SELLER: Ryan Murphy
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $6,995,000
SIZE: 2,095 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Two years ago screenwriter and producer Ryan Murphy (Glee, Nip/Tuck, Eat Pray Love) signed a four-year deal with 20th Century Fox TV potentially worth up to $10,000,000 per year. As do many who find their bank accounts flooded with boo-coo bucks Mister Murphy soon went on a real estate spending spree.

In September 2010 he dropped ten million clams on a hacienda-style mansion in Beverly Hills, CA originally designed and built in the 1920s by architect Ralph Flewelling and restored by Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton, one of Hollywood's most famous flippers of historically-minded residences.

The following summer Mister Murphy laid out another multi-million dollar bundle to buy another pricey property owned by another Oscar-winning actress, this time new single-mommy Charlize Theron. Property records and previous reports show the openly homosexual Hollywood hotshot paid Miz Theron $6,562,500 for her ocean-front getaway on Malibu's sandy La Costa Beach.

Just over a year after he signed on the deed's dotted line and acquired Miz Theron's real estate seconds Mister Murphy appears to have caught a case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and this week flipped his beach front digs back on the (open) market with an asking price of $6,995,000.

Current listing information shows the two-story house sits—as most of them on the beach in the Bu do—cheek-to-jowl with the neighboring houses and sandwiched on a compact, .15-acre lot between the pounding surf and the typically traffic-choked Pacific Coast Highway. The well-maintained but modestly-scaled and somewhat non-descript house was originally built in 1930 and spans just 2,095 square foot with a total of with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. One of the bedrooms and bathrooms can be accessed via an exterior staircase in the walled, gated and heavily secured front courtyard and as such makes for a perfect guest bedroom, staff suite or in-law quarters.r

Listing photographs reveal Mister Murphy made few (if any) significant alterations to the architecture of the dwelling but did have a nice-gay or lady decorator work the place over with a strong and very expensive looking semi-nautical streak meant, we imagine, to look and feel "masculine" in the way that professionally decorated rooms are sometimes designed to give off a nice-gay or lady decorators version of butch and manly.

Anyhoo, Mister Murphy did opt to cover the wood floors in the living room and adjoining lanai with a rope-y sort of sisal but did retain the bay window seat and shallow inglenook fitted with built-in benches and a flagstone-faced fireplace surround in the living room. In the lanai it appears he (and his decorating team) opted to keep Miz Theron's blue and white striped upholstery on the built-in bench seating that rings the ocean-side, window-wrapped room. 

The sisal turns to grey slate tile—or some similar material—in the u-shaped kitchen where the custom, poured concrete counter tops and cabinetry still hold top-grade, commercial-style stainless steel appliances and the lower cabinets are fitted with wood doors painted jet black.

The (gay) ship's captain day-core downstairs continues up in the master bedroom—note the ship model on the mantel, the ship painting above the fireplace and the distressed, tufted leather wing back chair —finished with pale wood floors, a vaulted ceiling, wood-burning fireplace with contemporary concrete surround, built-in dressers tucked in to the eaves and direct ocean view. The attached master pooper has double sinks; a glass-enclosed shower lined with tiny, pale sea foam-colored tile; an over-sized soaking tub set into a bay with direct ocean view; and a second, tufted leather wing back chair where Mister Murphy can sit and clip his toe nails, lotion up his sun-baked legs or whatever.

In addition to the walled, street-side courtyard with its koi pond and blazing bougainvillea bush there's a sizable beach-side deck accessible through a wood-framed sliding glass door in the lanai. A glass rail along the deck's edge ensure unobstructed ocean views from the deck that's equipped with a built-in benches and dining cabana (with oh-so-nautical blue and white striped cushions), built-in fire pit, spa and outdoor shower. Private steps lead down to the beach.

The children may recall that last July Mister Murphy listed his two-residence compound high in the hills above Laguna Beach, CA with an asking price of $8,500,000. The hillside, ocean-view compound—with a main house worked over by sassy Million Dollar Decorator Mary McDonald—was de- an re-listed a couple of times before it was taken off the market in early December 2011.

listing photos: The Partners Trust

SELLER: Carolyn Murphy
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Brentwood)
PRICE: $2,995,000
SIZE: 2,361 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama regrets to inform the children that still fresh-faced and drop-dead gorgeous 38-year old supermodel Carolyn Murphy has long been stricken with a (seemingly) incurable case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle. That's right, puppies, this American-born globetrotter and her impossibly high cheekbones and flawless, perpetually bronzed skin flips pricey properties like a good Morman or an old-school Catholic makes babies, one after another in rapid succession.

In late-November 2006 the still-strutting her stuff 5-foot-9-inch blond single mother of one—is there a catwalk or a cover she hasn't worked it on?—sold an almost brand-new, two-story contemporary in the hip and trendy but still rough around the edges beach community of Venice CA for $2,375,000. That was, as per property records we peeped, twenty thousand clams less than she paid for the place just 9 short months earlier.

Since she sold up in Venice, the long-time and current face of Estee Lauder has owned at least four other multi-million dollar residences including her current crib, a compassionately remodeled and picture perfect Spanish-style casa in Los Angeles's upscale Brentwood area that she bought in September 2011 for $2,625,000 and—thanks to Rhonda Rainyday we recently learned—put on the market last week with a $2,995,000 price tag.

A few quick and unscientific clicks and clacks of the hard-working beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals the opening asking price amounts to a $41,111.11 monthly increase in value over the 9 short months (to date) she's owned the property.

The Los Angeles County Tax Man puts the two-story domicile at a decidedly modest-by-celeb standards 2,361 square feet, a number that may (or may not) reflect the current and actual size of the house given that current listing information shows the structure was originally built in 1927 and has 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms in an undisclosed amount of square footage.

Soon after she purchased the property Miz Murphy, according to a gushy, photo-thick article in the March 2012 issue of Vogue, hired skilled L.A.-based lady decorator Schuyler Samperton to do it all up in what Your Mama might (probably inaccurately and definitely awkwardly) describe as a sophisticated but quite cozy, modern-classic manner that merges and marries a plum example of quintessential SoCal Spanish-style architecture with a casually chic and pared down French country meets East Coast Americana type of day-core. (Yes? No?)

The step down living room has (antique looking) variable-width oak floors, wood-beams on the ceiling, and at least two arched niches for books, photos, mementos and hoozymagoozys. Windows on three sides include two sets of French doors that open directly to the front garden. Miz Murphy and Miz Samperton the lady decorator kept things bright and airy in the living room with matte but none-the-less lustrous white plaster walls. They furnished the space simply and somewhat symmetrically with a masculine pair of burnt caramel-colored leather wing back chairs that square off over a low-profile wood and iron coffee table with a curvy, more feminine slip-covered sofa all set conversationally on a textural sisal rug in front of a protruding white-stucco fireplace on which are mounted with a quartet of small-antlered animal skulls.

The (antique-looking) oak floors in the living room continue into the dining room furnished with a lot of rustic, (antique-looking) distressed wood pieces, simple cloth panels over the windows, a upside-down bowl-shaped woven wicker pendant light and a bunch of linen slip-covered chairs.

The floors switch from oak to antique terra cotta in the eat-in, galley-style kitchen equipped with both butcher block and baker-friendly marble counter tops; a high-grade, stainless steel commercial-style range and hood and an adjoining laundry nook with poured concrete slop sink and poured concrete folding counter where simple, biscuit-colored cotton canvas curtains hide the no-doubt top end but still unsightly washer and dryer machines.

Between the living and dining rooms just off the front entrance, there's a small den/family room where, according to the Vogue article, Miz Murphy (and child) do not watch television.

The upstairs master suite has more oak wood floors, a window-wrapped nook and an over-sized, stone-floored bathroom with claw-footed soaking tube, separate glass and marble shower enclosure, double sinks set into an antique-looking breakfront and French doors that connect the airy and pale pooper to a private terrace.

The all-but perfect Pamela Burton-designed gardens look and feel more like they might surround a sun bleached farmhouse on the Côte d'Azur than a white-stucco Spanish in Brentwood. A river rock wall defines the long, crushed granite driveway that runs up the side of the property, olive (or olive-like) trees, crushed granite driveway and terraces for dining and lounging, a spa set into a geometric grid of lavender bushes, and a simple, rectangular plunge-sized swimming pool.

Although in between she owned photo-friendly properties in both Ojai (CA) and Brooklyn (NY), this isn't the first time Miz Murphy has owned a beautifully (re)done Spanish-style residence in Brentwood. In fact, about 4.5 years ago she sold—and we discussed—a similarly-decorated but larger Spanish-style residence on the very same street in the flats of Brentwood for $3,600,000 to a tech exec and his wife who appears to have once been in the television business.

Anyhoo, as we've already many times said already, Miz Murphy has long been in the expensive grip of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and before moving to the beautiful house in Brentwood she's now trying to sell Miz Murphy lived briefly in Brooklyn, NY and for a few years before that in pretty-damn-fab, early 20th century bungalow on a well-located multi-acre estate in low-key but still swanky Ojai, CA. Interested parties can stay tuned (or check back) for more details and discussion of those real estate cast offs as well as some speculation on where she might be moving her slender, peripatetic boo-tox next.

listing photos: Prudential California Realty

Earlier today Your Mama discussed a tastefully put together, boho-sheek Spanish-style house in Los Angeles, CA listed for $2,995,000 and owned by still-posing supermodel Carolyn Murphy who, we repeatedly noted, suffers from a classic and ongoing case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle.

Our rudimentary research shows that in addition to the L.A. property she's currently got up for sale, over the last six (or so) years Miz Murphy has owned (at least) four other homes including a two-story contemporary squeezed on to a tight lot in Venice (CA) and a spectacular, swimming pool-free Spanish style in the comparatively staid flats of Brentwood in Los Angeles (CA).

Just before moving to her current crib—the one in Brentwood now up for grabs—Miz Murphy very briefly owned and occupied a 19th century, Greek Revival-style red-brick townhouse on a leafy street just a couple blocks from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (a.k.a the BQE) in New York City's (mostly) dignified and historic Brooklyn Heights 'hood.

Property records reveal she bought the four-floor, two-unit townhouse in August 2010 for $3,600,000 but quickly succumbed to her incurable case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and sold the property just about nine months later, in June 2011, for $3,920,000.

A quick study of the floor plan included with listing information from the time of the sale, which Your Mama managed to haul up out of the murky deep of the interweb, shows the floor-through garden level apartment has 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom and a couple of (possibly decorative) fireplaces. Depending on what gets counted and/or used as a bedroom, the triplex owner's unit has 4-6 bedrooms and two fairly small but thankfully windowed bathrooms, both somewhat inconveniently located off the stair landings.

Tall pocket doors divide the parlor floor living room, with original floor-to-ceiling windows, a decorative fireplace, and (unpainted) wood floors, from the dining room, with almost identical fireplace and painted wood floors. The kitchen, wedged tightly into a tall and model-thin space behind the dining room, has—or at least had at the time Miz Murphy sold it—Euro-style appliances, open shelving, extra-big farmhouse sink, through-the-wall a/c unit, and a room-wide row of large, six-over-six windows that overlook the back garden. The kitchen looks like it was bought from IKEA but we have no knowledge whatsoever whether it actually was or was not.

Anyhoo, the second and third floors each have two good-sized bedrooms and one squeezer-of-a-bedroom that—in Your Mama's humble and utterly meaningless opinion—might both better be utilized as a home office, dressing room, toy storage closet, meditation lounge, play space and/or what-have-you.

Miz Murphy and her current crib—the one in Brentwood now on the market—were featured in all their tawny and glossy-rustic glory in the March 2012 issue of Vogue. She told the fashion-obsessed peeps at Vogue—we have a copy of it thoughtfully provided by an aide de camp we'll call Rhonda Rainyday—that she left Brooklyn and hightailed it back to Cali because '"having the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway outside my door was too much for me."'

Before briefly alighting in Brooklyn Miz Murphy (and child) spent a few years in a rather dynamite 1907 Craftsman bungalow on a bucolic 3-ish acre estate in Ojai, CA she bought in December 2007 from Wrigley gum heir Paxson "Packy" Offield for $3,500,500.

Our online research turned up an archived listing for the gated estate in Ojai that shows the updated and upgraded bungalow measures around 3,400 square feet and contains 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. A separate guest house offers additional living and slumbering space plus a private pooper.

The large living room has a lots of multi-pane windows, a wood-beamed ceiling and imposing (but still cozy) river rock fireplace. The country kitchen has a yummy walk-in pantry, commercial-style appliances, open shelving for the dishes, butcher block counter tops and an adjoining dining area with river rock walls.

Upstairs the living room-sized master bedroom has a high wood ceiling, hardwood floors, a second imposing (but still cozy) river rock fireplace and an attached, two-chamber bathroom with twin pedestal sinks and a claw footed tub.

We're not sure who is responsible for the day-core of her Ojai house but it all leaned and veered heavily towards a more East Coast Americana than French Provençal. Then again, we don't know a decorative donkey from a goat, so...

Although she did not sell her Ojai estate until September 2010 Miz Murphy was, as usual, bitten by the bug of her incurable case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle way back in May 2008, just five months after signing on the deed's dotted line. Between May 2008 and September 2010, according to the fine folks at Redfin, Miz Murphy de- and re-listed the property a number of times at a variety of prices until, according to property records, it finally got snatched up, at a quarter million dollar-plus loss to her, for $3,250,000.

So, she went from Venice to Brentwood to Ojai to Brooklyn, back to Brentwood and now where? Where, oh where shall Miz Murphy next set down some (if history tells us anything, probably temporary) real estate roots? Ironically—or annoyingly, depending on your point of view—Miz Murphy also told the Vogue people (in the March 2012 issue), '"I don't see us staying in Los Angeles...I Don't think it feeds you in the way the East Coast does."' First of all, hunny, pleeze. Secondly, we suggest you beware the chanting hordes of Buddha statue owning Tinseltown New Agers who migrated from the East Coast to rub magic crystals all over their co-dependant inner children while the sun set over the fiery Pacific Ocean. Trust Your Mama when we tell you those people can get ugly when dissed and (probably unintentionally) dissed they were. And, thirdly, does all this soul feeding nonsense mean the model's packing up and moving cross-country, again? Could be. Or not. Who knows?

Heaven's to Betsy, children, this bracingly beautiful beehawtcha moves house so frequently she probably has to keep a moving company on retainer so they're ready the very moment her feet get itchy. But that's really calling the kettle black since Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter have had two apartments, three houses and three offices in the last 10 years. Good grief. When we're not packing or unpacking, we're making plans for our next pack and unpack. But that's another story for another day in another place with an bottomless mid-morning cocktail in hand.

listing photos and floor plan (Brooklyn): Brown Harris Stevens via StreetEasy
listing photos (Ojai): Village Properties via Redfin