People have been wondering what would happen to real estate sales along the Shoreline when the new bridge was finished. We can now access most of the new capacity, and, although it's summer and fewer cars come in each morning, there is a definite difference in the traffic over the bridge. In fact, on the way out, traffic tends to slow now either after Exit 51 in East Haven, or at Exit 54 in Branford. The merge is still an issue coming south on I91, but it isn't really different from going toward NY at that point. All in all, the traffic from the Shoreline is now comparable to that coming from every other direction, and is spread out over many days in the summer, instead of being crunched into a Friday afternoon window.
It seems to me that people moving here from other places would no longer eliminate the Shoreline because of traffic, especially if their commutes are early in the AM. One extra lane has made a big difference, and our backups seem minor compared to what most commuters face in other parts of the country and the world.
This should also be combined with the addition of services along the Shoreline that didn't used to exist there, especially the recent proliferation of medical services in Guilford and points east. Residents of the Shoreline now have access to emergency care without a lengthy drive, and can schedule most tests and much elective surgery within easy driving distance.
Will we see a surge in buyers along the Shoreline? Maybe so!
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Did Lindsay Lohan Go Downtown?
Yesterday Lindsay's little sister Aliana was spotted schlepping a SUV full of mis-matched luggage into a fairly nondescript walk-up tenement-type building and later Lindsay herself showed up looking relaxed and casual in a pair of baggy sweatpants, chic aviator style sunglasses, and a camera slung around her neck.
Your Mama's research shows apartments in the building in question run just under $2,600 per month for an unfurnished one bedroom and (roughly) $2,800-3,500 for one of the lower floor two bedroom places.
Previous reports indicated LiLo was to shack up with a sober coach but it's not clear—at least to Your Mama—if Sober Coach is also moving in to the building and, let's be honest, the apartment is a bit more downmarket than the pampered, part time actress is used to and it could very well be the apartment was actually rented by/for one of Lindsay's younger siblings.
Fun fact of little import (swear to God or god or whatever): A hundred years ago Your Mama and The Chicken looked to rent an apartment in the very same building. Back then the rent for a dumpy two bedroom with almost no light was about $1,200 a month.
The children may recall that rock-n-roll princess Kelly Osbourne currently leases the Beverly Hills (Post Office) micro-estate that Lindsay leased last year before she was forced into rehab.
photo: Google
South Park's Trey Parker Buys Big Brentwood Digs
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $13,288,255
SIZE: 10,000-ish square feet, 7 bedrooms, 11.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a covert communique from real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak we've learned that Showbiz bad boy Trey Parker quietly splashed out nearly fourteen million clams in early July 2013 on a .79 acre mini-estate in L.A.'s quietly tony and much coveted Brentwood Park nabe.
Along with his b.f.f. creative partner, Matt Stone, Mister Parker is, of course, one of the co-creators of the taboo-busting animated supernova South Park. In addition writing and directing, Mister Parker voices for South Park including those of Eric Cartman, Ned Gerblansky, and God. By Your Mama's count Mister Parker has won four of the eleven Emmys for which he's been nominated for South Park and was nominated for a Academy Award (Best Music, Original Song) in 1999 for the South Park movie Bigger, Longer & Uncut. In 2011, he took home a Tony (Best Musical Direction) for the wildly successful and gleefully subversive Broadway musical The Book of Mormon.
Mister Parker's purchase of the very grown up 7 bedroom and 11.5 bathroom Spanish Colonial mansion coincides and may or may not have something to do with the eminent birth of the child he's about to have with his unfortunately named live-in gal pal, (former) stripper Boogie Tillmon. Forty seconds of research turned up some wickedly salacious things floating around on the internets about both Mister Parker and Miss Tillmon but, honestly, butter beans, they're not relevant to the real estate matter at hand and are so scandalous and possibly libelous we dare not repeat them. Anyhoo...
Property records and marketing materials show the ten year old Thomas Callaway-designed mansion on a plum street in Brentwood was custom built in 2002 by veteran music executive Richard Foos, the former head of Rhino Records, and his wife, Shari. Good ol' Yolanda Yakketyyak told Your Mama that for that last few years it had been leased by another bigwig music executive, Lucien Grainge, the Chairman of Universal Music, who moved on to his own giant mansion on a particularly posh street in Pacific Palisades that he and his wife, Caroline, purchased last November for $13,000,000.
Although it's not called out in listing details from the time of the sale—and Your Mama certainly can't verify the figures—the L.A. County Tax Man shows the main manse measures 9,747 square feet with another 992 square feet in the two-room poolside guest house.
Listing details show the primary entertaining spaces include an impress-the-guests style double-height foyer/stair hall ringed by a second floor gallery, formal living and dining rooms, library, office, and a media/music room. Family quarters include a top-grade center island kitchen with impressive field stone back splashes, an adjoining breakfast room with French doors, and an adjacent family room. For what Your Mama can tell from listing photographs there's also a large den on the upper level with vaulted and beamed ceiling and somewhere there's a game room with built-in bar and Old Timey knotty pine paneling.
The master suite is particularly sweet and comprises a separate sitting room with fireplace, a bedroom with sitting area and fireplace, a sizable (if entirely beige) sky-lit bathroom, and a deep and wide covered veranda that looks beyond the backyard towards the Santa Monica Mountains. A curved, exterior staircase provides convenient access to the backyard.
A columned loggia along the back of the house extends the living space to the outdoor areas that include a large terrace, built-in barbecue, a large flat lawn and, at the rear of the mostly flat property, a heated swimming pool with inset spa. The nearby pool house/guest house has a narrow wrap around porch, a large living room with tile floor and fireplace, bedroom, and bathroom.
Some of the house's extra-added features and amenities include a whole-house sound system, solar heating, retractable push-button walls on the loggia, hand-painted tiles, stenciled wood beams and articulated wood ceilings, extensive built-in cabinetry, and at least seven wood burning fireplaces.
A thorough perusal of property records reveal Mister Parker maintains baller sized property portfolio that includes (but is hardly limited to) a couple of neighboring residences above Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills that were bought in two separate transactions in July and November 2002 for a combined $2,165,000.
Mister Parker also keeps: a house on the Wailua River in Kapaa, Kauai, HI he purchased in June 1999 for $900,000, a high floor condo at the swanky Continental Place complex in downtown Seattle's Belltown nabe that he picked up in May 2004 for $850,000, and a custom-constructed ski chalet with over 7,000 square feet plus a fully fitted and kitted Japanese tea house in Steamboat Springs, CO. Property records show Mister Parker acquired up the 1.92 acre Steamboat Springs property in September 2002 for $1,425,000 and scooped up an adjacent 1.22 acre vacant parcel in July 2011 for $1.575. We also find evidence that Mister Parker shelled out $4,050,000 in May 2011 for a class icseven (room apartment) at high-brow pre-war building on W. 57th Street in New York City.
Mister Parker's property portfolio appears to also contain numerous less impressive but hardly inexpensive residential properties in Fort Collins and Denver (CO) as well as Venice, Marina Del Rey, and Pacific Palisades, many of which were probably purchased for staff, family and/or investment purposes.
listing photos: Prudential California
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Floor Plan Porn: Drew Barrymore
The two-ish acre spread remains on the open market at $7.5 million but, thanks to a succinctly spoken little birdie we'll call Monty Seetoh, we've learned that the floor plans for the spacious but understated 6200+ square foot multi-winged main house and its couple of garages/outbuildings are now included with online marketing materials.
In addition to the sprawling master suite and five guest/family bedrooms in the main house—each with small, private bathroom—the floor plan shows three fireplaces (living room, library, master bedroom), a compact powder room off the foyer, a walk-in pantry in the kitchen and more closets, cabinets and built-in shelves that even a hoarder like Your Mama would know what to do with.
We happen to think this house with it's meandering layout is kind of the cat's meow but we'd still make a few subtle changes including a minor reconfiguration (and renovation) of the kitchen that would open it to the breakfast room and allow for a less clunky access to the backyard areas. We might also add a dining terrace and discreet built-in barbecue just outside the kitchen/breakfast area.
We'd also flop the bathroom between bedrooms two and three so that the larger bedroom has direct access to the bathroom and that the smaller bedroom—a perfect home office since it has direct access through French doors to the secondary motor court and garages—would then make use of the bathroom across the hall.
listing photo and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty
Monday, August 5, 2013
Actor Kristoffer Polaha sells Toluca Lake
LOCATION: Toluca Lake, CA
PRICE: $820,000
SIZE: 1,874 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
NOTE FROM YOUR MAMA: Listen, chickens, we have a bit of an unexpected medical situation with Sister Woman that we have to attend to so we gonna be very brief today and possibly the next few days, depending on how things go...
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Actor Kristoffer Polaha has sold his modestly scaled and partly 1930s stucco bungalow in L.A.'s star-studded Toluca Lake area for $820,000.
Before any of y'all get your feathers in a ruffle, Your Mama had no idea who Mister Polaha is either. He certainly isn't a household name on the order of, say, Brad Pitt or Channing Tatum but he's none-the-less appeared in several dozen movies and television programs, most notably Ringer, Life Unexpected and Miss Guided—all canceled. He's also popped up on Mad Men and Made In Jersey and will soon be seen on the upcoming boob-toob show Dating in L.A. and Other Urban Myths and in the movie Vineland. Mister Polaha his married to (former) soap story actress Julianne Morris (Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless) and together they have three young children.
Property records show the house was purchased by Miz Moore in February 2001 for $479,500 and at Mister Polaha was added to the deeds and documents sometime after they were married in 2003. Online resources indicate the long-time Tinseltowners tangled with the threat foreclosure a couple of times between 2009 and 2011 but all signs point to them having got all that ugly business worked out long before they listed the property in March 2013 with an asking price of $847,000.
Listing details show the single story residence, on pretty, tree-lined street just off busy Riverside Drive just a few blocks from the heart of the Toluca Lake shopping and dining district, has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in 1,874 square feet of partly remodeled interior space.
Pale blond hardwood floor run throughout the house including in the taupe-walled living room where a marble-faced fireplace is flanked by decorative windows and both open and closed shelving/storage. The dining room, with glass-fronted built-ins and a long bench that serves as seating along one long side of a gorgeous Nakashima-esque dining table, is open to one end of the remodeled, galley style kitchen that's fitted with white Shaker-style cabinetry, engineered stone counter tops Carrara tile back splashes, a stainless steel farmhouse sink, and medium-grade stainless steel appliances. French doors on one end open to the front porch and a sunshine yellow dutch door in the laundry area at the opposite end connects through to the back yard
The master bedroom is unexpectedly spacious (and under-furnished) with vaulted ceiling, corner (gas) fireplace surmounted by a big ol' flat screen, French doors that grant backyard access. The gray and white tiled master bathroom looks like it might have been redone in the 1980s and the main hall bathroom looks to Your Mama like the turquoise and lemon yellow tile might be original to the house.
Mature trees ring the large (if ratty) backyard and obstruct sight lines from the multi-story apartment houses that wrap around two sides of the property.
A quick search of the various property record data bases that Your Mama regularly consults does not turn up any other property owned by Mister Polaha and Miz Moore but, of course, that doesn't mean they down own any other property.
listing photos: John Aaroe Group
Friday, August 2, 2013
David Katzenberg Sells Sunset Strip Digs To Josh Flagg
BUYER: Josh Flagg
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,600,000
SIZE: 1,687 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in January (2013) Hollywood scion David Katzenberg—his daddy is DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, in case you didn't know—quietly acquired a multi-million dollar micro-estate above the Sunset Strip and this week the fast-budding writer/director/producer sold his Sunset Strip starter house for—we heard from an impeccable source—$1.6 million to—drum roll, please—Million Dollar Listing bad boy Josh Flagg.
Property records show 30-year old and newly single Mister Katzenberg—he and hotel heiress/handbag designer Nicky Hilton recently parted ways after four years—acquired the 1935 Spanish bungalow in June 2006, for $1,550,000. We're not sure when he first floated it but Your Mama found digital evidence the property was previously available for what appears to have been an off-market listing with a $1,959,000 asking price. The fully updated, upgraded and carefully maintained property popped up on the open market in mid-April (2013) for $1,595,000 and was removed from the market about a month later. The $1.6 million sale price now reflected in various property record data bases suggests—but does not prove, children—there were multiple offers for the modestly scaled but centrally located residence.
Technically the Katzenberg-Flagg house is in West Hollywood but, kittens and caboodles, it's really so close to the eastern border of Beverly Hills that some real estate agents might dare to describe it as—ahem—Beverly Hills adjacent. Although it's generally true that nobody walks in L.A.—not even across the damn street if it can be avoided—Mister Flagg could, if he was so inclined, put on a pair of those embroidered Tuxedo-style slipper-shoes of which he's so fond and easily amble over to the members only Soho House that's just down the block and across Sunset Boulevard. Your Mama generally feels wary about member's only clubs but it so happens, thanks to a prominent real estate agent with whom we're acquainted, Your Mama has been to the Soho House and, children, the glass-railed and tree-shaded roof top dining terrace is about as good a swanky spot as any in L.A. to see and be seen iffin seeing and being seen floats yer boat. Anyhoo...
Mister Flagg's new digs, which Your Mama just assume he's gonna share with his interior decorating man-mate Colton Thorn, are all but hidden behind high privet hedges and security gates and listing details Your Mama scared up on the internet show the 1,687 square foot house has but two bedrooms and two (renovated) bathrooms.
Listing photographs show dark stained wood floors in the sunken living/dining room that shimmer in the southeast sunshine that streams though the paned windows that are hung with the most humble of bamboo shades. Architectural detailing has been pared back, eliminated, or otherwise neutralized but the room retains a welcomed smidgen of its original architectural language with the arched red brick fireplace. Mister Katzenberg—or his decorator or his stager—set off a staid quartet of masculine brown leather club-type chairs with an eclectic collection of contemporary artwork that includes several colorful skateboard decks painted by A-list artist Takashi Murakami.
The glossy, ebony wood floors continue in to the open-concept kitchen/family room that opens through a bank of French doors to the fairly petit backyard and detached two car garage. The children will note the long work island that separates the kitchen proper from the family room lounge area is dressed with a ubiquitous orchid plant and an impressive cluster of clear glass jars filled with candy. Candy. Yum. We're sure the kitchen is lovely and well-equipped but we can't get past all that candy.
Both the kitchen/family room and the master bedroom open up to the backyard where a small patch of grass divides the house from from an elevated, open air pavilion fitted and kitted with a spa and fire pit plus the extra added conveniences of a changing room and a bathroom.
As far as we can tell from a perusal of property records, scruffy-faced Mister Flagg still owns the 1,300 square foot, mid-floor two bedroom and two bathroom condo crib at the full-service, I.M. Pei-designed Century Towers complex in Century City that he co-purchased with his parents in June 2008 for $1,048,000.
The elder Katzenbergs still own the Gwathmey Siegel-designed compound on Malibu's super-swank Carbon Beach where former Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel recently sold his Michael Graves-designed compound a few doors down to property mad gajillionaire Larry Ellison for $36.9 million, which should give y'all some idea of what the Mister and Missus K's beach compound is worth..
In October 20009 Mister Katzenberg paid ballistic missile tycoon Si Ramo $35 million for a supremely sited 6.34 acre spread on a private promontoary above Beverly Hills. He proceeded to knock the existing 8,700 square foot house down and build a bigger, newer, better, whatever house.
listing photos (old): Lee Manning Photography for Hilton & Hyland
listing photos (new): Coldwell Banker
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Oscar Winner Marcia Lucas Gives It Another Go
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,499,000
SIZE: 3,200 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last night's boozy, late night perusal of new listings in the Sunset Strip area of Los Angeles turned up an updated, upgraded and well-groomed traditional listed with an asking price of $3,499,000 and owned, as per property records, by semi-reclusive Oscar winning film editor Marcia Lucas.
She may be best remembered by (aging) Tinseltowners and Star Wars aficionados as the first wife of filmmaker George Lucas but in all truth Marcia Lucas can lay claim to a chest-puffing claim of a relatively brief but accomplished career of her own as a film editor.
Before hooking up with Mister Lucas in the late 1960s she worked on several Martin Scorsese films including Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver. In 1974 she received an Oscar nomination for American Graffiti, her first film with Mister Lucas. Although her role in the making of the first Star Wars movie is often over looked even by Star Warians—or whatever hardcore fans call themselves—Miz Lucas snagged an Academy Award in 1977 for her editing suite efforts on the ground-breaking sci-fi mega hit.
Miz Lucas went on to edit Episodes V and VI of the seemingly ceaseless Star Wars franchise (The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) but her professional credits all but end abruptly in 1983,* the year she and Mister Lucus not-so-amicably divorced. There are reports ex-Misus Lucas was given a $50 million dollar settlement but, of course, Your Mama hasn't the faintest fact about what the real deal was. Anyways, Miz Lucas later married, made a baby with, and divorced a stained glass artist who had previously worked for her ex-husband. Awwwkwaaaard! Despite her high-profile first marriage and her professional accolades—she does have an Oscar for Star Wars, which her ex-husband doesn't even have—Miz Lucas lives a quiet and privileged life mostly out of the hot glare of Hollywood.
Property records show Miz Lucas picked up the Sunset Strip property that's currently for sale in October 2008 for $3,595,000. It's not clear to Your Mama if Miz Lucas ever occupied the premises—we found digital evidence from a few years ago that the property had been leased on a long term basis—and this isn't the first time Miz Lucas has mounted this particular bronco at the real estate rodeo; She had the house on the market for a couple months in the fall of 2010 with an asking price of $3,995,000.
There's a fireplace in the formal living room and in the formal dining room a bank of French doors connects through to the backyard entertainment and recreation spaces. The custom, eat-in kitchen has white Shaker-style lower cabinetry, rustic, rough-edged limestone (or some other stone) counter tops, glass fronted upper cabinets, (delicious) milk-chocolate colored subway tile back splashes, and high-grade commercial-style stainless steel appliances.
The media room/den adjoins the formal dining room and connects back through to the formal living room allowing for wonderful circular flow of chi throughout the ground floor. Although the staging is typically ho-hum the airy, sun-splashed room manages to strikes a difficult-to-achieve balance between grand and cozy. The vaulted, partly glass ceiling is anchored by a chunky, stone-faced corner fireplace and built-in book shelves add an air of literacy to the booze lovers two-stool walk-in wet bar. A flat screen television was hung very low for optimal viewing angle from the opposite sofa and Palladian-style French doors make and elegant egress to and from the red brick pool terrace.
In all honesty, Your Mama isn't really sure where Miz Lucas currently resides but we did find plenty of evidence in various property record data bases that reveals she dabbles regularly in the buying and selling of multi-million dollar properties, mostly in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii.
In January 2005 she shelled out $6,950,000 for an ocean front house near Kapalua in Lahaina, HI that records indicate she still owns. In late 2002 Miz Lucas paid publishing heir turned internet entrepreneur and Silicon Valley venture capitalist William R. Hearst III $3,950,000 for a five bedroom and 3.5 bathroom shingled contemporary in San Francisco's posh Pacific Heights hood that she sold in August 2011 for $5,250,000 and in July 2008 she coughed up $5.2 million for a multi-story residence with more than 5,700 square feet on a double wide lot in the Clarendon Heights neighborhood that property records reveal she sold last October for $4,086,000, a beefy loss of $1,164,000.**
*The Internet Movie Data Base shows Miz Lucus executive produced a little known film (No Easy Way) starring Khandi Alexander in 1996 but that seems more an anomaly than a re-entry into show business.
**Miz Lucas, dear hearts, just might be one of the few who have lost money in the last 10 or 12 years in the electrified real estate game in San Francisco. Good grief. The fast-moving market in San Francisco barely even noticed the spectacular, economy ruining subprime mortgage melt down fiasco in 2007/'08. What little property prices might have dropped quickly rebounded and rocketed off in the other direction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)