Kid Rock Lists Malibu Mini-Compound

SELLER: Robert "Kid Rock" Ritchie
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $13,450,000
SIZE: 8,305 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a long-time tipster we've always referred to as The Rolling Stone, Your Mama learned that five time Grammy-nominated country-rap rocker Kid Rock heaved his Bali-inspired mini-compound in Malibu, CA on the open market with an asking price of $13,450,000.

Property records (and other online resources) show Mister Rock—a rare and active political conservative in the Shobizz mecca of bleeding heart liberals—acquired the walled, gated, and no-doubt heavily fortified 1.54 acre property in the heart Point Dume in October 2006 when he shelled out $11,600,000 for the two-story residence that's tucked discreetly in to the tail end of an angled cul-de-sac. Current digital marketing materials show there are five bedrooms and five bathrooms in 8,305 square feet plus a separate guest house.

Carved wood front doors—Your Mama imagines they could have been imported from somewhere in Indonesia or were perhaps purchased at one of the gajillions of places in Los Angeles that hawk Indonesian-y architectural artifacts—serve as the primary portal to and predominant design motif throughout the airy, interconnected living spaces.

A foyer with black and white mosaic tile floor steps down in to an amply proportioned formal living room that, thanks to hidden high-tech a/v equipment, does double duty as a screening room. Mister Rock and/or his team of lady and/or nice-gay decorators did up the living/screening room with a cozy combination of earthy caramel-toned leather club chairs and an over-sized roll-armed sectional sofa heaped with a hodge-podge of decorative cushions in a variety of suzani textiles. Not surprisingly, there's a high-brow and—because Mister Rock can actually play it—fully functional grand piano set prominently in front of an impressive wall of floor-to-ceiling windows hung with cinematic red velvet curtains that frame an up-close view of verdant, jungle-like surroundings.

A double-sided fireplace, one of at least four fireplaces in the house, divides the living/screening room from a spacious, open-concept kitchen/dining room. The dining area has rustic, glass-fronted breakfronts for tableware storage and and a lengthy, picnic-type table that easily seats a dozen diners. The kitchen fittings veer towards the sleek with straight lines, a shiny stainless steel center island, and industrial-style stainless steel appliances. Slightly variegated wood cabinets and a floating wood plank breakfast bar add a necessary bit of organica to the otherwise very contemporary cook center.

Numerous wood-framed French doors in both the living and dining room allow transition the interior living areas to a goodly-size and partially covered stone-tiled terrace that overlooks a thick stand of trees and shrubs.

As far as Your Mama can tell, each of Mister Rock's four guest/family bedrooms has direct access to a terrace, patio or veranda of some sort as does the large—but not forbiddingly so—master suite comprised of bedroom with sitting area and fireplace—not to mention a rather romantic, canopied bed—two walk-in closets, and a roomy bathroom complete with two sinks, a soaking tub set in front of a picture window, and a separate, partially glass-enclosed steam shower.

A detached guest house offers additional living and sleeping space and, like the main house, opens to a deep shaded veranda and over looks the rectangular swimming pool that's sunk simply into a flat patch of very green grass. A vine-draped nook bedside the pool has built-in cushioned seating and looks to Your Mama like a wonderfully shady spot to escape the sunshine and/or whittle away a breezy afternoon with a stack of gossip glossies and a giant bowl of penny candy.

Your Mama isn't sure where Mister Rock plans to live once he sells his Malibu estate but his personal property portfolio certainly doesn't suffer from a shortage of private residences. In January of 2012 the kids at Curbed Detroit (via the Detroit Free Press) revealed that the long-haired rock star paid an unknown amount of money for an elegant but tired 6,000-ish square foot waterfront mini-mansion in Detroit. (The last known asking price was $465,000) The very next month, as José Lambiet of Gossip Extra first reported, Mister Rock dropped $3.2 million for an ocean front fixer-upper in Jupiter Inlet Colony, FL, the same affluent enclave just north of Palm Beach where Olivia Newton John owns a house she almost sold to Rosie O'Donnell. Your Mama's research indicates Mister Rock also owns a townhouse-type condo in Nashville, TN, that he picked up in mid-2005 for $824,000, a 400-acre spread in Alabama, as well as a pair of adjoining, multi-acre equestrian estates northwest of downtown Detroit, in Clarkston, MI. One he picked up in October 2000 for $1,180,000 and the other a few months later for $600,000.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

Your Mama Hears...

...from a well-placed source, let's call her Tina Tattletale, that 16-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter David Foster his fourth wife, Dutch-born former model Yolanda Foster of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills notoriety are very quietly showing their bluff-top spread in Malibu, CA to a select group of people with an astronomical asking price of $27 million.*

Property records indicate Miz Foster, the ex-wife of Beverly Hills mega-mansion developer Mohamed Hadid, paid $4.5 million the 3.25 acre ocean-view property in June 2007, shortly after she and Mister Foster hooked up but long before they officially (and legally) hitched their wagons in a lavish wedding attended by a busload of high profile music industry bigwigs.

The couple custom built the 11,600+ square foot mansion that property records show was completed in 2009 and has six bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

Committed reality t.v. watchers may have seen Miz Foster on RHOBH picking lemons, arranging flowers, throwing ladies luncheons for the other "housewives," and otherwise pitter-pattering around as the pampered but unexpectedly sensible stay-at-home mother/housewife that she is.

Tina Tattletale went on to snitch to Your Mama that the Mediterranean-style mansion is "pretty amazing" with a "super crazy long [gated] driveway" and plaza-sized motor court and back in January Miz Foster toured the Bravo cameras through the sun-splashed and salt air-licked residence that includes formal entertaining spaces—with a grand piano, natch, a paneled study, and a super-sized center-island kitchen with marble slab counter tops and a somewhat famous glass-doored and marble-lined walk-in chiller (see picture 23). An adjoining family room has a full-wall of built-in bookshelves and another wall of wood-framed glass doors that fold open and connect to exterior living areas that include deep loggias for outdoor living, a broad, amorphous lawn, a rectangular negative edge swimming pool, two fire pits, and terraced citrus and avocado orchards, all with panoramic views of the Pacific.

Mister and Mister Foster luxuriate in a massive master suite that includes a boutique-style closet and dressing room (seen here) with floor-to-ceiling shoe racks; stacks of t-shirts and sweaters; drawers full of belts, sunglasses and lingerie; bunches of cubbies filled with dozens of designer handbags; and a long wall of meticulously organized glass-fronted wardrobes including one that's just for Miz Foster's collection of leather coats.

Other noteworthy features according to our tattletale include a home theater, a recording studio, and an extensive fitness complex with gym, spa, massage room, sauna, and hot and cold plunge pools.

Some of the children may recall that just a coupe months ago Mister and fourth-Missus Foster put their 4,200 square foot penthouse in downtown Victoria, B.C. on the market with a $5,250,000 price tag.

*Full disclosure: Your Mama first heard the ask was $18 million, then we heard it was $29 million, and then we finally heard $27 million.

aerial photo: Bing

Weekend This and Thats...

As far as we know, the property gossip lady at the L.A. Times was the first to reveal that sassy and sexy Scissor Sisters lead singer Jake Shears and his long-time man-friend, film maker Chris Moukarbel (Me @ The Zoo), dropped $1,920,000 for the Ulm House, a Streamline Moderne-style residence—sometimes attributed to architect Milton Black and other time to designer/builder William Kesling and built in 1937 in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles (CA). Listing details indicate the 2,309 square foot has a total of four bedrooms and four bathrooms on three levels of hillside living space with a curving glass-block wall, an illuminated magnasite stairway, and "dazzling city views."

listing photo: Sotheby's International Realty

::::::::

After unsuccessfully attempting to rent it out at $8,500 per month boy bander (turned satellite radio dj) Lance Bass listed his one bedroom and two bathroom condo-crib in New York City's Chelsea nabe with an asking price of $2.2. million. Mister Bass, who recently became engaged to his L.A.-based boyfriend according to the kids at Curbed, picked up the 1,300 square foot pad in the spring of 2010 for $1,495,000. Some of the notable amenities and creature comforts of the 10th floor apartment include almost a dozen closets plus loads of additional built-in storage, a windowless office with built-in Murphy bed for over-night guests, at least two flat-screen television flush-mounted into custom cabinetry.

The building, which couldn't be more convenient to the very same Whole Foods where Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter shopped when we lived in the Big Apple, is home to a number of other high-profile peeps who include Kyle MacLachlan and Tom Cruise's third ex-wife, Katie Holmes, and their fashionista toddler, Suri.

Our brief and entirely unscientific research shows Mister Bass has previously owned homes in Orlando (FL), Nashville (TN), and Los Angeles (CA), and currently maintains a home in his home state of Mississippi.

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

::::::::

Countess Luann de Lesseps of The Real Housewives of New York City recently busted up with Jacques Azoulay, her French man-friend of three years, and, according to the kids at Curbed, has once again jumped on the real estate merry-go-round and (re-)listed her 2.2 acre spread in Bridgehampton, NY with an asking price of $9,999,000. (The manners-obsessed reality star and royal-by-marriage attempted to sell the estate in 2009 for $9.5 million.).

Current listing details show the 6,500 square foot cedar-shingled farmhouse has living and dining rooms—check the Warholian portrait of the Countess in the dining room, a well-equipped country kitchen, separate den, six bedrooms—including a main floor master suite with dual baths, sauna, and direct access through French doors to the backyard, 7.5 bathrooms, and at least three fireplaces. Outdoor entertainments include spacious terraces, vast lawns, a swimming pool with adjacent, self-contained pool/guest house, a three-car detached garage, and, in the front yard, a sunken tennis court.

listing photos: Brown Harris Stevens

End of Week Pick Up Sticks: Brad Grey

SELLER: Brad and Cassandra Grey
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Bel Air), CA
PRICE: $27,500,000
SIZE: 10,616 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Paramount chieftain and all-around Showbiz power player Brad Grey and his second wife, Cassandra, have listed their stately white-brick Georgian-Colonial mansion in L.A.'s tony Bel Air area on the open market for $27,500,000.

Mister Grey acquired the house in the wake of his split and subsequent divorce from his first wife, Bonnie, in an off-market deal a bit more than four years ago for $22,000,000. The Hollywood honcho's top producing real estate broker told the property gossip gals at the Wall Street Journal that his client made several modifications and upgrades to the house including landscape refreshment, dining room renovation, sitting room addition on the second floor, and professional projection equipment installation in the formal living room so the glammed-up salon can do double duty as a de riguer screening room.

Current listing details show the 10,600+ square foot mansion was originally designed by L.A.-based mansion specialist Richard Manion and built in 2006 on 1.1 gated acres enclosed by electronic drive gates, high stucco walls, and and and even taller row of trees and privacy hedges.

Main floor living and entertaining spaces include: a double height foyer guaranteed to impress guests and pizza delivery people, roomy; sophisticated, cocktail and dinner party accommodating formal living and dining rooms; a cozy paneled office/library; a family room dominated by a gigantic, U-shaped sectional sofa; and, finally, an all-white kitchen with stainless steel appliances and an industrial-sized pot rack that looms over the super-sized center work island.

In addition to the master suite that's complete, according to digital marketing materials, with dual closets and bathrooms, there are three bedroom suites on the second floor clustered around a sitting room, perhaps the above mentioned one he added. One bedroom and one bathroom staff quarters, probably wedged tightly behind the kitchen near the laundry facilities and garage, bring the bedroom total to five.

Other features of note include three fireplaces, a fitness room plus a separate Pilates studio with private bathroom, a three car attached garage with off-street parking for a dozen or so more cars, and a state-of-the-art security system equipped with closed-circuit surveillance cameras.

Being in the prime East Gate section of Bel Air Mister Grey's estate is surrounded by a whole lotta L.A.-based money and power. Next door on one side is the Gothic Tudor mansion once owned by Nic Cage and on the other side is the almost four acre fully landscaped estate Beny Alagem who started Packard Bell and currently owns the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Across the street, funnily enough, are Rick and Kathy Hilton—that would be Paris's parents and the heirs to the Hilton Hotel fortune. Next door to the Hilton's is the home of music industry executive Jerry Moss and few doors down (and across the street) is Mi Patria, the nearly 9,000 square foot hacienda-style mansion another music industry executive, Freddy de Mann, sold to H. Ross Perot Jr. earlier this year for $18,000,000. Just around the bend one way is Michael Eisner's long-time estate while just around the corner in another direction is the newly re-worked estate of Terry Semel whose across the street neighbor is (charity-oriented lady-who-lunches) Alexandra Dwek who bought her big house in 2011 from Giannulli Mossimo and Laurie Laughlin for $16,600,000.

So the reportage goes, Mister Grey and his younger, fashion-oriented second missus have decided to custom build a brand spanking new contemporary residence designed by Napa Valley-based architect Howard Backen on a mostly flat and superbly located 2.3 acre parcel in the heart of the Holmby Hills 'hood that Mister Grey purchased in late 2010 for $18.5 million and where the couple hosted their glitzy, star-studded nuptials in the spring of 2011. The property, directly across the street from the former Walt Disney estate that private investor and Houston Dynamo co-owner Gabriel Brener has made available as an off-market listing with a hair-straightening $90 million price tag, once had a elegant and beautifully proportioned if somewhat shabbily maintained hacienda-style Monterey Colonial on the property that once owned by Frank Sinatra. Alas, after failing to flip the fixer-upper in 2011, when he put it up for sale for $23,500,000, Mister Gray opted to raze the 8,613 square foot red brick residence* and then—once again in vain—tried to sell the newly vacant parcel for $20,000,000.

Mister and Missus Grey also own a 3,000 square foot, full-floor spread in the tower section of the perfectly swellegant (if a mite stuffy) Carlyle hotel and residences in New York City that they bought almost three years ago for $15,500,000.**

*For better or worse, depending on your point of view, the house was not protected under any historical statute or designation.

**The provided floor plan for Mister and Missus Grey's New York City pied-a-terre was retrieved from still available digital listings as it was organized at the time of their 2011 acquisition. For all Your Mama knows, they've radically rearranged the layout. 

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Westside Estate Agency

End of Week Pick Up Sticks: Mitzi Gaynor

SELLER: Mitzi Gaynor
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $5,495,000
SIZE: 4,167 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.75 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama knows that some of the children, especially the young ones, are hissing and spitting, "Mitzi, who? Gay, what?" But, hunties, iffin you don't know who Mitzi is, well, we suggest you crack open your encyclopedia of Hollywood history and look her up because anyone who knows anything at all about the history of Hollywood knows that Mitzi Gaynor is a goddamn Tinseltown legend who, we first learned from the gossip juggernaut TMZ, has put her long-time residence on a tree-lined street in the Flats of Beverly Hills (CA) up for sale with a $5,495,000 million asking price.

Miz Gaynor, an honest-to-goodness triple threat performer with a definite and smoldering yet demure and approachable carnality, starred in a slew of silver screen musicals in the 1950s and early '60s. She hoofed in with Bing Crosby in Anything Goes, she held her own against Marilyn Monroe in There's No Business Like Show Business, and she stuck it in South Pacific opposite the suave Italian actor Rossano Brazzi. Starting in the late sixties and throughout most of the 1970s Miz Gayner starred in highly rated annual musical specials (see below video) and she was a frequent and popular performer on Hollywood awards shows. And, ladies and gentlemen, this lady killed it in Las Vegas spectaculars long before anyone in the lower 48 had even heard of Céline D-whatshername from Canada. Miz Gaynor was, in her day, the shit and she deserves the respect due a Hollywood veteran of her stature. Okay?

<iframe width="400" height="300" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xXo2Fgrnj6c?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
We're not quite sure when Miz Gaynor, now in her 80s, and her late husband/manager Jack Bean bought the house but we know it ages ago. They probably paid pennies for it compared to its current price tag and good for them. Listing details show the two-story Spanish style casa was built in 1929 and has five bedrooms and 5.75 bathrooms* in 4,167 square feet of dated but carefully maintained interior space that, as per listing description, "captures the glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age."

Many of the homes original details survive, such as the groin-vaulted entry loggia, Spanish tile and Parquet de Versailles style wood flooring, beamed ceiling in the living room (that's regrettably been painted white), leaded glass sky lights, and casement windows and French doors.

Public and entertaining spaces include a center hall entry with wrought iron railed staircase, generously proportioned formal living and dining rooms—the former with a black marble fireplace, and a sun room in which a row of over-sized arched windows lead out to a red-brick dining terrace that's shaded by a blue and white striped awning and over looks the backyard and swimming pool.

Although dated and fairly utilitarian with bull-nosed granite counter tops and ho-hum raised panel cabinetry, the kitchen is reasonably sized with a small center work island, a high-end commercial-style six-burner range, and an adjacent butler's pantry lined with glass-fronted upper cabinets. The nearby breakfast room is an exquisite—if Old School—jewel box with honey-toned Venetian plaster walls, original casement windows, a built-in buffet with leaded glass details, and a decadent antique crystal chandelier.

Listing details indicate there are two guest/family bedrooms up stairs plus the super-sized master suite that encompasses a bedroom chamber and adjoining sitting room, a Juliet balcony that overlooks the backyard, and a closet-lined dressing room as well as a roomy walk-in closet chock-full of Miz Gaynor's (probably Bob Mackie-designed) cocktail gowns. The master bathroom was left un-described and un-photographed in all of the digital listings Your Mama perused. Make of that what you will.

A fourth potential bedroom/library with private bathroom is located on the main floor. Your Mama recklessly assumes that's the room in which the same graphic striped fabric was applied to the walls, the roll-armed divan, the (uncomfortable looking patio-like) chair cushions and the curtains. It was also stuck to at least three of the four walls in the attached bathroom. This sort of day-core just isn't done anymore so, as far as Your Mama is concerned, it's a marvelous little decorative time capsule. Like many of these older homes that lined the painstakingly manicured streets in the Flats of Beverly Hills, there's a staff bedroom and bathroom tucked back into the service area behind the kitchen.

We have not one single piece of intel as to her future real estate plans but if Your Mama were the wagering type—and we're not—we'd put a few pennies on Miz Gayner downsizes to a two or three bedroom condo in one of the full-service luxury towers that line the Wilshire Corridor near Westwood and Century City.

listing photos: Wish Sotheby's International Realty

End of Week Pick Up Sticks: Judge Judy

Famously forceful, cantankerous, and occasionally hostile television judge Judy Sheindlin continues to shake up her impressive residential real estate portfolio. In May (2013) she and her husband, Jerry—a former television judge himsef, sold their five-room pied-a-terre at the super-snooty Sherry Netherland on New York City's Fifth Avenue for $8.5 million to a high-cultured Philadelphia-based couple, dollar store pioneer Bernard Spain and his sophisticated, social, and always meticulously maquillaged wife, Joan.

At almost the exact same time in May (2013) that the Judges Sheindlin dumped their digs at the Sherry in New York City, the $45 million dollar a year earner laid out $10.7 million for a five bedroom condo-crib the size of suburban macmansion in the heart of Beverly Hills at the swish Montage Beverly Hills, the same luxury hotel and condo complex where Oprah Winfrey (allegedly) owns a $14 million part-time residence.

Now comes word via the property obsessed peeps at The Real Deal that the 14-time Daytime Emmy nominee—always a Showbiz bridesmaid never a bride—and her hubby shelled out $8,500,000 for a spacious duplex penthouse atop a full-service co-operative building designed by the inestimable architect Rosario Candela and built in 1929 in Midtown Manhattan's sleepy and still pretty damn swanky if not terribly fashionable Sutton Place nabe.

Digital listing details, which include a delectable floor plan, show the two-floor aerie has four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, two wood-burning fireplaces, a roomy living room with three exposures, a wood-paneled library, a formal dining room, and a colossal center island kitchen with a temperature controlled walk-in wine cellar that can accommodate 900 bottles of booze. A private terrace wraps entirely around the upper level living spaces. Monthly maintenance charges ring up to $7,363 but the proudly churlish yet wildly popular lady judge (reportedly) earns $123,000 per day so, you know, she could probably dig up seven grand every month in the seats of her private jet.

This is not, as it turns out, the first time Judge Judy and Mister Judge Judy have owned an apartment in the Sutton Place area. Three years ago, according to property records we peeped, they quietly sold a three bedroom and 4.5 bathroom duplex penthouse with two terraces in a luxury post-war tower on Sutton Place South. Miz Sheindlin and her husband, Jerry, also own a swanky condo in Naples, FL, and a baronial estate they had custom built in high-nosed Greenwich, CT. We've read they keep a place in Wyoming but, honestly butter beans, we don't know a thing about that.

listing photos and floor plan: Stribling

Aussie Actor Paul Hogan Sells Malibu Spread Aussie Actor Chris Hemsworth

SELLER: Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski
BUYER: Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $4,800,000
SIZE: 6,382 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While his younger brother, Liam, grapples with tabloid readers' rabid obsession with his newly called off engagement to twerking and tongue-showing Showbiz rabble-rouser Miley Cyrus, beefcake-y action flick actor Chris Hemsworth and his model/actress wife Elsa Pataky have quietly acquired a mini-compound in the celebrity-filled Point Dume area of Malibu (CA) for $4,800,000.*

Thirty-year old Mister Hemsworth—six-foot-four with a tussled, Fabio-like blond mane and the pumped body of a gym-going superhero—and multi-lingual Miz Pataky purchased the approximately one acre spread from Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan and his Julliard-trained former actress wife, Linda Kozlowski. The Hogan-Kozlowskis purchased the property in July 2012 for $3.8 million, shortly after they settled confidentially with the Australian tax authorities who claimed they and Mister Hogan's former manager owed more than $150 million in back taxes. Yikes! During their brief ownership the couple made a number of mostly cosmetic but no-doubt viciously costly alterations to the house—i.e. they painted a bunch and did over the master bathroom, which had already had its interiors completely redone in a modern manner by the people they bought it from. Seven months later they caught a case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and flipped it back on the market with an sking price of $5,250,000.

Listing information from the time of the transaction show the existing, three-story residence, all but hidden behind secured gates and a towering wall of hedges, was built in 1992 in a Victorian-style that hides and belies open, airy, and decidedly contemporary interiors.

Normally Your Mama is all about a radical mix of old and new and high and low. We love a sleek, nearly minimal decor in a wedding cake-y Parisian hôtel particulier and we can really get behind a little bit of Louis or maybe a glammy Paul Kelly statement piece in a slightly shabby tenement apartment on the Lower East Side. Your Mama loves us a Nakashima table in an all-stainless steel kitchen and we j'adore disgustingly expensive French bed linens on an air mattress. (Well, we don't really care for all stainless steel kitchens, but y'all get the idea.) Howevuh, hunties, this house doesn't successfully create a particularly taut or cohesive juxtaposition between the disparate architecture and interior motifs as much as it seems to suffer from a split personality disorder. Sure, the Victorian exterior—an questionable choice for a beach house in Malibu to begin with—was pared down and modernized with an all-white paint job and there are some Victorian-esque details inside such as half-paneled walls in some of the public rooms on the main floor but, somehow, this unexpected mix-and-match between the modern and the Victorian lacks any real harmony. It just feels jarring, in this case, to walk up to a Victorian and walk into a contemporary. Plus, the curvaceous white-brick wall at the entry seems a bit more Colonial than Victorian but who are we to criticize? Anyhoo...

Spendy and downright stunning wide plank white oak floors run throughout the not exactly open concept but certainly interconnected main floor living spaces that include a "formal" living room with fireplace and a small adjoining vestibule tucked behind the staircase that connects to a trellis-shaded brick terrace that runs along the backside of the house. Pocket doors divide the living room from the formal dining room where Mister and Missus Hogan—and or their team of stager/decorators—covered the walls in an a steely and sophisticated greenish-gray that makes Your Mama wish we had a dining room painted a steely and sophisticated greenish-gray.

Things veer towards the dramatic in the center island eat-in kitchen where the cabinetry and steeply peaked double-height vaulted ceiling appear to be painted with the same steely and sophisticated greenish-gray hue as was splashed on the walls in the dining room. Listing photos show an inlaid marble floor, thick slab butcher block counter tops, open shelving for convenient access and display of daily-use tableware, and a farmhouse-y white porcelain apron sink. The top-grade appliances include a double-wide range (and hood) imported from France that Your Mama can assure the children likely cost more than the car y'alls cleaning lady drives. In a compact breakfast area there's a tiny corner fireplace and transom-topped glass doors that slide open to a red brick dining terrace. A glass-railed staircase angles up to a glass-railed study loft with built-in desk and cabinetry that overlooks the kitchen. There's another garret-office one more floor above although, to be honest, we're not exactly show how one accesses it.

Nearby the kitchen there's a sunny and spacious den/family room with two bay windows, one perfectly suited to accommodate a round table for casual meals or—heaven forfend—a poker table. One long wall is anchored by an unadorned, over-sized firebox that's flanked by floating shelves for displaying shells, rocks, and driftwood gathered up during misty morning beach walks. More sliding glass doors lead from the den/family room out to the aforementioned trellised red brick terrace that overlooks the down-sloping, terraced backyard.

Much to Your Mama's surprise (and chagrin), the property does not have—or, at least, did not have at the time of Mister and Missus Hemsworths' purchase—a swimming pool. There are, in fact, two good-sized flat sections of lawn in the terraced backyard that appear well-suited to a swimming pool, spa, and lounge area, particularly the lower lawn area. Call Your Mama an uptight old fart—and we've been called way worse, buttercups—but for 4.8 million clams Your Mama doesn't really care to go through the protracted and attention requiring hassle—not to mention expense—of designing, obtaining proper approvals and permits, and enduring construction set backs to install a brand new swimming pool, spa and lounge area. But, of course, lads and lassies, our whining is beyond moot since neither are Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter in in the market for a $4.8 million dollar house in Malibu (or anywhere else) and the lack of a cement pond was not—uh, duh—a deal breaker for Mister Hemsworth and Miz Pataky.

The second floor master suite is complete, according to digital marketing materials, with fireplace, separate sitting/dressing area, two fitted walk-in closets, and a private veranda with distant over-the-tree-tops view of the Pacific. The decent-sized but hardly gargantuan attached bathroom is freshly redone with double sinks set into a long floating cabinet, egg-shaped free-standing soaking tub, and a separate glassed-in shower enclosure. Listing details indicate there are additional three guest/family bedrooms with en suite facilities and a "bonus bedroom," whatever that is.

A spindly staircase that starts in the center entry hall entry winds tightly up through an open, light-soaked volume all the way to the third floor where a wood-floored lounge area sits below a many-peaked vaulted ceiling.

In addition to the handful of bedrooms and half dozen bathrooms in the main house, the compound-type—ahem—estate has a separate (but attached) and fully self-contained, two-story guest house outfitted in a similarly modern manner as the main house. Both the living room and the combo kitchen/dining room have wood floors and sliding glass doors that open to a private terrace and the bedroom is nestled, A-frame cabin-like into the steep pitch of the roof on the upper level.

In addition to a gated motor court (and attached three car garage) at the front of the house just outside the kitchen and service areas of the main house, a long, gated drive runs from the street to the extreme rear of the triangular-shaped lot where there's a detached three-car garage with a pretty damn dumpy attached studio-style guest/staff room with sad and disturbing flesh-colored tile floors, a tiny higgledly-piggledy kitchenette, and a private bathroom of unknown quality or condition.**

Your Mama has not even a whisper of a clue as to whether Mister Hemsworth and/or Miz Pataky own any additional property in Los Angeles, Spain, Australia, and/or the U.K. where they were spotted earlier this year with their infant baby popping in to a real estate brokerage in London's natty Knotting Hill. That doesn't mean they don't. Maybe they're secret real estate ballers with property portfolio that would make most millionaires squirm with envy. (We doubt it, but it's possible, right?) . We also aren't completely sure what's become of the Hogan-Kozlowskis although good-ol' Yolanda did turn up some circumstantial and entirely unsubstantiated evidence they might have purchased a much more expensive home in the Mandeville Canyon area. Might we said. Did you hear that? Might.

*Technically, the property was purchased, as per property records, in mid-June (2013) via a trust that obscures the identity of the owner but guns-always-blazing real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak swears on her impeccably maintained 1984 Jaguar XJS that the buyer is Australian-born Chris Hemsworth and his Spanish wife, Elsa Pataky.

**Imagine for a minute, children, how that conversation went down with whatever previous homeowner was responsible for the most recent remodel of the house and whatever household help they put up in that separate and clearly not equal staff suite down by the garage. "Oh, middle-aged Guyanese au pair, we know you've spent 23 hours a day the last 12 years raising our children and teaching them French but we just do not currently have the resources to remodel the massive main house, overhaul the sizable guest house, and do over your little lean-to down by the garage. But, seriously, like, you know, we really do think of you as part of the family, right? So we'll try to get to that next year. Okay, hun? Great. Right. Okay...Well, I better get going or I'm going to be late to yoga. " 

listing photos: The Levin Group