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

SELLERS: Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $9,600,000
SIZE: (approx.) 4,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Four years ago comedian turned sizzlingly successful and toilet-humored screenwriter/director/producer/movie star Ben Stiller and wife Christine Taylor packed up their trio of shorties and decamped their two residence compound in Los Angeles's Hollywood Hills for the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Mister Stiller grew up. He said, in a 2008 interview quoted in The Observer, they opted to move east from the near constant SoCal sunshine to the angsty urbanity of New York City in order to provide his off-springs with more excitement or some such thing.

In August 2008 the suntanned Stillers spent $10,00,000 to acquire a spacious duplex apartment a swank but low-key Upper West Side building. Property records and reports from the time of their 2008 purchase show the apartment was purchased off-market (with a blind trust) from gourmet/kosher grocery store scion Ann Zabar who's family owns an eponymous Upper West Side food shopping emporium.

Your Mama isn't sure what their real estate motivations may be but last week the Stiller-Taylors quietly slipped the completely and expensively renovated duplex back on the market with an asking price of $9,600,000.

It only takes one or two quick flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus to figure out that Mister and Missus Stiller must really want to move because even with a full price offer—and it could happen—they're faced with a spine-straightening $400,000 gut punch to their pocketbook, not counting renovations and improvements, upkeep and carrying costs, and any associated real estate fees they'll pay out of the proceeds of the sale.

Current listing information, forwarded to Your Mama by one of the more helpful children, shows the substantial river-view spread has four family/guest bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms plus (as per the floor plan, above) a discrete, staff suite tucked into the service wing behind the kitchen with an additional, prison-cell-sized but river-facing bedroom and (windowless) bathroom as well as a laundry room and access to the service elevator.

The main living and entertaining areas, located on the duplex's upper level, include a double-wide (and somewhat corporate-looking) foyer with long built-in waiting bench that connects through to an unusually roomy, river-view living/dining combination space finished with gallery white walls, pale pale pale wood floors (that may or may not be white oak) and a quartet of over-sized windows with direct and unobstructed views across the Hudson River towards the not entirely scenic shore of New Jersey.

As with the couple's former Tinseltown compound—part of which was sold for $7,325,000 in summer 2011 to hunky action movie stud Jason Statham—the duplex's low-slung mid-century modern infused day-core was conceived and installed by the fine folks at Roman and Williams who juxtaposed the light and airy living/dining room and the crisp, light-flooded eat-in kitchen against a more richly textured and moody media room (marked library on the floor plan) outfitted with seal grey silk wall-to-wall carpeting, heavy, light-blocking drapery, (what appears to be) upholstered walls, and state-of-the-art equipment.

An adjacent wet bar houses the a/v equipment in a custom cabinet and also features open glass shelves for bar ware display and storage, a handy-dandy dishwasher, and an under-counter mounted fridge/freezer/ice maker.

The master suite, all done up with more than a hint of high-glam, 1930s ocean liner chic, has cherry wood paneled walls, grey silk wall-to-wall carpeting, ship-like views of the Hudson River, and a to-die-for dressing room lined with custom, cherry-wood wardrobes and built-in dressers. The attached master bathroom has double sinks and a mosaic-tiled wet area with super-sized soaking tub and glassed in steam shower fitted with a huge, river-view window.

Two of the three family bedrooms have direct access to a private bathroom and, as per the floor plan, the unlucky occupant of the remaining bedroom must either traipse through one of the other bedrooms to access a restroom or climb the stairs to make use of the full bath that adjoins the media room, the half bathroom off the foyer or the squeezy one in the service wing.

We're not sure what real estate plans are in store for Mister and Missus Stiller but we do know they're hardly homeless. Our research indicates they still own a modest, 1,608 square foot residence on the Studio City side of Laurel Canyon bought August 2006 for $1,100,000 and, as far as Your Mama can tell, they still maintain an ocean front estate on the northern shore of the Hawaiian island of Kauai purchased in October 2002 for $8,500,000.

listing photos: Prudential Douglas Elliman