In Case You Missed It: Sean Patrick, Enrique, and Hef

Actor Sean Patrick Flanery (The Boondock Saints, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds and soon to be seen on Dexter) sold his house in the Hollywood Hills for $910,000.

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Without a Trace star Enrique Murciano listed his rectilinear mid-century modern in the Hollywood Hills for $1.79 million. He bought the property in 2009 for $1.6 million.

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Although Hugh Hefner and his 27-year old Playmate wife, Crystal Harris, live lavishly at the legendary Playboy Mansion in L.A.'s Holmby Hills, the octogenarian soft-porn peddler does not personally own the sprawling party pad. It's owned, rather, by Playboy Enterprises.

In order to ensure his young enough to be his great-granddaughter wife has a place to live after he's gone, he romantically snatched up a sexy-sexy-sexy five million dollar contemporary crib in the Hollywood Hills where the third and current Missus Hefner can reside in her widowdom.

The New York City Townhouse Tom Cruise May (or May Not) Own Pops Up For Sale

SELLER: Some say it's Tom Cruise, but y'all should be skeptical of that
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $28,000,000
SIZE: 8,300 square feet, 6 bedrooms,

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In 2009 property gossips in New York City and around the globe went plain ol' berserk over the wildfire celebrity real estate rumor that Tom Cruise and his then third and now ex wife Katie Cruise just might be the mysterious buyers who shelled out $15,075,000 for a stunning six floor townhouse on West 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the heart of the Gold Coast in New York City's Greenwich Village.

The speculation and rumors apparently got started by chit-chatting doormen on the block and they persisted even after both Mister Cruise and Missus Cruise—through their representatives, natch—issued denials of the much-alleged townhouse acquisition. Based on our own research into the scuttlebutt, Your Mama is not now and never was convinced that Mister and ex-Missus Cruise were the real buyers of the elegant1860 townhouse.

Whoever the owner may be, it has come to Your Mama's attention by way of a short missive from our ever-intrepid aide de camp Hot Chocolate that the townhouse long alleged to have been bought by Mister and ex-Missus Cruist back in 2009 has popped back up on the market with an attention getting $28,000,000 price tag, and, well, it's pretty damn spectacular.

Current listing details show the 21-foot wide and approximately 8,300 square foot townhouse, blessed with a magnificent wrought iron railed stoop, stands six stories above ground with an additional finished basement level below grade. There are a total five terraces, seven working fireplaces, 7.5 bathrooms, state of the art built-in surround sound and humidification systems, and an hydraulic elevator that conveniently services all but the penthouse level.  Listing details show the townhouse was worked over but good by accomplished New York City-based architect Steven Harris.

We counted six bedrooms on the floor plan included with online marketing materials, divvied up as follows: a staff suite with kitchenette and roomy full bathroom on the garden level; two ample, full-width bedrooms on the fifth floor, both with relatively compact windowless en suite facilities; two more smaller bedrooms on the fourth floor, one with small private study and puny bathroom and the other with small private terrace and unexpectedly spacious bathroom; and, finally, the master suite on the third floor that encompasses a full-width bedroom, a large walk-in closet plus additional closet space, and a luxuriously appointed but windowless marble bathroom with double sinks and cramped, windowless crapper cubby. The master bedroom connects through to the upper landing of the townhouse's rear stairs where French doors open to a terrace that's probably larger than a typical Greenwich Village studio apartment and the master bathroom has a back door into a street-facing library/private sitting room—also accessible from the stair hall—with built-in bookcases on either side of a fireplace.

The parlor floor hosts the primary public entertaining spaces and includes a vestibule entry and foyer, a cozy front parlor, and, separated by a short gallery that runs behind a well-placed powder pooper and elevator shaft, a more stately-scaled rear parlor. Beyond the rear parlor there's a sunny sun room that could also be used as a formal dining room or den). On the garden level below, a den—or possible dining room—generously spans the full width of the house and has a could-be-awkward attached three-quarter bathroom. A short corridor links the den/dining room to a top quality double-wide galley kitchen that opens at the back through a bank of French doors to a slender garden/terrace that wraps around to an interior courtyard nestled in between the kitchen and the den/dining room.

A glassed in solarium on the penthouse level opens on opposites ends through vast panels of glass to a pair decks that have been well planted for privacy. The smaller, south-facing street-side deck is equipped with an enclosed outdoor shower and—buckle your safety belts for this one—a partially sunken Japanese soaking tub for which Your Mama is living, hunties, living. Not because we like to sit like stew meat in a vat of near boiling water—we decidedly don't—but but The Dr. Cooter sure does, and on a regular basis. Had we a Redwood number like this on a drop-dead deck like that we might never have packed our bags and headed west. Anyways...

Whether Tom Cruise actually owns this show stopping townhouse or—as Your Mama thinks—it's owned by a much less famous but even richer businessman, it's a stunner sure to be a hot property, don'tcha think? Fer chrissakes, kids, about the only thing that might make this place better, really, would be a private garage. And, seriously, a person could suffocate holding their breath for an 8,000-plus square foot townhouse with a mid-block location on a prime street in the Greenwich Village Gold Coast with a private garage, you know? All real estate is a compromise even if it cost $28,000,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens

Young Musician Mark Foster Buys Mini-Ranch in Hollywood Hills

BUYER: Mark Foster
SELLER: Maurice Benard
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,155,000
SIZE: 4,637 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This one's for all the music hipsters and indie-pop aficionados out there who—like Your Mama—were swept up in the viral video cyclone that developed and raged over the last couple of years around a catchy little ditty called Pumped Up Kicks.

The song, which has a much darker lyric than its bubbly beat might suggest, first showed up on the You Tube in 2010 and quickly made its way to commercial radio where it shot up the charts in 2011. In a prime example of how social media affects and, arguably, shapes and even dominates the dissemination and digestion of art, culture and, even more so, pop culture, Pumped up Kicks has been remixed and remixed and remixed to death, hunties. To. Death. Key of Awesome did an awesome parody with Ducked Up Lips and bazillions of professional, au courant singers like Karmin—not to mention an army bedroom performers like Lizzy Land and Angelika Eide—gave the song their own spin. Miracles of Modern Science did it with classical string instruments and this young gal did it with a banjo. A slow moving but addictive video of a lithe young dancer doin' his thang to a Butch Clancy dubstep remix has already been viewed on the You Tube more than 87 million times. If you haven't been hit by this viral music train yet, well, you must be even older and more out of touch than Your Mama. And, good night children, we're old enough to have gray hair in places nobody wants it or ever thinks they're gonna get it. Anyways...

Last year (2012) Pumped Up Kicks earned the smiley, shaggy-haired front man Mark Foster and his semi-eponymous trio Foster the People* a Billboard Music Award for Top Rock Song plus two Grammy nominations, one for the song and another for the band's debut album Torches. We got it on the iTunes, puppies. We're not ashamed.

Foster the People may not be the next Rolling Stones—or Whitesnake or whatever band makes your personal Legendary list. None the less, in just the few short years they've surfed and sailed the wild popularity of a single song, front man Mark Foster has earned himself enough do-re-mi to buy himself a two and some million dollar country spread nestled into a secluded cranny of the Hollywood Hills where some of his nearby neighbors include Tinseltowners like Adam Carolla and Olivia Munn.

Digital resources show the property in question was sold in late March or early April (2013) for $2,155,000 by Daytime Emmy winning soap story veteran Maurice Benard who, along with his wife, Paula, purchased the first of the two parcels that comprise the mini-ranch for $420,000 in mid-1997. The following February Mister Benard and his missus paid another $274,000 for a much larger, undeveloped adjacent parcel. Based on property records we perused and our own rudimentary calculations Mister and Missus Benard shelled out a total of $694,000 for the two lots that combined span 54,450 square feet, a figure otherwise known as 1.25 acres.

Selling the property was a long slog for Mister and Missus Benard, a very long slog indeed. As best as we can surmise from online resources, the couple had the house on and off the market numerous times at a number of prices since they first heaved the unwanted ranch-ette on to the open market in September 2008 with an in-hindsight woefully optimistic asking price of $3,599,000. Four long years later—and at least one deal down the tubes—the semi-rural property was re-listed for the umpteenth time with a significantly lower $2,399,000 price tag. Property records show it took another 8.5 months before the Benards were kissed by the real estate leprechaun and, at long last, sold their white elephant in the Hollywood Hills. The buyer appears in property records as a vexingly named trust that our impeccably well-informed informant Lucy Spillerguts tattled to Your Mama is connected to—you got it, kitty cats—Mark Foster.

A ratty-looking black top driveway arcs up to an unreasonably and unnecessarily unattractive facade. Check, children, that architectural pearl clutcher of a two-car carport the juts angrily off the front of the otherwise nearly featureless, wood-clad facade. Yeesh! Not surprisingly, listing details Your Mama managed to tease out of the internets shows the residence was originally built in 1975—the pine plank siding is quintessential mid-70s and looks great with ferns—and is currently configured with three bedrooms and three bathrooms in 4,637 square feet of interior space.

Despite the two unfortunately placed doors on either side of that carport, it's through the Southeast Asian-looking wood and steel entry gates and down the full length of a deep, shaded veranda that one must go to find the residence's rather reclusive front door. Wood-framed glass front doors, slate tile flooring, wood treads and wrought iron spindles on the open staircase, and a soaring, double-height exposed wood ceiling pretty much sum up the earthy materials palette found throughout the loft-like, open-concept main living spaces on the ground floor.

Wood floors run on the diagonal in the living room area that's well lit via the sky light that pierces the pitched exposed wood ceiling. A full, trapezoidal wall of windows and sliders connects to a tatty looking courtyard-like outdoor space that, in the right hands, could be a fantastic garden lounge and dining terrace.

The floor switches to giant, square slate tiles that runs throughout a handful of flexi-use spaces—dining, den, sun room, family room, music lounge, reading nook, whatever—and right on into the cook-friendly kitchen. The kitchen is well-equipped with a center work peninsula and a bumper crop of high-grade stainless steel appliances that include a six-burner commercial-style range with built-in griddle section, and a side-by-side fridge/freezer set up. Dark raised panel cabinetry that we don't care for is topped by mottled gray granite counter tops and, opposite the fridge freezer, there's a lowered breakfast counter held up by a pair of disturbingly giant carved stone (or molded concrete) corbels that makes it a week bit difficult to access the inset microwave cubby.

A fully-equipped screening room—located in a space that Your Mama is pretty darn sure used to be a garage—has at least seven boxy black leather seats with built-in in drink holders in the double-wide armrests and an exterior entrance through one of those aforementioned unfortunately located doors that flank the carport.

Upstairs the pleasantly roomy master bedroom is blessed with a vaulted, exposed wood ceiling and punished with nappy-looking wall-to-wall carpeting that any sensible person would switch out before ever moving in. No shade Mister Benard, but do we really need to think about all the stuff that gets trapped in deep pile wall-to-wall carpeting...in the master bedroom? Anyways, a bank of windows and glass doors open to a private terrace that serves up an expansive if not exactly electrifying canyon view. According to an 2008 listing Your Mama teased up out of the internets the closet in the master suite is—or was—cedar lined and the attached bathroom is slathered in multi-toned slate tile with a double sink vanity, a sizable soaking tub and a separate shower space. There's at least one other bedroom on the upper level with direct access to a private terrace and listing information indicates there's also a "Sep. gym/maids & laundry room w/ loads of storage."

The kitchen and family room area wrap around a small dining deck that over looks a down-sloping swathe of bougainvillea encircled open space. It's a big ol' dirt patch, really. There's an over the tree tops canyon and mountain view and it seems just enough space for Mister Foster and his band mates to host a mini, backyard version of Coachella, although some of his neighbors might not be so keen about that idea.

*In addition to Mark Foster, Foster the People is composed of Mark Pontius and co-founder Cubbie Fink.

listing photos: Unlimited Style Real Estate for Hilton & Hyland

On the Move: Olivia Newton John

SELLERS: Olivia Newton John and John Easterling
LOCATION: Tequesta, FL
PRICE: $6,200,000
SIZE: 6,383 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the weekend Your Mama received a friendly digital missive from a self-described "crazy huge fan" of Olivia Newton John who snitched to Your Mama that the English-born Aussie singer and her natural herb remedy mogul husband John "Amazon John" Easterling have hoisted their recently rehabbed water front residence in Jupiter, FL, on the market with an asking price of $6,200,000.*

The four-time Grammy winner and herbal medicine man paid $4,100,000 for the two-story Plantation-style pad just over four years ago, shortly after they were secretly wed in an Incan ceremony in Cuzco, Peru.** The lushly landscaped and quintessentially south Floridian spread backs up to the crystalline turquoise waters of the Intracoastal Waterway in the affluent Jupiter Inlet Colony community, the same ocean side enclave, as it turns out, where in February 2012 country-rock-rap star Kid Rock dropped $3,225,000 on an ocean front fixer-upper.

Listing details show the Newton John-Easterling residence, originally built in 1997, has a total of four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in 6,383 square feet of recently renovated eco-luxury.*** Listing details reveal the couple spent "Over $2 million" on renovations that included the installation of high-quality hurricane impact rated glass doors and windows, a whole-house water purification system, five air conditioning units and two central vacuum systems, a rainwater harvesting irrigation system, and an extensive home automation system that controls the audio/visual equipment, windows shades and lighting.

Chicago brick pavers pass under a quartet of arched palm trees to a small walled motor court at the front of the house. The voluminous, 1,000+ square foot Great Room stretches nearly forty feet long with cool, coral stone tile flooring under foot and an airy, vaulted tongue-and-groove cypress wood ceiling over head. A high efficiency gas fireplace warms damp and chilly seaside evenings and a long row of wood-framed glass doors that connect to a covered lanai with a long view over the verdant backyard to the water.

The coral tile flooring extends beyond the adjoining "formal" dining area in to the open-concept galley kitchen expensively outfitted as per online marketing details with poured concrete counter tops, custom-crafted driftwood cabinetry and high grade stainless steel appliances. The kitchen opens to a small den/family room that spills out to the backyard through more wood-framed glass doors. Listing details show somewhere in the house there's a full-sized built-in wet bar with cabinetry custom crafted from the same rustic-organic driftwood as the kitchen.

The coral tile floors switch to wall-to-wall carpeting in the media room that's wrapped on two walls with even more custom cabinetry that looks more like limed cypress than driftwood to Your Mama but we really can't say with any authority what sort of wood that actually is. That the media room is furnished with little more than a lonely pair of striped bean bags—not to mention the walk-in closet in the master bedroom is empty—makes Your Mama think the couple have already vacated the premises and that that house has been at least partially staged.

The second floor master suite is a complete private retreat with sitting area, a built-in pop-up t.v., a handy-dandy morning bar that's also convenient for midnight candy snacks, a custom-fitted walk-in closet, and a private balcony with spiral stairs that corkscrew down to the backyard. The attached, modern-romantic master bathroom has a free-standing vanity surmounted by a floridly baroque mirror, a claw footed soaking tub, and a custom glassed-in steam shower lined with shimmering eggshell colored opalescent glass tiles.

Water craft are accommodated with a sturdy, ipe wood dock that can comfortably accommodate a boat up to 80 feet long and automobiles are pampered in a fully finished and air-conditioned detached garage with loads of storage cabinetry and eye-vexing black and white checkerboard tile floor. Listing photos show Mister and Missus Easterling stocked one corner of the garage with a whole bunch of exercise equipment.

In addition to the private dock and vine-draped and Dominican coral tiled lanai that runs along the back of the house, outdoor living spaces and recreational amenities include a small but swanky curvilinear zero-edge swimming pool and spa, a hammock nestled into a small stand of palm trees, and an Old-Timey porch swing charmingly hung between a couple of palm trees. The broad lawn, surrounded by lush tropical foliage, sweeps down to the water front where mangroves frame a sandy beach suitable for waterside sunbathing and kayak parking.

Your Mama really hasn't any idea where Miz Newton John and Mister Easterling plan to settle once they sell their Tequesta digs so all you hardcore Olivia Newton John fans shouldn't even bother with an enquiry about such. Okay?

*Technically, according to the Palm Beach County Tax Man, the property is in Tequesta, FL.

**The couple held a second wedding ceremony on a beach in Tequesta (FL).

***For the record, some online listings show the house has 5,500 square feet while the Palm Beach County Tax Man shows the house sits on a .35 acre lot and has a total of 7,429 square feet with 5,521 square feet of air conditioned space.

listing photos: Seawind Realty

Meet the $190 Million Mansion

SELLER: John Rudey
LOCATION: Greenwich, CT
PRICE: $190,000,000
SIZE: 13,519 square feet, 12 bedrooms, 7 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Buckle your real estate safety belts, butter beans, because—in case any of y'all have managed to not already hear—timber tycoon John Rudey has heaved his epic Greenwich, CT estate on the open market with a equilibrium altering and publicity ensuring $190,000,000 price tag, a sky-high figure that blows to smithereens the U.S.'s next most expensive residential real estate listing—Tom Hicks's equally epic but land-locked Dallas (TX) estate—by $55 million

Copper Beech Farm, as Mister Rudey's vast Long Island Sound-front estate is known, encompasses two mainland parcels plus two tiny undeveloped islands that all together total 50.6 acres with about a mile of private shoreline in the heart of Greenwich's hyper exclusive Mead Point area.

The main residence was originally erected in 1898, according to online marketing details, and was previously owned and long-occupied by Harriet Lauder Greenway, the late daughter of industrialist George Lauder who, along with Andrew Carnegie, created the industrial juggernaut U.S. Steel. Mister Rudey quietly acquired the estate in an off-market deal about 31 years ago, according to previous reports, and hasn't been publicly available for purchase in more than a century.

An 1,800 foot long driveway passes through entry gates before snakes through the thickly treed grounds to the main house, a hulking, twin-turreted stone edifice somewhat vexingly described in listing details as a "Neo-French Renaissance Victorian." Listing details go on to show the robber baron worthy 13,159 square foot behemoth has a dozen bedrooms—some with fireplaces and/or adjoining sleeping porches—and a total of 7 full and 2 half bathrooms.

A cavernous, three-story high wood-paneled foyer is sure to impress guests—not to mention the FedEx delivery guy/gal—and sets the stage for the grandly scaled and elegantly appointed public rooms that include a formal living room with marble fireplace and French doors that connect through to a solarium wrapped in windows on three sides. The oak paneled formal dining room has a second fireplace and a decorative tracery ceiling while the paneled library has yet another fireplace, built-in bookcases and a bowed window with curved glass. A family kitchen adjoins the dining room and sits in convenient proximity to a sky-lit wing that contains a long, oval-shaped family room. The original, dumb-waiter equipped staff/catering kitchen kitchen is located in the basement—as was customary in a late 19th-century house of this magnitude— as are a wine cellar, one of several laundry rooms, storage space, staff quarters and more.

The second floor master suite has a fireplace, a private sleeping porch, dressing room and a marble bathroom. There are five more family bedrooms on the second floor—two of them oval shaped, one with a fireplace and a sleeping porch. Four more family bedrooms and a massive multi-purpose room share the uppermost third floor with a domestic staff wing.

Additional buildings on the property include—but may not limited to—at least two greenhouses, a stone carriage house with clock tower and parking for half a dozen vehicles and farm equipment, and a three-bedroom stucco and shingle gate house with rocking chair front porch.

The expensively and meticulously maintained grounds include extensive, stone-walled formal gardens and allées, an apple orchard, vast swathes of lawn the roll down towards the rocky coastline, and a tree-shaded waterside grass tennis court with viewing pergola. The geometric-minded, 14-sided swimming pool (and spa) stretches 75 feet and is serviced by a nearby octagonal pool house with changing and bathing facilities.

Some of the other exceptionally well-heeled homeowners on Mead Point, according to property records and other online resources, include a bevy of financiers and captains of industry such as William Fertig, Michael Urfirer, Michael Petrick Maurice Cunniffe, George Lindemann Sr., and Thomas O'Malley whose entire estate sits on a private island accessed by a long bridge.

Pastoral and posh, Greenwich is renown for its exceedingly high priced residential real estate. However, hunties, even swanky enclaves like Greenwich have their real estate glass ceilings and it would seem that Mister Rudey has a high mountain to climb to get anywhere near his remarkably tumescent $190 million asking price. After first being listed in 2007 at $125 million, Leona Helmsley's Dunnellen Hall finally sold in 2010 for $35,000,000. The following year a four acre waterfront spread sold for $39.5 million and back in 2004 an 80-acre horse farm in the bucolic, equestrian oriented Conyers Farm area sold for $45 million.

listing photo: David Ogilvy & Associates

Drew Barrymore Lists Montecito Wedding Venue

SELLERS: Drew Barrymore (and Will Kopelman)
LOCATION: Montecito, CA
PRICE: $7,500,000
SIZE: 6,258 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Everybody knows when celebrities and other financially fortunate sorts get married, divorced, have a baby or change their damn underwear they typically trade in one perfectly good house for a new one deemed better and more suitable to their new circumstances. Hence, Drew Barrymore—married just a year ago and the mother of an 8 or 9 month old baby girl—has hoisted her low-key hideaway in the monied community of Montecito, CA on the market with a $7,500,000 asking price.

The Hollywood royal purchased the property in early June 2010 for $5,705,000, long before before she hooked up with her handsome third husband and baby daddy, art consultant Will Kopelman. The quirky and savvy couple were married on the property in June 2012 in a traditional Jewish ceremony attended by a slew of celebrity guests including Cameron Diaz, Busy Phillipps, Jimmy Fallon, Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson. The then-preggers bride and the groom both wore Chanel, but that's really neither here not there in terms of the real estate matter at hand, is it?*

Remote-controlled gates swing open to a gravel driveway. Imagine, children, the welcoming crunch of that gravel under the tires of a luxury automobile after a hectic, traffic-choked two hour drive up the 101 from Los Angeles. Heaven. Anyways, a wide circular drive wraps itself around a stately old tree in front of the multi-winged main house where a humble red brick apron stretches out in front of the front door. The traditional, vaguely Monterey Colonial was designed by Santa Barbara architect Chester Carjola and built in 1937, according to listing details, and is currently configured with six bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in a spacious but manageable 6,258 square feet.

The front entrance hall is certainly large enough to greet guests comfortably but small enough to do away with the stuffy formality and in-your-face grandiosity of an unnecessarily capacious foyer like those too often found in the mortifyingly steroidal faux-Tuscan and mock-Med macmansions built in upscale gated suburbs in every corner of the country.

Double doors connect through to an elegantly proportioned and fully paneled formal living room with dark-stained wood floors, a large fireplace, and deep set French doors with original wood shutters. Built-in bookcases on either end of the long room appear to be filled with actual books and other interesting looking knickknacks and paddy whacks that Your Mama could easily spend an afternoon perusing quietly. Miz Barrymore and Mister Kopelmen have sparely but boldly furnished the room with little more than a few armchairs around the perimeter, a cream colored baby grand piano in the corner, and grouped in front of the fireplace a pair of gusty, psychedelic print sofas set on a neutral toned and decoratively au courant Moroccan Beni Ourain carpet.

The dark wood floors extend into the adjacent library that is also fully wood paneled and also has a fireplace and built-in bookcases filled with more books and objet. On the floor there are two well-worn zebra hide rugs and, in a sun lit corner, an antique-looking chess table. We'd presume that this is the room where Mister and Missus Kopeman watch the boob-toob but we sort of imagine they're the sort of people who don't watch—or even own—a television. Then again, what do we know? Maybe they're avid fans of Preachers' Daughter and never miss a ballistically tawdry episode.

The long, dinner party-sized formal dining has over-sized multi-pane windows with long views over the backyard's vast rolling lawn and white wainscoting topped by celadon colored walls. An Old School antique chandelier glimmers above the table and, for some inexplicable reason, there are a whole bunch of fluffy sheep skin pelts scattered haphazardly around the room.

Wood and glass doors in the library and the dining room open into a bowling alley length sun porch that spills out to a large, sunken red brick terrace. At the time Miz Barrymore acquired the property this sun porch had red brick flooring that was, as per listing photographs, switched out for wide plank wood painted gleaming white.

Depending on one's point of view the kitchen is either loaded with vintage charm or a hot damn mess in desperate need of a redo. A Subaru-sized center island girdled by eight (or more) bent wood stools has a sunshine yellow counter top that just about but not quite matches the rather unusual yellow and white checkerboard linoleum flooring while the white cabinetry that runs around the room has heavily shellacked dark wood counter tops. Whatever one may think of the room's decorative style, listing information indicates the kitchen is supremely equipped for large parties with two vintage-style refrigerators (that for some reason are not the same color), two dishwashers and an identical pair of heavy duty commercial-style ranges. The kitchen complex also includes a separate breakfast room, a roomy butler's pantry, and laundry room according to online marketing materials.

A long gallery lined with built-in cabinets and an compact office nook lead to the secluded master suite where a cozy corner fireplace warms the fully carpeted bedroom. In addition to an attached bathroom with separate tub and stall shower the master suite offers its well-heeled home owners the sublime luxury of two large closet/dressing rooms.

A total of five guest and family bedrooms are contained in two separate wings of the main house. Two upstairs en suite bedrooms each have French doors that open to Juliet balconies and three more bedrooms, each with private bathroom, are grouped on the ground floor in a separate wing off the breakfast room.

A detached, two story guest house has a bedroom, bathroom and studio space on the upper level and, down below, a two car garage/storage space. Listing photos show the garage area is done up as a kind of half-assed arty-farty man-cave with a quartet of surf boards leaning up against the wall, an old timey soda dispenser, a bevy of bicycles and a mish-mosh of furniture that all looks like it was all dragged out of Grandma's attic. There's also a separate four car garage.

Rose beds and fruit trees surround the main house and outbuildings and mature trees ring the 2.03 acre estate that has a back lawn the size of a football field. As far as Your Mama knows there is neither a swimming pool nor a tennis court on the property and for seven and some million clams for a swank spread in Montecito, hunnies, Your Mama wants a swimming pool and a damn tennis court, too.

Since 2002, Miz Barrymore's primary residence has been a gated mini-compound perched atop a private promontory on a quiet cul-de-sac in the Hollywood Hills that she picked up in April 2002 for $4,350,000. Your Mama knows at least one person who has been inside Miz Barrymore's Hollywood Hill house and we hear it's rather spectacular. Some of her nearby neighbors include doctor turned medical thriller author Vladimir Lange and Nashville actress Hayden Panetierre.

Right about the time they were married Mister Kopelman sold his sleek and modern two bedroom and two bathroom art-filled West Hollywood bachelor pad condo for $885,000. He previously had the place photographed for Elle Decor.

*Natch because the groom's father, Arie Kopelman, is a former CEO and chairman of Chanel. Missus Kopelman—that would be Will's mother—is named Corinne but she goes by Coco. You can't make that shit up, puppies. Anyhoo...

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

UPDATE: Katy Perry

More than a month ago, based on intel from a few of our better-connected informants, Your Mama tattled to the children that international bubble gum pop superstar Katy Perry was fixin' to drop a serious wad of sawbucks to create a multi-residence celebrity-style compound high atop Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Yolanda Yakketyak it's come to Your Mama's attention that property records now indicate Miz Perry—by way of a generically named trust—paid a hair straightening $11.2 million for the two properties that combined have two houses on three separate but adjoining parcels that total 3.95 acres.

Property records reveal Miz Perry paid exactly $3,000,000 for the two-parcel property that includes an organically sleek single-story contemporary on 1.62 mostly au naturel acres with an only-in-Tinseltown provenance. Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal's (now acrimoniously divorced) parents Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Foner sold the house in 2009 to drummer/band leader Max Weinberg who flipped the gated two-parcel spread in January 2011. The buyer who paid $2.95 million was American oil heiress Aileen Getty who already owned the 2.33 acre spread next door that property records show she sold to Miz Perry for $8.2 million.

Like the Gyllenhaal/Weinberg residence, Miz Getty's house was not listed on the open market and also has an interesting provenance. Our research shows Miz Getty bought the property in April 2004 for $3.54 million from occasional film producer and Wal-Mart heiress Sybil Robson Orr. As best as we can tell from various digitally accessible resources the Robson Orr/Getty spread includes a nearly 4,000 square foot mock-Med main house, a semi-detached poolside guesthouse/cabana, and some sort of barn/equestrian facility. Vast stone terraces extend the living to the outdoors in classic California fashion and surround a slightly elevated swimming pool. Terraced gardens planted with fruit trees and laced with pathways make maximum use of the steep slope below the house.

Although the nine-time Grammy nominated singer unloaded a quirky downtown New York City duplex penthouse at a small loss last spring (2012) she still owns Park Hill, the nearly three acre Laurel Canyon estate she and ex-husband Russell Brand bought in mid-2011 for $6.5 million but never actually moved in to. Mister Brand reportedly granted Miss Perry full ownership of the historic estate in their divorce and after she unsuccessfully attempted to sell the multi-structure compound off market earlier in the year finally pushed the property on the open market in early April (2013) with an asking price of $6,925,000.

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Michael C. Hall

Last June Your Mama discussed an architecturally pedigreed contemporary residence in the star-studded Outpost Estates neighborhood in Los Angeles owned by seven-time Emmy nominated actor Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Six Feet Under) and then listed on the open market for $1,995,000. The red-bearded star of stage and screen sold the four bedroom and four bathroom house in August (2012) for $1,837,500, according to property records, to globe-trotting British supper club queen Tamsin Lonsdale.

This week word slipped down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Mister Hall shelled out $3,825,000 for an fully rehabbed two story 1923 Spanish Colonial casa in the celebrity friendly Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.*

Listing details show the main house has four en suite bedrooms (plus a staff room) and six bathrooms. A separate, detached guesthouse provides at least one more bedroom, a living room and a bathroom.

Other creature comforts of the walled and gated mini-estate include spacious living and dining rooms, a high quality center island kitchen with adjoining eating and lounge areas, and a state-of-the-art media room with fireplace that appears to be in the basement.

The .35 acre spread offers numerous outdoor lounging areas both in the front and in the back plus a swimming pool and a recently constructed over-sized two car garage at the tail end of a long concrete driveway.

*Mister Hall's new house happens to be almost directly across the street from the double-gated mini-estate hospital drama queen Kate Walsh recently put (back) on the market two weeks ago for $4,750,000 and already has in escrow with an as-yet unidentified buyer.

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Sotheby's International Realty

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Mindy Kaling

As was first revealed this week by the long-legged blond at Trulia Luxe Living, sitcom star and comedic wunderkind Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project, The Office) coughed up $1.695 for a hardcore fixer upper on a winding cul-de-sac in the so-called Bird Streets 'hood above L.A.'s famed Sunset Strip.  Listing details we dug up on the internets show the property has "significant upside potential" and is blessed with bird's eye view all the way to—and on a clear day beyond—the small knot of sky scrapers that comprise Century City.

Listing details show the existing two-story residence has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms jam-packed in to a modest 1,599 square feet. Even more notable then the house—Your Mama has to assume Miss Kaling will significantly alter and expand if not entirely replace with something more suitably luxurious for a celebrity of her station—is the heart racing and glutially murderous amount of stairs required to get from the street level driveway and garage to the house itself that's perched high, high, high up a seriously steep hillside.

Miz Kaling continues to own a restored Spanish Revival bungalow with four bedrooms and three bathrooms near The Grove and Farmer's Market that property records show she picked up in 2007 for $1.575 million.

listing photos: Nicholas Property Group

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Rupert Murdoch

Somehow Your Mama missed all the hullaballo and brouhaha about legally embattled bazillionaire Rupert Murdoch revealing via his Twitter feed that he'd snatched up Moraga Vineyards in the uppity L.A. community of Bel Air, one of the few commercial vineyards in the City of Los Angeles. It's not yet been revealed how much Mister Murdoch paid for the spread that was last listed for $29.5 millon.

The octogenarian media tycoon reportedly became interested in the vineyard estate that sprawls over rolling hillsides in the heart of an affluent enclave after reading about it in the Wall Street Journal, which, of course, he owns.

As was noted in Mister Murdoch's tweet, the approximately 16-acre estate and its 13-ish acres of grapevines has been owned since 1959 by Tom Jones. No, children, not the famously hirsute Welsh singer Tom Jones but rather the much more staid aeronautical engineer Tom Jones who, until the late 1980s, was the CEO of aircraft manufacturer Northrop Corporation for 30 years.

The vineyard property occupies a former horse ranch once owned by Victor Fleming, the stuntman turned Oscar winning director of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.

Although the gated estate includes a roomy 7,724 square foot single story residence with three bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, plus an additional two bedroom guest house and 4,400 square foot office building, it seems highly unlikely Mister Murdoch and his much younger, wickedly smart and fearsomely feisty wife Wendi Deng will move in since they already own an even more spectacular, horseshoe-shaped Wallace Neff-designed hacienda style mansion perched on a snaking ridge line high above Beverly Hills.

listing photos: Surterre Properties

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi

Buckle yer celebrity real estate safety belts, butter beans, because famously property fickle Ellen Degeneres and wife Portia de Rossi are at it again. According to gossip juggernaut TMZ the acquired a $26.5 million dollar estate in the exceptionally prosperous California seaside enclave of Montecito.

What TMZ did not reveal is that the high-maintenance estate with its exceptional, stone built 1929 Italianate villa was previously owned by legendary decorator John Saladino. Your Mama discussed the elegant spread back in August 2010 when Mister Saladino first heaved the two pacel property—which he called his "opus"—on the open market with an asking price of $24,500,000.

Property records show Mister Saladino sold the 13-plus acre, two-parcel property in March 2012 at a steep discount off asking for $16,500,000 to American-born and New Zealand-based corporate businessman Tom Sturgess and his wife Heather. The Sturgesses sold the house and its 9.9 acre parcel to a trust connected to Missus Degeneres and de Rossi but—as of this instant—we haven't yet uncovered a recorded sale price.

A second, 3.18 acre lot that Mister Saladino sold to Mister and Missus Sturgess does not appear, according to the property record data bases we accessed, to have been transferred to the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi.*

Listing details from 2010 up show the 13 acre ocean view estate includes a completely updated and upgraded 10,522 square foot main house with six bedrooms, six full and two half bathrooms and nine fireplaces. The mansion oozes with earthy Tuscan character that's juxtaposed against sleek and modern, bathrooms, kitchen and laundry facilities. Numerous loggias and terraces extend the indoors to the out and the extensive, painstakingly groomed grounds include a swimming pool set into a flat lawn with a long view over the tree tops and mansions to the Pacific Ocean.

This is not, as avid celebrity real estate watchers well know, the Missus Degeneres-deRossi's first home in Montecito. In early 2006 they paid $15,750,000 for a downright impeccable George Washington Smith designed estate that—as they're prone to do—they flipped back on the market less than a year later for $24,000,000. They sold the property in November 2007 for $20,000,000 to multi-billionaire Eric Schmidt, currently the executive chairman of Google.

The Missus Degeneres-de Rossi's property portfolio currently includes—but may not be limited to—an iconic mid-century modern in the Trousdale Estates section of Beverly Hills and a 26-acre, multi-residence equestrian ranch near Thousand Oaks, CA that they've had on and off the market for years.

Miz Degeneres and Miz de Rossi have bought and sold a slew of properties including—but not limited to—a couple of ranches in the Santa Ynez Valley and a bluff-top beach house in Malibu they bought from Brad Pitt and quickly flipped for a million more than they paid. And, of course, they compiled the multi-residence compound above Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills that they sold at a staggering multi-million dollar loss last year for $39,500,000 to Ryan Seacrest.

NOTE TO THE CHILDREN: Listing photos here show the house as it was gussied up by Mister Saladino. It's not known—not to Your Mama, anyways—if Mister and Missus Sturgess purchased and/or retained Mister Saladino's decorating handiwork.

*That does not mean the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi did not also buy the smaller 3.18 parcel. It could be that the transfer records simply have not been recoreded. Or it could mean Mister and Missus Sturgess opted to keep it or sell it separately. Time will tell...

listing photos: Village Properties 

Judge Judy Buys in Beverly Hills

BUYER: Judy and Jerry Sheindlin
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $10,700,000
SIZE: 4,680 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In case any of the children somehow didn't already know, daytime television judge Judy Sheindlin is rich. To be more exact, she's filthy stinking rich. In 2011 it was revealed the famously vituperative television bench warmer works only about 5 days per month and, for her scant effort, rakes in about $45 million per year.

A few quick tabulations on the well-worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that works out to a toe curling $123,287 and 67 damn cents per day...everyday. Although most online reports state she hoovers up a staggering $865,000 for each day she's on set, Your Mama calculates Judge Judy hauls in a much lower $750,000 for every day she spends in her faux-courtroom and barks her small claims court legalese to a pearl clutching parade of humanity who sue each other willy-nilly over things like bill money, fender benders and broken damn chop sticks. Let's be honest, though Either figure is plenty high enough to to make minimum wage workers and average multi-millionaires alike feel just a little bit suicidal, right? As our frequent informant Yolanda Yakketyyak more succinctly put it, "Judge Judge could buy and sell my life with the change she loses in the cushions of her private jet."

And, yes, butter beans, the fast-talking and exceedingly well compensated legal referee and her much less blustery second (and third) husband Jerry Sheindlin, who briefly presided over People's Court in the late 1990s and early 2000s, do indeed own a private jet. So the stories go, the East Coast-based judge climbs aboard her jet a couple times a month and wings her way to Los Angeles where her wildly popular courtroom reality t.v. freak show tapes at the Sunset Bronson Studios in the still somewhat gritty heart of Hollywood.

Your Mama doesn't know where Judge Judy shacked up the last number of years when she was in Tinseltown for her courtroom tapings. We like to imagine it was a hideously expensive multi-room suite at one of the pricier hotels around town. What we do know, however, thanks to a little birdie we'll call Kent Konfidential, is that Judge Judy can now hole up in her very own pied-a-terre at the new and swankily swish Montage Beverly Hills hotel and condo complex where property records confirm she's shelled $10,700,000 for a 4,680 square foot spread with five bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, four exposures, seven small balconies and four dedicated parking spots in the underground garage.

Avid celebrity real estate watchers may recall that there have been rampant and thus far unconfirmed rumors and reports—probably started by yours truly—that another high earning and large livin' Showbiz superstar, Oprah Winfrey, (allegedly) shelled out around $14,000,000 for one of the twenty spacious spreads at Montage Beverly Hills. Imagine those two running into each other in the elevator or in the dressing room of the hotel's spa.

While the actual layout may differ, the floor plan included with online marketing materials for the small number of lavish private apartments at Montage Beverly Hills shows Judge Judy's new upper floor West Coast bedsit is entered through a long, L-shaped foyer and gallery off of which open a puny coat closet, a powder pooper, a tiny library and a giant, temperature controlled walk-in wine cellar. If one walks long enough they'll finally arrive at a 42-plus foot long living room with fireplace that gives out to a narrow balcony with low-rise but still panoramic city, mountain and sky views.

The adjoining formal dining room also opens to a balcony—albeit an even more narrow one with a southerly vista—and connects through to a commodious kitchen well-equipped with a center work island/snack bar, a walk in pantry and all the usual bells and whistles to be expected in a five-star condo-hotel residence that costs nearly 11 million bucks.

One set of double doors in the living room opens to a bedroom/den with skinny south-side balcony and a second set of double doors lead to the bedroom wing where two bedrooms on opposite sides of a wide corridor share a sizable hall bathroom. There's also a convenient utility/laundry room off the bedroom corridor.

The master suite occupies a prime position at tail end of the hall and includes a pair of roomy walk-in closets and a spacious bedroom with direct access to private balcony with sweeping views over Beverly Hills and beyond. The attached master bathroom has a couple of sinks separated by a make-up vanity, separate tub and stall shower and his and her crapper cubbies, hers with a bidet and his without because, apparently, men don't care to wash their bums with a bidet.

A comfortably sized guest suite—or an unusually luxurious staff suite—is smartly and privately tucked into a quiet corner behind the kitchen and offers over-nighting occupants a minuscule balcony, a large walk in closet and a private bathroom that's bigger and better outfitted than most peoples' master bathrooms.

Montage Beverly Hills offers residents an army of discreet and pampering staff including attentive and well connected concierges, super deluxe amenities (i.e. spa and fitness facilities and a roof-top swimming pool), five-star hotel services (i.e. room service, laundry, and housekeeping), and exceedingly tight security circumstances. Although residents have a private, residents' only lobby and access to at-home dining services, they're certainly free to hang out in the hotel's lobby lounge and dine at the hotel's on-site restaurant Scarpetta.

It seems that Judges Judy and Jerry have been in the mood to shake up their real estate portfolio. Last week the legal eagles sold their deluxe (if decoratively quite staid) corner apartment on the 11th floor of the uncommonly posh and storied Sherry Netherland on Fifth Avenue in New York City to an unknown buyer for an as yet unrevealed amount. Your Mama (dissed and) discussed the two bedroom and 2.5 bathroom park view pied-a-terre that also includes a cell-sized staff room/office and bathroom on the 10th floor after it popped up on the open market in early 2013 with a $9,000,000 price tag.

In addition to a Gulf-front penthouse pad in Naples, FL, they picked up in 2005 for $6.9 million, the low-key but lavish living couple's residential property portfolio also includes—but may not be limited to their primary residence, a forbidding stone mansion on 12.54 manicured acres in hoity-toity Greenwich, CT. Property records show they bought the bucolic estate in September 2007 for $13,200,000 and various online reports reveal they proceeded to demolish the existing 11,623 square foot mansion and replace it with an approximately 20,000 square foot manor house.

Aerial imagery shows the gated estate has a substantial gate house—presumably for security, a carriage house, a massive motor court, vast lawns, extensive formal gardens, a swimming pool, and a poolside cabana with a deep, trellis-shaded patio. Your Mama didn't turn up too many details about the house itself but but one of the army of fellas and gals hired to do faux-paint finish work throughout the newly constructed house posted a few snaps of the place on his own blog that will give the children some idea of its scale and rather traditional interior appointments.

Just in case you're curious, the Sheindlins' 2012 property taxes in Greenwich, according to public records, ballooned to a mind-bending $230,660. Listing details indicate the fees for her new digs in Bev Hills chalk up to $5,366 per month but it's not clear to Your Mama if that includes the property taxes.

NOTE: Listing photos are representational and may or may not reflect that actual rooms in the mini-mansion-sized condo recently acquired by Miz Judge Judy.

listing photos and floor plan: Montage Residences

Peri Gilpin Says Bye-Bye to the Bu

SELLERS: Peri Gilpin and Christian Vincent
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $4,700,000
SIZE: 1,783 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Not quite three years ago television actress Peri Gilpin and her fine art painter husband Christian Vincent paid $3,550,000 for Shabby Chic queen Rachel Ashwell's single-story cottage inside the guarded gates of the illustrious Colony enclave in Malibu. Yesterday the Gilpin-Vincents hoisted the still Shabby Chic Colony crib back on the market for $4.7 million.

Current listing details show the low-slung 1,783 square foot main house—it isn't on the ocean but rather backs up to billionaire Jerry Perenchio's private golf course—has three bedrooms and three bathrooms plus a separate guest house with another (narrow) bedroom and puny private bathroom that looks to Your Mama to be a little long in the tooth, if you know what we mean.

A turquoise entry gate just to the side of the detached two car garage opens into a verdant courtyard where a red brick path cuts a graphic line up the middle to the chandelier lit front porch. There are two main living areas that both join through to the backyard. The front door all but opens directly into a white-tiled "formal" living/dining room where a fireplace is surmounted by a large, inset flat screen television and surrounded by book filled built-in bookcases.

A panel hung on a barn door track in the dining area slides open to the second main living space, a combination kitchen and family room. A quick comparison of current listing photos and those from the time Miz Gilpin acquired the property indicate very few if any alterations were made in the kitchen that has ever so humble white raised panel cabinets, winter white counter tops, a white porcelain apron front sink, open upper shelving for the daily dishes, and high-quality commercial style stainless steel appliances.

The back of the house opens through wide banks of wood-framed and striped awning shaded sliding glass doors to a reasonably roomy back yard all decked out with an above-ground spa, bulky river rock fireplace and a built-in barbecue station. There are numerous areas for dining and lounging and, should one like, room for a pool. Deeded beach access, according to listing details, is just across the lane.

Your Mama knows that Miz Gilpin and Mister Vincent previously owned at least two other homes in Los Angeles. The more substantial of their previous properties is a mini-estate with a nearly five thousand square foot Spanish style estate perched high on a promontory above Beverly Hills that they sold back in 2007 for $5.6 million.

When Miz Ashwell owned the Colony micro-compound she repeated rented it to high profile people including Law & Order superstar and Tinseltown royal Mariska Hargitay, blond bomber Pam Anderson—while she was renovating her own house in the Colony, and Britney Spears—right after she left ex-husband Kevin Whatshisface and was palling around with Paris Hilton.

Since Miz Gilpin's to date seminal professional gig on the long ago cancelled sitcom series Frasier she's popped up in a slew of television programs including the police procedural CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the teen drama Make It or Break It. For six years in the mid-Aughts she did a variety of voices for the erstwhile Emmy-winning animated sitcom King of the Hill.

listing photos: Pritchitt-Rapf & Associates

Al Pacino Sells Palisades Guest House

SELLER Al Pacino
BUYER: Curt and Sabelle Frasca
LOCATION: Palisades, NY
PRICE: $3,300,000
SIZE: 4,340 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to The ever-busy Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial it's come to Your Mama's attention that legendary Showbiz veteran Al Pacino has quietly sold off a significant portion of his Hudson River view compound in Palisades, NY, the prosperous, postage stamp-sized enclave also and formerly known as the Snedens Landing. The existing residence on the multi-acre spread functioned as the guesthouse to Mister Pacino's primary residence next door. More on that in a minute.

Although Mister Pacino first listed his guesthouse property in April 2012 with a $4,499,000 asking price, records show the bluff-top property was sold in mid-March 2013 for $3,300,000 to successful songwriters and music producers Curt and Sabelle Frasca. Missus Frasca, whose father is the venerable avant garde artist Robert Breer, has worked with folks like Madonna, Avril Lavigne and Ryan Cabrera. Mister Frasca's clientele is a virtual who's who of music industry: Shep Pettibone, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Michael and Janet Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Patti Labelle, Cyndi Lauper, the Spice Girls, Prince, Moby and k.d. lang. The couple currently own and operate Verse Music Group.

Mister Al Pacino is, well, he's goddamn Al Pacino, a famously intense, virile and still working actor of international acclaim with one Oscar statuette under his septuagenarian belt for the magnificent film Scent of a Woman plus seven more nominations (Glengarry Glen Ross, Dick Tracy, ...And Justice for All, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather, and The Godfather: Part II). In addition to his silver screen accolades the method actor has also received a couple of Tony Awards (Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel) and in 1996 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in the well-received Shakespeare-oriented documentary Looking for Richard.

Listing details Your Mama dug up out of the depth of the internets show the property sprawls "over 3 magnificent private acres." However and vexingly the same listing also puts the lot size at 108,900, an amount that's equal to exactly 2.5 acres. Make of that discrepancy what you will. However large the property it formed the bulk of Mister Pacino's Palisades roughly 3.5 acre compound and in addition to a soccer pitch-sized lawn, a large gravel motor court and a couple of outbuildings of undetermined function, the river view property has a 4,340 square foot clapboard-sided house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. We learned this morning from our occasional aide de camp B.S. Beaverman that way back in 2002 an accidental fire broke out in one of the upstairs bedrooms that resulted in "heavy smoke and water damage to the second floor of the guesthouse." We love the bit about how Mister Pacino's publicist and the fire chief both declined to identify the guests. Anyways...

The residence was originally built in 1941, according to listing details, and sits at the top of steep slope that tumbles down to the shore of the mighty Hudson River. As best as we can tell from a quick study of the plat map, the property does not have any direct frontage on the river.

A tightly curved stairway in the residence's upper level foyer descends to the main living and entertaining spaces on the lower level. The rustic, wide plank wood floors in the spacious dining room continue into but change direction in the voluminous adjoining sunken living room that's warmed by a fireplace and light flooded through over-sized windows and French doors on three sides.

Listing photographs don't show the kitchen but it's described in listing details as "immaculate" with an eat-in capability and "modern conveniences." The master suite, also not depicted in listing photos, "sparkles with sunlight from beautiful picture windows." One or more of the upper level bedrooms—one hopes it's the master, right?—opens to a perfectly charming veranda that hangs over the lower level terrace off the living room and provides a bird's nest vantage for viewing the river.

As it turns out, this is second time Mister Pacino has sold a house in Palisades in the last few years. In November 2010 he dumped a much more modest but still fully fenced and electronically gated 1,578 square foot house with three bedrooms and 1.5 bathroom for $580,000.

Teeny-tiny Snedens Landing/Palisades is or has been home to a slew of high-profile Tinseltown types. Emmy-nominated actor Aiden Quinn owns one of the more modest homes in Palisades and Oscar-nominated actor Bill Murray owns a sprawling 15,000+ square foot river view mansion with a dozen bathrooms on more than 8 acres. Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy nominated actress Lorraine Bracco sold her riverfront residence in August 2009 for $2.7 million to Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio and delightfully quirky Icelandic singer Björk sold her Palisdes pad in early 2010 for $1,325,000.

In September 2011, ballet icon Mikhail Baryshnikov sold two the four parcels that comprised his Palisades compound for $3,485,000 to a New York City-based hedge fund fat cat. Property records show Mister B. still owns just over two acres of the original compound where there's a two bedroom and two bathroom cottage that he had up for lease back in 2009 for $4,500 per month. Mister B. and his ballerina wife, Lisa Rinehart, own another property in Palisades formerly owned by Oscar winning actor William Hurt.

Some of Mister Pacino and now Mister and Missus Frasca's nearest neighbors include distinguished journalist Joan Konner and and sick-rich and low-profile Mellon family heiress Andrea Currier whose fabulously wealthy parents vanished into thin air in 1967 while en route via a small chartered airplane from San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas on the U.S. Virgin Islands.

listing photos: Keller Williams Hudson Valley