...Long-time Malibu, CA residents and vocal environmentalists Pierce Brosnan and Keely Shaye have (somewhat surprisingly) put their recently-completed ocean-front compound on Malibu's (quickly disappearing) Broad Beach up for lease at $250,000 per month for July and August (2012). They will be away, it seems, while the Irish 007 star makes his next picture.

Mister Brosnan and Miz Shaye purchased the extra-wide property way back in 2000. Rather than remodel they knocked down the existing residence to make way for a massive, U-shaped mansion—done up in a Thai-Bali-inspired-style and dubbed Orchid House—that commands a 120-foot wide ocean front lot, spans around 13,000 square feet and includes a total of 4 bedrooms and a dozen full bathrooms. No puppies, Your Mama did not make a silly, boozy mistake. Marketing materials do indeed show Orchid House contains twelve, presumably low-flow terlits, a bloated number sufficiently high enough to require the Brosnan-Shaye family employ a part-time, minimum-wage gal whose sole responsibility is to clean crappers with a myriad of chemical-free cleaning products.

Besides all the expected public and less-public rooms that connect through walls of glass to scads of courtyards, terraces and decks, Orchid House's extra-added interior amenities include a chef-style kitchen, library, art studio, music room, private screening room with bar, full-sized fitness facility and an indoor Japanese spa with soaking tub, infrared or traditional sauna, steam room and cold plunge.

Outdoor amenities include a gated driveway and motor court capable of parking 10 cars; a wind-protected entry courtyard around which the house wraps; expansive, multi-level stone terraces and decks that extend off the side and back of the mansion; an algae-green but not-doubt meticulously maintained saltwater swimming pool and spa with nearby cabana; lush, tropical landscaping; raised sunbathing deck; and an ocean-side dining terrace with full-height glass wind shield.


Avid celebrity property watchers will recall that back in June 2010 Mister B. and Miz S. put their previous and much-more-modestly-scaled Malibu home on the market with an in-hind-sight-optimistic asking price of $3,900,000. The gated Mediterranean, which backs up to and borders busy and often traffic-chocked Pacific Coast Highway finally sold in December 2011 for $2,600,000.



If a quarter million a month for the Brosnan-Shaye's Orchid House comes in a bit too steep for your pinched pocketbook, all-but-retired sitcom star Paul Reiser's ocean front getaway in Malibu Colony is also up for lease with a much lower but—let's be honest—still sky-high price tag of $95,000 per month. But, of course, it only has 3.5 bathrooms.


listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Malibu West

SELLER: Dan Harris
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,395,000
SIZE: 3,085 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little birdie chirped in our ear over the weekend that Tinseltown action/adventure screenwriter/director Dan Harris (Until Death, Superman Returns, X2) listed his celebrity pedigreed property just above Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA with an asking price of $2,395,000.

Property records indicate Mister Harris coughed up $2,075,000 when he bought the house in October 2005 from musician Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics). Mister Stewart and his wife Anoushka purchased the house only about 1.5 years earlier for $1,590,000 from a married couple who had themselves acquired the house from Aussie-Brit pop songstress Kylie Minogue in February 2001 for $1,225,000. Miss Minogue kept the house less than one year and property records reveal her classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle cost her $60,000 not counting carrying costs, upkeep and real estate fees.

Current listing information shows the gated, turreted, somewhat dour and putty-colored two-story French Normandy-style residence spans 3,085 square feet with a total of 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.

The house retains whiffs and hits of its architectural roots—there's some heavy-duty paneling here and there and a coffered ceiling in the dining room—but the interior spaces have been significantly pared down and, where not wood paneled, bathed in white paint that sets off Mister Harris's impressive, idiosyncratic and mostly contemporary art collection that includes what may (or may not) be an Inka Essenhigh painting from the late 1990s in the dining room.

Espresso-colored wood floors in the elegantly spare entrance hall extend into the partially wood-paneled and partially window-lined "formal" living room that steps down into an ample formal dining room with mosaic tile-faced fireplace flanked by built-in book cases filled with actual books, a bank French doors, and a chunky wood table the size of a Honda surrounded by 10 or 12 chairs that look like they came out of the prop room for some epic, historical drama about King Arthur.

The adjacent cook- and family-friendly eat-in kitchen has extra-thick, Calacatta slab marble counter tops, high-grade stainless steel appliances and a center island cook top with snack bar. Mister Harris has outfitted the gleaming, white Shaker-style cabinets with door handled and drawer pulls fashioned from chef-quality cooking knives, a quirky and sinister conceit that adds a deliciously nerve-wracking element of danger and (melo)drama to the kitchen.

There is a fully paneled and book shelf-lined library but it looks so very narrow even the wide-angle listing photos make Your Mama feel a mite claustrophobic. More spacious is the upstairs master suite with vaulted ceiling and exposed trusses, more built-in book cases, private bathroom, an adjoining sitting room/office, and an over-sized dressing room that opens through a bank of French doors to a private terrace with a bit of a city view.

Several of the lower level rooms open to a small well-outfitted back yard where flagstone terracing wraps snugly around the back of the house, surrounds the plunge-sized swimming pool and elevated spa and continues around to an elevated dining patio under an arched pergola.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty