Happy Holidays from All of Us at Pearce

It seems fitting to end this year, which has been so difficult for many in the real estate market, whether as client, agent, or vendor, by wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2012, with increased business for all!

Barbi Benton Lists Los Angeles Dream House

SELLERS: Barbi Benton and  George Gradow
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $11,950,00,000
SIZE: 11,608 square feet,

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While hanging around Your Mama's momma Goose's crib over the weekend we honed in on a sizable estate high in the mountains above Los Angeles' Bel Air 'hood that's been on and off the market for quite some time and is currently listed with an asking price of $11,950,000. The contemporary compound, according to property records and other online resources, is owned by former Playboy model-slash-(h)actress Barbi Benton and mobile home park mogul George Gradow.

Miz Benton, now a bit of a high-camp icon, hasn't really been relevant in the entertainment industry for decades. Her brunette-haired salad days were, of course, the 1970s and 80s when she several times appeared with her naughty bits out in the glossy pages of Playboy and lived for nearly 10 years in unmarried sin with soft-porn purveyor Hugh Hefner. Not surprisingly, she was a dewy 19 and he a Viagra-free 43 when they hooked up. Missus Gradow-Benton–née Klein–eventually parlayed her nekkid modeling in to a regular role as a hayseed on Hee Haw, went on to a pretty forgettable career as a country music singer, and later became a staple on both Love Boat and Fantasy Island, where b- and c-list showbizzers went to make a few pennies and sunset their lackluster careers. Settle down now. We're not trying to be awful and snide. We don't make the rules in Tinseltown, we just calls 'em as we sees them. Anyhoo, not long after Miss Benton and Mister Hefner went splitsville she married the much more conventional real estate tycoon George Gradow whose claim to fame–or, rather, infamy–came many years later in the early-Naughts when he was convicted and sent to a federal pokey after he fessed up to doctoring financial documents in an effort to defraud and mislead the I.R.S.

After they married in the late 1970s Miz Benton and Mister Gradow shacked up in high style on a gated, privately situated six-acre estate in sleepy (and somewhat staid) Pasadena, CA with a quarter-mile long palm tree-lined driveway, massive multi-winged mansion, rolling lawns dotted with mature specimen trees, and the requisite swimming pool and tennis court. Property records show the couple sold the estate in mid-1990 for $3,700,000.

We're not quite sure where the couple bedded down in Los Angeles between when they sold their Pasadena palace in 1990 and 2003 or '04 when they bought a big-ass modern mansion just off legendary Mulholland Drive high above the natty and nabob-y Bel Air 'hood. Property records are a bit vague but as best as Your Mama can tell Mister and Missus Gradow acquired the star-style compound through a corporate entity in either late 2003 for $7,000,000 or in March 2004 (through a corporate entity) for an undisclosed amount.

The Gradows have actually had the property on and off the market several times at various prices since September 2008–shortly after Mister Gradow was released from federal prison–when it landed with a dull thud on the open market with an asking price of $17,500,000. Redfin reveals the 2.75 acre estate was last heaved on to the open market in mid-July 2011 with an asking price of $11,950,000. In early October the price dropped to $10,950,000 but two months later, in late November, the price inexplicably jumped back up to its current $11,950,000.

The gated compound runs along the precipitous ridge of a private promontory with an almost entirely unobstructed view from downtown over Hollywood and Beverly Hills, past the towers of Century City and across the flat expanse of the West Side until it abruptly dead ends into the Pacific Ocean. A giant roof top terrace actually provides even more comprehensive 360-degree views that tackle and taken in the San Fernando Valley.

The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the boxy, collection-filled main manse has 4 bedroom and 7 bathrooms in 11,608 square feet while current listing information shows 15,270 square feet with a total of 8 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. In addition to the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in the main house, the larger figures encompass (but do not fully account for) the detached 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom guest house and the separate 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom staff residence.

We're not sure who designed the all-white and all but unadorned residential structure, built in 1990 according to tax records and listing information, but first impressions upon arrival to the front motor court makes Your Mama think it might be an male architect who operates–or operated–in the same architectural vein as minimal minded modern masters–or "masters" depending on your proclivities, preferences and points of view–like 1984 Pritzker Prize winner Richard Meier.

An opening in a vast white wall connects the front motor court to a more intimate rear motor court with 3-car attached garage. All-glass front doors set into the winter-white front façade swing open to a capacious double-height entrance hall with stone tiles on the floor, twin staircases on opposite ends of the room that meet in an arched second-floor balcony, and a woozy-making ceiling with sculptural, dog bone-shaped detail. The airy cream-colored space leads into a decidedly voluminous "formal" living room with fireplace that has more in common size-wise with a hotel lobby than it does most ordinary peoples' living rooms. Towering place anchor and define various sitting areas and natural light floods the room through a checkerboard pattern skylight. Like in the entry and throughout the entire house, the couples considerable and sometimes visually cacophonous art and crafts collections hang on the walls, stand on the floor, and pepper the flat sufaces.


Other rooms that pinwheel off the main living room include a library with fireplace ringed by high-shine paneling and built-in bookshelves, a separate room equipped with full-sized and fully stocked u-shaped bar, a banquet hall-like dining room that seats 32 diners at four seriously high-gloss burled wood dining tables, and a tee-vee nook with built in cabinetry and entertainment center and an entire wall of glass that opens to a long allée that connects the main house to the swimming pool and spa and beyond that a self-contained pool/guest house. Normally we discuss a bit of the day-core but we can not bear to to approach the haphazard "screen" of potted plants that separates the main living room from the tee-vee nook nor will we touch with a ten foot pole that mortifying quintet of cawkee-colored electrified recliner-loungers.

The eat-in kitchen has a generous breakfast area lined with mirrored Biedermeier-style cabinetry, French doors with city views and dining terrace access, and an L-shaped center island with a snack bar at one end and a second but elevated snack bar at the other. The gleaming, finely tailored upper and lower cabinets have entirely flat fronts and lack hardware, the counter tops are a lustrous flecked  ebony, and the appliances up-to-date and high end.

At least one of the guest/family bedrooms is furnished with intricately painted Mexican folk art furniture and has walls and ceilings completely covered in a hand painted cloud pattern we find so cockamamie and egregious we fail to find a pithy remark.

The master bedroom, larger than Your Mama's entire house it seems, encompasses a conference hall-sized space with party-friendly sitting area, two fireplaces, half a dozen or more gigantic square windows to take in the rugged canyons and sparkling lights, curving walls that swoop in to embrace the bed, and a set of relatively prosaic French doors that access a private terrace. There are dual streamline moderne-tinged bathrooms with black granite (or some other fancy black stone) detailing and at least one, boutique-y dressing room lined with glass fronted closets for protecting but still displaying clothing and footwear.

Back on the main floor, several rooms open out to multiple terraces with canyon and city views and an entire wall of glass in the tee-vee nook disappears into the walls and opens the room to a long, up lit allée carpeted with thick lawn and lined with trimmed shrubbery and partially shaded by a variety of well-tended, mature specimen trees. The lawn gives way to the stone (or maybe it's stamped concrete) terrace that surrounds the sunken spa and swimming pool. Beyond the swimming pool a guest house/pool pavilion has building-wide set of steps that climb from the pool deck to an open air covered porch.

The Benton-Gradow's Bel Air spread sits between Usra Major, the angular and melodramatic former Wilt Chamberlain mansion, and a 9,951 square foot residence once- and long-owned by now-deceased poster babe Farrah Fawcett and currently held in the luxury property portfolio of international superstar-new mommy-songstress Mariah Carey and her man-mate Nick Cannon.

Mister Gradow and Miz Benton have long split their time between Tinseltown compound and Aspen, CO where in the late 1980s they custom built an ultra-contemporary (approximately) 25,000 square foot mega-mansion they dubbed the Copper Palace (above). The house, located on 40 pristine acres in the snazzy Starwood enclave overlooking the Roaring Fork Valley, was designed by organically-minded and wildly imaginative Albuquerque-based architect Bart Prince. The truly one-of-a-kind house, which looks almost nothing like what most people think of when they think of a house, encompasses a handful of dramatically cantilevered pods that contain 6 bedrooms suites (including a mirrored master with circular bed that rotates 360-degrees at the touch of a button), a family kitchen plus an industrial-scaled catering one too, a disco with disco ball, a domed, multi-colored screening room, gym and massage rooms, and his and her indoor lap pools. Miz Benton and Mister Gradow's nearest neighbor in Aspen is Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia who some years ago had his hotel-sized ski house on the market with an asking price of $135,000,000.

In the spring of 2001 Miz Benton and Mister Gradow unsuccessfully attempted to unload their futuristic hillside house with an asking price of $25,000,000. The house did not sell but they do offer the property up as a vacation rental for an undisclosed amount of money.

listing photos (Los Angeles): Rodeo Realty
listing photos (Aspen): Aspen Holiday Homes

Weekend Wrap Up: Courtney Love Faces Eviction

It will not likely come as a surprise many if any celebrity real estate watchers that Courtney Love's New York City landlord is spitting mad at the always eccentric and sometimes volatile rock star.

Miz Love's Chicago-based landlady Donna Lyon, who leased the picture perfect West Village townhouse to Miz Love earlier in the year at a rate of $27,000 per month, claims the Hole front woman violated the terms of her lease agreement by wallpapering and painting significant portions of the four floor townhouse decorated and designed by the previous owner, the accomplished and exceedingly accomplished Steven Gambrel.

Miz Love says something a little different–natch–and allowed the xoJane website exclusive access to the townhouse that's now filled to the gills with tatted doilies and a Buddha statues.

Miz Lyon also claims Miz Love is $54,000 in arrears on the rent but Miz Love told the Post that she's absolutely not behind on the rent but rather that Miz Lyon is asking that the last two months of the lease be paid up front.

Whatever.

Listing images above show townhouse as it appeared in listing photos before Miz Love got her hands on the place.

photos: Corcoran
floor plan: Halstead via Curbed

Weekend Wrap Up: Gabriel Brener Floast L.A. Mansion on the Market for Eighty-some Million Clams

Private investor and professional soccer team owner Gabriel Brener, the scion of a Mexican industrialist, has reportedly floated his leviathan limestone mansion in the hoitiest of the toitiest section of Holmby Hills in Los Angeles, CA on the market with an elephantine asking price of "more than $80,000,000."

The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that the mega-mansion has 6 bedrooms that include a main floor master suite while the Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the Neoclassical Georgian monster manse measures a stupendous (but hardly record-breaking) 22,396 square feet with 7 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms.

No listing for the gated and heavily fortified estate exist online but aerial images show the tree-ringed estate encompasses parking lot-sized front and rear motor courts, deep and wide terraces, manicured expanses of expensively-watered lawns, lengthy dark-bottomed swimming pool with semi-circular spa, lighted tennis court, and small putting green

The approximately 3.5 acre multi-parcel spread occupies the hallowed real estate grounds where Walt Disney's private residence once stood and is surrounded by grand (and grandiose) estates owned by couture queen Suzanne Saperstein, showbiz über-executive Brad Grey, soap story tycoons Bradley and Colleen Bell, big businessman Gary Wilson, art world honcho Larry Gagosian, and high-powered talent agent Bryan Lourd whose clients include (or have included) Penelope Cruz, Tom Cruise, Oprah, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Natalie Portman and Robert De Niro.

aerial image: Bing

Weekend Wrap Up: A New Krib for Ashton Kutcher?

Now that seasoned movie star Demi Moore has booted her philandering, much younger husband from their once-happy family home in Beverly Hills, the soon to be single Ashton Kutcher needs a sexy new nest to bed down and bed babes.

According to multiple reports the well-compensated sitcom star, producer and Twittering tycoon recently peeped a supah-sleek, 9,385 square foot modern mansion elegantly perched on a ridge high in the Hollywood Hills

The very contemporary 5 bedroom and 8 bathroom hill top aerie hovers over Lake Hollywood and includes entire walls of retractable glass, glass floors, a floating dining room (whatever that is), a sizable and swank kitchen, state-of-the-art screening room, fitness/massage room, expansive patios, cantilevered decks, various outdoor rooms, several built-in fire pits, and an infinity-edged swimming pool with elevated spa.

The privately situated residence is listed for lease at $50,000 and for sale with an asking price of $10,800,000.

listing photos: Nick Springett Photography for The Partners Trust

Weekend Wrap Up: Degeneres Purchases Pitt Property in Malibu

It's official.

Late last week the peeps at People revealed property mad chat show hostess Ellen Degeneres and her wife Portia di Rossi paid a hefty $12,000,000 and signed all the necessary deeds and documents to acquire a glassy, bluff-top Malibu (CA) residence owned by a-list actors and global do-gooders Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Told you so. And told you so again.

Mister Pitt picked up the property for $8,410,000 in March 2005 and, after quietly shopping the 1.26 acre ocean front estate off-market for around $18,000,000, officially listed the C-shaped contemporary in mid-August 2011 with a much lower asking price of $13,750,000.

Mister Pitt (and Miz Jolie) own a number of homes around the world including in Los Angeles' Los Feliz area, an ocean front compound near Santa Barbara, a mansion in New Orleans and a 1,000-ish acre spread in the south of France.

The Missus Degeneres and di Rossi own a horse ranch in upscale Hidden Valley area near Thousand Oaks (on the market earlier in the year for $16,500,000) and a colossal compound in the hills above Beverly Hills currently on the open market with a $49,000,000 price tag. 
listing photos: Coldwell Banker / Malibu West

UPDATE: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening

OWNERS: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening
LOCATION: Beverly Hills (Post Office), CA
PRICE: $25,000/month
SIZE: 10,594 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A month or so ago Your Mama revealed that Oscar-winning Tinseltown high priest Warren Beatty and his dee-voon, 4-time Oscar-nominated wife Annette Bening put their long-time mock-Mediterranean mansion in the 90210 on the rental market at $27,500 per month. At that time online listings only included one crappy aerial photograph of the mansion, which Mister Beatty and Miz Bening have owned since May 1996.

Since our discussion the Beatty-Benings have dropped to rent price to $25,000 and online listing(s) now include a mostly monochromatic cache of images that show both the inside and outside of the partially vine-encrusted (mc)mansion privately sited at the tail end of a long, gated drive and tucked into a thick thicket of mature trees with limb- and leaf-obstructed vistas over the pancake-flat San Fernando Valley. Listing information indicates the ready to be rented residence measures in at a considerable 10,594 square feet with a total of 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms.

Listing information describes the Beatty-Bening family's bulky abode as "Very light, bright and open" with "Grandly scaled rooms throughout, high ceilings, and a great flow for large scale entertaining." Certainly the entrance to this house asks for oohs and aahs from party pals and over-night guests: A tall, bougainvillea-draped arch and shallow portico frames the front door that opens into a notably spacious and even glitzy white-marble foyer with a swooping marble and wrought iron staircase that looks to Your Mama like a not unappealing but not entirely successful homage to one of the wickedly grand and extra-wide staircases a body might see in an 18th century Parisian hotel particular.

Listing photographs show the interior spaces completely empty and devoid of anything that might be taken or mistaken for actual day core. On the main floor wide arched doorways and scads of French doors open to the outdoors and connect adjoining rooms where the floors are covered in either sand-colored wall-to-wall carpeting or gleaming, high-gloss, honey-colored parquet de Versailles-style hardwood floors.

The walls, baseboards and trim work around windows and doors–but not crown moldings, since there does not appear to be a single inch of ceiling moldings in the entire house–are bathed in a buttery beige hue that somehow seems to both gobble up and reflect light. Listen kiddos, no one loves a stripped down piece of architecture more than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter but some houses, regardless of architectural authenticity and/or integrity, just work better with a little crown molding. This house, the Beatty-Bening's old crib up off Mulholland Drive, most certainly would benefit from moldings. Unless, we dare say, the day-core was all done up in the old-school earthy-glamour of Michael Taylor with boulder-shaped poufs and pillows, a plethora of planted foliage, and a odd but balanced amount of organically shaped sofas and Louis the Something bergere chairs that together generate the correct amount of design tension (and wrongness) that shouldn't really work together but does, and perfectly. Then you could go without the moldings in a house like this.

Anyhoo, we're not sure which of the many empty rooms in the listing photos shows the master bedroom but the images do clearly reveal the master suite encompasses a bi-winged, clothes horse-friendly custom-fitted walk-in closet and a luxurious, hotel-style bathroom sheathed in ecru-colored marble with two sinks, separate shower, giant jetted soaking tub, and a private cubicle for the terlit and bee-day.

Many rooms on the second floor open to Juliet balconies with scrolled wrought iron railings and most rooms on the main floor open out to deep covered porches or other outdoor entertaining areas that include tree-shaded lawns, a sunbathing terrace, circular spa with tree-framed valley views, and a negative edge swimming pool with azure tile detailing. A glass-roofed green house tucked into the wooded hillside below the back of the house opens through a series of sliding glass doors to a broad deck that extends into the canopies of the surrounding old-growth trees.

Although we don't have any specific intel on the matter, Your Mama assumes the Beatty-Benings have relocated down the road a mile or two to a compound with multiple residences including a massive main mansion they recently completed that replaces the old house that was significantly rattled and damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency