Jesse James Slashes Asking Price by 26%

SELLER: Jesse James
LOCATION: Sunset Beach, CA
PRICE: $4,995,000
SIZE: 3,626 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.25 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Cheating huzbands are quickly developing into a theme this week. Yesterday we discussed the real estate rumors about serial adulterer Tiger Woods' estranged and soon to be dee-vorced wife Elin Nordegren hunting for a house in Boca Raton, FL and today Your Mama has some real estate low down on actress Sandra Bullock's chopper customizing and philandering ex-huzband Jesse James.

In late May of 2010, amid all the brouhaha and ballyhoo surrounding the couple's dirty laundry and impending dee-vorce, it was widely reported that Mister James heaved the ocean front residence in Sunset Beach, CA where he and his Oscar winning ex-wife once lived together on the market with a rather optimistic asking price of $6,750,000.

Shortly after the 4th of July, according to information provided to Your Mama by Buhteenuh Beachdweller, Mister James and his real estate people wisely opted to chop the price tag for Mister James' beach house all the way down to a still pricey but far less shocking $4,995,000. A few flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals that the $1,755,000 markdown represents a gigantic 26% reduction from the original price.

Property records show that Mister James bought his beach house, a two story quasi-Mediterranean villa with 3,626 square feet, in September of 2003 when he was still married to his second wife, award winning porno hacktress, tax evader, and huzband beater Janine Lindemulder. Records also show Mister James' crib has 2 bedrooms and 2.5 poopers while online listing information shows there are 4 bedrooms, each with a private pooper plus a powder pooper for guests.

Like in most California beach communities, Mister James' house sits right up on the street and so close to the neighboring house that even a toothpick thin catwalker would have a tough time squeezing in between. On the street side, a gated and lushly landscaped courtyard with a gurgling fountain and curving stone pathway serves as a serene buffer between the street and the stone floored entrance hall that steps up to the open plan living/dining/kitchen area.

The Canterra stone tile used for the entry pathway and floor in the foyer continue up four steps and into the main living space comprised living, eating and cooking areas. The living room is focussed on a massive fireplace with carved stone surround and flanked by built in cabinetry, the dining area looks out towards the beach, and the gore-may kitchen has slab granite counter tops, custom raised panel maple cabinetry, a curving crescent shaped breakfast counter, walk-in pantry, and a full complement of Viking brand stainless steel appliances including a wine fridge and under counter ice making machine.

The main living space opens into an ocean side glass-enclosed lanai worked over with mood lighting and overly dramatic auto-lighting tiki torches according to listing information. Most of the lanai is taken up by the swimming pool and faux stone grotto where, Your Mama assumes, the spa is located. A steep stairway "carved" into the faux stone allows the bold and the brave to clamor up to the top of the grotto at their own risk and hurtle themselves down the short, curving slide, past the waterfall and into the swimming pool.

The children will note that listing photos show a duck paddling in the pool, an unsanitary situation given that ducks are completely non-discriminating about where they do their dirty bizness. But perhaps more disturbing and distressing that swimming with duck excrement is that the neighboring house has a vast window that looks directly down into the lanai that completely compromises whatever sense of privacy is created or felt by the glass-enclosed lanai. There can be no daytime skinny dipping in this pool unless the nekkid don't care to have their naughty bits seen by the neighbor.

Beyond the lanai, a multi-level deck tucked into the dune has built in seating with thick upholstered cushion and provides a scenic and somewhat private perch for ocean viewing and sunset watching. From the deck a sandy path leads through the ice-plant and beach scrub to the extraordinarily wide beach and pounding surf. The near absence of street and/or public parking in Sunset Beach ensure that the broad beach isn't overly burdened by out of town beach goers who all too frequently wear bathing costumes that do anything and everything but flatter their over and under fed bodies.

Back inside, a curving stone stairway with an intricately scrolled iron banister leads to the upstairs master bedroom that has a boxed beam ceiling, hardwood flooring, fireplace, ocean views through large window that slides open to a Juliet balcony, walk-in closet, and a Travertine clad master pooper complete with double sinks, steam shower, and Jacuzzi tub. The master bedroom day-core, we regret to inform, is a not particularly pleasing melange of carved wood chairs that look like they might be from Indonesia or Bali or someplace like that, a couple of woven wicker stools unnecessarily placed at the foot of the bed, and a couple of glitzy and glammy mirrored chests on either side of the bed. Mister James' big bed is dressed with white linens and topped with two large leopard print decorative pillows and two smaller black velvet pillows embroidered with a skull and crossbones that offer an ironic and most assuredly unintended message that the once happy marriage between he and America's Sweetheart is d.e.a.d.

Although there is also a guest bedroom with full pooper and walk-in closet on the second floor, listing information for the property indicates the other two bedrooms have been converted for other uses besides slumber and fornication. There is, according to listing information, an ocean view office/bedroom and a large media/game room that has a coffered ceiling with wedding cake moldings, hardwood floors, built in cabinetry and shelves, wet bar, and a couple of down-filled white slip-covered sofas for laying around and watching the wall-mounted flat screen boob-toob.

Other amenities, according to listing information, include an over-sized three car garage with custom fitted "tool crib," whatever that is, professional quality audio and video systems, and a state of the art surveillance system, natch, with multiple security cameras that ensure any moe-ron who gets the damn fool notion to go poking around the property will be filmed for posterity and arrested for trespassing.

As it turns out, another Sunset Beach, CA property owned by Mister James is also on the market and also recently received the bizness with the price chop tomahawk. Property records show Mister James bought a townhouse with rather unattractively accented on the exterior with river rock in November of 2002 for $777,000 and currently has it listed at $1,195,000 after first popping up on the market at $1,290,000. It's unclear to Your Mama if Mister James leased this house or if it is or was occupied by one of his former wives.


Listing information shows the townhouse measures 2,634 square feet, stands three stories tall, and includes 3 bedrooms, 3.5 poopers, 2 river rock fireplaces–one in the living room the other in the master bedroom–and an attached 2-car garage. Other features, according to listing information include a spiral staircase, hardwood floors, double height ceilings, granite counter tops in the kitchen and on the wet bar, an elevator, a small balcony off the living room, and a roof deck with peek-a-boo bay and ocean views.

It's been widely rumored and reported that Mister James is relocating to Austin, TX where he owns a chopper shop and which just happens to be one of the many places his unsullied by the scandal ex-wife Sandy has a home. We realize that Mister James neither asked for our opinion nor sought our sage counsel on the matter, but Your Mama just cain't keep our big- flap trap shut so we're gonna give the philandering fool some free words of wisdom anyway: Listen up J.J., you done blowed it up with Sandy by getting with that tattooed adulteress and as a result there ain't nuthin' but memories of better days to pick through now. Clearly your ex-wife has done moved on with her life, adopted a damn baby without you, and left you standing there in the dust of one of your tricked out chopper things. We suspect you'd have better luck calling up that home wrecker Bombshell McGee and begging her to take you in than you would to ask for mercy from your ex-wife who has shown nothing but great dignity and resolve throughout this sex mess you made. Okaaay?

Miz Bullock, who regularly rakes in well upwards of $15,000,000 per movie, also owns posh properties in Los Angeles, Tybee Island (GA), New Orleans, and New York City.

photos: Pacific Coast News (top photo only), Surfside Colony Real Estate (listing photos)

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.

House on the Mexican Pacific Coast

House overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Mexico, designed by Cadaval & Sola-Morales architects.Details from the architects:The main goal of the project was to create a low-cost and low-maintenance house that realised all the structural qualities of the material in which it was built to its full potential.The design takes forward the idea of low-cost/low-maintenance, and applies this strategy to all