A Shabby Chic Pad for Peri Gilpin

BUYER: Peri Gilpin
SELLER: Rachel Ashwell
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $3,550,000
SIZE: 1,783 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week the gal at the L.A. Times reported that She-ra of Shabby Chic Rachel Ashwell sold her land side beach house inside the guarded gates of the celebrity packed Malibu Colony community. Miss Ashwell is, for those ignorant of 1980s decorating trends, the gal who popularized what Your Mama calls "Grandma Sheek," a distinct decorative style that incorporates lots of white slip-covered sofas, chenille bedspreads, country cute-cute vintage linens, heavily distressed bureaus and side tables, and shimmery chandeliers for a soupçon of glamor and shine.

What Miss L.A. Times celebrity real estate reporter did not reveal is the big name buyer who forked over a few million clams for the Miss Ashwell's cottage in The Colony. According to our wonderfully well connected informant The Mistress of Maleeboo–and confirmed with a very roundabout tour through property records–the buyer is gravel voiced actress Peri Gilpin of Fraser fame and her artist huzband Christian Vincent who should absolutely not to be mistaken with hard-bodied dancer/actor Christian Vincent.

Listing information shows Miss Ashwell's Colony cottage was first listed at the beginning of March of 2010 and property records show that the deal closed quickly in early July for $3,550,000. A few quick flicks of the well worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that the purchase price is $875,000–a not insignificant 20%–less than She-ra of Shabby Chic's original asking price of $4,425,000.

Miss Ashwell bought the beach house in February of 2003 for $1,950,000 and while we presume she occupied the cottage herself at times, it's well established (and oft reported) that she frequently leased the home to celebs. A few of the Tinseltown hoity-toities who dumped big bucks to lease Miss Ashwell's Shabby Chic beach house include back in the saddle pop star Britney Spears who lived there during her pre-meltdown/party with Paris Hilton days, busty party princess Pam Anderson who is known among Colonyites for handing out perfectly packaged caramel apples in their own individually wrapped containers at Halloween, and the dee-voon actress Mariska Hargitay who appeared for years and years and years one of those damn Law & Order programs and who, according to the Mistress of Maleeboo, took up residence in Miss Ashwell's cottage in The Colony while she was preggers in 2006 with her baby boy.

Listing information and most previous reports indicate the modestly sized cottage measures 1,783 square feet and has a total 4 bedrooms and 4 poopers including a master suite with office area and private pooper. There is also a separate 1 bedroom and 1 pooper guest room that opens into the front garden through a Dutch door.

A lavender lined brick pathway leads from the entry gate and two-car garage, through the grassy and rose bush filled front yard and to the front door. Luscious limestone floors have been laid throughout the main living areas of the updated and upgraded but still rough around the edges cottage. The living/dining room has a fireplace and a wall of wood-framed sliding glass doors that open to the backyard, and the kitchen, all white cabinetry, open shelving and Viking brand appliances, is separated from a family room area by a breakfast counter. It's not known whether Miss Gilpin plans to retain the tired ol' Shabby Chic day-core or if–as Your Mama hopes–she'll tinker it into something a little less decoratively cliche.

The backyard, which has lovely views of the mountains that spill down to the ocean's edge and backs up to media mogul Jerry Perenchio's privately owned golf course, consists almost entirely of a large brick terrace shaded by mature trees and ringed by thick foliage. In one corner of the yard, pushed up against the house in the most upsetting and undignified manner is one of those above-ground, plug-in spa contraptions in which some people–including the Dr. Cooter and his cold-blooded sister Tee-Tee–enjoy settin' in what amounts to a boiling vat of their own filth and call it relaxing. No thank you, ma'am.

Property records show that Miss Gilpin and her huzband sold a house in West Hollywood back in 2003 for $1,367,000 and another house on Bowmont Drive in Beverly Hills in March of 2007 for $5,600,000 but the real estate trail goes dead there and Your Mama freely confesses that we don't know where Miss Gilpin and Mister Vincent currently live.

The Colony has a long, long, looooong history of celebrity residents A short list of past and current property owners with recognizable names include Barbara Stanwyk, Gloria Swanson, Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Sting and Trudie Styler–who at one point leased their home to Leo DiCaprio, Linda Ronstadt, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, Mel Brooks, Brian Grazer, Cicely Tyson, Rob Reiner, Jeff Bridges, Paul Reiser, Jason Statham, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Ridley Scott, Eric Roth, Pam Anderson who is allegedly going broke due an extensive and expensive remodel of her land side property, and media mogul Jerry Perenchio owns at least a dozen homes in The Colony as well as the aforementioned private golf course that sits discreetly between The Colony and the Pacific Coast Highway. One of the current Colonyites is Miss Gilpin's former co-star, b.f.f., and bizness partner Jane Leeves (Fraser, Hot in Cleveland) who has spent the last few years re-working her inland Colony getaway into a big yellow monster.

Like many rich and (quasi) famous types in LaLa Land, Miss Ashwell seems to be on a constant real estate merry-go-round. In the early 1990s she quit-claimed an ocean front house on Carbon Beach to her now ex-husband artist/commercial director David Ashwell, and in May of 1998 she paid $1,050,00 for a inland side house in The Colony that she sold in September of 2002 for $2,200,000.

In August of 2004 she scooped up a perfectly private 3,119 square foot house on Westgate Avenue in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles for $3,170,000. Then, in October of 2007, according to property records, the Shabby Chic She-ra dumped $4,150,000 on a 5 bedroom and 3 pooper residence located just behind the Brentwood Country Mart where scads of stars such as Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Garner come to shop and nosh. In July of 20o9, presumably after completing a re-do of her new house behind the Brentwood Country Mart, Miss Ashwell sold her Westgate Avenue property to a cardiologist and a pediatrician for $2,824,400 after listing it 10 months earlier with a much higher asking price of $4,395,000.

listing photos: Pritchett & Rapf via Redfin.

Cheryl Hines Lists Not Particularly Funny House

SELLER: Cheryl Hines
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $4,249,000
SIZE: 4,908 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It's always a breath of fresh air to come across a celebrity who recognizes that the bottom done fell out of the Los Angeles real estate market in 2008 and understnads that while there are signs of life and glimmers of hope the economy still sucks for most people and the days of buying a posh property and then quickly flipping it for a multi-million dollar profit is, for the most part, long gone.

One of those celebrities with a sensible real estate mind would seem to be Emmy nominated actress Cheryl Hines who a little birdie told Your Mama recently listed her house in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles with an asking price of $4,249,000. That, puppies, is a modest gain over the $4,125,000 that property records show she and her man-mate Paul Young paid for the property in June of 2005. A few flicks of the well worn beads of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's a barely there 3% gain over five years, a picayune profit for a house in this price range and one that will be more than eaten up by the fat real estate that will be paid when the property sells.

Most of the children should recognize Miz Hines, who once upon a time was Oscar nominated actor Rob Reiner's personal assistant, as the actress who portrays Larry David's wife on the HBO's semi-scripted and soo-blimely executed sit-com Curb Your Enthusiasm, a program on which she's starred to critical acclaim for the last 10 years. In addition to her role on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Miz Hines also worked her sometimes improvisational stuff in a fair number of films and television programs such as the animated series Father of the Pride, Herbie Fully Loaded, Goodnight Vagina, The Grand, and In the Motherhood. She even made a brief, 3-episode spin through the excruciating but magnetic family melodrama Brothers & Sisters.

A few minutes research on the interweb and Your Mama learns that Miz Hines is quite the bizzy beaver. In addition to her duties on Curb Your Enthusiasm, she'll be lending her voice to something called The Legend of Secret Pass, co-starring in a new one-camera sit-com called Wright vs. Wrong with Debra Messing (Will & Grace) and the a-may-zing Carrie Fisher, and she is the executive producer of an upcoming do good-feel good reality program call School Pride that follows the mawkish Extreme Makeover model. Instead of doing up houses that the financially less fortunate owners can no longer afford, Miz Hines' reality program will be about community members going in and improving busted up and broken down schools. Listen butter beans, Your Mama is all for fixing up schools, giving kids a clean and well equipped place to learn, and paying teachers a proper wage and all, but we are not interested in a program that mixes good ol' fashioned charity/volunteer work with the shameless manipulating of the heart strings of viewers. We find that sort of mawkish and obvious format tawdry, tacky, and more than just a little unseemly.

Anyhoo, according to listing information, Miz Hines' single story Cape Cod meets rambling California ranch meets a hay barn style residence located in the Mandeville Canyon area measures 4,908 square feet and includes a total of 6 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers. That breaks down, according to listing information, to 4 family bedrooms, a bedroom and pooper for Yorbalinda the live-in housekeeper, and a guest house above the garage with living room, bedroom, wee kitchen and private pooper.

A walled and electronically gated entrance shielded by tall trees and thick and mature foliage opens to a wide stone paved driveway and motor court that curls around a gnarled olive tree–that is an olive tree right?–and leads to a barn-like two car garage. A classic, farmhouse style front door with nine-glass panes opens into a generously sized entry with adjoining powder pooper. The formal living room–which really isn't very formal at all in large part to the massive flat screen tee-vee mounted onto the stone fireplace where an actual piece of art ought to be–has distressed oak hardwood floors, built in cabinetry tucked into a niche, beamed ceilings, and a wall of nine-over-nine sash windows that reach deliciously almost all the way to the floor. The formal dining room has an oddly located and narrow niche with shelves for displaying the china or whatever, a low but lovely wood ceiling and, much to Your Mama's delight, s Dutch door that opens into the backyard. Dutch doors are pefect for letting the breeze blow through but still keeping the kiddies and the pets from sneaking out and dumping themselves in the pool.

The wide, galley style kitchen has both granite and butcher block counter tops, Viking brand stainless steel appliances, and over-scaled, cream colored honey bee tile floors that Your Mama thinks need a'changing. The kitchen opens into a window wrapped breakfast room as well as a family room where someone left a horrid and oddly located 9-dollar Home Despot light fixture in the ceiling. Uhm, no. We just can't get past that in a four million dollar house. That's the same stoopid light fixture that Your Mama's lame and lazy landlord installed in our old two-bedroom tenement on the Lower East Side of New York back in the early 1990s. Pleeze. People. No.

Anyhoo, the master suite includes a large and largely uninspired pooper with a giant step up soaking tub sunk into a marble surround and flanked by twin vanities. We're not even going to comment or reference our Big Book of Decorative Dos and Don'ts as to the cliché fuchsia colored orchid sitting in the far corner of the room. There are also dual master closets, according to listing information, and a fireplace shoved uncomfortably into the corner of the room in such a way as to make us feel edgy, off-kilter, and in dire need of a nerve pill to readjust our decoratively sensitive equilibrium.

The guest house above the garage has a slightly rustic, Upstate New York sort of thing going on with a pitched wood beamed ceiling, hardwood floors, multi-paned sash windows, wide wainscot cabinetry, and that dead damn fish up on the wall.

A wide, brick terrace, part of which is covered and part of which has a silly portable fire pit that's designed to look as if it's not portable, extends off the back of the house until it reaches a gently curving quarter wall that separates the terrace from the lawn and swimming pool areas. A myriad of mature trees and foliage ring the perimeter of the yard and ensure the outdoor spaces remain quiet and private should Miz Hines and Mr. Young want to have a romantical evening in the spa attached to the heated free-form swimming pool that's half-heartedly landscaped with river rock and ferns to look like a blue lagoon or something.

Although country casual is not in any manner, shape, or form Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's preferred decoratin' modality, it's always nice to peek into a celebrity home that's not been over-processed, over-blown, and over-styled into a sterile showplace that's sole purpose seems to scream and yell, "Look how rich and successful I am. No, seriously, look at me. I'm rich and my house is huge and there's not a hair out of place!" Miz Hines' house, on the other hand, actually looks like that of regular people–albeit it very wealthy people–largely unbuckled and untarnished from the plasticine glamour that infects Los Angeles and far to often substitutes for actual substance. Can you hear Your Mama Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian? Okaaaay?

Miz Hines and Mister Young's nearby neighbors include a number of other Hollywood types including Courtney Thorne Smith (Melrose Place), 3-time Oscar winning director Oliver Stone (Nixon, JFK, Born on the 4th of July, Platoon), actor Dennis Quaid, and twitchy comedian Gary Shandling.

listing photos: Architecture 8

Kelly Rutherford Moves On

SELLER: Kelly Rutherford
LOCATION: West Hollywood, CA
PRICE: $1,399,000
SIZE: 2 bedrooms, 1.75 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Believe it or not kittens, not every celebrity who makes a mint working their stuff on a successful and long running tee-vee program lives like a damn pasha. One of those people, it would seem, is eco-active actress Kelly Rutherford who recently put her updated and well-maintained but modest West Hollywood, CA bacherlorette pad on the market with an asking price of $1,399,000.

Miss Rutherford, a blond beauty with classic old-school good looks, started up her ladder of fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s when she starred on the short-lived Generations, a soap story that, oddly, became such a huge hit in Turkey that even today Miss Rutherford is still a huge star that most unlikely of places. Generations was followed by several boob-toob false starts in the 1990s (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., The Great Defender, Kindred: The Embraced) that eventually led her to the cult hit Melrose Place on which she starred from 1996 to 2000. The early to mid-naughts brought several more projects that never quite got off the ground and that Your Mama has never heard of (E-Ring, Threat Matrix, The District). Then, in 2007, the fame and fortune dam burst wide open for Miss Rutherford when she landed the plum role of wild child turned uptight Upper East Side socialite Lily van der Woodsen on the ridiculous and ridiculously popular Gossip Girls.

Property records show that Kentucky born and California bred Miss Rutherford bought her West Hollywood bachelorette pad in July 2005 for $1,250,000. This would have been about a year before she married German venture capitalist Daniel Giersch with whom had a very public parting of ways in late 2008 when she was all kinds of preggers with the erstwhile couple's second baby. The split and the subsequent battle over custody arrangements and other assorted nonsense became so ugly that Miss Rutherford actually filed a restraining order against her now ex-huzband claiming he had been following her, her mother, and the nanny causing her undue stress that kept her from lactating. 'Tis true puppies, or at least that is what was reported in the tabs and on the blogs.

Anyhoo, the warring couple's bitter, bitter, bitter dee-vorce was finally finalized just days ago and, while it ain't none of our beeswax, Your Mama hopes for the sake of the children that the two of them can move on with their lives without continuing to wrap their children up in their dirty laundry or dragging them through the muck and mud of their spectacularly failed relationship. Miss Rutherford, for her part, seems to have landed herself a new man-friend so things are looking up already.

Miss Rutherford–who drives a Prius y'all–briefly listed her wee Spanish style West Hollywood casa in February of 2007 but just a month later had a real estate change of heart and opted to hang on to her small spread where she had lived as a single lady. The modest if not exactly inexpensive property is centrally located on a leafy, tree-lined street and is walking distance to Robertson Boulevard where people like Paris Hilton shop for baubles, beads and other expensive crap at places like Kitson and Lisa Kline and where (in)famous folks Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian, and Jason 'Gummi Bear' Davis go when they're feeling like they want to have their pictures snapped by the paps. Robertson Boulevard, a sad victim of its own trendy success as far as Your Mama is concerned, is also home to the legendary, celebrity choked restaurant The Ivy as well as the Kabbalah Centre where people like Madonna–the undisputed Kween of Kabbalah–go to do whatever it is they do at a Kabbalah Centre.

Miss Rutherford's pretty and admirably unpretentious house–which was once featured in the unfortunately defunct Domino magazine–measures just 1,040 square feet according to the tax man and has 2 bedrooms each with their own updated pooper according to listing information.

The front door, tucked into a puny tile roofed porch, is approached through a lushly planted tropical garden and opens directly into the small living room that features a wood burning fireplace flanked by windows and honey colored hardwood floors laid on the diagonal. It's unclear if the pared down day-core that consists of little more than a couple of matching white slip covered sofas facing off over a spindle legged ottoman covered with a complex print is a reflection of the fact that Miss Rutherford spends much of her time in New York City where Gossip Girl films, if she's done moved on to other digs, or if she just has a simple aesthetic and an aversion to unnecessary clutter and over-done day-core.

The dining room, which looks large for such a picayune pad, has more honey colored hardwood floors laid on the diagonal, a wall of built in cabinets and shelves and a massive sky light that pierces the roof directly above the farmhouse style wood dining room table. Your Mama thinks the sky light is kind of genius but only because Miss Rutherford or her nice, gay decorator thought to cover the opening with a white fabric that mutes and softens the harsh and almost always shining southern California sunshine. Without that fabric covering Your Mama would worry that daytime diners would sizzle and burst into flames the way that bugs do when naughty children hold a magnifying glass over them.

The doorway to the kitchen was wisely widened to pull light and view into the dining room through the pane-free French doors that swing open onto the deck that extend off the back of the house. The small but functional and well-equipped kitchen has limestone counter tops, a huge stainless steel farmhouse sink, and high-grade stainless steel appliances including a 24-inch wide Sub-Zero fridge/freezer combo and a 4-burner baby Viking range. Your Mama loves us some open shelving for displaying dishware and well packaged comestibles, however iffin this were out house–and we wouldn't mind if it were because we are decidedly not a real estate size queen–we would opt to enclose the floor to ceiling shelving that faces out into what was probably originally designed as a bantam breakfast room and we'd immediately remove the sinister looking pot rack looming right above the spot where one much stand to use the stove or oven. Looming pot racks can not, we're quite certain, be good for the feng shui.

Not surprisingly, the pared down but not exactly minimal day-core continues into the bedrooms. The master bedroom–which is only about as a big as a maid's room in many mansions–contains little more than a bed covered in white linens, a couple of tall bamboo nightstands, a small settee, and an elegant Fortuny chandelier that works in lovely opposition to the utter simplicity of the rest of the room. The itty bitty master bathroom was made to appear and feel larger by using crisp white tile and paint, clear glass and strategically placed mirrors. It's a cute little pooper–remember this house is smaller than most 2-bedroom condos–but we're deeply concerned about the proximity of the terlit to the pedestal sink not to mention the danger of bonking one's tender head on the window that opens into the room directly above the terlit.

The large deck, accessible through the kitchen and one of the bedrooms, has a built-in barbecue center with an under-counter fridge for keeping cool drinks and offers plenty of room for summertime grillin' and chillin'. Although it may not adhere to building codes, ideally we'd remove the clunky railing from the deck that steps down into a gravel and flagstone courtyard area surrounded by thick tropical foliage that provides privacy for Miss Rutherford, her children, and guests. The small garage, according to listing information, has been converted to a flexible use space, perhaps as an office, home fitness center, or yoga room.

Even though she spends a great deal of time in New York City, it seems unlikely that Miss Rutherford will pull up her real estate roots entirely in Los Angeles. She is, after all, from Southern California and, as far as we know, her ex-husband and baby-daddy Daniel Giersch still resides in Los Angeles and he has court ordered visitation with the kids.

Speaking of the ex-husband and baby daddy Daniel Giersch, he too has a house on the market. Before the couple went splitsville, they embarked on a massive, multi-million dollar eco-friendly renovation of a home in Bel Air that according to listing information contains 3 bedroom and 4 pooper and "sustainable, non toxic, eco-friendly timeless elements including but not limited to custom floor to ceiling aluminum doors, Turkish limestone, onyx, elephant leather flooring, silk curtains & furniture, slate roof & copper gutters. The lush greenscape is supplied by a gray water system." Well, the gray water system certainly sounds "green" but we're not sure that elephant leather flooring is a particularly environmentally friendly material.

Mister Giersch first listed the very privately situated Bel Air property in May of 2010 with an asking price of $4,850,000. A million dollar chop in early June brought the asking price down to $3,850,000. That seemed to do the trick because just weeks later the property went into contract and is fixin' to close any day now.

Now that Miss Rutherford and Mister Giersch will soon be decamping to new digs not infused with the (bad) energy of the other, perhaps their family feud will come to an end and they'll each find a peaceful, quiet and pap free space to make their own.

Your Mama Hears...

...That actress and "singer" Scarlett Johansson's real estate saga is finally over. That's right puppies, Your Mama was just informed by an informant we'll call Chateau Briand that ScarJo has indeed and finally unloaded her real estate white elephant located in the Outpost Estates neighborhood in Los Angeles.

If the children put on their thinking caps they will recall that Miz Johansson paid $7,000,000 for a 4 bedroom and 5.5 pooper Spanish style casa in May of 2007. This would have been the apex of the now dramatically burst real estate bubble and long before she married her husband Ryan Reynolds whose abdominal muscles ripple like the wash board Your Mama's granny Rayna used to warsh her clothes.

By April of 2009 whispers and rumors started to slip down the real estate gossip grapevine and into Your Mama's bulging inbox that the chesty Miss Johansson–who had by then become Missus Reynolds–wanted to sell the house even though she'd spent a pretty penny or two on renovations and, according to our snitches, had spent very little time actually living up in the Spanish style casa.

Ten months later, in early February of 2010, the 4,352 square foot residence was, not exactly surprisingly, hoisted on the open market with an asking price of $4,995,000, more than two million smackers less than she paid for the place. By February of 2010 the asking price had slipped all the way down to $4,500,000.

Property records Your Mama accessed–as well as information provided by Miss Briand–shows that the new owner is tee-vee writer Matt Tarses and his wife Kathleen who actually closed on the property in mid June, 2010. What records do not show is the sale price. However, word on the celebrity real estate street is that the deal went down for somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,300,000.

If that rumored sale price is accurate, a few quick flicks of the well worn beads of our bejeweled abacus then shows that Miz Johansson-Reynolds took an astonishing financial bath on the transaction amounting to $2,700,000 not counting renovation costs and the fat real estate fees that could have easily cost her another two hundred ground.

Poor Miz Johansson-Reynolds is quickly developing bad habit of losing money on her real estate impulses. In January of 2006 she paid $1,950,000 for a 1,300 square foot loft style apartment at 66 Leonard street in New York City's TriBeCa neighborhood that she sold in April of 2008 for, according to records, $1,898,000. According to The Easter Bunny, Miz Johansson-Reynolds and her hunky huzband have hightailed it to New York City where in April of 2008 she splashed out $2,100,000 for a 2 bedroom and 2 pooper penthouse apartment on East 53rd Street.

Although Your Mama knows nuthin' more than the whispers and rumbles we've read online and in the tabs, the comely couple are said to have recently picked up a farmette in the oil ravaged state of Louisiana that they're doing over with some eco-friendly this and thats including solar heating. Well, good for them if it's true.

Blythe Danner Lists Ocean View Condo in Santa Monica

SELLER: Blythe Danner
LOCATION: Santa Monica, CA
PRICE: $1,860,000
SIZE: 1,396 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After some confusion and a bit of back and forth with Jimi J. Cocoapuff, it has come to Your Mama's attention that award winning actress and celebrity mom Blythe Danner recently listed her Santa Monica, CA condo with an asking price of $1,860,000.

Miz Danner, the widow of writer/producer/director Bruce Paltrow (The White Shadow, St. Elsewhere) and mother of sometime director Jake Paltrow (NYPD Blue), is the famous maw-maw of the much more famous Oscar winning ack-tress Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man franchise, Running With Scissors, Proof, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Shakespeare in Love and et. al). Now poodles, much as we like to dish about Gwynnie and her superstar real estate ways, we're not actually here to discuss her, her tumescent Goop blog, or even her porcine portfolio of high-priced properties in London and New York. It's Blythe Danner's fast paced real estate ways that are of interest today.

While she's known in households around the world for her roles on both the small and silver screens (Will & Grace, Huff, the Fockers film franchise) and has earned an impressive 5 Emmy nominations that resulted in two wins, Miz Danner is actually, arguably and perhaps, a more accomplished stage actress. At the dewy age of 25, she appeared to great acclaim in the Lincoln Center Rep's production of The Miser and in 1970, she received a Tony award for her role in Butterflies Are Free. Miz Danner went on to receive three more Tony nominations for treading the boards in Streetcar Named Desire, Betrayal, and Follies.

Property records reveal Miz Danner's ocean view condo was purchased in March of 2007 for $1,860,000, an amount the eagle eyed children will note is identical to the current listing price. That means even if Miz Danner's real estate people manage the unlikely real estate mitzvah of turning up a a buyer willing to cough up full price, she'll be out at least $75,000 in fees and expenses. Listing information and property records show the single story unit measures a modest 1,386 square feet and includes 2 bedrooms and 2 poopers.

Before we begin in earnest Your Mama would like to offer the caveat that although we are a fan of Miz Danner's professional abilities, we are not down with the day-core we find her nearly two million clam condo in Santa Monica. That said, we will allow that that condo is indeed done over in a manner that allows Your Mama to imagine this is actually some one's home–albeit a part time home of uninspired day-core–rather than one of those sterile, frou-frou furniture showroom like places far too many famous folk live. Okaaaay?

The smallish, but open plan main living space is a somewhat surprising and totally disappointing decorative goulash of 1980s let's-do-it-all-in-neutral day-core meets a 1995 issue of Country Living magazine meets the beach meets an uncoordinated soupçon of faux Louis. Altogether and with all due respect to the dee-voon Miz Danner, this melange gives Your Mama an awful case of the gas. We've got mixy-matchy pine pieces mixed with a glossy white Parson's table paired with an horrific fully mirrored wall on which are hung a kooky collection of clocks that mingle wearily with a duo of bergere style chairs covered in lime green fabric that coexist uncomfortably with a banal painting/print of a snow covered barn that's arguing vociferously with a director's chair that's positively punished with a puzzling floral print seat back all of which is adulterated with an elephant sized and intricately carved chestnut colored armoire. Phew! The floors, covered with oatmeal colored wall to wall carpeting except for the trapezoidal shaped wood floored entry area, and the walls that are painted an aggressive and angry shade of egg shell or ecru or some other boring beige color are not only the excruciating back drop for this condo, but also the nail in its decorative coffin.

What is nice are the giant, floor to ceiling windows that divide the interior spaces from a perfectly lovely if small ocean view terrace where Miz Danner might have sat quietly with a generous glass of a big and oaky California chardonnay and watched the waves crash and the fog retreat and/or roll in.

The kitchen appears to have been expensively renovated...in the 1990s...and includes, not surprisingly, beige raised panel cabinetry, sand and slate colored flecked granite counter tops, gray veined marble tile floors, a huge integrated Sub-Zero fridge and freezer, and one of these electric cook tops that look like they're made of shiny linoleum. It's certainly an adequately sized and set up kitchen for a relatively small high end condo, but it's just so damn dull it makes Your Mama want to prick our skin with a sharp object just so we can feel something besides beige.

The master bedroom has an entire, blood curdling wall behind the bed done up in floor to ceiling mirrors, a behemoth bed with a lot of unnecessary decorative pillows and beige linens, and a small garden view terrace. The attached bathroom is awash in gray veined marble tiles that climb the walls in the glass enclosed shower, sit atop the two-sink counter top, and wrap around the ginormous soaking tub. Although it's arguably more appropriate in the bathroom than in the living room or the bedroom, the walls above the marble tile work that surround the tub are completely covered in mirror giving the master pooper a disturbing carnival house effect that makes Your Mama's eyes cross and knees turn to jelly.

Miz Danner's digs are located within one of the better and better known high-rise condo buildings in Santa Monica where Your Mama hears through the celebrity real estate grapevine that singer Stevie Nicks shacks up even though she owns a huge house in nearby Pacific Palisades. The contemporary complex, which practically hangs over the Pacific Coast Highway and offers unobstructed and dramatic panoramic views up and down the undeniably spectacular California coastline, was built in 1963 and extensively remodeled in the mid-1990s. Some of the amenities of the full-service building include 24-hour doormen, valet parking, swimming pool, spa and a state-of-the-art fitness center. The complex also includes secured garaging and Miz Danner's condo comes complete with two deeded and covered parking spaces.

The listing of her Santa Monica pied a terre is only a small slice of the barrage of real estate activity in which Miz Danner has been involved the last few years. In the spring of 2005, Miz Danner unloaded the 29-acre lake front spread she and her now deceased huzband owned in the sleepy Westchester County community of Waccabuc, NY. The bucolic estate, comprised of two separate parcels, sold for a combined $6,000,000.

In August of 2006, Miz Danner sold an apartment in a fancy pre-war apartment tower on Manhattan's lower Fifth Avenue for $1,800,000. It was previously reported that daughter Gwynnie and former man-friend Brad Pitt–now Angelina Jolie's baby daddy/live-in beehawtcha–lived in the apartment back in the olden days when they were America's most famous and attractive Hollywood couple. A couple months later, in November of 2006, Miz Danner sold the ol' Paltrow/Danner homestead in Santa Monica for a whopping $8,600,000. Miz Danner and Mister Paltrow bought the 5,290 square foot house way back in 1976 and raised their entertainment bidness progeny there. The property next door, bought in 1999, was sold about the same time and brought in another $2,100,000.

A few, quick flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that in under two years time Miz Danner pocketed an astounding $18,500,000–less mortgages and real estate fees–into her now bulging bank accounts. If she wasn't a rich woman before, she certainly was one by the end of 2006.

In the spring of 2007, about the same time she was laying out $1,860,000 for her now for sale condo in Santa Monica, the still blond and beautiful senior citizen turned around and dropped $3,125,000 on a 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom 17th floor unit in the very same pre-war dowager on lower Fifth Avenue in which she had only months before sold an apartment. Based on previous reports it is here in this apartment on lower Fifth Avenue where Your Mama believes Miz Danner lives most of the time, or at least when she's not catting about with her pampered daughter Gwynnie and her brood of oddly named children.