UPDATE: Kristen Bell

A couple of weeks ago Your Mama discussed the secluded Studio City, CA residence of young actress Kristen Bell (House of Lies, Gossip Girl, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Veronica Mars) falling into the ugly maw of foreclosure.

Yesterday Miss Bell's former pad popped up on the open market as a bank owned property with an asking price of $1,995,000. A couple of quick clickety-clacks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's a significant $1,105,000 less than the $3,100,000 Miss Bell paid for the 2.6 acre spread in November 2006.

Current listing information shows the privately situated and somewhat bedraggled two-story house, built in 1969, measures 3,867 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms plus a possibly unpermitted wing with an additional 2 bedrooms, study, 2.5 bathrooms, and a laundry closet.

listing photo: Parsi Group Realtors

Real Estate Tycoon Donald Abbey Lists Bradbury Behemoth With Beastly $78,000,000 Price Tag

SELLER: Donald Abbey
LOCATION: Bradbury, CA
PRICE: $78,800,000
SIZE: 47,182 square feet (total), 5 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The 90210—that's Beverly Hills butter beans—may get heaps of press and glory as one of Southern California's most expensive and exclusive communities but it's the much lesser known 91008 community of Bradbury where some of the country's most expensive properties are bought and sold.

Believe it or not my little ponies but itty-bitty Bradbury, nestled into the rolling foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains a bit east of Pasadena and surrounded by far less affluent communities that include Duarte, Monrovia, and Azusa, is consistently ranked by the fine folks at Forbes as among the most expensive zip codes in all of the U-nited States of America. Although we did not spot the 91008 among the top 50 most expensive zips in the list compiled by Forbes for 2011, in 2009 Bradbury came in at #4 with a median home price of $3,44,773 and in 2010 the zip code ranked in at the #1 spot in 2010 with a staggering median home price of  $4,276,462.

Earlier today, thanks to The Bradbury Barker Your Mama learned what is easily Bradbury's largest and most lavish estate, built over the last 8 years by a real estate tycoon named Donald Abbey, hit the market to screams of flabbergast and a crash of cymbals with an whopping $78,000,000 price tag. No, puppies, Your Mama did not drunkenly add an extra zero. Mister Abbey's palatial pile actually carries a price tag of more than seventy-eight million bucks.


Let's run this opulent beast by the numbers and otherwise let the listing photographs speak for themselves: somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 landscaped acres; a 600-foot long gated driveway and double circular drive; Three-story, approximately 32,000 square foot mega-mansion main house with two-story library, behemoth reception hall/ballroom with 40-foot ceiling and built-in bar, and a colossal kitchen with copper range and barrel vaulted ceiling (that is perhaps lined with copper sheeting).

Listing information shows there are five bedrooms including two titanic master suites in the main house, one completely swaddled in a rather disturbing green (or maybe it's blue) stained wood paneling and the other with a gargantuan rotunda ceiling with trompe l'oeil architectural detailing and hand-painted frescos.

Other features of Mister Abbey's great estate in Bradbury include a 2,000 bottle wine cellar; six fireplaces; 3D theater and poker lounge; 10 car garage, a cross-shaped infinity-edged swimming pool (that may or may not be meant to make some sort of religious statement) and party-sized 15-person spa; sprawling house with lavish lounge, fitness and spa facilities; guest house, tennis court, temperature controlled trout pond with two-story waterfall, and a subterranean firing range.

And, let's not forget, a jaw-dropping price tag of $78,800,000, a number that may or may not be realistic—we don't know—but certainly guarantees to set all the property gossips tongues a-waggin'.

For the full photographic monty, listing agent Bob Hurwitz at the Hurwitz James Company set up a virtual tour sure to delight and/or mortify anyone interested the real estate affliction known in Your Mama's circle as Real Estate Size Queenery.

listing photos: Hurwitz James Company

Oprah-owned Penthouse at Place 57 Up for Grabs

SELLER: Oprah Winfrey
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $7,900,000
SIZE: 2,530 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In January 2008 the juicy dish making its way down the New York City celebrity real estate gossip grapevine was that Oprah Winfrey's b.f.f. Gayle King—currently the co-anchor of CBS This Morning—coughed up a very considerable 7.1 million clams to acquire a glassy penthouse pad atop a sleek, newly built Midtown Manhattan tower called Place 57.

When all the deeds and documents were finally filed and recorded a few months later it was revealed by the New York Observer that the penthouse was more likely bought by Miz Winfrey and not Miz King. The evidence cited included that the names two of Miz Winfrey's known associates—accountant Lisa Gardina and Aspen-based attorney Gideon Kaufman—are listed in the purchase documents. However, in truth, Mister Kaufman's name also appears on the deeds and docs for Miz King's 10,000-plus square foot mansion in bucolic and baronial Greenwich, CT. More telling perhaps, as noted in the New York Observer and elsewhere, the Place 57 penthouse was purchased through a trust that seems to have been named after Miz Winfrey's beloved (but now deceased) cocker spaniel Sophie.

It was all very confusing, as these things sometimes are, but in spring 2011 Miz King invited the
cameras of decorator turned talk show hostess Nate Berkus for a somewhat limited tour of her New York City residence and the apartment shown is most certainly not the nearly all-glass penthouse pad on East 57th Street.

Anyhoodles poodles, late last night while grappling with a little insomnia Your Mama stumbled across the Oprah-owned penthouse at Place 57, now back on the market with an asking price of $7,900,000.

Current listing information shows the 36th floor spread has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, 2,530 square feet of glass-wrapped interior space, and an additional 750-ish square foot wrap-around terrace with pulse racing and knee-bucking city views. Listing information shows the monthly common charges and taxes come up to a hefty but hardly unheard of $4,958 per month, more money than most people earn in a month but a relative pittance for a woman of Miz Winfrey's extraordinary riches.

The apartment, blessed with lofty 12-foot high ceiling, opens into an unforgivably slender, chute-like entrance hall that explodes in to a scalene triangle shaped dining and living space where two long walls of floor-to-ceiling glass converge in a (melo)dramatic (and perhaps a wee bit ham-handed) manner to provide a gigantic, birds-eye view that stretches from the George Washington Bridge, over Central Park, west towards New Jersey and south to the glittering towers of Midtown.

A swinging door in the dining area swings open to a light, bright, modern and expensively equipped but somewhat petite kitchen finished with flat-fronted cabinetry (that may or may not be white oak), charcoal-colored counter tops of unknown material, and chunky center island that does not, we note with chagrin and surprise, have a built-in breakfast bar component.

Two guest/family bedrooms, one with private bathroom the other with access to a hall bath as per the floor plan included with current listing information, occupy the northeast wing of the aerie. A short corridor behind the kitchen and off the entrance hall has a stacked washer/dryer closet and connects to the relatively petite master suite occupies that the southeast wing and includes three walk-in closets (two with windows), a spa-style pooper with jetted tub, separate shower and cubby for the terlit and bee-day.

The unfurnished penthouse gleams with newness and looks to Your Mama's admittedly tired and boozy eyes like it's never been lived in. Of course, we don't know a pea hen from a microwave oven so we really haven't an iota if Miz Winfrey—or Miz King or anyone else for that matter—ever spent a single night up in the Place 57 penthouse. For all we know the all but undecorated penthouse was used for little more than cocktail parties. Listing information does reveal, however, the walnut floors are "brand new" and the "state-of-the-art" kitchen is "barely used," language that indicates Miz Winfrey (or somebody) did at least a little cooking up in that kitchen.

Two guest/family bedrooms, one with private bathroom the other with access to a hall bath as per the floor plan included with current listing information, occupy the northeast wing of the aerie and the relatively petite master suite occupies the southeast wing and includes three walk-in closets (two with windows), a spa-style pooper with jetted tub, separate shower and cubby for the terlit and bee-day.

The Place 57 tower, located between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in the no-man's land between Fifth Avenue and Sutton Place, has a Vincente Wolf-designed Baccarat Crystal Lobby, whatever that is, and offers residents white glove services that include 24-7 doorman and concierge services, a fully equipped fitness center, thematically designed children's playrooms, residents-only conference rooms, and a Baccarat Crystal Garden, whatever the decorative devil that is.

As mentioned earlier, Miz King owns a 10,000-plus square foot mansion in Greenwich, CT she unsuccessfully attempted to sell back in June 2008 when it was listed with a $7,450,000 price tag. Although we can't be certain, it does not appear that Miz King's krib in Connecticut is currently on the (open) market.

Miz Winfrey, as billionaires typically do, owns a number of other high priced and high maintenance properties that include (but are not necessarily limited to) a four-unit duplex at the Water Tower Place complex in downtown Chicago, a plantation-style mansion on the island of Maui in Hawaii, and a massive 23,000 square foot mansion on 42-manicured acres in supah-swank Montecito, CA she picked up in 2001 for a mind altering $50,000,000.

Miz Winfrey also owns a number of small (and not so small) homes and condos in places like Douglasville, GA, Franklin, TN, Merrillville, IN and Elmwood Park, IL all of which we presume were acquired for use by various family members and/or close personal friends.

In 2007 Miz Winfrey dropped $5,600,000 on a 4,607 square foot condominium with 2 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, and 2 car parking in a particularly posh Beaux Arts-style building in Chicago's swanky Streeterville neighborhood. The former chat show superstar, media mogul and generous global do-gooder reportedly never moved into the apartment that she put up for sale for about 6 months in 2008 for $6,000,000 and put up for lease late last year (2011) at $15,000 per month. The 6th floor Lake Shore Drive apartment remains listed for lease at $15,000 per month.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

Daphne Guinness At Home

Open Houses Rule

This weekend, despite being at one end or the other of just about every school system's vacation week, was a big one for open houses.  Some had as many as 25 people at them.  The market seems driven by first-time home buyers (proving that they are the one group that probably doesn't need an incentive to want to buy), who want to take advantage of low rates and low prices.  Of course, it is usually their parents who have to let them know how low rates are, since anyone under 35 wouldn't remember high ones.  (Conversely, my husband and I bought our first home in 1982 with an 18.75 % special low rate, that seemed OK to us, given that other mortgages were at 21%---it's all relative!).

Houses are starting to come onto the market at springtime pace, and buyers are out there to take advantage of the rates, the choices, and the weather.  Let's hope it keeps up at this rate!

Bacon and Sedgwick Snag West Coast Pied a Terre

BUYERS: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,500,000
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We know we aren't the first property gossip to ride this particular bull at the celebrity real estate rodeo—that honor goes to a long-legged gal at Trulia—but we're giving a go around anyways...

Some of the many high profile people and celebrities who lost their proverbial shirts in the dirty terlit swirl that developed after the implosion of disgraced Wall Streeter Bernie Madoff's pernicious Ponzi scheme were long-married actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.

Obviously Your Mama ain't privy to the exact amount of dough lost by Mister Bacon and Miz Sedgwick but it was significant enough that she described the pocketbook punishment in 2009 to the people at People as "painful." Miz Sedgwick went on to point out that many "lost a lot more" and acknowledged that despite their losses she and Mister Bacon "have a lot of things to be grateful for." That there, children, is some capital C Celebrity Class for y'all. The lady showed her fans the respect of honesty about her situation and humbly recognized she remains one of the financially and professionally fortunate.

Anyhoo, whatever pecuniary pinch they may have felt due to Old Man Madoff's Machiavellian monetary maneuvers seems to have been rectified as evidenced, perhaps, by the $2,500,000 the East Coast-based couple coughed up in early December (2011) to acquire a very contemporary pied-a-terre in Los Angeles, CA. Certainly the Showbiz veterans have together and separately spent a great deal of time in Los Angeles but this is, as far as Your Mama knows, the first residence Miz Sedgwick and/or Mister Bacon have owned in Tinseltown.

Records we peeped reveal the property, which cleaves a steep hillside and offers a direct view across a wide canyon to the south slope of Mount Hollywood and the gorgeous Griffith Park Observatory, was sold by Lia Vollack, a hard-charging music/film industry executive who showed up in January (2012) at a very respectable number 51 on the Billboard Power 100. Miz Vollack purchased the property, as per Property Shark, in March 2007 for $2,450,000.

Not all online listings for the property indicate the square footage of the two-and-some story hill climber but the Los Angeles County Tax Man puts it at 2,760 square feet, a figure that may or may not be accurate. Trulia shows the house has 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms while listing information on Redfin states the updated, upgraded and fully re-worked residence was originally built in 1957 and contains a total of 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, a count we're pretty sure (but not certain) includes the lower level guest suite and separate flex-use space suitable for use as any number of things such as (but far from limited to) an office, gym, Zumba studio or model train making workshop.

A set of concrete steps climb from the street up the lushly landscaped hillside to the front door, an over-sized wood and glass thing that looks to Your Mama like it may have been inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright or some such person. The airy, light-filled lower level through entry has some sort of tile underfoot we suspect is limestone or some other luscious material and not some plain old ceramic stuff. A floating, geometrically-minded switchback staircase dramatically constructed with a glass, wood and steel framework and what may or may not be terrazzo treads connects to the main living/entertaining spaces on the upper level.

The open plan space has an architecturally warm palette of wood and stone and includes a step down "formal" living area with chunky stacked stone fireplace, expensive looking hardwood floors—teak? mahogany? ipe?—the run perpendicular to the wood slats on the high pitched ceiling, and two walls of floor-to-ceiling wood-framed glass sliders that provide tree top, canyon and Griffith Park Observatory views.

For better or worse, a grid of pot lights stand in stead of a proper chandelier or pendant fixture in the terrazzo-floored "formal" dining area that's open to the well-equipped kitchen over a boxcar-sized center work island with breakfast bar. The adjoining family room/den has built-in bookcases along one entire wall and on another a row wood-framed sliders that lead to a terrace tucked into the hillside with built-in barbecue center behind which a cantilevered staircase winds up to a brilliant roof deck with panty-dropping view across the canyon to the Griffith Park Observatory.

The master bedroom itself, in which the previous owner quite curiously installed deep periwinkle wall-to-wall carpeting, isn't particularly large but does includes a variety of choice amenities such as a sky light or two, a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that slide open to a balance beam-slim balcony with canyon and Griffith Park Observatory views and, as per listing information, his and her closets and bathrooms.

A little known addendum to Your Mama's Big Book of Decorating Do's and Don'ts offers the children additional anecdotal guidance on the mercurial art of harmonious and stylish living. Suggestion 1 says, of course, "A well-stocked booze cabinet is a person's best defense against loneliness and isolation since even the least self-destructive hooch hound will drive ten or maybe even 12 miles out of his or her way for a few free drinks."

Suggestion 7 reads, "Everyone needs their own private Idaho to store their undergarments and outer fashions. If (and always when) space allows, cohabitating couples, those married before God and government and otherwise, ought not share closet space or dresser drawers." Your Mama—who is all but slovenly—and the Dr. Cooter—who is decidedly not—would surely be divorced by now iffin we had to share closets. But we digress.

Both the "formal" living and dining areas open through wide expanses of windows to the adult-oriented outdoor areas that include a small, free-form swimming pool, raised spa set into flagstone terracing and, at the front of the property, a lounging deck eclipsed by a dead-on view of—you got it—the Griffith Park Observatory.

Property records and other online databases show Miz Sedgwick and Mister Bacon also maintain a couple of homes on the east coast that include a roughly 40-acre rural spread in Sharon, CT it appears they scooped up in the late 1990s as well as a sprawling high-floor co-operative apartment in a particularly stunning Beaux Arts building built in 1906 and situated directly across the street from Central Park.

listing photos: The Agency via Trulia

Another Showbiz Divorce Another Mansion Sold

SELLERS: Patricia Arquette and Thomas Jane
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,775,000
SIZE: 6,082 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While out and about we happened to run into a little birdie acquaintance the other day—let's call him Ben Theredonethat—who asked Your Mama if we'd heard about how Emmy-winning actress Patricia Arquette and her handsome ex-husband—that would be beau-hunky actor Thomas Jane, the chisel-chinned, hairy-chested and fine-fannied star of Hung—had quietly sold their historic mansion in Los Angeles' hoity-toity Hancock Park 'hood.

We had not heard a word, not a one and, after a momentary pause to harness what little dignity we have, screamed, "Spill it!"

Naturally, just as soon as Your Mama pulled our big BMW into the garage we took to the interweb and quickly sorted out the facts of the matter and, just as Ben Theredonethat tattled, Mister Jane and Miz Arquette did indeed sell their former family home in Hancock Park in early January 2012 for $2,775,000. The buyer, as per property records, was producer Fenton Bailey, one of the World of Wonder gentlemen responsible for television and silver screen fare such as (but not limited to) the budding Million Dollar Listing franchise, the catty yet heartwarming RuPaul's Drag Race, the sensitively done documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and all those Tori (Spelling) & Dean (McDermott) reality programs.

We know just about nil about Mister Jane except that he's not afraid to appear birthday suit nekkid and/or very realistically act out The Sex on the tee-vee but we do know that despite (and perhaps because of) their decidedly non-traditional upbringing Miz Arquette and all four of her siblings have gone on to Show Business notoriety of varying degrees and types. There's actor sister Rosanna Arquette (Suddenly Seeking Susan, Pulp Fiction franchise, The L Word), actor/producer brother David Arquette (Scream franchise, Eight Legged Freaks, Jake and the Never Land Pirates), dragster turned tranny actress sister Alexis Arquette, née Robert (Friends, Californication, The Surreal Life), and the lesser- but hardly un-known actor Richmond Arquette (Dirt, Se7en, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).

Like her red carpet walking brothers and sisters, Miz Arquette has toiled in Tinseltown for decades, in her case since the mid-1980s. She is best known, perhaps, for her Emmy-winning turn as the tee-vee version of real-life (and self-described) psychic medium Allison Dubois on the long-running but now-canceled supernatural drama Medium.

Reality television watchers may recall that the real life Allison Dubois appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills last year and acted a damn fool. No disrespect, Dolly Dubois, but even you have to admit you didn't come off looking like an innocent kitten what with your sinister grin, dire predictions, and that creepy vapor cigarette thing you kept puffing on. This year, according to her resume on the Internet Movie Data Base, Miz Arquette will soon be seen on the silver screen in Girl in Progress with Eva Mendes and A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III with Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwarzman and Bill Murray. But we digress.

On January 2003, just a month or so before she gave birth to a baby with now ex-husband Thomas Jane and more than three years before they were married—those free-loving Hollyweirdos—Miz Arquette and Mister Jane paid two and a quarter million clams for a sizable and heavily ornamented 1929 Mediterranean mansion on a corner lot with with long side frontage on one of the busier thoroughfares in Hancock Park.

We know some of you zip code smarty pants and parvenus are going to get all jiggy with real estate indignation and flabbergast about why it is anyone really rich would choose to live in Hancock Park where the crime rates are higher than in the Platinum Triangle. Well, that's just fine. Go on witcher bad selves. The fact is Hancock Park—not every corner of it but certainly most of it—has always been and remains an upscale neighborhood with postcard-perfect tree-lined streets lined with stately homes owned by a slew of rich and famous folks who include former Friend David Schwimmer, sit-com superstar Patricia Heaton, French clothing tycoon Christian Audigier, newly out of the closet actor Matt Bomer, Emmy-winning producer John Wells, Oscar winner Kathy Bates, celebrity gossip Janet Charlton and, arguably, the celebrity king and queen of Hancock Park Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas. And that, puppies, doesn't even scratch the surface of the long list of past residents who include the likes of Nat King Cole and Howard Hughes.

Anyhoo, Miz Arquette and Mister Jane, who were officially divorced in 2010, first listed their former family home in June 2011 with an asking price of $3,399,000. By November the price had dipped to $2,900,000 where it remained until Mister Bailey came along and scooped it up, according to the busy beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, for almost 20% less than it was originally priced.

Listing information shows the hulky and bulky house—dubbed in marketing materials as the romantic-sounding Villa Catalunya—sits on almost one-third an acre and measures a man-sized 6,082 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. Wide steps at the front of the vine-encrusted mansion lead to what listing information somewhat generously describes as "Gaudiesque."

Inside the arched, carved wood front door guests and the Dominos pizza delivery dude alike will no doubt be more than impressed with the voluminous and ornate, double height entry hall that reminds Your Mama more than a little of the legendary Limelight nightclub in New York City, now—horrors upon horrors—a kind of boo-teeq shopping mall. Having produced both the 1998 documentary Party Monster: The Shockumentary and the 2003 film Party Monster about club kid and Limelight employee turned drug addled murderer Michael Alig it seems almost inconceivable Mister Bailey didn't also make that visual connection but, of course, Your Mama don't know nuthin' about birthin' babies or, certainly, what goes on in Mister Bailey's brain.

The dizzying but ab-baf star burst pattern encaustic tiles under foot continue up the celeb-worthy center staircase to a wrap-around gallery girdled by a wrought iron banister where taffy-twisted Solomonic columns hold up a heavy-duty, hand-stenciled wood ceiling. We have no idea if Mister Bailey plans to host parties here but iffin he does, we might suggest at least once he replace the antique light fixture over the stairs with a great big sparkly disco ball so that everyone can swoop and swirl down that stunning staircase and have their own, private dancing queen moment.

The cocktail mixer-friendly step-down formal living room just off the entrance hall (above, top left) has gleaming variegated peg and groove wood floors, a monolithic wood-burning fireplace flanked by several pairs of arched (and probably original) stained glass windows, a classic Fortuny light fixture, and a full wall of built-in wood bookcases with carved pilasters and glass-fronted doors.

A wide opening in the built-in bookshelves connects to a library/den/media room (above, top right) where there's another Fortuny light fixture, a delectable and high hand painted wood-beamed ceiling, another bank of arched stained glass windows, and a pair of arched book cases on either side of a mysterious inset at the far end of the room. Listing photographs show the room equipped with projection equipment and a wide screen that scrolls down from the ceiling, hopefully at the easy press of a remote control button lest there always need to be a pesky foot stool at hand.

Across the entry hall opposite the formal living room, a properly baronial formal dining room (above, bottom left) is wrapped with three-quarter height wood paneling and has yet another Fortuny light fixture, partly parqueted wood floors, and extravagant hand-painted moldings and ceiling details. A double-wide, built-in carved wood buffet helps with food service and china and tchotchke storage. Undoubtedly the dining room set seen in listing photographs does not remain in situ since Miz Arquette sold to Mister Bailey, but the children will note that some nice-gay or lady decorator had the good sense to go the matchy-matchy route with the massive library-style dining room table with Solomonic column legs that echo the aforementioned spiral columns used around the second floor gallery in the entrance hall.

At the rear of the residence the compactly arranged if hardly small service areas include a large and well-maintained but heart wrenchingly banal eat-in kitchen with inlaid limestone tile floor, (too-)traditional raised-panel cabinetry (that may or may not be mahogany), perfectly ordinary white tile counter tops and back splashes, an L-shaped center island with snack counter, and a small adjoining breakfast area. The appliances are all probably top notch and la-di-dah but we suspect (and hope) Mister Bailey will replace all of this nonsense with something more appropriate, interesting, and hideously expensive.

The service wing also includes laundry facilities and a good-sized staff bedroom with private pooper done head to toe in vintage (and probably original) pixilated pink and jet black tilework.

Miz Arquette and/or Mister Jane could not, it seems, fit enough Fortuny light fixtures into their home and upstairs a small sitting room/office has a fourth Fortuny light fixture. Each of the upstairs guest/family bedrooms have an over-sized bathroom with eye-popping vintage (and probably original) tile work. One bathroom (above, bottom right) is an old-timey turqwahze and lemon yellow heaven while the other is turned out a little less vibrantly in sea foam green and fleshy-beige (above, bottom left). 

The expansive, multi-room master bedroom occupies the entire ass end of the upper second floor and looks to Your Mama like the sort of place the priest of a wealthy parish or a robber baron might like to live. More carved wood Solomonic columns divide an entry vestibule from a partly paneled sitting room with fireplace and built-in book cases. Beyond the sitting room, the bedroom area has a heavily articulated and painted coffered ceiling, and a row of stained glass windows on two walls, one of which, we have it on good authority, depicts Jesus Christ.

Imagine now, children, attempting to engage in non-procreational carnal relations with your loved one—or whomever—with a life-sized, stained glass Jesus Christ giving you the stare down. No thank you, hunties. Anyways, the attached master bathroom, with a curving wall of stained glass windows, looks like it was (at least partly) "updated" about the same time as the kitchen and, as far as we're concerned, could use a re-do to restore it back to its original glory. The highlight of the master suite is not, believe it or not, the stained glass Jesus but rather a pair of secret panels over and next to the fireplace in the sitting room that pop open to reveal a flat screen tee-vee and and an adjacent walk-in closet/dressing room.

A covered porch tucked into the base of the u-shaped rear of the residence provides a perfect, shady spot to spend an afternoon nibbling on leftover egg fu yung, sipping an ice cold gin & tonic or two (or three), and catching up on all the latest political brouhaha and celebrity snitchery on your favorite websites and blogs. The two arms of the u-shaped rear of the residence form a courtyard almost entirely devoted to an essentially rectangular swimming pool. On one side a long and deep covered porch has honeycomb-shaped Mexican paver tiles and on ground and a back wall tiled half way up with magnificent and fiery tiles. On the other side of the cement pond concrete pavers of various sizes are set into a grassy patch that wraps around the back of the house where there's a lounging/dining terrace and built-in barbecue center with sink and under-counter refrigerator. A limestone (or some other kind of stone) wall with fountain drops water into a semi-circular spa.

A covered porch connects through a locked doorway to a electronically gated motor court and detached three bay garage all of which is very nice but we just have an issue with houses oriented in such a way that all but ensure the owner never come through the front door but instead requires they shuffle across the back yard and get into the house through the service areas. Especially in a house like this were coming through the front door is an experience worth repeating over and over and over again.

Mister Bailey has long owned a charming 4 bedroom and 3 bathroom residence just above Hollywood he bought in 1994 for $480,000 and put on the market late last year with an asking price of $1,649,000. The price tag for the historic 1921 Arts and Crafts bungalow has since dropped to $1,459,000.

listing photos: Photos for Homes for Nourmand & Asssociates / Beverly Hills