Thursday

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

Monday

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

Friday

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