SELLER: Edie Falco
LOCATION: New York, NY
PRICE: $5,500,000
SIZE: 3,006 square feet, 3-4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Much lauded and applauded (and actually talented) film and television actress Edie Falco, we learned from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial, recently put her duplex penthouse pad in lower Manhattan's trendy and expensive TriBeCa 'hood on the market with a celebrity-sized asking price of $5,500,000.

Famously low-key Miz Falco has toiled in the high-gloss Big Bizness of Show since the late 1980s and by the mid-1990s she'd worked it out as a tough-talking staple on a number of urban cop dramas including Homicide: Life on the Street, New York Undercover, and Law & Order. She catapulted to boob-toob super-stardom in 1999 on The Sopranos as the long-suffering, materialistic and blunt-edged Carmela Soprano, a plum part for which she picked up 3 Emmys plus 3 more nominations.

When The Sopranos came to an end in 2007 she quickly landed a guest-starring role on 30 Rock, for which she received an Emmy nomination. For the last two years Miz Falco has sublimely starred as the savvy, deeply-flawed, steely-spined and desperately vulnerable Jackie Peyton on Nurse Jackie. She received an Emmy in 2010 and an Emmy nomination in 2011 (plus two Golden Globe nominations) for that part.

Along the way she's exercised her thespian extremities with a handful of stage performances both on and off Broadway. Last year she received a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Bananas Shaughnessy in the Broadway revival of the black comedy House of Blue Leaves with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Jason Leigh. As far as Your Mama is concerned the lady is the real damn deal and not one of those awful and overly injected, straw thin ingenues who, bless their hearts, always get paired romantically with a actor-man well beyond old enough to be her father or grandfather.

But anyhoo, we're not here to critique Hollywood's creepy casting ways so let's move on to the matter at hand, shall we? Property records show Miz Falco, a 20-years-sober and never-married single mother of two adopted youngsters, scooped up her downtown duplex penthouse in July 2004 for $3,800,000. Current listing information shows the pricey-and-well-conceived-but-not-particularly-fancy penthouse occupies the top two floors of a non-descript, doorman-less building opposite a titanic tri-towered housing complex and measures a somewhat modest 3,006 square feet with 3-4 bedrooms and 3 (windowless) bathrooms.

Floor plans included with listing information shows the open-plan, loft-like main living space has lustrous, honey-colored hardwood floors; 12-foot ceilings; a trio of 4-pane, west-facing windows; a wood-burning fireplace in the living room area with integrated wood storage box; one, long (and, let's be honest, rather cliché) exposed brick wall; and a contemporary, cook-friendly kitchen with sleek cabinetry (that may or may not be walnut or cherry), center work island with snack counter and all the customary higher-grade stainless steel appliances.

The day-core in the main living area is, to be sure, spare and entirely uninspired. The over-stuffed, beige sectional sofa is one thing but we are stricken with an uncontrollable panic over what appears to be a chocolate brown recliner in her living room. Hunny. No. Your Mama knows you are probably ex-owstuhd after a long day of taping Nurse Jackie and that thing is probably a deliciously ass-coddling place to settle in to. However, maybe for your next home you'll let a nice-gay or lady decorator find you a luscious, dignified and equally ass-coddling armchair and ottoman in to which you can tumble in the evenings, weary from work? Please?

A long corridor gets wider as it stretches east from the kitchen/dining area back towards two squeezy guest/family bedrooms that share a (windowless) hall bath. In between the bedroom and kitchen dining area there's a convenient but windowless study (or fourth bedroom) and a service area that contains laundry facilities tucked into a closet, some desirable storage space and a three-quarter guest bathroom.

A narrow-looking, floating steel staircase with riser-free wood treads hugs the exposed brick wall and connects to the penthouse's second floor where the quite-petite master bedroom has a raised platform for the bed and a full wall of wood-framed, floor-to-ceiling glass sliders that glide open to an east-facing planted terrace a couple of sun-bathing beds. A short hall passes the walk-in closet/dressing room and connects to a sky-lit bathroom with double sinks and nicely-tiled but pretty pedestrian combination tub/shower.

The trapezoidal stair landing/gallery also has sliding doors that access that east-facing terrace as does a den/family room/potential bedroom that opens through a full-wall of floor-to-ceiling, wood-framed sliders to an approximately 600 square foot west facing terraced sparsely planted and furnished with a matching set of probably expensive patio furniture that may be teak or bamboo or ipe or some other elements withstanding wood.

Your Mama isn't really sure what Miz Falco's real estate future holds—a move to the west coast seems improbable—but our research shows in the fall of 2010 Miz Falco sold a modest house in Northport, NY on Long Island where she went to high school and in early 2005, shortly after she bought the penthouse she now has up for sale, she sold a 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom West Village townhouse built in 1837 for $3,495,000 to pop singer Paula Cole (and her hubby) who renovated the four-story abode and sold it in May 2009 to a neurosurgeon and his wife.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

SELLER: Claire Danes (and by marital extension Hugh Dancy)
LOCATION: New York City
PRICE: $5,998,000
SIZE: 3,851 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Once again Your Mama and the children have our unofficial and unpaid (but hardly unappreciated) aide de camp Hot Chocolate to thank for digging up this sensational celebrity real estate truffle situated in downtown New York City. Just this week, as best as we can tell, movie and television actress Claire Danes put her large and luxe but low-key loft in SoHo on the open market with an asking price of $5,998,000. Taxes and common charges show on current listing information as totaling $2,791 per month, a lot of money for most folks, but pretty damn low for a loft this size in Manhattan.

The classic, California blond—raised primarily in New York City and married to Primetime Emmy-nominated British actor Hugh Dancy (Hannibal, The Big C, Our Idiot Brother, Elizabeth I, Black Hawk Down) in fall 2009—started her swift climb up the ladder of fame and fortune in the mid-1990s as a teen aged television star on My So-Called Life, a role for which she received an Emmy nomination, a Golden Globe and legions of dedicated fans. She quickly moved on to the silver screen with plum parts in Little Women, How to Make an American Quilt, Romeo + Juliet and a bunch of other chic-flicks and rom-coms Your Mama ain't never heard of let alone seen.

At 18—or maybe she was 19—Miss Danes put her burgeoning Showbiz career on hold and moved to New Haven, CT in order to matriculate at Yale. Before she moved in to her shared dormitory like a typical college freshman, she splashed out on a very grown-up-sized loft in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, the same once arty-farty now steroidally-commercial downtown 'hood where she grew up in a big ol' loft with her artist parents.

We regret to inform that property records are a mite confusing on this one. It's clear she picked the place up in fall 1998 but StreetEasy show she paid $624,750 and at least one other database we consulted shows she coughed up an exponentially more substantial $4,633,312 for the nearly 4,000 square foot loft that was then just raw space. Someone besides Your Mama will likely get to the meat of that matter but until then make of the vast discrepancy what you will.

Anyhoo, she only lasted a couple of years at Yale, dropping out, so the story goes, to focus on her career. Like most successful actresses, she's had a couple dry spells but none-the-less appeared in an impressive number of small and big screen films including The Hours, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and The Family Stone. More recently Missus Danes-Dancy found critical acclaim as an autistic scientist and livestock advocate in the 2010 tee-vee movie Temple Grandin for which she earned a Golden Globe statuette and last year she took a star turn on the boob-toob in the series Homeland, which earned her a third Golden Globe.


Soon after signing on the deed's dotted line in 1998, teen aged and rich Miss Danes hired New York architect Joan Krevlin of BKS/K Architects to work the place over. Shortly after the extensive renovation was complete the loft was photographed in all it's glossy, whimsical, mid-century modern infused glory for the March 2000 issue of Architectural Digest. Listing images indicate no substantial alterations to the architecture and/or day-core have been made since then.

Half a dozen rugged and exposed wood support posts run like a spine down the center of the capacious 2 bedroom and 3 bathroom loft that Miz Krevlin painstakingly parsed in to distinct but inter-connected and somewhat flexible spaces using a series of stationary and sliding semi-translucent panels, free-standing entertainment centers and book cases, varied ceiling heights and carefully aligned closets. Only the two bedrooms at the rear of the loft can be completely closed off from the airy, light-filled 85-foot long open-plan main living space.

The direct entry elevator peels open to a foyer flanked by a discreetly situated three-quarter guest bathroom and a small, shelf-lined office/library that can be opened to or separated from the main living area by a sliding panel of honeycomb pattern LUMAsite, a material that repeats throughout the loft.

The not-very-formal formal living room has a quartet of over-sized windows that face the street and the architect fashioned a kind of inglenook in front of the asymmetrical fireplace with a slightly dropped ceiling for intimacy and a caramel-colored leather tile floor for tactile coziness.

Of course, as delish as that leather floor may be for the bare- and sock-footed we're certain it requires the loft's resident(s) hire a tight-faced scold named Heather or Helga to indelicately shoo tipsy, spike-heeled party goers away from the delicate leather floor during parties. Imagine waking up some afternoon after a boozy evening and discovering party guests made punctures all over your leather floor? That would most definitely not be a good way to spend a blood curdling hangover, would it?

A free-standing, approximately armpit-height entertainment center with book cases stands between the buttoned-up but down-to-earth "formal" living room and dining areas where Missus Danes-Dancy has a multi-colored collection of molded plastic Eames armchairs set around a mid-century modern version of a farmhouse table that may or may not be made of teak.

An unexpected, curved wall of semi-translucent panels separates the "formal" living and dining areas from the spacious so-called Great Room where six French doors do not open to a terrace but do let in a ton of light from the south and east. The so-called Great Room was decoratively done less like an interior space than an outdoor area with a a full-sized hammock and an old-timey rope swing that hangs from the rafters.

Now, children, Your Mama has been in scores of lofts in lower Manhattan outfitted with rope swings, tire swings, porch swings and of all types of swings—wink, wink—but we have yet to come across one with a goddamn hammock. It's a quirky and possibly questionable addition to an urban interior space, made more so by its pairing with an iconic and expensive Arne Jacobson 'Egg' chair and ottoman, but Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter both love it like the dickens. Imagine the luxury of space in lower Manhattan to have a hammock in your so-called Great Room?

Adding to the kinetic whimsy of Missus Danes-Dancy's downtown digs is a pivoting table that can be swung around to the kitchen for extra prep space or rotated back around in to the inside curl of the curving, semi-translucent wall where it can be used for casual meals, scrap booking marathons, jig-saw puzzle solving, bill baying and a myriad of other things we can't be bothered to list.

The curving semi-translucent wall partially obscures the clean-lined and expensively-equipped kitchen from the front area of the loft. The kitchen, entirely comprised of a single bank of flat-fronted Maple cabinetry, has all the usual high-grade, commercial-style stainless steel appliances, expensive-looking counter tops, and an extra-deep soap stone farm sink. The architect cleverly and smartly tucked a walk-in pantry and discrete service entry with laundry equipment and broom closet behind the kitchen. Your Mama swoons with envy over that walk-in pantry. We just love us a walk-in pantry.

At the rear of the apartment a short corridor that can be closed off with a pocket door extends off the so-called Great Room and connects to a hall pooper and the lone guest bedroom with its one, rather puny window and single-wide closet just barely big enough to make a weekend house guest feel welcome but way to small to accommodate an extended stay.

The master suite, nestled privately in to a quiet corner of the loft, has a spacious walk-in closet/dressing area and an attached bathroom with scored concrete floors, white subway tile and a soaking tub set in to an angled, pill-shaped niche with a mottled, sky blue sponge treatment that looks to our untrained eye more like pigment than paint. As per the Architectural Digest article, the bedroom itself was originally divided with a stationary, honeycomb pattern LUMAsite panel into two areas, one for sleeping and another for exercising. We don't know if that division remains in place.

Miz Danes-Dancy's loft looks like a downright bargain compared to the only other loft in the building currently on the (open) market with an asking price of $9,750,000. That loft, an H-shaped behemoth, has 4,800 square feet inside with another 560 square feet of exterior space, according to current listing information. The nearly ten million dollar top floor spread also happens to be the last unit to sell in the building in March 2010 for $7,750,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Town Residential

BUYER: Rosie O'Donnell
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: around $8,000,000
SIZE: 3,202 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The New York Post reported today that acerbic and sometimes polarizing comedienne and former chat show host Rosie O'Donnell has "plunked down about $8 million for a four-bedroom apartment with outdoor space" in a converted hospital building many New Yorkers probably remember as part of the now-shuttered St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center complex on (and around) West 12th Street in Greenwich Village.

A quick perusal of listings on StreetEasy reveals the only 4 bedroom apartment with outdoor space in the eight million dollar range in that particular building is a duplex penthouse with 3,202 square feet, 3 bathrooms, 3 exposures, and a private, 435 square foot terrace.

The open plan main living space has a long wall of windows and French doors to access the city-view terrace and a butler's pantry hall that connects the dining area with an almost all-white and expensively equipped center-island kitchen.

The building topper's floor plan included with current marketing materials shows one bedroom/study downstairs (with access to a windowless guest/hall bathroom), two more guest/family bedrooms situated on either side of another windowless hall bathroom upstairs, and an expansive master suite complete with sitting area, double-windowed walk-in closet and spacious and also double-windowed bathroom outfitted with two sinks, stall shower and separate tub.

While we recognize it's truly a luxury to have private washer and dryer hook ups in even the most expensive of New York City apartments, the location of the stacked equipment in a closet at the top of the stairs of this $8 million duplex penthouse is not ideal.

The newly converted pre-war structure was re-worked by a big-time New York City real estate family—they would be the Rudins—with numerous state-of-the-art, green-minded notions meant to qualify the building for LEED certification.

The old public hospital now provides residents with luxury amenities that include full-time doormen, a resident superintendent, Jed Johnson-designed common areas, a fitness center, cold storage (for ice cream, flower and milk deliveries), a rooftop terrace, an emergency power system for black outs and other such events, a building-wide wi-fi and water-filtering system, and energy-efficient heating and cooling equipment. For all of that common charges are shown on listing information we peeped at $3,234 per month with an additional $3,824 per month in taxes. A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows the penthouse will cost Miz O'D $84,696 per year not counting mortgage payments, alterations and/or improvements, and utility bills.

Miz O'D has been much in the celebrity real estate news lately due to her purchase and quick sale of a the Chicago townhouse where she shacked up during her short-lived talk show on Oprah's eponymous and flailing network (OWN). Miz O'D's property portfolio currently includes (but may not be limited to) a nearly 1,400 square foot condo crib on a middle floor of a 43-story residential tower in Hell's Kitchen bought in October 2008 for $2,005,000, a substantial, multi-residence river-front compound in Nyack, NY, and and 11 bedroom and 12.5 bathroom bay-front estate on Miami's star-stocked Star Island, currently up for sale with a $19,500,000 asking price.

Note to the children: The exterior photo is a rendering and the kitchen photo may or may not be an accurate representation of the kitchen in the penthouse Miz O'D is reportedly (and at this point, allegedly) acquiring.

photo and floor plan: Stribling via 130west12.com