franklin, TN that she acquired in November 2005 for $384,000.

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SELLER: Miles Copeland III
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE:$4,950,000
SIZE: 7,486 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Before there was The Selby–if y'all don't know it, you should–there was Nest. From 1997 until 2004 the remarkable and sadly shuttered quarterly shelter publication Nest lovingly presented extraordinary public and private spaces that flouted any and all traditional notions and confines of good decorative taste.

The high-concept publication, conceived and orchestrated by the wildly creative Joseph Holtzman, promoted and celebrated idiosyncratic, eccentric and often perplexing environments rather than the picture perfect rooms typically presented in design and day-core publications. Unlike the pretty and "correct" but too-often sterile spaces seen in most high-end shelter publications, the homes and spaces presented in vividly lush layouts in Nest were not always easy to look at but they were provocative and provided a deep, fascinating and raw look into the inner lives of the home's occupants.

Nest was definitely not for the strict classicist or decoratively feint of heart; This was not the sort of magazine that breezily offered suggestions about how readers could cheaply emulate the expensive and quote-unquote good design depicted on the glossy house-porn-filled pages of most design rags. Rather, Mister Holtzman and his band of merry interns sanctioned the somehow little encouraged notion that folks ought to follow their personal vision of decorative bliss even if it means covering the walls, ceiling and floor of a guest bedroom entirely in electrical tape or hanging a Christmas light festooned ficus trees upside down over the dining room as an organic make-shift chandelier.

If Todd Selby hasn't yet photographed the Los Angeles, CA residence of legendary music mogul and artist manager Miles Copeland III for The Selby then Your Mama thinks he ought to get on his broomstick and hightail out from N.Y.C. to document the quirky (and janky) Hollywood Hills crib that Mister Copeland just put on the market with an asking price of $4,950,000.

Mister Copeland–the son of two intelligence officers and the brother of both noted music promoter Ian Copeland and The Police's Stewart Copeland–nursed and promoted the careers of various New Wave and rock bands including The Go-Go's, Wall of Voodoo, Squeeze, Camper Van Beetoven, Oingo Boingo, Gary Numan, John Cale, The English Beat, Concrete Blonde, General Public and Fine Young Cannibals. He is not, in all honesty, nearly as relevant today as he was in the 1980s but, as far as Your Mama is concerned, he's more than earned his place in the pantheon of music industry bigwigs.

Property records show Mister Copeland, now in his sixties, paid $750,000 for his slightly less than 2.5 acre wonderland in March of 1983. He bought the funky and somewhat fetid-looking estate from Emmy-winning actor, noted orchid cultivator and closet homosexual Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Ironside) who occupied the estate for an unknown number of years with his long-time man-friend Robert Benevides.

Listing information shows the pale pink and white Andalusian-style main house measures 7,486 square feet. Floor plans included with marketing materials show the three story residence encompasses 15-rooms with 4 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, 5 fireplaces, 2 kitchens, scads of staircases and more damned stained glass than Chartres Cathedral.

The mansion, originally built in 1923, has a rather haphazard arrangement of rooms done up in a vibrant and chaotic stew of jaw-dropping bad but satisfyingly personal day-core that liberally, fearlessly (and probably, thoughtlessly) commingles velvet Art Deco furniture, Arts and Crafts-style stained glass, vintage pottery, Egyptian artifacts, wall murals and children's artwork. Sprinkled throughout are teddy bears, heaps of house plants, hulking Gothic pieces with intricate and delicate carved details, religious doo-dads, King Arthur-ish bric-a-brac, oil paintings that depict bright Medieval scenes and various vases and urns that over flow with knick-knacks and more house plants. It's just awful, an honest-to-goodness hot mess if you look at it with Elle Decor eyes. But, looked at another way, as a manifestation of Mister and Missus Copelands' complex inner most decorative desires, it's rather magnificent. We could never live here and would probably need a nerve pill just to walk through the front door but we none-the-less applaud and fete the Copelands' complete and utter disregard for the rules and strictures of good taste and proper interior day-core as practiced by past and present masters like Sister Parish, Thierry Despont and Peter Marino.

The property can be accessed by way of two gated entrances on two different streets, which is perfect for those who need to elude the paparazzi. The top level entrance hall, lit naturally by a large stained glass sky light and cluttered with an orderly cacophony of columns, objet and and house plants, funnels guests into a vast 1,000-ish square foot "formal" living room that features a built-in window seat, Juliet balcony and massive fireplace with carved wood, stone and gilded details. Oh, and stained glass, there's lots of stained glass in the living room. If the over-stuffed entry didn't clue a person in to the incongruous and often competing decorative motifs in store for them at Chez Copeland, then the chic Paris flea market meets a decidedly frumpy West Covina yard sale style seen in the living room should hammer it home like a sexually frustrated drill sargeant in a foul mood.

Art Deco once again meets Nebraska grandma in the "formal" dining room where the children will note the pink orchid set prominently on the dining room table. Anyone whose been hanging around here very long knows that Your Mama is not a huge fan of the orchid. In fact, we hate them. They have become, quite frankly, a ubiquitous and annoying decorative cliché. In this case, however, the orchid is not only acceptable it's goddam perfect given former owner Mister Burr's noted cultivation of said flower.

A tiny kitchen, a kitchenette really, just off the dining room is fine for making tea and pouring cereal but is hardly the sort of thing one expects to find in a multi-million dollar mansion in Tinseltown. There is another, slightly larger (and ass-ugly) kitchen impractically located two floors down. There does not appear, according to floor plans we peeped, to be a dumbwaiter which surely means Mister and Missus Copeland probably have a house gurl and/or valet with extremely muscular haunches toned by hauling meals and dinnerware up and down two flights of stairs every time someone wants a damn meal.

The 800-plus square foot main floor master suite can be accessed either awkwardly through the kitchenette or less awkwardly by way of a long stained glass-lined hallway off the foyer that features a (dust-collecting) tented ceiling. The master bedroom bulges with Gothic furniture and includes a fireplace and a hulking built in platform bed with thick columns and velvet privacy curtains. Two walk in closets flank the room, a private balcony (accessible through a towering bank of stained glass windows) offers city views and the attached elaborate bathroom looks like the sort of place someone Old World and fussy like the pope might feel comfortable doing his dirty business.

At least two separate staircases connect the main level to the lower level that consists of a garage, office, an additional entry hall, three guest/family bedrooms (two with private cans plus a third one in the hall), and a large den with pegged wood floors and heavy mis-matched drapery that look like champagne-colored ballgowns someone tacked up over the windows in an effort at financial modesty. Arched French doors that lead to a Gaudi goes to Morocco souk-like solarium stuffed with candles, more house plants and a flotilla of vintage pottery.

Two more separate staircases descend one more level to more intimate family quarters where the walls and even the curving breast of the corner fireplace in the family/entertainment room are completely covered with children's artwork. To one side of the family room is a home theater with another fireplace and on the other a game room (also with fireplace) acts as passage to the mansion's inconveniently located service areas that include a laundry room, full bath and aforementioned ass-ugly and hideously outdated kitchen with paneled dining area.

Various terraces lined with potted plants and shaded by thick foliage connect and lead to the various entertainment areas around the property that include a broad flat lawn with fountain, free-form swimming pool and a covered patio perfect for shaded tea on a hot summer day. The hillside grounds are criss-crossed by shaded paths and terraces that connect and lead to various outbuildings that include a 3-room, 1,211 square foot recording studio/office with fireplace and 1.5 bathrooms, a pair of greenhouses where Misters Burr and Benevides grew orchids, and a handful of storage and warehousing facilities that add up to another 1,412 square feet.

The downtrodden estate, tucked into an overgrown section of the Hollywood Hills between the famous Wattles Gardens and the dog-friendly Runyon Canyon were celebs (and Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter) take their pooches to commune with nature sans leash. Mister Copeland's nearby celeb neighbors include rock 'n roll female Cheryl Crowe who owns a multi-residence gated compound just around the corner and fast-tracked actress Amanda Seyfried (Big Love, Mamma Mia, Mean Girls) who recently splashed out $1,850,000 to buy a traditional residence from actor Adam Brody (Gilmore Girls, The O.C., Scream 4), also just around the corner.

listing photos: Michael McCreary Photography for Sotheby's International Realty

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BUYER: Natasha Henstridge and Darius Campbell
LOCATION: Sherman Oaks, CA
PRICE: $1,300,000
SIZE: 3,476 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: When she was just 14 years old actress Natasha Hentsridge legally emancipated herself, packed her bags, left the Canadian trailer park where she lived with her parents and decamped for the chic streets of Paris where she stomped the catwalks as a fresh-faced if barely pubescent walking manikin. At 15 she appeared on the cover of the French version of Cosmopolitan. Six years and several commercials later Miss Henstridge made her film debut in the sci-fi thriller Species. More films followed (The While Nine Yards and its sequel) as well as a myriad of roles on the tee-vee (Eli Stone, Commander in Chief, She Spies, Would Be Kings).

Miss Henstridge–by then briefly married and divorced with two children by a man who was not her first husband–met future second husband Scotsman Darius Campbell (née Danesh) in 2004 at a traffic light on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA. Mister Campbell, as it turns out, was also well on his way up his own ladder of fame and fortune. In 2001, Mister Campbell was finalist on Pop Idol, the U.K.'s version of American Idol. After turning down a record deal offered by entertainment industry gajillionaire Simon Cowell, he went on to make a platinum-selling album on another label, write a book about the music industry (Sink or Swim) and appear in several musicals on London's West End, the U.K.'s Broadway. In 2010 the showbiz dilettante trained for and won the Popstar to Operastar reality program.

The couple reportedly busted up in late 2009 or early 2010 but had mended their romantic fences by February 2011 when the model/actress and the pop star/divo hightailed it to the celeb-friendly San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, CA where they hitched their wagons in a ceremony so secret they didn't even tell their parents until several days after the clandestine nuptials.

The Los Angeles-based newlyweds soon went on a hunt for a new crib in Tinseltown where they could live happily ever after. A brief communique from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial snitched that the in early June (2011) happy ex-pat pair settled on a very ordinary (if not exactly inexpensive) spread situated south of Ventura Boulevard in super-suburban Sherman Oaks, CA. Property records reveal they paid $1,300,000 for the gated property.

Listing information for the aggressively nondescript contemporary crib shows it was built in 1961, measures 3,476 square feet and has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms including a master suite with vaulted ceiling, glass doors that open to the backyard, two custom-fitted walk-in closets and a travertine-tiled bathroom with double sinks and separate tub and shower.

A double gated driveway curves up to the front of the house where the dominant feature is a front-facing, attached two-car garage. A wide half-flight of tiled stairs with decorative Spanish tile detailing climbs up to the main living area, a voluminous living/dining room with vaulted ceiling, hardwood floor, fireplace and tall banks of windows that look and lead out to the backyard.

The hardwood floors continue into the sizable cook-friendly center island kitchen kitted out with Shaker-style custom cabinetry, granite counter tops, high-grade stainless steel appliances and wood-framed glass doors that open the breakfast area to the stone terrace that surrounds the swimming pool. Your Mama hopes that Mister and Missus Henstridge-Campbell remove the puny pot rack that hangs precariously over the center island. If there's anything worse than a Mercedes-sized pot rack laden with dusty cookery that craves a cranium to crash down upon it's an itty-bitty pot rack with scrolled wrought iron detailing and a Napoleon complex. Have mercy.

Anyhoo, like all good houses in southern California, the Henstridge-Campbell clan's new digs offers easy-breezy indoor/outdoor living perfect for year-round grillin' and chillin'. Many of the main rooms open to the private backyard where entertainment areas includes a pergola shaded dining terrace, a stone terrace, swimming pool and spa. The horrific screen that surrounds the pool in the listing photos is meant to keep the kiddies from drowning but it's also a damn eyesore. We go berserk with annoyance over those things despite their small child-saving purpose.

Miz Henstridge's humble hailing from a trailer park in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada hasn't kept her from catching a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle; In the last 12 years she's owned no fewer than five homes in and around Sherman Oaks, including her the marital mini-manse she and the hubby just acquired. In December 2003 Miss Henstridge paid $1,360,000 for a five bedroom house in Sherman Oaks that she sold in August 2009 $1,750,000. Previous to that she owned another house in Sherman Oaks she sold in June 2003 for $2,399,000 and prior to that she owned yet another house in Sherman Oaks, this time a more modest 2,180 square foot house with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms that she sold in August 2001 for $689,000. Before schlepping her shit around to her various homes in Sherman Oaks, Miz Henstridge owned a 3,691 square foot residence in über-suburban and hot and Hades Calabasas, CA that she snatched up in May 1999 for $1,050,000 and sold not quite one year later for $1,270,000.

Your Mama wonders how long Miz Henstridge will stay put in her new house of happy marriage. If real estate history repeats itself she'll be on the move again in about two years. We shall see, butter cups, we shall see.

listing photos: John Aaroe Group

type='html'>...that down on her professional luck actress Lindsay Lohan lives in a (leased) house in Venice, CA where the walls are hung with gigantic images of herself? It just makes sense in a Hollywood sort of way.

Miss Lohan, bless her heart, was once the young toast of Tinsetown with a growing fortune and a promising future in the film industry. Today she's a bit of a showbiz hot potato and her earning power has most certainly plummeted. She is not, rest assured, without an income. Recent reports indicate that Miss Lohan is currently spending her 120 days of court-ordered house arrest in said rented residence tweeting advertisements–for which she gets paid thanks to her 2,103,000-plus followers–and shilling for a low-brow penny auction website. This story just aches with schadenfreude, don't it?

When Miss Lohan (allegedly) snatched a necklace from a local jewelry store last year it was a violation of probation that stems from a 2007 drunk driving incident. We're certain Miss Lohan and her coterie of latch-ons say the whole thing, this necklace pilfering thing, was a terrible misunderstanding for which Little Miss Innocent is now paying the price.

We don't know what Miss Lohan pays each month for her rented contemporary crib, but Your Mama managed to turn up listing information from the time she leased the property that shows it was priced at $7,100 per month. The house, located just a few blocks from the beach that she can't currently go to without permission from the court, stands 3 stories tall, measures around 3,100 square feet and has 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and 2 fireplaces and one roof terrace.

The clean-lined townhouse-like house, which happens to sit right next door the house that Miss Lohan's former lesbian lover Samantha Ronson rents–or rented–has concrete and hardwood floors, vertical expanses of glass in the two-story living room, a floating staircase, a mezzanine that looks over the living room, several balconies, mahogany cabinetry and Carrara marble counter tops.

Miss Lohan told Life & Style magazine recently that besides tweeting and shilling she's spent her house arrest catching up on movies and tee-vee shows and decorating her temporary abode, apparently with multiple images of her own mug. She said she was sad to have missed her brother's birthday party but Your Mama wonders why her family didn't just bring the birthday party to her? Actually, we don't really care why. Nevermind.

type='html'>This story isn't specifically real estate related, but as all the children surely know, Your Mama is obsessed with the following story and we can't resist the urge to pass it along...

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Bill Dedman filed his latest installment today on the life and times of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark who went to meet her maker in May 2011 at the very old age of 104.

Mister Dedman's newest story covers the juicy details of Miss Clark's just-filed will and its numerous bequeaths that include half a million dollars to a long-time male assistant and a cool million to Beth Israel Medical Center where she lived in a nondescript room for the last couple decades of her long life. Other disbursements include $100,000 to her personal physician, and estimated $12-14,000,000 to a goddaughter and half a million each to her controversial attorney Wallace Wally Bock and even more controversial accountant Irving H. Kamsler who pleaded guilty to charges related to his attempt to send lewd material to underage children.

Miss Clark's longtime nurse makes out with an estimated $33,600,000 and a valuable collection of French and Japanese dolls. Her relatives, all distant and by all accounts not particularly close to Miss Clarke, were very pointedly left out of the the will. It's presumed the will be contested.

Miss Clark owned three substantial pieces of real estate. Prior to moving into an unmarked room in a hospital under a fake name, her primary residence was a prairie-like full-floor apartment in a very swank (but not top-tier) building on New York City's posh Fifth Avenue. Miss Clark also owned an additional half floor in the building. The apartments have for decades been maintained as if Miss Clark were about to return at any moment. Rumors are already started to swirl about just who wants a piece of Miss Clark's Manhattan real estate pie. Some have gossiped that Martha Stewart, who owns a pied a terre in the building, has long had her real estate eyes of Miss Clark's spread. Let those games begin...

Miss Clark also owned Le Beau Chateau, a 52-acre New Canaan, CT estate she bought in 1952 and in which, rumor has it, she never spent a single night. Miss Clark's Connecticut residence has been on and off the market since 2005 when it was first listed with an asking price of $34,000,000. The 9 bedroom and 9 bathroom mansion remains listed but with a much reduced $24,000,000 price tag.

The undisputed sugar in Miss Clark's real estate coffee is Bellosguardo, a 23-plus acre estate on a prime bluff top in Santa Barbara that includes an imposing 21,000-plus square foot beast of a mansion that she staffed and maintained at great expanse but, reportedly, had not stepped foot in since 1963 when her beloved mother died. Miss Clark will provides about $8,000,000 to establish an arts foundation on the grounds of Bellosguardo, her legendary Santa Barbara, CA estate. Your Mama assumes–without any direct knowledge–that the Bellosguardo endowment will balloon with the proceeds taken in by the eventual sale of her Connecticut and New York City properties.

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SELLER: Chris Cester
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,135,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few minutes spent looking at some of the more modest new listings in Los Angeles, CA the other day turned up a bewitching but far from flawless little house in the hilly and historic Whitely Heights 'hood. A quick stab and jab around the property records reveals the Spanish-style casa is owned by Australian musician/drummer Chris Cester of the hard rock band Jet. Mister Cester, in his early 30's and a new father, has his humble house in the Hollywood Hills on the market with an asking price of $1,135,000.

Your Mama understands that many Americans will not know Jet's music–think AC/DC mixed with The Rolling Stones and spiced with a loud whisper of Nirvana–nor will they recognize Mister Cester's name. However Mister Cester (and his band mates) are certainly well known Down Under for their slim hips, (faux-)dirty good looks and rock star style antics.

Our entirely unscientific research on the interweb shows that Jet's first album (Get Born, 2003) was a success while their two subsequent albums (Shine On, 2005; Shaka Rock, 2008) have not performed quite as well from a commercial point of view. For reasons to which we're not privy, Mister Cester relocated to Los Angeles sometime around 2004 or '05. Since setting down roots stateside he's written a number of original songs used in films (Drillbit Taylor, Spider-Man 3) and television programs (Chuck, CSI: NY).

Property records reveal that Mister Cester acquired his California crib, originally built in 1937, in May 2005 when he paid $1,010,000 for the quirky but fetching house that occupies a tiny triangle-shaped lot tucked into the tail end of a quiet cul-de-sac just above the most touristy stretch of Hollywood near Grauman's Chinese Theater and the Hollywood Wax Museum.

The house is so close to the still-a-bit-gritty heart of Hollywood that should a person be so inclined to walk–and true to cliché almost no one in L.A. is inclined to walk anywhere–its a short stroll to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and all the many velvet rope lounges (Hyde), glitzy restaurants (Katsuya), souvenir shops and stripper-ware stores that line Hollywood Boulevard. Should any of the children ever be in need for a 7-inch Lucite mule with a heart-shaped diamante detail on the heel, Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Vine is the best place to go. Believe it or not there are scads and scores of stores where you can find a blood red patent leather peep-toe thigh-high on this stretch of Hollywood Boulevard. Trust. Just ask distressingly over-processed mother-of-three Shauna Sand who even wears her pole-worthy ankle-breakers to the damn beach.

Anyhoo, the Los Angeles County Tax Man shows Mister Cester's residence in Whitley Heights has only one floor, measures 1,414 square feet and includes just one bedroom and 1 bathroom. It seems that some improvements/additions have been made to the interior spaces since listing current information indicates there are three bedrooms and two small but glammy bathrooms in an unknown number of square feet. Listing information also states that there's a "beautifully built out basement pool table + size rm.," whatever that means.

The cozy–meaning petite–living room has original wood floors, crown moldings, windows that stretch almost all the way to the floor and a brick fireplace awkwardly tucked into a corner of the room where it's rendered all but pointless. We're not sure why the original architect or a subsequent owner didn't have the fireplace repositioned at a 45-degree angle. Any moe-ron with a vague sense of spatial relationships can plainly see that turn the firebox to face the room and make it a focal point–dontcha just hate that word?–rather than an unsightly architectural wart.

Mister Cester and his baby momma–whomever she may be–did up their historic house with a fearless and funky, 1940s Hollywood glamor-tinged day-core. In the living room a butch antler chandelier gets casually juxtaposed against and double-wide lounge chair with over-scale but still dainty paisley print, a 1970s shag rug, and a pair of flamboyant gilded rococo mirrors, one so large it just leans up on the wall and keeps the ugly little fireplace in the corner company. We just love those deep- and loose-pile shag rugs. They're so porn den and cocaine that they'll always have a place on the universal decorative mood board. However, when we consider the nonsense and bacteria that gets trapped in them–think dog butt and the loogie you dragged in from the sidewalk–we say, "Nay." The ugly icing on that cake is our imperious house gurl Svetlana who drops to the floor in a high-pitched convulsive rebellion when we so much as hint at bringing an impossible to keep clean '70s style shag rug into our house.

The dado-encircled dining room, just big enough for an intimate dinner party, has wood floors and what looks to Your Mama like a dee-voon blue Venetian glass chandelier. The dining table, a kooky concoction comprised of a thick glass table top that sits on two squat fluted columns, is surrounded by upholstered chairs that include a pair of wing back captain's chairs upholstered in a nearly weird toile-like fish-print pattern that we love like the dickens. It would work perfectly as a duvet in Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's vaguely nautical master bedroom.

The adjoining kitchen, downright closet-sized compared to the sorts of colossal cookeries that get installed in most upscale homes nowadays, retains the home's original 1930s ambiance with a black and white tile floor laid on a 45-degree angle, an old-skool O'keefe & Merritt range and built in corner china cabinets in the compact but cute breakfast nook that has huge windows on three sides.

Outdoor areas include a walled dining/lounging courtyard at the rear of the house and at the front a multi-level deck with built in seating was carefully built around the thick trunk of what may or may not be a messy messy messy rubber tree. Jeezis, Mother of God rubber trees are the worst. Don't any of you environmentalist get all bossy now because Your Mama loves a goddam tree just as much as the next tree hugger. We just don't like rubber trees. They grow like a weed, require constant lacing and they constantly drop a gooey substance that pretty much renders any thing underneath it filthy and sticky. We digress...A spiral staircase climbs up from the deck to somewhere–we don't know where it leads–and a flat backyard large enough to sink a swimming pool is walled and ringed with trees and shrubs that appear to provide some if not complete privacy. Parking can get competitive in these compact nooks and crannies in the Hollywood Hills so it's good to note that the house includes a two-car attached garage plus additional (and shaded) off-street parking for two more autos under a vine-entwined pergola at the far end of the yard.

Other famous but relatively low-profile peeps who own homes in pretty Whitley Heights include film and music video director (and Tinseltown scion) Roman Coppola, heavenly actress Busy Philipps (Cougartown), comedienne Caroline Rhea and hospital drama denizen Ellen Pompeo (Grey's Anatomy).

listing photos: Rodeo Realty

type='html'>The Hamptons summer rental market is heating up but good, puppies. It's almost as if the recent economic catastrophe, brought on by umpteen millions of bad mortgages and financial instruments so complex most financiers would be hard-pressed to explain them, hadn't happened at all.

Por ejempo: Today word comes down the real estate pike that fat cat hedge hog and notorious real estate size queen Philip Falcone and his sartorially courageous wife Lisa Maria have agreed to pay "about $700,000" to rent Stone Meadow Farm, a nearly new 18,000 square foot shingled sprawler in East Hampton, NY. That's nearly three quarters of a million bucks, children, for what we hear through the real estate gossip grapevine is just a two months summer rental. How's that for making even the reasonably rich feel financially impotent?


The current owner, theatrically-minded real estate heiress/entertainer (and self-described J.A.P.) Isabel Rose, acquired the 8-acre estate in 2009 after a bidding war with–you can't make this up, kids–Mister and Missus Falcone. She paid around $12,000,00o for the sprawling compound that–as per the floor plan included with marketing information from the time of the sale (shown above)–includes a three-floor L-shaped main house with 5 bedrooms, 9.5 bathrooms and 5 fireplaces. An attached guest house contains an additional 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces, attached two-car garage and double-height living/dining/kitchen equipped with a phenomenally expensive brass-accented La Cornue cooker.

Some of the children may recall that large-livin' pop chanteuse Mariah Carey leased Stone Meadow Farm for a short time in the summer of 2008 at a reported rate of $125,000 per week. Have mercy! Your Mama needs a gin & tonic in order to get our piddly little mind around spending that much money to rent a house for one week.

The savory floor plan for Stone Meadow Farm indicates the grandly proportioned house includes a master suite with private sitting room, bedroom with fireplace, one en suite pooper, two dressing rooms and a private courtyard with stone terrace and hot tub. The approximately 3,500 square foot finished basement contains a media room, play room with wet bar and fireplace, gym, spa facilities (massage, steam and sauna rooms) and a staff lounge while the extensive grounds feature stone courtyards and terraces, flat lawns, tree-dotted pastures, a swimming pool and pool houses, spa, tennis court and a postage stamp perfect white barn with five stalls for the ponies.

Mister and Missus Falcone, rumored and reported to be building a 13,000 square foot house in nearby Sagaponack, currently reside New York City. In 2008 the conspicuous consumers famously paid about $49,000,000–in cash–for financially troubled Bob Guccione's legendary palace of porn on East 67th Street.

The Falcone's have given the 25,000-plus square foot double-wide mansion a soup to nuts overhaul reported to include the installation of a 34-foot long indoor pool, movie theater with stadium seating and not one but two dressing rooms for the Missus, one with wet bar. Now children, no one likes to imbibe a boozy beverage (or three) as much as Your Mama but is that what happened here? Was that mesmerizing and ridiculous ensemble a result of drinking while dressing? We tease. In truth Your Mama j'adores a contrarian and as such we actually think Miss Falcone is kind of fab in a flashy-trashy rags to riches I don't give a fuck what all you lacquer-haired high society types think of me sort of way. Not everyone, dearies, is meant to wear an elegant and simple Carolina Herrera gown, you know? Some goils and boys require a little bad fashion to feel complete.

Anyhoo, the Falcone's massive manse was also planned to include two elevators, a gym with steam and sauna and a "press room" in the basement where Esmerelda Minimumwage spends her days not wrangling with the media but, rather, ironing. Naturally the house was outfitted with a comprehensive security system so advanced it can probably make a person disappear without a trace if they so much as look at the house in a way it somehow deems inappropriate or suspect.

floor plan: Corcoran

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SELLER: Leona Lewis
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,500,000
SIZE: 3,946 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It seems Your Mama woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning so brace yourselves with a cocktail, hunties, because we're in a bit of a mood.

It was only in September of 2009, according to property records and previous reports, that British pop superstar Leona Lewis–three times a Grammy bridesmaid but never a bride–paid $1,850,000 for a gated mini-compound in the Nichols Canyon area of Los Angeles, CA.

Thanks to a little real estate industry birdie Your Mama learned that the singing sensation recently caught a case of The Real Estate Fickle and put her privately situated property back on the market this week with an asking price of $2,500,000. A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows the current price tag reflects a perceived 35% gain in value, a big number we're certain will cause all the Real Estate Chicken Littles around here to squawk with eye-rolling flabbergast and indignation.

Miss Lewis, a vegetarian since age 12 and vocal supporter of animal rights, started up her ladder of fame and fortune in 2006 when she won The X Factor and its million pound recording contract prize with media and music tycoon Simon Cowell. She later signed on to an even more lucrative contract with the legendary Los Angeles-based music producer Clive Davis. By all accounts she's sold a lot of records and earned a lot of accolades. Honestly, puppies, Your Mama wouldn't know a Leona Lewis song if it scooched over and grabbed our fanny. None the less, we do know she isn't one of these hyper-produced hottie-patotties who flounce around in fabric scraps and tinsel pretending to sing in a naked display of style over substance. No, babies, even Your Mama knows this beehawtcha can actually sang like a song bird and–for better or worse, depending on your point of view–often gets put in the same musical clown car as high-drama divatastic belters like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Celine Dion.

Anyhoo, listing information shows Miss Lewis's gated mini-compound nestled into the hills above Hollywood, an anemic wannabe Mediterranean village sort of thing built in 1999, sits at the tail end of a long gated drive on a private (and gated) street lined with all but identical quasi-mock-Meds. The main house measures 3,946 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. A paver-stone motor court–the piazza, if you will–separates the main house from a wee guest house that sits above a detached one-car garage.

From the entry with its tile floor and wrought iron staircase it's a short step down to the formal living room outfitted high-gloss hardwood floors, a massive carved stone fireplace, vaulted ceiling, somewhat oddly large-scale dentil molding, vertical walls of windows and a glimmering crystal chandelier. Listing photos show the voluminous room with only a scant amount of furniture and/or "décor," little more than a dining set shoved up into one corner and a grand piano pushed up into the corner by the windows. It's really not very pleasant as a "living" space but as a studio where Miss Lewis can write her songs, tinkle the ivories and exercise her laser-like vocal chords it's probably perfectly lovely.

The formal dining and family rooms have been given a girlish and glammy white-washed Shabby Chic meets Old Hollywood style of day-core that includes faux-French-y tables, chairs and consoles that have been painted white, a luscious-looking champagne-colored velvet sectional sofa and a corner fireplace with a dainty carved stone surround that looks like it might have been pulled from the lady's bathroom of some chateau in some scenic valley somewhere in France but in reality probably came from a discount fireplace emporium in the San Fernando Valley.

When Miss Lewis purchased the property, according to listing photos from the time, the kitchen had that fake and depressing veneer of "Old World" style we too often see in SoCal homes starved of architectural chutzpah and/or integrity. By far the old kitchen's worst offense in Your Mama's book was not the cabinetry treated to look like it had a patina of age but the massive and murderous pot rack that hung over the center work island. Miss Lewis, to her credit, had the common sense to remove the offensive and dangerous pot rack and work over the entire kitchen in a decidedly more sybaritic fashion. The all-white kitchen, well laid out and with desirable direct access to the outdoors, now includes white flooring, wonderfully reflective high-gloss white paint on the ceiling, shiny white raised panel cabinets topped by matching winter white counter tops, and medium- to high-grade stainless steel appliances. In the breakfast area a flat screen cleaves to the walls and a crystal chandelier hangs over a farmhouse table–painted white, natch–that's surrounded by a sextet of translucent Philippe Starck Ghost chairs.

The bedrooms all appear have the same tan wall to wall carpeting that so many folks seem to love simply because it's neutral as if neutrality is the most desirable quality a decorative thing should have. Miss Lewis appears to have lost interest in gussying up the guest bedrooms or perhaps she's already moved on and this is a classically perplexing and temporary decorative tableau by Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota. The day-core–if it can be called that–in these rooms consists almost exclusively of pastel-colored fabric draped sloppily over what we can only imagine to be furniture so ugly it would cause even the most casual of aesthetes to clutch their pearls and gasp in wide-eyed disbelief. How atrocious, children, does a thing need to be that it should be covered with a damn bed sheet?

Speaking of atrocious, we feel it's probably best to look past the free-standing bookshelf on the second floor landing that for some unfathomable reason, in this 4,000 square foot house, seems to be doing double duty as a knick-knack and framed photo display stand and a linen closet. Alas, children, we can not just mosey quietly by; We desperately want to scoot past this mess but we are helpless to its horrors. Our weary eyeballs keep returning to that maudlin and trite little sculpture-thing that reads "LIVE" and wondering, "Why? Oh, hunny, why?"

Anyhoo, the master suite features a fireplace, private balcony and a four-poster bed with white curtain panels that puddle drowsily on the carpet. Curtains over the windows, on the other hand, stop painfully short of the floor. A dressing table with three-panel mirror sits in one corner on an angle that mimics the corner fireplace on the other side of the room. An over-sized slip-covered chaise is also set on a bias that matches the fireplace and dressing table.

An attached bathroom, a good-sized contemporary-ish version of faux-Tuscan style, has a tile floor with inset medallion and double sinks, angled like everything else in the much-angled master suite. Actual bathing is accommodated in a soaking tub for two and a separate glass enclosed shower smartly designed with a built-in seat, a feature convenient and useful for oh so many shower-time activities.

A flat, grassy yard between the main and guest houses wraps around the back of the main house and continues on to the other side where thick foliage and a sizable stone terrace with dining, entertaining and sunbathing areas surround the swimming pool and spa.

Your Mama, who really knows so little about anything, has no idea why Miss Lewis wants to sell her house in the Hollywood Hills soon after buying. Does this mean she's headed back to the U.K. or does this mean she's moving on to even bigger and more celebrity-style digs in Tinseltown? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

listing photos: Keller Williams (Hollywood Hills) via Realtor.com

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While the Joneses and Johnsons pray to whatever god they pray to that they'll keep their jobs in this still sour economy so they can pay the mortgage and buy four dollar a gallon gas, the super-rich just keep on keepin' on with their mind-altering and insanely expensive real estate transactions.

Last summer Mexican telecommunications bazillionaire Carlos Slim paid cab driver turned real estate tycoon Tamir Sapir $44,000,000 for the luscious Duke-Semans mansion, a Beaux Arts townhouse extravaganza on New York City's Fifth Avenue long owned by the Duke family, as in Duke University and tobacco heiress Doris Duke. Out in the Hamptons hedge hog David Tepper recently paid $43,500,000 for a 6,135 square foot ocean front mansion only to tear it down to the ground to make way for an even bigger and better 18,000-ish square foot beach house more suitable to his needs and visions of real estate grandeur.

In Los Angeles, Goldman Sachs fat cat Gene Sykes recently paid $40,000,000–in cash, we're told–for La Belle Vie, philanthropic widow Iris Cantor's behemoth 35,000 square foot chateau-style pile in Bel Air. Showbiz widow Candy Spelling reportedly has her conference center-sized mansion in Lala Land just about sold for around $80,000,000. Most reports say the buyer of Miz Spelling's bloated beast in the Holmby Hills–long listed at a blistering $150,000,000–is 22-year old heiress Petra Ecclestone. However two of Your Mama's sources suggest the buyer might actually be Indian gajillionaire Mukesh Ambani whose primary residence in Mumbai, India is a 27-floor tower designed and built for the exclusive use of his small family at a rumored cost of more than a billion dollars.

It seems rom-com queen Jennifer Aniston will also soon benefit from the super-rich's increasingly white hot desire for shockingly expensive homes. The unlucky in love actress listed her handsome Beverly Hills, CA house a few months ago with a jaw dropping $42,000,000 asking price. It wasn't long, we understand from our plugged-in sources inside the Bev Hills real estate game, before Miz Aniston was entertaining a couple of offers for her newly renovated and expanded residence that she dubbed Ohana, the Polynesian word for extended family. Some say the buyer of Miz Aniston's unwanted nest is Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Others suggest it may be Andrey Melnichenko, another Russian billionaire with a penchant for big boats and big houses. Still others have told Your Mama it's neither Russkie but rather a New York-based financier. Whomever the buyer is, the deal must be getting close to being completed because the listing for Miz Aniston's Ohana vanished from the MLS this week.

Over in London, a swinging and exceedingly pricey city that bursts at the seams with the world's free-spending wealthiest, all the property watchers are in a damn tizzy about Witanhurst House, a hulking, historic and dour Georgeian style pile–some reports call it Queen Anne style–that sits on about 5.5 bucolic acres in the hoity-toity quasi-suburban Highgate 'hood (shown above). The monumental property and mansion, which had fallen into a sad state of obsolescence and disrepair over the last 20 or 30 years, is the second largest private residence in London behind only Buckingham Palace.

The property, which occupies one of the highest points in London, was first developed in the late 1700s by successful stock broker who built a giant Georgian-style pile for his wife and eight children. In the 19-teens the property–then called Parkfield–was acquired by soap and candle tycoon Sir Arthur Crosfield and his Swiss tennis champion wife. Mister and Missus Crosfields, like so many moguls and potentates do today, re-imagined and re-built Parkfield into their own Barbie Dream House, a gargantuan George Hubbard-designed pile they named Witanhurst House.

Over the subsequent years Witanhurst House was bought and sold any number of times and used as a location for various films (Citizen Kane) and reality programs (Fame Academy). It was not, however, treated with the kid gloves with which it probably needed and deserved to be treated. In 2007 it was purchased from an Arab potentate by fancy-schmancy investor/real estate developer Marcus Cooper for about £32,000,000, more than fifty million American dollars at today's rates. Mister Cooper had an almost immediate change of real estate heart and flipped the three story mansion (plus mezzanine and basement) back on the market just months after buying with a foolishly high asking price of £75,000,000.

Floor plans Your Mama snatched from the listing and marketing materials when the estate was listed in 2007-08 show a massive paneled stair hall with twin staircases and capacious double-height dining and drawing rooms. A vast 70-foot long and 20-foot high walnut-paneled ballroom with gilded cornices and multiple fireplaces has at least seven sets of French doors that open the to a wide terrace that overlooks the pastoral grounds. Floor plans also show a comparatively intimately-scaled library, study, billiard room and estate office with separate entrance and private bath on the ground floor.



By Your Mama's count, according to the 2008 floor plan (above), the pre-renovation Witanhurst House contained six principal bedrooms–two on the mezzanine and four on the second floor–each with en suite pooper. Eight more bedrooms share 2 bathrooms on the third floor, probably originally designed to house live-in domestics. A latter addition to Witanhurst House contains extensive staff quarters comprised at least a dozen private bedrooms that share just 4 bathrooms. We counted at least two dozen fireplaces throughout the house.

Floor plans from 2008 show the imposing three-pronged brick-built gate house encompasses a trio of apartments, each with two bedrooms, sitting room, kitchen and bathroom. We haven't any idea how the current owner plans to make use of the gate house but it would certainly be perfect for housing a small army of eagle-eyed sniper-trained security personnel.

Lucky Mister Cooper sold the property during the summer of 2008 to a corporate entity named Safran Holdings for somewhere around £50,000,000, more than one hundred million U.S. clams at 2008 currency conversion rates. At that price the big deal netted Mister Cooper a substantial net profit of 15-20 million pounds. The owning corporation was reported by one British newspaper to be controlled by Russian construction tycoon Yelena–sometimes spelled Elena–Baturina. Miz Baturina's husband Yury Luzhkov was the powerful mayor of Moscow from mid-1992 until September 2010. Moon-faced Miz Baturina–a formidable self-made woman in a decidedly man-centric industry–has vehemently denied buying Witanhurst House, dontcha know? The lady was so nettled, in fact, by being fingered as the wildly wealthy new chatelaine of Witanhurst House that she filed some sort of lawsuit against at least one newspaper who named her as the owner.
Whomever the new owner of the 40,000-ish square foot Witanhurst House may be–described in the Daily Mail this week by a construction crew member as "'a wealthy European family looking for a permanent base in London'"–they've recently embarked on an extensive and expensive renovation and restoration of the house that also calls for–you got it–a tremendous expansion. The expansion, most of which will involve the installation of a shopping-mall sized subterranean complex, will just about double the size of the house and will reportedly cost the owner somewhere in the neighborhood of £50,000,000. For all us Americanos across the pond that translates to a heart stopping eighty million dollars at today's rates according to Your Mama's currency conversion contraption.

The mysterious owner–who obviously wishes to remain anonymous but is clearly a real estate size queen of epic proportions–has shockingly grandiose plans for the historic and already huge Witanhurst House. Approved plans call for an approximately a tremendous multi-level subterranean extension to include an entertainment wing with guest suites, game room and massive theater with balcony. Also planned is an extensive fitness and spa facility with 70-foot indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi, pool bar, gym, changing rooms, sauna, massage room and–no hotel-sized house would be complete without one–a beauty salon.

The existing staff wing, according to reports and plans, is to be removed and extensive service quarters in the basement are planned with staff suites, security room, laundry facilities, and a 25-car underground garage accessed by a heavy-duty elevator that will whisk the owner's fleet of fancy cars up from the garage to plaza-like motor court that stretches out in front of the grand mansion.

Our favorite spoiled billionaire-style feature planned for the new Witanhurst House is the Orangery, a detached Georgian-style pile across the motor court from the main house that when built will include living room and kitchen and will probably be far larger than the average rich person's mansion. According to a spokesperson for Safran Holdings, the new owners–whoever they are–called the new Orangery a "necessary" feature as it will allow the owners less-lavish and more intimate living quarters should "the family fancy a simple night in with pizza and beer." What? Bitch, pleeze. Who are these people with their Marie Antoinette visions of their very own Hameau de la Reine? Seriously.

These people, whoever they are, can spend their money however they like. It's their money to spend. However, let's break it down, children: If their people–the ones paid to represent them–are going to be out there (allegedly) making asinine statements like that then these Richie Riches should expect that the peasants are going to get angry. Those who struggle financially tend not to appreciate cavalier statements that effectively mock the punishing disparity between those that have little and those who can have any and everything they want no matter the cost even if it's a walk-in cheese vault, a solid-gold swimming pool or a minimum-wage Asian lady who lives in the basement and only appears when her mani-pedi services are requested.

The roughly 5.5-acre grounds will–natch–also get a billionaire-style over haul and plans call for extensive formal and terraced gardens and not one, but two tennis courts.

Despite it's titanic size, when complete, Witanhurst House will still be substantially smaller than Buckingham Palace. It will be, however and no doubt, no less lavish. Your Mama's knees turn to quivering pools of jelly just thinking of the number and cost of full-time staff required to maintain a private residence of this exceptional (and, let's be honest, ludicrous) magnitude. Certainly having this property maintained and restored is far better than having it collapse into rubble but we can't help but wonder why a single family, no matter how large, can't make due to due in the existing (and already colossal) 40,000 square foot mega-mansion. But then again, Your Mama is not a real estate size queen and would sooner live in a studio apartment than a house the size of a goddam Wal-Mart.

The hoity-toity Highgate 'hood is home to a number of high-profile showbiz people who include Clive Owen, Bob Hoskins and Ulrika Jonsson. Witanhurst House itself anchors the end Highgate's poshest star-jammed street where celebrity homeowners include actor Jude Law, aging supermodel Kate Moss and tea-house queen George Michael and his long-time man-friend Kenny Goss. Rockstar Sting and his Tantric-sexing wife Trudy Styler own a large mansion immediately next door to Witanhurst House that over the years they've leased to other entertainment industry types like Pierce Brosnan.

Your Mama imagines these privacy-seeking celebs (as well as the other wealthy neighborhood inhabitants) probably don't care for the construction disruptions and international attention the massive expansion of Witanhurt House brings to the sleepy but swank area but they may in the end benefit from the state-of-the art security–which will no doubt include a slew of armed guards who would rather shoot you than ask you to step off the driveway–the new owner of Witanhurst House will surely employ.

Excavation and construction of the copper-mine-sized pit between the gate house and main house–where most of the subterranean extension will be–has reportedly already begun and is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2012.

listing photos and floor plan: Knight Frank
cross section illustration: John Lawson and Philip Argent for Daily Mail