BUYER: Michael Lee Aday, a.k.a. Meat Loaf
LOCATION: Austin, TX
PRICE: $1,475,000
SIZE: 5,200 square feet, 4 bedroom, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We apologize in advance for being a bit flat and little slow to get back up in the celebrity real estate saddle after the Memorial Day hiatus, most of which Your Mama spent sauced up on gin & tonics, nursing ailing pooches, watching tomatoes ripen and entertaining the in-laws. We are, needless to day, in need of a holiday from the dead veterans-honoring holiday.

At some point during the still-a-bit-fuzzy-in-our-mind weekend we received a short communique from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial that Michael Lee Aday—much better known as the comfort food-named actor and hard rock musician Meat Loaf—bought new digs in an affluent and fairly new development in the scenically stunning Hill Country just to the west of Austin, TX. At first Your Mama wondered why Mister Meat Loaf and the missus would relocate to Austin. Not that there's anything wrong with Austin we just didn't catch the connection until we learned from our research that Mister Meat Loaf was born and bred in Dallas. He's a Texan and once a Texan perhaps always a Texan.

Anyhoo, property records reveal in mid-March (2012) Mister Meat Loaf and his missus Deborah Gillespie—using the same trust in which their previous crib in Calabasas, CA was held—spent $1,475,000 to acquire a newly constructed, hacienda-style contemporary on a slightly elevated, 1.1 acre knoll with long and lovely southern vistas over the rolling, oak tree carpeted hills.

Listing information indicates the rambling, single-story residence measures about 5,200 square feet with 4-5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. Listing information also shows construction was completed in 2012 and that the house was built with weather and fire resistant materials, energy efficient systems and environmentally sensitive doodads and gewgaws such as a rainwater collection situation.

The long, gated driveway curves up to a motor court around which the low-slung, red tile roofed residence and attached two-car garage angles itself. Plans included with marketing materials we cajoled up out of the internets call for an additional, detached two car garage opposite the house that may (or may not) be convertible according to community guidelines to a guest house, recording facility, Pilates studio or what have y'all.

The angled and unusually-shaped residence has a somewhat unorthodox layout that leaves the two primary public spaces with flexible (if somewhat vague) purposes. Sable marble tile floors in the foyer extend into an intimately-scaled space (with mantel-free fireplace) optimally utilized as a "formal" sitting/living room or a "formal" dining room.

The sable marble floors continue into a much larger, flexi-use space with two entire walls of Bauhaus-ian, almost-floor-to-ceiling windows fitted with EZ clean glass, whatever that is. The bigger room, with a bit of built in cabinetry and shelving along one wall, could be used as an over-sized "formal" dining room, a living/family room or an informal, combination living/dining area.

The larger flexi-use space opens, loft-like to the cook- and family-friendly eat-in kitchen well equipped with medium-grade stainless steel appliances, granite and marble counter tops, a double-wide center work-island with snack counter and window-lined breakfast nook with wide Hill Country view.

The master suite, well-placed for maximum privacy from other inhabitants of the house, occupies its own wing off the front foyer with a large walk-in closet and attached bathroom with double sinks, soaking tub, separate shower, enclosed cubicle for the crapper and heated marble floors. Clear at the opposite end of the house two of the three additional guest/family bedrooms open directly to the back yard while all three have a walk-in closet and private facility.

Off the lengthy, zig-zaggy corridor that connects the public rooms with the service areas and guest/family bedrooms, a den/study/office/library could be utilized as a formal dining room but the attached walk-in closet and private pooper make it far more suitable as a full-time sleeping chamber for a family member, a guest suite, or domestic quarters.

Almost every room in the house opens to or looks out over the back yard hemmed in and defined by a low-stone wall constructed of locally sourced stones. A lofty dining/lounging ramada stands adjacent to a plunge-sized swimming pool set into the craggy canopies of the properties numerous and ancient-looking oak trees.

The gated, master-planned development features a number of residents (and their guests) only amenities that include a community center that can be reserves for parties and other events; outdoor grilling facilities; a resort-style swimming pool; a couple of ponds stocked for easy-fishing; a children's playground with sport court; and 80 (or so) acres of nature preserve laced with stone pathways for strolling, bird-watching and jogging. For all that, according to listing information, homeowner association dues run $125 per month.

Mister and Missus Meat Loaf had their David Dalton-decorated suburban (mc)mansion near Calabasas, CA photographed for the April 2008 issue of Architectural Digest. A little more than two years later, as do many celebrities who have their private homes featured in the high-gloss property porn publication, Mister and Missus Meat loaf pushed their Calabasas crib on the open market with a $3,200,00 price tag. Your Mama (dissed and) discussed the 7,142 square foot Spanish-style casa in spring 2011 and property records indicate the 7 bedroom and 7 bathroom mansion, situated in a small and upscale, gated development just off Mulholland Highway, sold for $3,065,000 in late May 2011.

listing photos: Dara & Associates via Redfin

P.S. We'd like to wish a heartfelt happy birfday our boozy, spandex-sporting b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau. She may be a boiling cauldron of turmoil and trouble who frequently puts Your Mama's life in danger but she's a treasure worth every single minute we've ever spent holding her wig up out of the terlit.

SELLER: Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti
LOCATION: Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, Scotland
PRICE: offers in excess of £3,800,000 ($5,918,920)
SIZE: 7+ bedrooms, 7 full and 4 half bathrooms/water closets

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Rakish race car driver Dario Franchitti won his third Indy 500 over the weekend and—thanks to the Scottish Snitch—Your Mama learned over the weekend the Italian-named Scotsman and his American actress wife Ashley Judd recently heaved their 485-acre estate in the Scottish Highlands on the market. The asking price on listing information and marketing materials reads "offers in excess of £3,800,000," an amount that Your Mama's currently conversion contraption shows amounts to 5,918,920 U.S. dollars at today's rates.

We're not really sure how to look up property transaction records in Scotland so Your Mama can't be certain about how much exactly Miz Judd and Mister Franchitti shelled out for their Scottish spread called Rednock House but an October 2010 article in The Sun states the comely and currently child-free couple acquired the "200-year-old ruin" in 2004 for about £1,200,000. They spent, according to the same article, an additional £1,500,000 on an extensive restoration and renovation of the property that includes a massive mansion and nearby stable/garage complex. Your Mama hasn't an iota how The Sun knows how much moolah the Judd-Franchitti spent on renovations, but that's what they said. We have no independent knowledge of such but the article also mentions that Miz Judd and Mister Franchitti beat out English musician Liam Gallagher and American pop music icon Madonna for the purchase of the hulking but elegant (if somewhat dour-looking) Georgian-style pile, semi-remotely located about an hour by car outside of Edinburgh.

Listing information does not indicate square footage of the huge and historic manor house but does reveal it spans four floors with more than 20 rooms and includes 20 (or more) fireplaces, 4 reception rooms (plus a trio of sizable main floor foyers and stair halls), 7+ bedrooms and 7 full and (approximately) 4 half bathrooms.

Marketing materials reveal the baronial residence recently underwent a complete restoration and modernization over the last 5 years that included the removal of two Victorian era wings and the addition of all new electrical wiring and insulation, all new plumbing with on-demand hot water throughout, state-of-the-art fire and intruder alarm systems and all-new heating systems that include radiant heat under the stone floors.

Stone pillars stand on either side of the long, private drive that snakes and swirls through woodlands, along Rednock Burn, over a bridge, across the landscaped parklands to the front of the relatively spare and perfectly symmetrical Georgian front façade. A wide set of stone steps flanked by a pair of rapacious-looking iron eagles climb to a Greek Doric columned portico that rather regally surrounds the front door.

Floor plans (above) included with marketing materials reveal the front door opens into an almost perfectly square entrance hall with ornate plasterwork and Caithness stone slab floors that continue in to a spine straightening, triple-height circular vestibule—called a "saloon" in marketing materials—that climaxes architecturally with a domed roof and cupola.

Stately architraves around Regency doors mark entry in to the primary public rooms that include a grandly proportioned, 41-foot long drawing room with fireplace and original wide-plank pine floors and an equally impressive 30-foot long formal dining room. Both rooms have multiple, 20-pane windows set in deep niches that hug the floor and kiss the particularly high ceiling. The adjoining butler's pantry is conveniently equipped with a dumbwaiter that lifts food from the lower level kitchen and nearby service stairs rise to a small butler's sitting room (with fireplace) and descend to the less-formal lower level living quarters.

The Caithness stone slab floors continue into the oldest section of the residence where the main stair hall has a cantilevered stone staircase believed to date to the 17th century. There's a large library (with fireplace) on one side, a slightly smaller study (also with fireplace) on the other and a roomy cloakroom—a.k.a. a powder pooper— outfitted with an original, Victorian era Thomas Crapper "Thunderbox."

The lower ground floor, accessible from the main stair hall as well as the service stairs located in a curved corridor just outside the butler's pantry, hosts the humongous house's informal family quarters that orbit around a circular circulation hall with an 18-foot diameter. A completely modernized, center island kitchen with white Shaker-style cabinetry and butcher block counter tops opens to a family room with fireplace and direct access to the garden through a separate vestibule.

Also downstairs is bedroom-sized wine cellar with vaulted ceiling, a living room size gym (with fireplace), large laundry room and, at the rear of the house, a bedroom with attached bathroom suitable for a live-in domestic as well as a couple of generous storage/service areas.

Did y'all just hear the screeching brakes in Your Mama's head too? We're down and dope with this house—the day-core, on the other hand, is depressingly wan—but did anyone else notice the journey hot food must go to get from the kitchen to the upstairs dining room? In case you missed it let Your Mama recap it for any of y'all who don't read or speak floor plan. Once food leaves the kitchen it must traverse a corner of the family room, cross the 18-foot diameter circular vestibule, enter the gym—gasps heard 'round the globe—and either hike up the stairs to the corridor just outside the dining room or pass through to the laundry room in where the dumb waiter lifts dinner (or whatever) to the butler's pantry above at the simple press of a button or flick of the switch (or whatever). 

About half of the first floor—us Americanos call it the second floor—is given over to three guest/family bedrooms that open off the main stair hall and circular gallery. Each is well-sized and self-contained with a fireplace, walk-in wardrobe and en suite facility. The remainder of the second floor is devoted to an expansive, celebrity-style master suite. In addition to the cavernous, 500-plus square foot bedroom there's a substantial and quite contemporary bathroom with jetted tub for two with rare blue marble surround, a separate glass-enclosed steam shower and a not-particularly-private, all-glass enclosure for the crapper and the bidet. Your Mama can only wish upon a prayer that the glass that wraps the crapper cubby is the space age-y sort of stuff that goes opaque at the flip of a switch or press of a button (or whatever). There are also two, enviably spacious dressing rooms, both bigger than Your Mama's entire master suite and both with fireplaces and over-sized windows. the "his" dressing room has bespoke walnut cabinetry and the "hers" dressing room is custom-fitted with maple cabinetry and has its very own washer and dryer.

The top floor, much of which is tucked up under the eaves and most of which was once-upon-a-time probably used as staff quarters, contains two big-enough bedrooms with fireplaces and en suite facilities, various storage closets, and two more commodious rooms, both with fireplaces and flexible possible utilities. According to the floor plan there are a couple of water closets up there as well.

Outbuildings include a fully renovated and insulated quadrangular complex with stabling for horses, garaging for 10 (or more) cars, various workshops, an office, and what listing information calls a "party room" with separate kitchen, sitting room and bathroom. A nearby stone cottage with 3-4 bedrooms is in need of a redo according to listing information and would probably make a sweet guest house, caretaker's residence or someplace a hunky horse trainer could bed down at night after a day spent working with the resident steeds and stallions.

Also included in the sale, according to marketing materials is Grahamston Farm, an adjoining situation with a refurbished 4 bedroom and 2 bathroom farm house plus additional farm buildings.

Miz Judd and Mister Franchitti also maintain a residence stateside. Their multi-acre rural spread with its restored and expanded, 19th century house in Franklin, TN abuts her mother Naomi's much larger farm and connects over a wooded mountain to her country queen sister Wynona's mansion.

listing photos and floor plan: Knight Frank

...New York-based financier Sandy Weill has already "reached an agreement with an unnamed buyer" to purchase his posh and exceedingly pricey penthouse at 15 Central Park West in New York City.

The children will recall that Mister and Missus Weill heaved and hoed their Robert A.M. Stern-designed and Mica Ertegun-decorated 6,744 square foot penthouse with its 2,000 square foot-plus wrap around terrace on to the market a few weeks ago with a ball-busting $88,000,000 asking price. Although an agreement has (allegedly) been reached, the as yet unidentified buyer has yet to sign the proper purchase contracts, according to the New York Post, and "appears to be foreign."

Well, holy god damn.

Mister Weill, the former CEO and chairman of Citigroup, has pledged to donate the proceeds of the sale to as yet unidentified charitable organizations.

Former chat show queen turned struggling tee-vee network owner Oprah Winfrey may be downsizing her property portfolio in her long-time home base of Chicago, IL but according to The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial (and some additional research into the property records by Your Mama) the big-livin' billionairess continues to spend boo-coo bucks enlarging her somewhat remote ranch near the community of Kula on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

As best as we can surmise from public property records, Miz Winfrey's ever-expanding Hawaiian hideaway currently encompasses at least 31 parcels that combined span just over 782 acres. Most of the the various parcels are contiguous although some key pieces remain missing from the middle of her property puzzle and Your Mama would fall off our inflatable donut with shock if over the next few years she didn't drop a substantial wad of dough to snatch those up too.

Although some of the property records are a mite confusing, Miz Winfrey has, buy our rudimentary and unscientific calculations, spent at least $44,000,000 and perhaps more than $60,000,000 on the various properties that altogether have at least a dozen homes and scores of outbuildings and farm-related structures. She's had at least one of the many houses on her ranch photographed for her magazine.

Property records indicate Miz Winfrey first starting buying up property on Maui in October of 2003 when she shelled out $5,300,000 to purchase a pair of adjacent parcels that combined span 23.7 acres and include a recently re-built compound with an 8,838 square foot main mansion plus at least 3 additional structures.

Over the last nearly 10 years Miz Winfrey has steadily bought up dozens of surrounding properties. Some of her most recent acquisitions came in March 2011 when she snapped up three vacant parcels that combined measure 24.5 acres and cost $3,300,000. At just about the same time she picked up a 12.57 acre spread with a 4,253 square foot house (plus equestrian facilities) for $4,400,000 and just about a month later she dropped another $4,500,000 on a 6.87 acre spread with a couple of modestly-sized residences.

Most of Miz Winfrey's Hawaiian holdings are contiguous but there remain a healthy handful of key properties missing in the center of her real estate puzzle that Your Mama would be shocked if she doesn't purchase in the the not so distant future.

After years in Chicago (IL) where her eponymous and insanely influential talk show taped, Miz Winfrey now makes her primary home at The Promised Land, a 42-acre, fully-landscaped estate in Montecito, CA with a 23,000(ish) square foot mansion, numerous outbuildings and a distant, sparkling view of the Pacific Ocean. She paid, so the story goes, around $52,000,000 for the property which carried 2011 taxes of more than $886,000.

Miz Winfrey still owns her long-time, 4-unit combination Chicago duplex at Water Tower Place as well as a 4,607 square foot Streeterville condo she bought in 2006 for $5,600,000 and recently (re-)listed for $2,800,000. It's now in contract. She also owns a number of less significant properties in Tennessee, Illinois and Indiana, most of which are believed to be occupied by family members.

Real estate watchers expect Miz Winfrey will eventually purchase a posh pied-a-terre in Los Angeles since the commute from Montecito to her OWN offices in L.A. is considerable, ninety minutes on a good day by car. Of course, she may be holding off to see if her limping network is going to sink or swim. We shall she, puppies, we shall see.

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: estate of Amy Winehouse
LOCATION: London, U.K.
PRICE: £2,699,950
SIZE: (approximately) 2,500 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen children there has been a death in Your Mama's family—RIP Meemaw—so we've been a bit sluggish in getting to some of the hottest stories the last week or so and expect we'll be bringing up the celebrity real estate rear for another week.

In an effort to fill in a few of the many gaps we left gaping last week, over the next couple days we're going to briefly give our meaningless two cents about a few stories that some of y'all may (or may not) have already heard and/or read. Iffin that's the case, and you're just so over this big of celebrity property business, then move along little doggy. Your Mama will have some fresh meat for you to gnash at and gnaw on soon enough. Capisce? Capisce.

Everybody knows throwback (and throw-it-down) rocker Amy Winehouse died tragically and young—she was just 27—in July 2011 when she, quite literally, drank herself to death inside her walled and gated, Georgian-style home on London's Camden Square.

After months of mulling, Miss Winehouse's estate–managed by her father Mitch—has opted to sell his deceased daughter's architecturally dignified semi-detached and recently listed the structurally and cosmetically renovated and upgraded residence with an asking price of £2,699,950. A quick consult with Your Mama's currency conversion contraption reveals that amounts to 4,146,450 U.S. dollars at today's rates.

Miss Winehouse's modestly-scaled if hardly-inexpensive house measures about 2,500 square feet over 4 floors with a total of 3 bedrooms and 2 full and 2 half bathrooms. A stoop set in the walled and gated front garden opens to a long entry/stair hall with dark mocha-colored hardwood floors, crisp white walls, period moldings and, at the back under the stairs, a could-still-use-a-redo powder pooper.

The dark wood floors continue into the sitting room at the rear of the main floor outfitted with more period moldings, a decorative fireplace flanked by open shelving and a broad bay window with back garden view. The eat-in kitchen at the front of the house has vinyl black and white checkerboard flooring, glossy black lacquer cabinetry, jet black granite counter tops and a pair of side-by-side vintage-style white fridge/freezers.

One floor below, in the all-but-above-ground, wood-floored basement, there's a sound-proofed family room slathered an unholy shade of lipstick red paint, a modernized half crapper and a still-fully-equipped home gym with French doors that connect to the back garden. It's hard to believe all this equipment was used by Miss Winehouse who never looked particularly healthy or fit. Thin maybe, but robust, no. Whatever.

On the second floor—that's the first for for Brits—two guest/family bedrooms with custom wardrobes share a hall bathroom. One more flight up the full-floor master suite has a vaulted ceiling; over-sized wardrobe-lined dressing room; separate bedroom; and adjoining, en suite facility with black and white marble tile work, separate, glass-enclosed shower and freestanding and claw-footed soaking tub set unnecessarily at a catty wompus angle

A walled and gated courtyard at the front of the property probably didn't see much use by Miss Winehouse who was regularly besieged by fans and paparazzi outside her front gate. The area opposite her former home is still treated as a bit of a shrine with an apron of flowers, candles, and notes written to and/or about the multiple Grammy winner. The rear garden—unfortunately only accessible via a potentially treacherous trek through the gym—perhaps saw more use by the usually very pale-skinned Miss Winehouse with its sunken stone terrace, small patch of grass and tree- and shrubbery-ringed perimeter.

There has been a bit of brouhaha, we've bee told by a Brit or two, instigated by some of Miss Winehouse's still-faithful fans who feel Daddy Winehouse is profiteering by the sale of his deceased daughter's house. We're not sure what these people think Mister Winehouse ought to do with the multi-million dollar mini-manse where his daughter lived and died in such a dreadful and deadly (if wildly creative) manner. Move in to it?

We know there was talk of running some sort of Amy Winehouse foundation out of the house but, be honest, would you want to go to work in the same house where your 20-something year old, global superstar daughter met her early and ugly end? What we say isn't worth the time it takes to type it but as far as we're concerned Mummy and Daddy Winehouse ought to do what they need to do to settle their hearts no doubt left jagged by the loss of their daughter and if it's selling her damn house, then sell the damn house.

listing photos and floor plan: HouseNetwork.co.uk via RightMove.co.uk

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