T.R. Knight Says Bye-Bye Hollywood

SELLER: T.R. Knight
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,995,000
SIZE: 4,160 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in the fall of 2007, when he was still gainfully employed on the Emmy and Golden Globe winning hospital drama Grey's Anatomy, actor T.R. Knight shelled out $2,912,500 for an historical 1930s Tudor style fixer-upper at the far eastern edge of the quietly star studded Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Unfortunately for Mister Knight, he probably gained the the most fame and attention by all the gossip glossies as the verbal punching bag for his former cast mate Isaiah Washington who (in)famously made homophobic slurs towards Mister Knight on set. As a result of the ugly kerfuffle, Mister Washington was relieved of his acting duties and Mister Knight was compelled to make a very public and unplanned exit from the proverbial closet. Iffin anyone were to ask Your Mama–and, of course, no one did–it is our humble and utterly meaningless opinion that Mister Knight handled the grisly bizness with grace and dignity and we hope his mama was as proud as Your Mama was of his decision to live openly in the notoriously homophobic Hollywood. Yes bunnies, we know that Hollywood is crawling with the gays and lesbians. However, it's not so often that a working and successful actor or actress actually lives publicly as an out, proud and gay individual. That's right big name celebrities, you know who you are and we're talking about you.

Anyhoo, perhaps as a result of the brouhaha–or not–his role on Grey's Anatomy was subsequently slimmed down until the summer of 2009 when Mister Knight chose to quit his lucrative gig on the boob-toob claiming that he just wasn't thrilled by or fulfilled with the direction his character was being taken. Mister Knight has reportedly relocated to New York City where he's getting back to his deep roots on the stage and will soon appear in David Mamet's A Life in the Theater with fellow thespian Sir Patrick Stewart.

No longer in need of his his 1930s Tudor that he spent the last 3 years and untold amounts of moo-lah renovating, Mister Knight recently hoisted the property back on the market with an asking price of $3,995,000. Listing information indicates the quirky and fully rehabbed residence with its distinct ecclesiastical thing going on measures 4,160 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers.

Earlier reports claim that Mister Knight never even moved into the house having lived in a nearby rental while the extensive and costly renovations were underway. We don't know anything about that but listing photos do show the house is completely empty so whether he moved in or not, he's clearly not living there now.

A discreet front facade opens into an unexpectedly capacious double height entrance hall with a curving, hand-carved stair case and antique slate floors. A set of elaborately carved Gothic arched doors open from the entrance hall into a voluminous living room that features parquet flooring, a soaring vaulted ceiling with exposed beams and trusses, leaded glass windows, an imposing stone and carved wood fireplace, and a forest's worth of intricately carved wood detailing. The room's most interesting, unique, and somewhat bizarre feature is the minstrels gallery where back in the day, according to listing information, the Hollywood String Quartet played for parties of Tinseltown elites.

The living room opens out to a glassed in porch that has a heavy, dark stained beamed ceiling, antique slate flooring, a chunky brick fireplace and tree top views. A large dining room with gives way to the fully renovated galley style kitchen that has gorgeous gray flat fronted lower cabinetry, black counter tops, two side by side sinks in front of a large casement window, double ovens and a Hyundai sized range that probably cost as much as an entry level Mercedes.

Upstairs, the master bedroom has a gorgeous and whimsical corbel dome ceiling, glossy parquet floors, antique heating registers, and an attached private pooper with honeybee tile floors, white subway tile walls, a barrel vaulted ceiling, and a row of 4-pane windows with city views. In addition to the bedrooms, the second floor has a dee-voon sleeping porch with slate tile floor and a pitched ceiling. While we're certain that many of the more pampered children would prefer to flick on the air conditioner on a warm southern California summer evening, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would rather throw open the windows of a sleeping porch and let the soft breezes waft over us while we talk to the Sandman.

At least one of the other poopers in the house is completely encased–floors, walls and ceiling–in shiny jet black subway style tiles that look terribly sexy and more than a little sinister but are probably murderous when it comes to water spot removal. The children can be sure that if Mister Knight had an opinionated and vocal house gurl like our gal Svetlana, he would never have put all that black tile in a pooper.

Outdoor areas include a covered terrace with hulking brick fireplace located just off the lowest level of the three story house, a small sunbathing terrace, and and several flat expanses of lawn amid the rough and tumble of the rugged but fully landscaped hillside that includes hand stacked rock retaining walls, and a stream that tumbles down the hillside into small pond.

Your Mama wishes Mister Knight more luck than some of his former Grey's Anatomy cast mates have had selling some of their pricey properties in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborood. Ginger haired Kate Walsh–who stars in the Private Practice spin-off of Grey's Anatomy–bought a Spanish style mansion in July of 2007 for $4,750,000. Not long after the decoratin' was done she and her huzband went splitsville and shortly after her dee-vorce was finalized she flipped the beehawtcha back on the market in May of 2010 with an asking price of $4,295,000. It doesn't take a genius or Your Mama's bejeweled abacus to see that even if Miss Walsh gets lucky and finds a full price buyer for her house, she's still facing a hefty half million dollar loss on her real estate mistake.

In September of 2007, Mister Knight's b.f.f. Katherine Heigl and her singer/songwriter man-mate Josh Kelley paid $2,250,000 for a 4 bedroom and 3.5 pooper property in Los Feliz. Shortly thereafter, in June of 2008, Mister Heigl put another Los Feliz home on the market with an asking price of $1,750,000. Records and the bizzy boys at Celebrity Address Aerial show Miss Heigl paid $1,500,000 for the 3 bedroom and 2.5 pooper house back in May of 2006. After more than a year on the market and several price chops that brought the price down to $1,595,000, the property was taken off the market. It remains in Miss Heigl's property portfolio.

listing photos: Peter Lorimer Group Estates

Tyler Perry Does It Again Outside Atlanta

BUYER: Tyler Perry
LOCATION: Johns Creek, GA
PRICE: $7,600,000
SIZE: Big

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The children might want to do like Your Mama did and go ahead and get a nerve pill and a gin gimlet down the gullet right away because y'all are gonna need these wonderful medicinal aids to steel yourselves for what's a'comin'. Seriously. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Is that nerve pill working its magic and the gin beginning to course through your veins? Alright then, here we go...

Actor/director/producer/playwright/billionaire-to-be Tyler Perry, one of the entertainment industry's most notorious real estate size queens, has gone and done it again. The frequent buyer and seller of high priced properties has done bought another damn house, this one in Johns Creek, GA, an upscale enclave in the suburban outskirts of Atlanta. For what it's worth, other property owners with recognizable names in the Johns Creek vicinity include Janet Jackson's ex-man mate Jermaine Dupri, former professional pigskinner turned biznesman Fran Tarkenton, former Home Despot CEO Robert Nardelli, actress/singer Raven-Symoné (That's So Raven, The Cosby Show) and be-wigged realty tee-vee denizen, wannabe singer, and admitted adulteress Kim Zolciak.

Before we get to Mister Perry's newest acquisition, let's first cover some old real estate ground. In addition to a couple of high-priced Los Angeles area holdings–which we'll get to later–Mister Perry still owns Avec Chateau, an opulent 17,252 square foot white elephant on 11.4 acres in Fairburn, GA that he attempted to unload in 2009 with an asking price of $3,695,000. The 6 bedroom and 6.5 pooper residence that includes lots of double height ceilings, a home theater, natch, and a vast 4,000 square foot master suite does not currently appear to be on the open market but property records reveal that the estate remains solid in his fat property portfolio.

As far as Your Mama knows–and as told to us by a nearby neighbor whom we'll call Nelly Nameless–Mister Perry currently lives in a recently completed 30,000-ish square foot multi-winged monster mansion in Atlanta, GA that he custom built on 17 wooded and exuberantly landscaped acres that over look the Chatahoochie River. Perry's pad is shown above prior to being fully completed. Just to give a little context to Mister Perry's current neighborhood, his hotel sized house sits down the road a short piece from the Governor's Mansion which happens to be located directly across the street from the the ridiculously opulent mansion of Lee Najjar, otherwise known as "Big Poppa," the former very married man-friend of The Real Housewives of Atlanta's Kim Zolciak. Also in the hoity-toity 'hood is the home of John and Patsy Ramsey, parents of the mysteriously murdered child beauty pageant princess JonBenét Ramsey.

Even though the confirmed bachelor man needs another Atlanta area mansion like a street walker needs instructions on how to screw, Mister Perry has none the less laid out $7,600,000 for Dean Gardens, a legendary 58 acre estate with a colossal coral colored beast of a house that over looks the Chatahoochie River. Mister Perry's plans for Dean Gardens include knocking down the existing 36,086 square foot architectural grotesquerie to make way for yet another mammoth real estate monument to his screaming success and ever-increasing wealth.

For years there has been much yakkety-yakking amongst all the real estate gossips about the weird and wacky Dean Gardens. However, in the event any of the children missed the copious coverage here's a little background information before we begin to break the beehawtcha down. Once upon a time, an Atlanta based software magnate named Larry Dean and his wife Lynda had a grandiose real estate dream and the necessary finances to fund it. Mister and Missus Dean's unrestrained vision of residential heaven on earth resulted in 58 acres of heavy-duty landscaping that surrounds a excessively dressed cotton candy pink palace completed in 1992 and described in marketing materials with hysterical hyperbole as "what may well be America's most elegant estate." While Dean Gardens may be many things both good and bad, if the property is indeed the most "elegant" estate America has to offer, then someone needs to rip Your Mama's eyeballs from their very sockets.

Just a few short years after Mister Dean completed Dean Gardens, he and the Missus heaved, hoisted, and hurled the sucker on to the market with a gargantuan asking price of $40,000,000. At the time, it was believed and promoted by Mister Dean's real estate and public relations people to possibly be the most expensive private estate on the market in the entire world. Your Mama does not know whether that assertion is accurate or not but we do know that there were no takers for the hammy house and the subsequent 15 years saw the palatial property taken off and put back on the market several times with increasingly lower asking prices.

The last asking price for Mister and Missus Dean's nouveau riche wonderland was $13,900,000. The mansion was offered, heaven help us all, fully furnished. Mister Perry, who wisely opted out of purchasing the furniture and other fittings, paid just $7,600,000 for the property, a purchase price that Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows is just 19% of Mister and Missus Dean's original asking price. That puppies, has got to hurt. Whether we or anyone else likes or appreciates the wanton extravagance of Dean Gardens or not, it most certainly cost the Deans far more than $7,600,000 to build and landscape. The large living couple no doubt took a huge hit to their bank accounts not to mention their real estate egos.

Mister Perry has chosen–wisely as far as Your Mama is concerned–to raze the vigorously festooned and passionately garnished mansion in order to build himself a new if not exactly needed house. Ordinarily Your Mama agitates for re-working and/or learning to live with what you have rather than knock down and start again, but in the case of Mister and Missus Dean's wildly melodramatic digs, we're all for Mister Perry swinging the wrecking ball at the master crafted but architecturally vapid house.

The best way, perhaps, to understand Dean Gardens is by having a look-see at the numbers. The estate sprawls across 58 acres with 1,200 feet of frontage on the Chatahoochie River. The main house, according to listing information, measures 36,086 square feet spread out over three floors and includes 13 fireplaces, 8 themed bedroom suites including a 3,000 square foot master suite, and 9 full and 3 half poopers, more than enough to require a full time terlit gurl.

In addition to the massive main house, Dean Gardens includes estate manager and green's keeper's cottages as well as a 10,000 square foot carriage house with laundry facilities, heated and cooled garage for 12 automobiles, and twin 2-bedroom apartments perfect for the pampered owners to house live-in staff such as a terlit gurl, hunky pool boy, mousy bed maker, and ass wiper.

According to listing information provided to Your Mama by Hildegard Helpsusout, the 2008 taxes for Dean Gardens ran a staggering $213,418. While that amount makes Your Mama sweat just to think about, we fully expect that the property taxes will increase substantially after Mister Perry builds his new house, which we also fully expect will be no smaller or less lavish than the Dean's existing monster manse.

According to the property's website, the over the top interior spaces, all done up and did over by the Dean's oldest son Christopher Dean, include, a 3.5 story high entry rotunda "inspired" by the Brunelleschi Cathedral in Florance, Italy. In addition to the shockingly inappropriate curving wall of frameless glass into which an Old World style front door has been set, the meant to impress the guests style rotunda entry has gardens and water features carved into the marble tiled floor, a grand curving staircase with a custom hand crafted scrolled wrought iron balustrade, and a dizzying dome topped by a circular skylight and covered in dozens of large metallic gold florets.

The "Grand Salon," otherwise known as a formal living room, has deep and dark royal blue walls, beige marble tile floors, a black lacquer and gold leaf fireplace, elaborate and thick wedding cake moldings, and a towering two story high window that looks out over the shell-shaped swimming pool and the extensive grounds beyond. The banquet hall sized dining room has two sea water aquariums set into the wall, a couple of glittery and pretty antique crystal chandeliers, and a coved ceiling with a kooky kustom painted mural depicting a lightly cloudy sky. We know that there's an historical precedent for ceiling murals and all, but Your Mama thinks the mural on the ceiling here is just one more unnecessary decorative step over the line that's already been stepped over too many times.

Other rooms, according to marketing materials, include a den, family room, library/office, breakfast room, and gore-may kitchen with "raspberry" colored curvilinear oak cabinetry, black granite counter tops, and insanely detailed moldings. A six foot wide hallway, originally just a passage connecting the main house to the garage, is where the Deans displayed their collection of artworks that they picked up during their travels to Hawaii. At the far end of the east wing on the main floor is the octagonal shaped and hilariously named "Peacock Room," which has marble tile floors with dark contrasting inlay, a 43-foot high ceiling, 15-foot high arched windows that weigh 1,200 pounds apiece, Art Deco-ish columns topped by fluted light fixtures, and a hand carved, 4,000 pound English limestone table supported by a steel beam buried into the bedrock underneath the house. That seems like a lot of effort and money to spend for a table thats only purpose is to hold a gigantic boo-quet of flowers that Your Mama can only hope are real.
While we're certain that much of the detailing is of painstaking, expensive, and finely crafted quality, the house is such a bizarrely inexplicable patchwork of architectural styles and–have mercy–themed day-core that's it's near impossible for Your Mama to see the forest through the trees. Don't misunderstand Your Mama. We love decorative chutzpah as much as anyone else but what we have here at Dean Gardens is a decoratively perverse and maudlin attempt at referencing classical and historical day-core that generally speaking falls flat on its gold gilded face due to it's ballsy over-eagerness and utterly naked and unapologetic display of conspicuous consumption.

Christopher Dean, who was a dewy 21 years old when his parents asked him to take the decorating reigns of their dream house, clearly has–or at least had–an unhealthy obsession with themed day-core. This Wagnerian preoccupation with theme based rooms came to its full and histrionic fruition in the less formal areas of his parent's pink palace as well as in the 8 decoratively indulgent bedrooms suites and the carousel themed nursery that Your Mama finds so damn frightening that we would consider it child abuse to take a defenseless shorty in there.

The wildly divergent themed day-core of the bedroom suites at Dean Gardens include, according to marketing materials, French, Old English, Oriental, Ultra Contemporary–see the sad portrait of Andy Warhol there?–Egyptian, and Silver. Oh, and let's not forget the perfectly mortifying 3,000 square foot "Art Nouveau" master suite with its acres of rose colored wall to wall carpeting and private pooper of black granite and pearlized marble. Mister Dean's violently comical themed day-core shows exactly why nice, gay decorators and others should eschew "themes" unless hired to re-do the day-core for the Madonna damn Inn in San Luis Obispo, CA where, coincidentally, Your Mama had a handful of cocktails last week with The Chicken and Our Boy Beebah.

If any of the children don't yet know the Madonna Inn get your fingers clicking on the keyboard because you should. The high-lariously campy and preposterously daffy hotel is the very apex of architectural and decorative kitch done with such loving abandon that it's impossible not to be swept away by the ludicrous and yet perfect hot pink banquettes in the main dining room and the slightly sinister shell shaped urinal in the wine cellar. Your Mama finds that the difference between the high-camp of the Madonna Inn and the freaky kitch of Dean Gardens is that the Madonna Inn is in on the decorative tomfoolery in a manner that makes no attempt at seriousness, while Mister Dean's day-core is, we're sorry to say, far too self-conscious and painfully earnest to be taken seriously.

But we digress.

The lower level contains an entertainment complex with a game room done up like what a Saudi billionaire who has never been to America might think a classic 1950s American diner would look like. There's a red tufted leather banquette that wraps itself grotesquely around a thick column with gold or maybe neon accents. The column hides the steel support the holds up the aforementioned 4,000 pound limestone table in the Peacock Room. The game room's cheesy and depressingly cliché day-core goes on to include a black and white checkerboard floor, a fireplace surrounded by a red and white checkerboard tiled wall, and a Coca-Cola themed soda fountain and ice cream counter. Just outside the game room, behind the elevator, are his and her cabanas with dressing rooms and poopers, as well as steam, weight and exercise rooms. Beyond that there are, according to marketing materials, an indoor hot tub, pool table, and game table.

The terrace level of the mansion, which we're pretty sure is the lower level, also includes a media room contained in a large suite of rooms done up in the Moroccan style meant to emulate some of the interior spaces of the historic Fox Theater in Atlanta. Sophisticated audio and visual systems surround the stage area where a screen rolls down from the ceiling when it's time to view the projection television.

The sprawling grounds of Dean Gardens, while meticulously maintained and not without redeeming qualities are, however, as overdone and over-processed as the painfully theatrical mansion itself. The large shell shaped swimming pool and spa are sunk into the gigantic, multi-level terrace at the back of the house. Below the terrace is some sort of grotto and beyond are a range of outdoor amenities such as a grass tennis court, croquet lawn, stables for the ponies, formal French and Italian gardens, an Asian tea garden, conservatory, amphitheater–because everyone needs one of those, and a wedding chapel perched on a peninsula that sticks out into the 3-acre spring fed and man made lake out of which shoots a gigantic fountain. Woven in, around, and through the gardens and grounds is a private 18-hole par 72 golf course.

Since Mister Perry, a man rich enough to indulge whatever real estate whims waft through his mind, plans to rip the house down and build anew, a 2-day auction of the home's contents has been scheduled starting on August 20th. Everything is to be sold including the art, furniture, fixtures and cabinetry. Bring your pocketbook and your tool box kiddies. We only wish we could be in Atlanta for this!

It will be years before Mister Perry will be able to move into whatever mansion he builds on the property but we can none the less be assured that the result will be another white elephant of titanic proportions and insanely expensive maintenance costs that, when the time comes for Mister Perry to move on, nearly no one who can afford to buy it will want to buy it. That's the primary problem with these over-sized and uber-customized mansions like Suzanne Saperstein's architecturally correct Fluer de Lys–still for sale at $125,000,000–and The Manor, Candy Spelling's architectural hot mess in Los Angeles that carries an even more beastly $150,000,000 price tag. The majority of the people who dream of living in such overblown and fantastical circumstances are typically people who could never even afford the electrical bill let alone the taxes and maintenance. Fortunately for Mister Perry, he's got the cheddar to own and maintain a number of obscenely expensive properties for many years to come.

Mister Perry's modern mansion at the tippy top of the Bird Streets above the famed Sunset Strip in Los Angeles is currently on the market with an asking price of $11,595,000 after first being listed in June of 2010 with an asking price of $13,250,000. According to our sources, Mister Perry is fully engaged in completing a massive, 22,000 square foot Tuscan style multi-winged mansion on a very private 22-acre spread behind the 24 hour guarded gates of the exclusive and expensive Beverly Ridge Estates community high in the hills above Beverly Hills.

Listen kids, as far as we're concerned the deeply religious Mister Perry should be commended for working hard and pulling himself up and out of the poor house through deep determination good luck. And we presume that Mister Successful has heaps and hordes of people who surround him, many of whom we hope actually care about him and not what he can do for them. However, there's something more than a little sad to Your Mama about this single 40-year old fellow buying and building ever larger mansions in which he lives, for all intents and purposes, alone. Why Mister Perry, who always strikes Your Mama as a soulful, thoughtful and resolute individual, wants to ramble and rattle around all by his lonesome in these airport terminal sized mansions is both stupifying and heartbreaking. But then again, who are we to know or understand the real estate desires of the rich and famous?

listing photos: Jordan Breanna Properties

ScarJo and RyRey Snatch Up a Mid-Century Modern

BUYER: Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,900,000
SIZE: 2,835 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last month all the celebrity real estate gossips were a-twitter and agog about how ever more unlucky in real estate actress Scarlett Johansson (Iron Man, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Lost In Translation) lost her shirt, her skirt and her Agent Provocateur panties when she sold her big 0l' Mediterranean style bachelorette pad in Los Angeles at a loss in excess of $3,000,000.

That's right puppies, Miss Johansson had a perfectly good if not great 7 bedroom and 7 pooper mansion in Los Angeles, CA that she bought in May of 2007 for $7,000,000. Two years later the curvy actress caught a case of The Real Estate Fickle so bad that she was compelled to sell the house for an even-steven $4,000,000, a stunning three million dollar bang to her bank accounts not counting renovation costs and the fat real estate fees. Of course Your Mama don't know a lemon from a coffee pot but given that this wasn't the first time Miss Johansson sold a property at a loss Your Mama has to wonder if the woman is just a financial fruit bat or if there something more purposeful and clever at play like maybe she needed the gigantic write off for her her taxes.

Anyhoo and whatever the case, sell at a huge loss she did and now word is starting to slip-slide down the real estate gossip grapevine that Miss Johansson and her well-formed if a bit too ripped actor man-mate Ryan Reynolds have shelled out a few million smackers for a new house just a couple hills over from the one she just sold at an airplane hangar sized loss.

According to several of Your Mama's better connected sources ScarJo and RyRey recently closed on a mid-century modern style house designed in 1968 by noted southern California architects Buff & Hensman. The deal for the single story contemporary located in the hills of Los Feliz with big views across the twinkling lights of Tinseltown went down last week, according to property records, for $2,900,000. That a person would pay a few thousand clams more than the asking price for a house in today's topsy turvy market is a bit of rarity, but according to property records they did indeed pay $51,000 more than the last known asking price of $2,849,000.

If Your Mama hauls out our bejeweled abacus and flicks and clicks the well worn beads we figure that when the $3,0000,000+ loss of Missus Reynold's bacherlorette pad on Senalda Road is added to the purchase price of the lovebirds' new nest, the real price of their new digs is more than $5,900,000. Let's be honest chickens, these two lookers could have easily opted to stay put in the house on Senalda Road and waited out the market hoping and praying for better real estate days. But if we've said it once Your Mama has said it four million times, who are we to question or understand the wacky real estate ways of the rich and famous?

Listing information for the well preserved property we hear ScarJo and RyRey just bought shows that the low profile pad measures 2,835 square feet and includes just 2 bedrooms and 3 poopers. In addition to the guest bedroom and private master suite that features its own walled mini-garden, listing information also indicates that when originally built the house had a total of 4 bedrooms but two of the secondary bedrooms were subsequently combined and put into service as a library/office space.

The front of the property has an un-gated black-top motor court with front facing two-car garage all of which, Your Mama imagines will soon be protected by high hedges, an electronically controlled access gate, and a state of the art surveillance system. A covered walk from the driveway leads through a small planted courtyard to the front door. The home's primary living spaces face the back yard and the panoramic view. The large living room retains much of the home's original features such as hardwood floors, a clean lined brick fireplace, and wood beamed ceiling. A long wall of floor to ceiling glazing allows for a "seamless" visual flow between the indoors and the outdoors, which of course was a primary objective with many of the architects who operated in what we now consider the mid-century modern milieu.

Situated on the same axis as the living room along the back side of the house is the renovated kitchen that manages to maintain a style dialogue with the original house while incorporating all the modern conveniences expected in a multi-million dollar home such as high quality cabinetry and high grade stainless steel appliances that include double ovens and a side-by-side fridge and freezer combo that probably cost more than a Mini Cooper. The kitchen is open not only to the wall of glass that sucks up the view on the back side of the house, but also the dining area and adequately sized corner family room that, like the living room, is wrapped in floor to ceiling glass panes that open to the backyard and the view that, on a good day, extends all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Extra deep overhangs help to modulate light and shade part of the deck that runs along the back of the back of the house and steps down to a flat grassy yard, many sided swimming pool, and adjacent sunbathing deck where ScarJo and RyRey can tan their slender movie camera friendly bodies. There does not appear to be a spa attached to the pool which is a bit of a problem. Your Mama does not care to sit in a boiling vat of water like some sort of damn lobster about to be cooked and eaten, but the Dr. Cooter does and a yard like this with a view like that is calling out for a hot tub, perhaps even one of those round old-school redwood types surrounded by ferns and candles like it was 19 damn 72.

Anyhoodles, what if any renovation plans ScarJo and RyRey have for their newly acquired mid-century modern remains to be seen but Your Mama hopes that they'll choose to retain and maintain what architectural integrity the house has. We just think it's kind of nice when people show some residential restraint and leave architectural well enough alone. Before all you architecture snobs get your panties in a kerfuffle recognize that Your Mama understands that the house isn't exactly a stellar example of mid-century modern style or, frankly, even one of Buff & Hensman's better projects. However, in a city where too many people don't seem to think twice about swinging the wrecking ball at a multi-million dollar house in order to make way for a monstrous beast of a mansion–just look what Jeffrey Katzenberg is doing over there in Beverly Hills where he paid a bone chilling $35,000,000 for an 8,704 square foot house built in 1965 that he's knocking down in order to build his own gargantuan Barbie Dream House–it's just nice to preserve some properties for the architectural record books.

Property records and about a bazillion reports reveal that prior to Miss Johansson becoming Missus Reynolds, she laid out $2,100,000 for a midtown Manhattan penthouse pied a terre that measures a modest 1,270 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms, 2 poopers, and a large terrace with glittery city views. At the time of the purchase it was was widely rumored and oft reported that ScarJo went prowling for a penthouse apartment because the immediate neighbors around the West Village apartment she was leasing at the time were all bent out of shape about her constant cigarette smoking.

There have been a myriad of recent reports that ScarJo and RyRey bought a cruddy little farmette somewhere in Louisiana that they're renovating with an eye towards eco-friendly things like a solar electrical system but honestly butter beans, we don't know nuthin' about that. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't.

listing photos: Deasy Penner & Partners

Jason Lee Lists at a Lower Price

SELLER: Jason Lee
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,250,000
SIZE: 2,205 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Ooo-wee children. One of Your Mama's all time favorite celebrity owned properties is back on the market and it's looking even better than before. Back in late 2007 three time Grammy winning R&B singer and guitarist Robert Cray sold his long time compound located in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles for $3,350,000.

Even before the ink was dry on the deed Your Mama had heard from several well connected sources including the always spot on Lucy Spillerguts and the the serious celebrity real estate insider Gabriella Gabsaboutit that the buyer was 2-time Golden Globe nominated actor Jason Lee. Less than three years later the property has been hoisted back on the market with an asking price of $3,250,000, otherwise known as $100,000 less than was paid for it near the very top of a once white hot real estate market.

Mister Lee, a former professional skateboarder, busted into showbiz in the mid 1990s when he appeared in the movies Mallrats and then Chasing Amy. He went on to roles in Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky (with fellow Scientologist Tommy Crooz). By the mid-2000s he was a bone fide tee-vee star on the program My Name is Earl in which he played a mustachioed and well meaning dummkopf who won a bit of money in the lottery and spent all his time doing good deeds in order to atone for his previous life as a petty criminal. The show was canceled in 2009 and Mister Lee quickly got another job sans mustache as a quirky police detective on Memphis Beat on the TNT. Like so many other actors and actresses, Mister Lee has lucratively lent his voice to a number of animated films throughout his career.

Mister Lee's private life is his own beeswax, of course, but he is a public figger after all and for those interested in these things he is currently married to the Turko-Australian model Ceren Alkaç with whom he made one baby a couple of years ago and he has another 10 or 11 year old child with the unconventional name of Pilot Inspektor who he made with another lady to whom he was engaged but not married. He also, allegedly, sits on the Board of Advisers for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a "nonprofit organization dedicated solely to eradicating mental health abuse and enacting patient and consumer protections" founded by those wacky folks at the Church of Scientology. As best as Your Mama can tell, the CCHR's primary concern is to make psychiatrists out to be little more than drug pushing devils.

According to current listing information, which proudly announces that it is a "Gated & Private Celebrity Compound," the property stretches across 1.41 terraced hillside acres and includes a modestly sized 2,205 square foot main house with 3 bedrooms and 3 poopers plus a pool house, detached office/studio space, and a detached 2-car garage where Your Mama imagines Mister Lee keeps at least some of the vintage motorcycles he's known to collect.

There is, of course, nothing "modest" about a modestly sized home that is priced well over three million clams, but the single story main house, built in 1948 and sited with views of the Hollywood sign and Griffith Park Observatory, has an architectural simplicity and honesty that gives Your Mama the good kind of goose bumps. The drive gates open to a large motor court and detached two car garage with adjacent office/studio space. An extra wide gravel path leads to the front door set into the center of the front facade that is literally dripping with foliage in a very purposeful but haphazard sort of way.

The living room has chestnut colored hardwood flooring, a beamed wood ceiling, and opposite the super extra long window that looks out into the gardens there is a monolithic but discreetly designed stacked Arizona flagstone fireplace with a raised hearth reminiscent of something one might find in a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home. The day-core is a smart, warm and dee-voonly eclectic hodge-podge of classic mid-century modern pieces, a variety of mis-matched and multi-colored rugs laid willy-nilly on the floor, photographs leaning against the wall and along the window sill, and stacks of books on just about every flat surface including on the floor, on the hearth, and on the Isamu Noguchi coffee table.

Your Mama would like the children to notice that there does not appear to be a boob-toob affixed to the wall, mounted above the fireplace or, indeed, any television anywhere at all in this room. Your Mama adores the tee-vee and all the banal and jaw dropping crap programs that come pouring out of it night after night. We even more love a room designed for conversation, contemplation, reading, crossword puzzling and listening to music. How rare is this in a day and age when so many folks seem to think that the height of luxury is having cable television in their damn shower.

Just beyond the living room is the dining room that has a concrete floor with custom tile border and wall of collapsing French windows that slide open to create a seamless interaction between the indoors and the outdoors. A 1950s desk-like dining table lit by a single glass orb pendant light (that we think is hung a tad too high) is surrounded by vintage Emeco aluminum chairs. A low table at one end of the room is stacked with more books and a built in wet bar is the perfect spot for a boozer like Your Mama to camp out during a party or during the long slog of the mid-morning hours.

The petite but well equipped kitchen has glossy hardwood floors with custom tile border, concrete counter tops, open shelving, which we love like the dickens, and a white porcelain farmhouse sink with industrial style hardware that sits in front of a long window that echoes and smartly ties in the long window in the living room. See how that's done, kids? Someone was really thinking here. Anyhoo, we're not so fond of the natural wood raised panel doors on the lower cabinets and we're a bit miffed that the refrigerator is located in the adjacent pantry, but these are quirks we could happily get used to.

Each of the three bedrooms opens to the terraces and patios that surround the house and the well-sized master bedroom has a private garden surrounded by a vine covered wall, and an attached pooper with a most unusual tub/shower combination with a curved section that juts out into the room. Of course we don't know a nail head from a book end, but we imagine that bump out is a step to make it easier to get in and out of the thing.

On the hill side of the house an expansive terrace leads to an art and book filled office/studio space with saltillo tile floors that rather interestingly climb up about 1/3 of the bottom part of the walls with the remainder covered with woven grass wall coverings. We don't really recommend running the tile up the walls, but iffin the room were cleared out it could be hosed out without destroying the walls, which isn't an entirely bad thing, right?

The large, rectangular swimming pool with its surround of irregularly sized flagstone is sunk directly into the lawn of a large flat area just below the house. A small pool house, which Mister and Missus Lee use as an apparel design studio, has a wide covered porch for escaping the scorching southern California sunshine and the inside has saltillo tile floors and a vaulted wood beamed ceiling. There does not appear to be a pooper in the pool house which is a real shame because it's a bit of a drag to have to schlep a gin filled bladder back up to the main house even if it isn't really very far. Like with the the kitchen issues, it's an inconvenience Your Mama could get used to even though for three million clams we would prefer not to have to climb any stairs at all in order to do our bizness.

The property has a rough around the edges we-didn't-do-up-the-landscape sort of landscaping that we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly cost a fortune to install. A couple of unexpected architectural gems dot the property including a tree house that Your Mama would have chopped off a limb to have as a child and and a vegetable garden enclosed in very contemporary structure wrapped with chicken wire to keep out the many critters who, believe it or not, roam the streets and byways of most if not all of the hillside neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Listen butter beans, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are not nor will we ever be in the market for a three million dollar property but iffin we were ever to find ourselves with pockets that deep we would have surely called Mister Lee's real estate people yesterday and made an offer. A grand and meticulously manicured estate is a lovely thing to behold, but our personal real estate preferences are really more in line with the arty-farty boho sort of thing going on at Mister and Missus Lee's compound.

One has to wonder why the Lees would choose to leave their little slice of paradise in Los Feliz so soon after settling in. Then again, famous folks are a funny lot and who are we to know anything about or question the fickle real estate ways of the rich and famous?

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty / Beverly Hills

Dennis Hopper's Venice Compound on the Block

SELLER: Estate of Dennis Hopper
LOCATION: Venice, CA
PRICE: estimated at around $6,200,000
SIZE: 6 structures on 5 parcels

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Intense, gifted, and kinda freaky 2-time Oscar nominated actor Dennis Hopper perished from prostate cancer at the end of May 2010.

Hopper is believed to have left the bulk of his fortune estimated at around thirty million clams, to his three adult children, his 7-year old daughter, and two grandchildren but by mid-June the family was locked in a bitter battle over Mister Hopper's estate because his estranged 5th wife Victoria Duffy–Hopper had filed for divorce just months before he died–was contesting the will claiming that a 1996 pre-nup entitled her to a one-time payout of $250,000 from his life insurance policy plus 25% of the estate that includes a modern art collection and homes in both Los Angeles and Taos, NM.

Amid that turmoil and barely 6 weeks after Mister Hopper went to meet his great producer in the sky, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles' controversial new director Jeffrey Deitch launched a controversial survey exhibition of the late actor and artist's work curated by pajama wearing art superstar Julian Schnabel who, the arty-farty children might find amusing to know, deigned to travel to the art world hinterland of Tinseltown for the opening. In Your Mama's ignorant and utterly meaningless opinion, the photographs are fantastic, the paintings no so much.

Anyhoo, now word slips down the celebrity real estate grapevine and out through a gazillion online portals that Mister Hopper's long time compound in Venice, CA is scheduled to go on the market at the end of the week for somewhere around $6,200,000.

The compound, located a few short blocks from the beach, covers a total of five parcels and includes 4 tightly packed but separate residences plus a swimming pool and small grassy yard. Property records show that the first piece of Mister Hoppers real estate puzzle was purchased in July of 1985 for just $21,000. Mister Hopper hired architect Brian Murphy who designed an chunky, industrial looking mass with a corrugated metal skin and an undulating roof dotted with large skylights. Property records show the structure measures 4,896 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 2 poopers. At that time Venice was a nitty-gritty outpost where most celebrities and real estate snobs would not have dreamed of going let along living. Nowadays Venice is still a bit rough around the edges–Beverly Hills types Your Mama knows still insist on referring to it as an oceanside ghetto–but it's none-the-less chockablock with celebrities and progressive architectural statements and experiments.

In his last interview for Vanity Fair magazine, writer Bob Colacello described the interior of Mister Hopper's house as having a "loft-like living room" in which, "There were artworks everywhere–on the wall, on the floor, on tables–including a painting of eyeglasses by John Baldessari" who, coincidentally, also currently has a large and much acclaimed retrospective of his work going on only it's at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art (LACMA).

In March of 1999, according to property records, Mister Hopper purchased an adjacent property that currently contains two wee cottages separated by a grassy yard with a long, lap-like swimming pool (below).

On the other side of Mister Hopper's big corrugated metal box, which presents a formidable and windowless facade has an incongruous and humorous white picket fence that runs along the sidewalk, are three similar looking houses designed and built in the early 1980s by Venice-based maverick architect Frank Gehry and two of Hoppers friends who referred to them as the "three little pigs." One is made of concrete, another plywood and the third is sheathed in green roofing shingles. Eventually Mister Hopper came to own all three of Mister Gehry's little pigs.

The first one he bought was in October of 1997 when he paid $325,000 for a 1 bedroom and 1 pooper house that measures 1,401 square feet.

It's unclear to Your Mama when Mister Hopper purchased the second little pig and how much he paid but records do indicate the 1,143 square foot structure was in his property portfolio before September of 2000.

He finally snagged the third of the little pigs in February of 2008 paying $1,300,000 for a 1 bedroom and 1 pooper house with 1,330 square feet according to property records.

According to Mister Colacello in Vanity Fair, Mister Hopper used one of the little pigs as an office, one is occupied by his 19 year old son by his 4th wife, dancer Katherine LaNasa, and after Mister Hopper and his 5th wife Victoria Duffy went splitsville she and the couple's 7 year old daughter moved into the the third little pig.

Based on previous reports it's not clear if the entire compound–all five parcels and 6 structures–is to be sold or if the family plans to retain the parcel with the pool and/or all or some of three little pigs. However, according according to the listing agent, the Brian Murphy designed main residence can be purchased separately from the rest of the compound.

Mister Hopper was buried in Taos. Hollywood lost a great one with Mister Hopper's passing.

aerial photo: Pacific Coast News
swimming pool photo: AP/Coldwell Banker Previews International via Housing Watch

Patrick Dempsey Does It Up in the Bu

BUYER: Patrick Dempsey
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $7,000,000
SIZE: 5,547 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The children regularly question Your Mama about the real estate doings of a lot different famous people as if we are the damn Oracle of Delphi and know everything about everyone's bizness. Much as we'd love to promote that illusion, it simply isn't true. Our powers, we're not eager to confess, are far less potent than many of the children seem to believe.

Over the last year one of the persons we've been queried about more than anyone else is the much lusted after actor Patrick Dempsey who plays Dr. Derek Shepherd on the enormously popular hospital drama Gray's Anatomy. Not being a fan of the hospital drama genre of boob-toob fare–we do not even want to think about our aged internist schtupping his nubile nurse at work–we can't say that we know all too much about this Mister Dempsey or his Doctor character other than the poor man is saddled with the rather embarrassing nickname McDreamy by a lot of horny and under-sexed, middle-aged ladees whose huzbands probably stopped humping them 45 pounds ago.

Anyhoo, for the 6 months or so the real estate whereabouts of Mister Dempsey were a mystery to Your Mama, a real god damn sixty four thousand dollar question. Yes, we'd heard the rumors about him living in Malee-boo and we'd heard through the real estate grapevine that he was shacking up in the Sunset Strip area, but until recently we had no real intelligence about where the faux-doctor was hanging his scrubs.

In July of 2006 Mister and Missus Dempsey forked over $3,100,000 for a 3,841 square foot New England-y style domicile on Chantilly Road in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. In early 2009 they listed the property with an asking price of $3,595,000 and decamped for a rented residence on N. Bundy Drive in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. After several prodigious price chops, the Chantilly Road property finally sold in late 2009 for $2,571,500, a stunning $529,000 loss not counting the fat real estate fees that the Dempseys surely paid to their real estate people. The last we knew about the Dempsey's was in early 2010 when we heard from a reliable informant that they'd done left from their leased crib in Brentwood with their trio of youngins and headed to parts unknown.

Fast forward to this very week when we received a clandestine dispatch from Franny Francophile who directed Your Mama's limited attentions to some hard evidence as to the real estate transactions of Patty Dempsey and, as it turns, out he and the family are indeed making a nest in hills above Zuma Beach in Malibu, CA.

A little peep and poke around the property records revealed to Your Mama that back in June of 2009 Mister and Missus Dempsey dumped $7,000,000 on a 3.24 acre property that includes multi-level contemporary residence originally designed in 1972 by maverick architect Frank Gehry as the home and studio for abstract artist Ron Davis. Mister Davis sold the property in the early 1990s and it eventually landed in the hands of architecturally minded and suggestively named investor Alex Glasscock and his wife Sue who, property records reveal, paid $1,900,000 for the property in March of 2003.

Listing information provided to Your Mama by Franny Francophile shows the vaguely wedge shaped, barn-like residence measures 5,547 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 poopers including the master suite that contains dual poopers and closets, a fireplace, plasma screen tee-vee and a wide, wood framed sliding glass door that provides access to a private relaxation garden.

What's inneresting to Your Mama is that unless some sort of expansion is planned, Mister and Missus Dempsey spent seven million clams to buy a house in which two of their three shorties will need to double up in one of the secondary bedrooms. About that situation Your Mama can only tell the children that iffin we were one of Mister Dempsey's off-spring, we would most certainly grow up to be deeply resentful of having to share a damn bedroom with a sibling given that, clearly, there's plenty of dough-ray-me for all of the Dempsey children to be provided with their own private bedroom if not their own private pooper too, you know?

Anyoo, a long, gated cobblestone drive leads up to the main house where a wall of glass tucked into the chunky structure marks the front entry, a small lofted area that overlooks the voluminous, airy and maze like interior spaces that are unified by a gigantic, 20-foot by 20-foot central sky light that pierces ceiling. A staircase winds down from the entry to the "formal" living area that has reclaimed wide plank wood floors, a double height ceiling with behemoth beams, and a fireplace flanked by shelving set into the crisp, white plaster walls. The living area spills into the "formal" dining area where a wall of windows looks out onto the drought tolerant gardens all did up and done over by soo-blime landscape architect Scott Shrader who specializes in merging the vibe of a home's interior spaces with its exterior environment resulting in a seamless integration of classic California style indoor and outdoor living.

Although there really aren't any "formal" areas of the house, the more casual, family areas consist of a v-shaped galley style kitchen with thick, polished concrete counter tops and the usual coterie of high grade stainless steel appliances–including a built in Miele brand cappuccino maker–usually found in multi-million dollar dwellings. The kitchen opens into a large breakfast area and a large, elevated den that hovers over the breakfast area has built in shelving, a long wall of pane free windows, and a wall-mounted flat screen tee-vee. There are, in addition to the 3 bedrooms, two offices.

Mister Gehry clad the exterior of the house with corrugated metal and exposed wood, a combination that allows the house to both set apart and comingle with the quasi-natural landscaped environment that surrounds the house. The south side of the house opens to a colossal cobblestone terrace that meanders though the shaded and rustic landscape and a sun-bleached wooden deck that surrounds the massive swimming pool inserts a rigid order into an otherwise tangled landscape. There are tree-shaded banquettes around the swimming pool and an outdoor rain shower.

The sprawling property also includes an existing barn with three stalls, tack room and wash racks, a riding ring, two irrigated pastures, a chicken coop, and established raised bed vegetable and herb gardens accented with rose bushes and flowering vines that wrap around a long pergola. Listing information indicates the previous owners, the unfortunately named Glasscocks, submitted plans to the city of Malibu for a 3,343 square foot Laura Burkhalter designed barn with a 2nd story loft.

At the time the Mister and Missus Dempsey bought their new house in the Bu the interior day-core have been exquisitely done up and worked over by accomplished Malibu, CA and Sag Harbor, NY based decorator Michael Lee who, Your Mama thinks, owes a debt of decorative gratitude to another Michael, the late, great Michael Taylor. For those not edgumuhcated in the history of interior day-core Mister Taylor is widely and frequently credited as the creator of the "California Look," a glam meets rustic style characterized by a neutral but intricately and interestingly textured palette, huge, white upholstered pieces, stone and rough hewn wood accents, indoor trees, and sleek, sexy and clean lined elements in all the right places such as the kitchen and pooper.

Now children, before y'all start praising or dissin' on Mister Dempsey's day-core please keep in mind that the listing photos show the interior spaces as they looked when the pornographically named Mister and Missus Glasscock occupied the premises. Presumably Mister and Missus Dempsey have put their own decorative stamp on the day-core. We don't know what decorative plans the Dempsey's have (or have instituted) for their new house but Your Mama can only hope they had the good sense to hire someone with a similarly deft hand as Mister Lee. What we do know is that the Dempseys are committed to an organic Malibu lifestyle and that they employed Scott Shrader to re-work some of his original landscape design to incorporate outdoor cooking facilities and a number of sustainable elements for food-production.

Another celebrity real estate mystery solved.

photographer: Nick Springett

Your Mama Hears...

...through the Beverly Hills celebrity real estate grapevine that the reason entertainment mogul/real estate size queen Tyler Perry, who made much of his many millions working it on the silver screen as a sassy and saggy boobed old woman named Madea, wants to sell his über modern mansion at the tippy top of the bird streets above Sunset Strip is because he's building and even bigger house on a 22-acre spread in Beverly Hills.

Mister Perry purchased the 22-acre property behind the guarded gates of the swank and showy Beverly Ridge community in April of 2004 for an undisclosed amount of money. He began building his multi-winged dream mansion but soon after the foundation was poured, some steel framing erected, and the tennis court pad graded Mister Tyler caught a case of The Real Estate Fickle and hoisted the property and the unfinished mansion on the market with an asking price of $15,000,000. Listing information from the time stated that plans were for a boo-teek hotel sized 22,000 square foot Tuscan style home. Although the property was featured on the first season of Bravo's Million Dollar Listing it was not identified as belonging to Mister Tyler and in October of 2007 Your Mama heard through the gossip grapevine that Mister Tyler showed his big Bev Hills spread to Puff Diddle (or Diddy Diddle or Fiddle Puff or whatever his name is) but no deal was consummated.

At some point, around the middle of 2008 as best as we can surmise, Mister Perry caught another case of The Real Estate Fickle because the 22-acre property was taken off the market and construction resumed with the idea, we hear, that this will be Mister Perry's rarely used west coast crib. But Your Mama ain't holding our breath because if history is any predictor of the future we'd not be least bit surprised if mercurial Mister Perry changed his damn mind and decided to flip this beehawtcha back on the market and buy a new damn house in Malee-boo–where he did once own a ocean front getaway that he sold in the spring of 2007. Phew!

The relatively new and totally nouveau riche Beverly Ridge community is home to a number of other hoity toity big name sorts including Alexis Carson–that would be Johnny's insanely rich widow, and former professional pigskinner turned interior decorator Keyshawn Johnson. It's also the same community where Paris Latsis, heir to a great Greek shipping, banking, and oil fortune, once bought a mansion for he and then fiancée Paris Hilton to live. However, like all of Miss Hilton's high profile romances with far less famous men, her short lived relationship with Boy Paris swirled down the terlit of love.

In early 2009, Atlanta-based Mister Perry heaved his Fairburn, GA home–all 17,252 square feet it–on the market with an asking price of $3,695,000 so that he could move to an even bigger, (approximately) 30,000 square foot monument to his wealth and success on 17 suburban Atlanta acres overlooking the Chatahootchie River. Mister Perry's Fairburn mansion no longer appears to be on the open market, but property records show it's still taking up space in his bulging real estate portfolio.

Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli Moving On

SELLERS: Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli
LOCATION: Toluca Lake, CA
PRICE: $5,995,000
SIZE: 8,416 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: There are posh residential pockets all around Los Angeles, CA where rich and famous types are drawn like moths to a flame or, in tabloid terms, like Lindsay Lohan to a bottle of booze. (Oh, ouch.) One of those areas, due to its sleepy, affluent, and family friendly streets as well as its über close proximity to a number of the major studios, is Toluca Lake.

In addition to country music has been Billy Ray Cyrus and his superstar daughter Miley, tiny Toluca Lake is home to a long list of famous folks that include unlucky in love hack-tress Jennifer Love Hewitt, comedy king Steve Carell, Disney diva Ashley Tisdale, former Beverly Hills 90210-er Jason Priestley, one of Sean Comb's several baby momma's, comedian George Lopez, and Will & Grace alum Eric McCormack. Although Hilary will soon be moving to the home she and her ice-hockey stud huzband Mike Comrie recently bought up in the the guard gated Summit community, the Duff sisters Hilary and Haylie have long called Toluca Lake home and the tween singing sensations the Jonas Brothers have lived in at least one leased house in the area including one formerly owned by Damon Wayans.

Your Mama assumes Hollywood hotshots will continue to flock to Toluca Lake for many years to come. However, the quiet and unassuming but star-studded streets of Toluca Lake may be soon have two fewer resident celebrities. That's because tee-vee stars Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli recently hoisted their colossal Colonial style mansion on the market with an asking price of $5,995,000.

Jennie Garth, as any of the children older than 30 know, became a household name in the 1990s when she appeared as wildly wealthy teenager Kelly Taylor on the original boob-toob juggernaut Beverly Hills 90210. She went on to recurring roles on The $treet, the moronic sitcom What I Like About You, the redux of Beverly Hills 90210, and the 5th season of that silly but enormously popular Dancing With the Stars program. Mister Facinelli, who was previously seen in Damages, Six Feet Under, Fastlane, and a long list of other programs and films Your Mama has never heard of, currently gives a pitch perfect performance as the vain, Tourette Syndrome affected, and boobie grabbing Dr. Fitch Cooper on the nearly flawless Nurse Jackie program. But the real money in the family certainly comes from Mister Facinelli's part of the Twilight vampire film franchise which has just about everyone involved making money faster than they can spend it.

These two tee-vee veterans met in the mid 1990s, started making babies before they were married in 2001 and, according to property records, purchased their their big house in Toluca Lake in January of 2005 for $2,850,000. Although the Garth/Facinelli residence has been greatly expanded and–some will surely say–remodeled almost beyond recognition, listing information indicates the bulky and sprawling house has a bit of a Tinseltown pedigree: The house was originally designed and built by the late, great architect Paul Williams in 1934 for country music legend Tex Ritter who raised his son, the late actor John Ritter of Three's Company fame, in the house.

The fully fenced, gated and secured residence measures a sizable 8,416 square feet, according to listing information, and includes 6 bedrooms and 7.5 poopers, a count that Your Mama is not sure includes the staff room and two-room guest suite in the basement. If we've said it once, we've said it 49,000 times. Rich people really ought to think twice about relegating their staff members to underground living accommodations. Unhappy staff members not only yak it up and spill secrets with the staff members of other famous people they sometimes share the family 411 with gossips such as Your Mama. 'Tis true buckaroos.

The multi-winged mansion has traditional white clapboard siding with black shutters and white rose bush lined brick bath that leads to the double height, columned portico where the shiny black front door is topped by a swoopy and classically Colonial style pediment. The front door opens into a long entrance gallery highlighted by one of Paul Williams' signature architectural statements, a graceful, crescent shaped staircase. Your Mama happens to like both Mister and Missus Garth/Facinelli quite a bit, but we'd be remiss in our bitchy duties if we didn't offer our utterly meaningless decorative two-cents about how the entrance gallery looks far too much like our pal Sheila Sinn's wealthy Republican mother's house in Toledo, OH for a young and attractive Hollywood family such as theirs.

The lower floor of the Garth/Facinelli mansion consists of a formal living room with ice blue walls so cold looking we put on a coat, fireplace, honey colored hardwood floors, a couple of faux-Louis arm chairs, a white, tufted divan that's far too small for the room, and–we regret to inform the decoratively sensitive children–a white baby grand piano tucked into the room's bay window. Oh lo-ward have mercy, say it isn't so. Listen chickens, unless you are Elvis Presley, Elton John, Lady Gaga or some old-school sweater queen who can throw shade like nobody's bizness, white grand pianos, particularly white baby grand pianos are a punishable offense.

Beyond the formal living room, through a couple of lovely, arched doorways, is a game room with milk chocolate brown walls, more honey colored hardwood flooring, a second fireplace, a pool table, a bubble gum dispenser, at least one pinball machine, and a six-seat poker table. Not being the "game room" type, there isn't a think in there that Your Mama would keep and we can't think of a single manner in which a damn pinball machine can be worked into tasteful day-core.

The chilly, ice blue color on the walls in the formal living room is repeated in the formal dining room where eight 1940s-ish leather wing back style dining chairs encircle a white and round dining room table. Somebody please tell Your Mama that is not a Lazy Susan settin' in the center of the table because a Lazy Susan is hardly acceptable on a the breakfast table in a country house let alone for a formal dining room in a well-dressed home.

Completing the first floor are a family room with a third fireplace and a wall mounted flat screen tee-vee, a breakfast room with side-lighted French doors that open into the backyard, and a gore-may kitchen with cream colored cabinets, mottled granite counter tops, more honey colored hardwood floors, a big mac-daddy Viking brand range. Sadly, Your Mama espies balloon valances over the windows–a pet peeve of ours even though we know many a gay decorator love them like the dickens–and, even more decoratively egregious, several porcelain rooster figurines, one on the large work island and a couple more atop the shelf above the stove. Can someone please explain to Your Mama what fascination folks have with putting rooster statues in kitchens? Your Mama's Big Daddy's third wife has more roosters in her kitchen then a damn egg farm and, have mercy, we just don't get it any more than we get all those people have have a predilection for pear paintings.

In addition to whatever number of family bedrooms there are, the upstairs features not just one but two master suites, one of which is comprised of a bed chamber, sitting room with a fourth fireplace, private balcony, dual walk in closets, and a safe room. Presumably this is a panic room and not a room where the Facinelli's keep their family jewels. Also upstairs, located in a separate wing, according to listing information, is a home fitness center with a number of body torture devices, a ballet barre and adjacent pooper, a media/play room for the kiddies, and dual offices, one for him one for her.

In addition to the garaging for 5 cars and the large motor court where the Garth/Facinelli family parks their bus sized recreational vehicle, the landscaped grounds include a covered porch on the main floor that curls around the back of the house, a snatch of perfectly coiffured lawn, manicured and meticulously maintained rose gardens, a pergola shaded dining terrace, outdoor kitchen/built-in barbecue area, a swimming pool and spa, an elevated pavilion behind the swimming pool that has an outdoor fireplace, and tucked up into a quiet corner of the property is a children's play area with swing set and celebrity style jungle gym.

According to several other sources, the Garth/Facinellis also own some sort of horse ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley area, near Santa Barbara, CA.