Sunday, November 11, 2012

Bullying in Kindergarten: What Parents Need to Know

Kindergarten and Preschool is supposed to be a fun time away from home for our young children to start learning the fundamentals. However, no one would expect this is also the time that bullying can start.
Children at this young age are learning how to get along with others and don't necessarily know how to play with others. They often use aggression to solve problems because that is all they know at this age.
Children between the ages of 3-5 are learning how to make friends, share toys and play well with others. However, these are new skills that can often lead to frustration. Its typical for young children that are frustrated to react by hurting others by yelling, name calling and even physical contact.
Here is our guide on helping your children with bullying in Preschool and Kindergarten.
Manage Feelings
It is important at this age to teach your child how to control emotions and feelings. This will help prevent outbursts or acting out against other kids in the future. Giving your child the skills to control emotions can help your child keep cool in a heated situation.
Problem-Solving Skills.
Tantrums wont solve problems and the sooner your child discovers how to resolve problems the better. Parents should encourage their children to work through problems by restating the problem and asking for possible solutions. This will help your child have more positive relationships with friends
Practice Skills
Parents can help their children practice import skills like listening, sharing, cooperating, and taking turns without children even knowing. Invite over a couple of your child's friends and play games like "Simon Says", or other listening, group games.
Understand Diversity
Parents should explain to their children how everyone is different. It is important to start

these conversations when they are young and open up discussions which answer your child's questions. This will teach them to appreciate and respect others.
Make Friends
Arrange playdates for your child. This will help your child to learn to interact with others.
Speak up
Parents should encourage their children to speak up if they see bullying happening. Children should be encouraged to tell a teacher or parent if they witness any bullying behavior.
Preschool and Kindergarteners will experience bullying but they will also learn about how to prevent it. Parents play an important role in teaching young children about bullying and helping them develop skills and techniques to handle it.

How to Have The Perfect Wedding

The price of a wedding can be expensive, with many reports pricing the right day at £15,000 - but this does not have to be the case. One woman managed to have her wedding with a price of £4999.50 and she catered for 100 people in a sit down buffet, so it is possible. One of the major costs will be the venue for your reception and this can be costly but before choosing one you need to think about what you want from a potential venue.
Some people want class and sophistication while others want modern and colourful, so whatever you do want take this into account before selecting your venue. The time of year can also influence your venue because you cannot have a wedding outdoors during autumn and winter. You then need to look around possible venues but never get your heart set on one before you have looked at them all. Once you have viewed them all choose one and then drive the price down. The venue will be desperate for your money so by saying something like "I love the venue but the other venue is brilliant and it's cheaper" you may save a few hundred.
What you and your partner will be wearing on the big day will be every important and the wedding dress will always be the centre of attention. Unfortunately this can be one of the biggest costs for a wedding because if you go to a specialised wedding store and try to get a dress they will be asking for more than you can imagine. But it is still worth looking around these shops because you will find your perfect dress and once you have, take a picture of it and take the name of it down. Then with these details you have the ability to shop around for your wedding dress. Shopping online can save you a lot of money.
Getting to your ceremony can be important to many people and they always want to get there in style. With this you need to do what you did with your outfit. Shop around. There will be the perfect car around at the perfect price and this can add to your day like it is meant to. Normally however if you ask around your family it is highly likely that they will know someone that can provide you with the car you want that is sometimes free.
Catering your venue is also important and if you provide the wrong food then people will remember your wedding for having rubbish food which is probably the worst possible outcome. When planning the catering you need to look at the list of guests that you have and see if any have any allergies or if any are vegetarians. Then look at various caterers and what deals they have to offer. Some will have set our courses for your guests and this can save you having to select all the food individually. You may not even want to have a set meal as some do prefer just have a buffet which is less formal and could be more interesting.
These are just some the things that you can do for you perfect wedding but you need to make sure that you are prepared to cope with the burden of the cost of that will come. Research can be paired with your preparation and all of this can help you have an amazing day like you are meant to.
Alison Forde had to seek the help of pipe and drape supplier Highspec UK in order to write this article effectively. Their help meant that this article could be full and rich in information

How To Recognize When Your Home Needs An Electrical Wiring Repair And An Upgrade For A Safe Living

Modern families depend more and more on technology. The need for electricity and a safely wired home becomes more important. Every home is full of electrical systems including wiring, computer net works and appliances.
Each household needs an electrical system for heating,cooling, lighting, cooking and many types of communication technology.The whole world relies on electricity use on daily basis and every one of us will be facing electrical problems at one stage or other.
There are many home electrical problems that need urgent attention and it is essential to let the professional handle the repairs as and when required.
The following main common electrical problems are given here to enable a safe response when the need to call in an electrician.
LIGHTS KEEP FLICKERING:
Flickering lights normally results from loose wire grid circuit breaker issues due to a dangling live lines or problems further along the wiring system. But when lights continuously flicker even after replacement with a new bulb there might be a poor wiring connection or a faulty fixture.
This flickering problem usually needs a qualified electrician to repair and make it safe. House owners have to take extra care and fix this to avoid causing an electrical short or damage to the wire leading eventually to a fire.
A CIRCUIT BREAKER TRIPS EVERY TIME:
In the older homes the electrical wiring system not designed to handle the high voltage loads and so usually trips.The modern homes are normally designed to handle the high voltage loads and so avoid the trips.
Over loads normally results in tripped breakers and power cuts. Hence one has to upgrade the wiring system or add a better circuit to take the extra load. If neglected the panels have to be replaced completely and it will be very expensive.
This tripping is a common problem whenever we use the Microwave since they are not designed to handle the high voltage loads.
RECEPTACLE GETS WARM:
If an appliance is plugged in the receptacle if it gets warm then immediately remove the plug and thus avoid over heating and burns. A faulty wiring and a faulty receptacle can start producing a strange smell and left unnoticed can lead to smoking and a fire in the home and cause serious damages behind the wall.

Acceptance Is the Key to Parenting

... unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy.
-- Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 449 (3rd Ed.)
How many times and in how many ways, must I be told this golden rule, before I let it sink in? Acceptance is the magic word. If I can surrender to the moment exactly as it is, I am in good shape. It is when I resist, that "problems" arise. For example, this last weekend my oldest daughter got her tongue pierced. She is 18 years old. She does not need my permission any longer for things like this. So she got it done. To be honest she has really never needed my approval. I raised a daughter who did not seek my approval. That is a miracle. All I ever wanted in my dysfunctional family of origin, was the approval of my parents, especially my father. And now I have raised this child who only needs to approve of herself. So she got her tongue pierced without my approval.
My husband and I were intentional about raising our daughters to have self love and self expression. From the moment my kids were born, they had a sign in their bathroom that said, "I approve of myself". I met a woman very long ago, before I was married, that said that it should be the law that each person had to tell themselves that they approve of themselves, 10 times a day. She thought that this would transform the world. I loved the idea. So, I began to tell myself 10 times a day that I approved of myself. This was at age 24. I was very young, and very confused about how to have a happy life. It helped. So, when I started having kids at age 31, this is the signage that I placed in their view every day: "I approve of myself".
It has worked for both of my daughters. They are remarkable in every way. Back, to acceptance. So, my oldest daughter pierced her tongue this last weekend. She called me to tell me after it was done. She said that she wanted to give me a heads up before I saw it. I lost my breath for a moment. Then, I thanked her for allowing me some time to digest this news, before I saw her. Lots of emotions floated over my body (fear, terror, doubt, admiration). After I caught my breath, I finally settled on the emotion of love. I told her I loved her and I was glad that she was safe and sound. I also told her that I was glad that the tongue will close up quickly if she decided to remove the piercing. She said that she knew this, as she had done the research. Acceptance, in the moment, was my reaction. This is a long way from the times, that I would cry, plead and stress over what my mom would think, what my sister would think, what the neighbors would think. It just doesn't really matter what other people think. What matters is what I think and what my daughter thinks and what my daughter needs to do to live her life purpose.
My goal is to be relatively happy. The way to happiness is to accept life on life's terms 100% of the time. Even if I get sick, have an accident, a loved one dies, or I lose my job. Acceptance will keep me in love, in life and in good company with those around me. Intolerance, judgment and regret will keep me separate and alone. I don't want that. I am taking this lesson to yoga. Each morning I am different. In yoga, some mornings I can stretch and stretch, some mornings, not so much. I am magnificent in my imperfection. I am on the mat, following the next direction of the instructor who knows that what I really need to do is learn how to breathe through all the poses that she calls on me to do. I am magnificent in my

Snow Salt And Its Advantages

De-icers, although small, are very mighty, and are usually found in a liquid format in a tube. These are kept either in garages or cars, oftentimes both, in order for people to use them whenever they need to. De-icers are not used just for melting the ice from the locks, windscreens and other parts of the car, they can also be used to grease up stiff joints on bikes and other such things. This makes de-icers popular all year round, and not just when the winter weather takes a turn for the worse.
When it comes to snow salt, the prospect of it is not as straight forward as it would seem. Many people assume that the snow salt is simply spread on the snow covered roads in order to melt away the snow. This is not truly what happens. Salt is a wonder for lowering the freezing temperature of water, having six times the effect of sugar. However, it takes a lot of salt to melt the smallest amount of ice. This is why, when snow storms are forewarned, snow salt will be placed on roads and pathways before the precipitation has even begun to fall.
The simplest way to keep snow from the roads, is to make it impossible for it to settle and gain ground. This is where snow salt comes in. snow salt destroys the links and bonding properties needed for snow to settle and stay upon the ground. If the snow is unable to keep contact with the ground, it becomes a lot easier for it to melt and move. The ground, being so cold in such low temperatures, would be the perfect resting place for the freezing snow and it would allow it to remain frozen for a time longer than if the ground were to warm up.
Because snow salt raises the freezing temperature for snow, it is another way it keeps the snow from settling. When the individual flakes hit the salt, they are chemically "told" that they are no longer cold enough to be frozen, and therefore should melt away. This means that snow salt is a chemical changer for the snow, and if applied before the snow falls it is an almost sure fire way of making the snow melt before it truly touches the ground.
De-icer works in much the same way as snow salt, but on a much smaller scale. The de-icer is a chemical compound which works to break the bond between the molecules of the frozen water. It changes the balance of the ice and the snow, giving it the chemical trigger that it needs to be colder to be frozen, and since it cannot achieve a colder temperature alone, it will simply melt away. However, de-icer is nowhere near as strong as snow salt. This is why things like ice scrapers are so handy.
Once de-icer has been applied, and the chemical reactions in the ice and snow have started to take place, the whole construction becomes a lot easier to manipulate. A simple, plastic ice scraper can be all that a person needs in order to remove the offending frozen water from their locks, windscreens, and mirrors. Heavy frost can be removed with a light spraying of de-icer, and a generous amount of scraping from an ice-scraper.
Most of the time, drivers will have heated their cars for a few moments before starting this process, which means that the warmth combined with the de-icer will have the frost and snow melting and being able to move incredibly quickly.
For some people, snow salts and de-icers are the differences between being stuck inside all Christmas, and being with the family. They can be real life savers, especially for people who do not live where council bins of snow salt are readily available all year round. A snow shovel

How A Woman Can Get Her Husband To Like Scented Candles

A man walks into a room and is immediately struck by the scent of something familiar, yet he can't quite put his finger on it. The smell is not overly sweet or garish. Instead, it is fresh, bold and... slightly masculine. He looks around the room for the source of the smell and realizes it's coming from that decorative candle warmer sitting on the coffee table. At first he is puzzled as his eyes focus in on the two bars of scented wax gently melting in the dish. Could this really be a candle? It only takes a brief moment for him to accept the fact that this enchanting smell that currently has him enthralled is indeed an intriguing candle fragrance. However, this isn't just any ball of wax. He is enjoying the wafting aromatic wonders of a manly-scented candle. One whiff was enough to turn him into a fan of this amazing line of male-oriented fragrances.
The above scenario is not so unusual considering that men often buy cologne that feature scents that specifically appeal to men. This is because cologne has long been accepted by the male gender as being okay to wear because it is distinctively different from female perfume. When it comes to scented candles, however, traditionally men have shied away thinking them to be more of a female thing.
Fortunately, times are changing and men are increasingly purchasing scented candles for their own use. You can bet that the flowery scents with girly candle holders are not their preference. Men want aromatic candles that remind them of favorite memories and experiences that they can relate to well. Think along the lines of the earthy outdoors, sporting events, hobbies, cars, the beach, fishing, eating or simply sitting in their favorite chair. Women may think that it is difficult to capture such esoteric smells into a bar of wax, but actually it only takes a bit of research into what smells really appeal to men, as well as, some time and dedication to creating them.
Many women who really love candle fragrances will often hesitate to bring them home in fear that their guy won't enjoy it. The scents may cause him to roll his eyes and deem them too girly. More than likely he'll go along with his lady's choices because they make her happy. Do you think that your guy may not like your candle scent choices as much as you do? If so, this is okay because you can now compromise by picking up scents he'll love too with scents designed for men. One of the things you can do if he's not a natural candle lover is to explain that they are wonderful mood-enhancing aromatherapy fragrances. Guys suffer from stress all the time, and most would welcome the opportunity to enjoy a relaxing aroma as they lounge on the couch or in their favorite chair.
Both men and women can enjoy these magical manly fragrances as they slowly fill the air and arouse the senses.

How to Reduce Risks During an Office Relocation

An office relocation carries with it many risks for a business. During a move, a company is particularly exposed to liabilities outside those that occur during the normal scope of business. Risks during a move come from all directions, internal and external. It is important for a company to identify these unique risks before they pose a problem.
For internal risk, the company must assess the best way to secure the personal information of its employees and customers. Internal liability can also arise from injury. External risk comes from the increased exposure to theft and damage. These are just a few of the challenges a company faces during an office relocation, so it's critical to hire an office mover with the expertise to ensure a flawless move.
Personal Information
All companies maintain some level of personal information. This can include employee files, health records, customer account information, and a wide variety of other sensitive data. If a business doesn't take the proper precautions by hiring an experienced office relocation company, it can be easy to lose track of a hard drive or a filing cabinet that contains this information, which provides thieves with the opportunity to steal the information.
If, for example, a filing cabinet containing employment applications including private data gets lost in the shuffle, an identity thief can break in and literally steal the physical files, which would give him everything he needs to steal employee identities. If it were to be determined that employees' credit was damaged because of the company's lack of diligence, it could end up being held liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and steep legal fees.
Injury
An office relocation poses an increased chance of human injury as well. Employees are a company's most valuable asset, so involving them in an office relocation is unwise at best and catastrophic at worst. If employees are allowed to move any of the company's property and they get injured in the process, the business is in store for huge losses as a result of lawsuits, medical bills, workers' compensation claims, and loss of productivity, to name a few.
To protect itself, a company needs to hire a professional office relocation company to eliminate all risks of personal injury to staff. Moving companies carry their own insurance and are therefore responsible for any injuries to their employees during an office move.
Equipment
Every company has different liability levels from loss or damage of equipment during a move. The business must assess the value of its equipment and then determine which equipment poses the biggest risk if it were lost, damaged, or stolen. Equipment that is vital to operations-whether owned, rented, leased, or financed-should be covered by the company's insurance policy. The specific details of what is and what is not covered by a moving company can vary greatly, so businesses need to fully understand who will assume the risks


Earn Your Home A Promotion With Improvement Ideas And Tips

Home improvement alters your home's structure. It can even cover outdoor structures and landscaping. The tips in this article can help your home look amazing after your next project, as well as more functional too.
Living in a home simultaneous to your home improvement projects drastically reduces your living expenses, so only improve one room at any given time. This will make it easier to live in your home, until it's the bathroom! If this applies to you, stay with your friends in the meantime.
A great way to change the appearance of a room without breaking the bank is to apply a fresh coat of paint in a unique fashion. It's cheap to do such a project, while the rewards are plentiful.
Look for paints that are free of VOCs when it's time to repaint your house. These paints help reduce indoor contaminants from the paint you're using for your home improvement. In addition to labels indicating that paint is non-toxic, the no-VOC or low-VOC label is popular with those who are looking to go green because the reduction of specific chemical fumes is good for the environment as well as your health. These paints are only a few dollars more and they spread and wear as well as any traditional paints.
Before embarking on a major home remodeling project, the homeowner should respectfully share the schedule of the project with his neighbors. Living adjacent to a construction area is a real annoyance. Your neighbors will be very appreciative if you tell them exactly how long the disturbance from the construction job will last.
If you have just installed new carpet or new flooring, you might consider a rule banning shoes in that area. Encourage your family and friends to follow your rule by providing easy storage for shoes and slippers to wear. This will keep dirt and other messes from damaging your floors. You may also consider having your carpet checked for water damage, especially if you live an a low area or in a flood zone. Even if your house didn't actually flood, water can seep in and cause damage to your carpet that you may not know about. Letting unknown, water damage go can produce mold and mildew and make your home a toxic place to live.
Try using wallpaper if you're not a fan of paneling or painting. Wallpaper is quick and efficient, often more protective than painting and without the need for a painter's payment. Be careful when choosing the paper since some are harder to take off than others, just in case you don't like it later on.
You now know what home improvement is all about, and you've been provided some

Thursday, November 8, 2012

House updates

House updates With the weather, just about everything is at a standstill but the patios have just started and that is VERY exciting! The biggest news however,  is my guest room. OH how I love it.....I am ready to move right on in! Its not totally done but getting there, got most of the pillows I had made, put some temporary lamps in there...and its soooo cozy. I am waiting to do the window treatments, a few more pillows, get the new duvet (this one is a temporary)  and the dust ruffle. Really loving how its coming along. Take a look.......(pics taken with iPhone, will take better ones again when the room is totally done)




 

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Find the Best Information for All Things Porn Related

Someone once said that it is easier to recognize than to define pornography it. Overall, we can say that pornography is the depiction of nudity and human sexual behavior with the goal of producing sexual excitement. This representation is made by moving images (movies, videos, and computer), photographs, and drawings, texts written or spoken. Pornography explores sex, treating human beings as things, and in particular, women as sex objects.

The word pornography comes from the Greek and literally means "writing about prostitutes." Over time, he began to refer to any material, written or graphic sexual content. The term is used today in a negative way. The porn industry that produces films, magazines, videos and Internet sites, prefer to use other terms, such as "adult material." You can find all those information through Twitter Porno. It is important; however, make a distinction between erotica and pornography. There is a healthy eroticism, which is the exploration of sexuality within marriage. The book of Proverbs gives us an example of this: "Drink water from your own cistern, and the chains of your pit.

They would pour out your sources, and the squares, the rivers of water? Let them be yours alone and not to be shared with strangers. Blessed be thy fountain, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth, Doe loves and graceful gazelle. You satiate your breasts at all times, and always intoxicate you with his touch. Why, my son would walk blinded by the strange and embrace the bosom of another? These passages show that the Lord created us with sexuality and that it can be explored and enjoyed within the environment of marriage. Pornography is different because it seeks sexual excitement by displaying images of explicit sex, nudity and sexual organs without making any moral distinction or considers adultery, prostitution, lesbianism, and perverted forms of sex.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Maroon 5's Adam Levine Buys in Beverly Hills

BUYER: Adam Levine
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $4,380,000
SIZE: 6,539 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Its no surprise to anyone in the celebrity real estate gossip game that tatted-up and famously promiscuous model-squiring Maroon 5 lead singer turned televised singing contest judge (The Voice) has been on the hunt for new digs in Tinseltown.

Back in early September, in fact, our trusted informant Butty Butterlips tattled to Your Mama that Mister Levine was allowing one of Tinseltown's more successful real estate agents to quietly shop his house—a low-slung, contemporary art-filled one-bedroom bachelor pad perched on a private hillside above Bronson Canyon in the star-studded Los Feliz area—with an asking price in the high three millions and back in March 2012 the property was featured in a glossy and adoring article in Architectural Digest, often but not always a sign a celeb-owned home is or will soon go up for sale.

What did come as a bit of a surprise, at least to Your Mama, was an covert communique we received today from an inside source who snitched that Mister Levine has already quietly acquired up a new crib in the Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills. Redfin agent Corina Galen says, "Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills is a great area for celebrities. There are a lot of homes with spectacular views and plenty of privacy, which makes it a hot spot for high profile clients."

A quick perusal of property records confirms that Mister Levine, through the same trust that shows up on the deeds and documentation for his home in Los Feliz, paid $4,380,000 for the so-called Benedict House, a 3.66 acre gated estate on a canyon view ridge in a small, gated enclave high above Bev Hills called Wallingford Estates.

Listing information shows the sprawling, single story ranch house was originally built in 1940, measures in at 6,539 square feet and contains a total of six bedrooms and seven bathrooms. Although "meticulously maintained," listing information suggests there's more than enough room to custom build a monstrous 20,000 square foot house. As he did with his previous home, Your Mama fully expects Mister Levine will bring in Mark Haddawy—or some other equally skilled and well-compensated lady or nice-gay decorator-designer—to doctor up transform the undeniably deluxe but decoratively anemic ranch style residence into something more befitting a sexed-up rock star. However, we don't have any reason to think he'll knock the house down to make way for a behemoth Beverly Park-style faux-French chateau or massive mock-Tuscan extravaganza. That just doesn't seem his style but, then again, what do we know? Nuthin', that's what.

Anyhoo, a long, gated driveway adds to the property's serene sense of privacy and seclusion as it sweeps across the property to a large motor court partially girdled by the main house, attached two car garage and separate studio space suitable for conversion to a screening room, guest house and/or music studio.

Pegged wood floors in the small, lackluster entrance hall continue into the formal living and dining rooms as well as into a spacious den/office complete with a fireplace and a wide bank of windows that reach from the floor almost to the ceiling.

The open plan informal living space(s) include a roomy center island kitchen with granite counter tops, ordinary white raised-panel cabinetry, a pair of dishwashers and a freakishly expensive range. A high breakfast bar separates the kitchen from a wood-floored family room with vaulted sky-lit and wood-beamed ceiling, a built in entertainment center, fireplace and French doors to the outdoor entertaining areas. An adjoining home office/craft space has a wrap-around built-in desk and cabinetry.

The back of the house opens to a tree-ringed backyard with multi-level, brick-accented stone terracing, a flat grassy pad, a vaguely piano-shaped swimming pool spa and an elevated circular spa. Set mostly out of view below the driveway towards the front of the property, a lighted championship-sized tennis court overs over the canyon in the tree tops.

As of today, based on a quick study of various property record data bases, Mister Levine continues to own his Los Feliz area residence that is not listed for sale on the open market.

listing photos: Rodeo Realty via Redfin

Leontyne Price Lists Worn Out Downtown Townhouse

SELLER: Leontyne Price
PRICE: $5,000,000
SIZE: 2,800 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the weekend Your Mama received an unexpected missive from a musically-inclined informant we'll call Ari A. Appreciator who thoughtfully let us know that word had begun to make its way though the international opera community that the New York City townhouse of the near-peerless soprano Leontyne Price has popped up for sale with a $5,000,000 price tag.

Miz Price, long retired and now in her late 80s, picked up her downtown townhouse located in the bustling SoHo adjacent southern flank of the West Village way back in 1962 for an unknown amount of money that we can all be assured was a slim fraction of its current asking price. This real estate acquisition would have been the year after her legendary debut at The Met in January 1961, a debut, children, that brought down the damn house with a electrifying ovation that lasted 35 minutes—or 42 minutes, depending on what one reads. Either way, people hooted, hollered and clapped 'til their palms burned and throats went hoarse with adulation and adoration for Miz Price's rare, richly fluid and diligently controlled vocal acrobatics.

Among her many subsequent accolades and accomplishments, Miz Price sang at the 1965 inauguration for and 1973 state funeral of President Lyndon B. Johnson and, in 1978, at the invitation of President Jimmy Carter, she gave a nationally televised recital at the White House. She was selected as a Kennedy Center honoree in 1980, was given a prestigious National Medal of the Arts in 1985, and in the late 1990s wrote a children's book version of the Verdi's Aida that Elton John and Tim Rice turned into a Broadway musical of the same name. She maintained a recital and concert career well into her 70s and earned herself 13 Grammy Awards plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Oh, and did Your Mama mention Miz Price is black? It might seem like an unnecessary detail to mention nowadays but, children, when Miz Price rose to the pinnacle of the operatic mountain top in the 1950s and '60s and bought herself a townhouse in New York City, Jim Crow was still the law of the land in the United States. Think about that for a moment, because what Miz Price achieved both on and off the stage was, quite simply, extraordinary.

Anyhoo, current listing information shows the fairly unassuming and clearly down-on-her-heels red-brick Federal style townhouse was originally built in 1829 and asks prospective buyers to note that the "faded beauty" sits within a designated Landmarks District. Its Landmarks District location will require the next owner(s) to seek and obtain permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in order to repair and/or alter just about anything and everything both inside and outside the house. Some people might find the requirements and restrictions of the LPC to be cumbersome and constricting, but preservation-minded people might suggest to those folks they simply ought not buy a building in one of the city's numerous landmarks districts, thereby sparing them that particular headache and hassle.

As depicted on the floor plan included with current marketing materials, the four-story townhouse measures in at about 2,800 square feet with three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, at least 4 fireplaces that may or may not be in working order, four over-sized storage rooms and an unusually deep but pitifully neglected backyard.

The parlor floor living room—with mirrored fireplace flanked by built-in floor-to-ceiling book cases and some truly tawdry, olive green wall-to-wall carpeting that looks like it saw its better days two decades or more ago—is hardly huge but at 24-feet long does stretch almost the full depth of the house. At its rear end, the living room connects to a puny, nine-foot-square study that overlooks the un-tended backyard. Also on the parlor level, just off the foyer that, like the living room, elegantly extends the full length of the house, there's a privately located half bathroom for guests and a large, walk-in storage room.

Along with a somewhat useless vestibule and a street-side dining room with a fireplace, the kitchen—miniscule such as it appears on the floor plan—is located in the partly below street level basement. There's also an over-sized utility room and, tucked way way way in the back and accessed only through one of two walk-in storage rooms stuck like warts to the back of the house, there's a supermodel slender bathroom that has, as far as Your Mama can tell, just two redeeming qualities. The first is that it exists at all—an inconveniently located closet size pooper is better than none at all—and the second is that it offers a wee window for ventilation.

Miz Price's private chamber—the exact same size as the living room as per the floor plan—occupies the entire third floor and offers a fireplace, four closets plus a linen closet in the hall and a separate dressing room. The master bathroom, with separatd tub, shower and street view, appears on the floor plan to only be accessible by exiting the bedroom and crossing the stair landing. This is, obviously, not ideal and—with an o.k. by the LPC, natch—would require immediate remedy should Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter buy this house, which—of course—we aren't.

There are two more bedrooms and a walk-in storage room tucked tightly under the eaves on the top floor. No doubt due to the sloping roof lines, the lone bathroom on the top floor is only—and unfortunately—accessible to occupants of one bedroom by passing through the other.

It's not difficult for Your Mama to see how a smart architect—a whole lotta money and the LPC's approval—could maintain and enhance the architectural integrity of the structure and transform Miz Price's worn out and chopped up townhouse into a well-organized if somewhat petite townhouse that meets with the demands and requirements of a wealthy New Yorker who isn't looking for a 12,000 square foot Beaux Arts behemoth with a swimming pool in the sub-basement and a hot tub on the roof.

We have no inside intel on where Miz Price plans to decamp but Your Mama hopes she will realize enough proceeds from the sale of her long-time New York City residence to keep her comfortably for the rest of her life.

listing photos and floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens

Friday, October 26, 2012

Ross Bleckner Gives It Another Go in Sagaponack

SELLER: Ross Bleckner
LOCATION: Sagaponack, NY
PRICE: $15,000,000
SIZE: 4 acres, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was just yesterday that Your Mama learned that a-list abstract expressionist artist Ross Bleckner had re-listed his bucolic and legendary compound in the Hamptons with a $15,000,000 price tag. We first heard word from our tireless and much-appreciated aide de camp Hot Chocolate but, before we could sing a single stanza of Yankee Doodle Dandy, those ever-industrious kids at Curbed had done chawed that bone.* C'est la vie in the increasingly crowded and cut-throat world of (celebrity) property gossip, right? Onward we push anyways. Okay?

Mister Bleckner's comely compound sits about equidistant between the swank, boutique-filled East Hampton and Southampton communities and spans about four, L-shaped acres located just a gloriously short stroll (or roll) to the sand in the bare-footed and beyond beautiful but ego-bruisingly expensive beach side enclave of Sagaponack.

The estate's main house was, quite famously, the long-time home of fey and fantastic and fantastically fey writer/social chronicler Truman Capote who owned the property for nearly 25 years before he went to meet his Great Editor in the Sky in 1984. Mister Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany's) is said to have put the finishing touches on his phenomenal, genre pioneering true crime novel In Cold Blood while living here. This property is, for many artists and writers, hallowed ground.

In 2002, Architectural Digest published a delightful collection photographs of the Mister Capote and his simple, contemporary, custom-built cottage. We imagine, natch, the interview and photos were done years earlier since, as just mentioned, Mister Capote, may he rest in peace, had met his maker 18 years earlier.

Anyhoo, Mister Capote bequeathed the property to his long-time man-friend companion, writer Jack Dunphy, who passed it to the Nature Conservancy upon his death in 1992. Mister Bleckner purchased it the following year for—we suggest the real estate weak-willed snatch up a nerve pill—$800,000. That's right, children: eight hundred thousand dollars. That is, of course, an unimaginable amount of money for minimum wage workers and middle class earners alike but—all things real estate being relative to their locations—it was a downright enviable and fractional pittance of its current value. Mister Bleckner certainly did his pocket book a favor when he put this piece of Hamptons heaven into his property portfolio, didn't he?

Current listing information shows the beach-close compound has four legal buildings with a total of four bedrooms and 4 bathrooms in about 3,500 square feet of interior living space.

As best as Your Mama can figure from a careful reading of current listing information, the recently expanded ocean view main house—approximately 2,000 square foot with a crisply rustic and warmly austere day-core—has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. A wee, achingly sweet cedar shingled guest cottage has two more bedrooms and one more bathroom and a detached, 1,900 square foot, clerestory windowed art studio claims, we unscientifically deduce, the fourth and final bathroom.

The compound's gorgeous grounds have that painstaking and perfectly un-fussed look that makes the Hamptons so damn dreamy. They are, people, they're dee-voon.  To be sure, the Hamptoons are hardly a douche bag free zone and the traffic alone can be enough to make you slit your wrists on a sunny Saturday in August. Plus—let's get real for a moment, shall we—it's downright preposterous that any person—no matter how rich or gauche—would ever pay $100 bucks for a single pound of unbelievably delicious lobster salad from that little gourmet shop in "downtown" Sagaponack. (All you Hamptonites know exactly where we mean.) But, children, as Your Mama lives, breathes and drinks gin and tonics like water, they are absolutely spectacular. They really are.

Anyhoo, towering hedges line the long driveway and curve and bend to define various outdoor "rooms." The "room" just behind the main house holds the rectangular swimming pool dropped effortlessly into a broad swathe of very green lawn. On the other side of the main house, the west side, another broad expanse of lawn unrolls towards the beach. At the far end an abrupt cut in the dense foliage marks the entrance to the long, curving outdoor hallway that connects main house to Mister Bleckner's art studio.

Imagine for a moment that this might be your commute to work, as it is for Mister Bleckner when he is in residence in Sagaponack. Gone are the blaring horns and all those hazardous moe-rons who are too cheap to buy themselves a goddamn Bluetooth device. In their place, lucky Mister Bleckner hears the sound of the distant surf and the rustle of the salty sea breeze as is skitters smoothly through the reeds. Maybe there are birds chirping and unseen swarms of crickets doing their high-pitched buzzing-thing too. There be birds chirping, right? Whatever there is, we'll take us an extra dollop of that daily during the summer, thank you very much.

This is not, as it turns out, Mister Bleckner's first time to ride this particular real estate merry-go-round. In 2008, he had the property listed at $14,600,000, almost ten percent less than its current price tag.

The Old-School Hamptons-lover that Your Mama is hopes the next owner will maintain the modesty of the property. However, without any special stipulations laid forth for the preservation of the property—which there may or may not be—the cynic in Your Mama thinks a hot-shot spec mansion builder could easily swoop in, buy it and bulldoze this beeotch to make way for a 20,000 square foot shingled "cottage" with a bowling alley in the basement and a $35,000,000 price tag.

Knock on wood, child.

*This is a recurrent theme today. We also first learned from Hot Chocolate that Susan Soros, the ex-wife of billionaire George Soros, put her New York City apartment on the market at $50 million before we figured out that the New York Times was already on that real estate nugget like white on rice.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

Susan Soros Lists $50M Upper West Side Sprawler

SELLER: Susan Soros
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $50,000,000
SIZE: 4-6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Does the extended family of lefty-liberal gajillionaire financier/philanthropist George Soros know something about the extreme upper end of the New York City real estate market the rest of us less financially fortunate don't?

Two days ago Mister Soros' only daughter, Andrea Soros Columbel, listed a 19th-century Greek Revival-style townhouse in the West Village with an asking price of $29,500,000 and yesterday—we first learned from our aide de camp Hot Chocolate and later saw was first discussed by the New York Times—Miz Columbel's former step-momma, Susan Soros, the much younger second ex-wife of the newly engaged octagenarian macdaddy super-tycoon George Soros, hoisted her exceptionally spacious, family-friendly Upper West Side sprawler on the open market with an eye-popping but hardly-unheard-of-for-Manhattan asking price of $50,000,000.

Is this just a real estate coinky-dink between two not actually blood related Soros family members who—we don't know—may or may not have communications with each other?* Could be. You decide. Does it even matter? Anyhoo...

Miz Soros and Mister Soros were legally wed for 20 years, made two children together and divorced in 2006. But she ain't just any ol' primped, pampered and generously alimonied ex-wife of a billionaire. Child, no. She's a serious person, a scholar. This lady earned a Ph.D. from London's Royal College of Art—maybe we should be calling her Dr. Soros?—and in 1993 founded and funded the distinguished Bard College Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture.

Miz Soros picked up her post-divorce apartment, according to the peeps at Property Shark, in June 2006 for $25,000,000 in an off-market deal with investor turned movie producer David J. Mimran. Mister Mimran had only acquired the apartment himself in 2004 when he shelled out about $12,200,000 to boutique hotelier Ian Schrager.

Mister Schrager bought the apartment in 1997 for about $9,000,000—so the story goes—and had it worked over by avant garde architect/designer Philippe Starck. Mister Starck's decorative handiwork—no doubt an absolute extravaganza of whimsy—remained intact when Miz Soros picked the place up in 2006. She told the New York Times shortly after her purchase that she wasn't sure if she would keep or replace Starck's day-core. Iffin Your Mama was the wagering sort—and we are definitely not—we'd bet Big Daddy's farm she removed most if not every inch of Mister Starck's handiwork. As far as Your Mama knows, we have never met or even put our actual eyeballs on Miz Soros. None-the-less, she does not strike Your Mama as a woman who would have a nine-foot tall bergere chair in the powder pooper.

Perfectly perched on the northeast corner of the 19th floor of the Art Deco-tastic Majestic building on Central Park West at West 72nds Street, the two-unit combination crib contains four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms and a media den easily convertible to a fifth bedroom plus a brutally puny prison cell-sized staff bedroom and three-quarter bathroom tucked at the tail end of the service hall at the very back of the apartment.**

The $50,000,000 price tag, according to current listing information, also includes a fully renovated one-bedroom staff apartment on a lower floor as well as all of the furniture in the main apartment.*** The Majestic, an impeccably maintained full-service white-glove temple to upscale urban living, allows up to 50% financing and—for what it's worth—the monstrous $13,759 monthly maintenance for Miz Soros' spread is 41% tax deductible, whatever that means.

The apartment—of unknown square footage—has direct elevator access into a spacious formal living/dining room prominently nestled into the apartment's northeast corner with wrap-around views and a monolithic stone fireplace. A large library on the backside of the fireplace has walls lined with built-in book cases and powerful, head on park views.

On the other side of the living/dining room there's a generously proportioned, multi-purpose kitchen/great room with five sets of French-style doors that open to the slender terrace that snakes its way along the entire northern length of the apartment. Depending on where one stands on this terrace there are wide city vistas to the west and north that sweep over the roof top of the legendary Dakota building, take in almost all of the Central Park including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and continue along the long row of swish and swanky apartment houses that line up like limestone soldiers along Fifth Avenue.

Beyond the kitchen/great room, the north wing contains a media den with built-in sofa banquette and three guest/family bedrooms that each have direct access to a private or semi-private bathroom. The windowless half bathroom in the corridor that extends north from a small vestibule behind the kitchen/great room appears to be the only powder pooper for guests in the entire apartment. A half bath for guests is great to have—of course—but this one isn't, by our humble and utterly meaningless estimation, very conveniently located for the hoitier of the toity dinner guests who might find it less than elegant to have to traipse through the culinary cross-hairs of the kitchen in order to cop a squat mid-cocktail party or -chef-prepared dinner soiree.

The long, multi-chamber guest/family bedroom corridor makes a hard left at its end to yet another but not quite as long hallway with laundry area, service elevator access, mechanical equipment and the aforementioned, brutally puny prison cell-sized staff bedroom and three-quarter bathroom.

The opposite end of the apartment—that would be the east-facing southern flank—is devoted entirely to the super-sized master suite comprised of a privacy-enhancing entrance hall, a roomy sitting room, an equally roomy separate bedroom and a compact but well-equipped windowed office space that connects through from the sitting room to the adjacent library. There's also a giant bathroom with free-standing soaking tub set askance almost in the middle of the room and two, fully kitted and customized walk-in closets and dressing rooms. Finally there's exclusive use of a private terrace with an astonishing view that encompasses a significant portion of Central Park and the Upper East Side all the way around and down to Midtown and Central Park South.

Your Mama has no inside intel on the future real estate plans of Dr.-Miz Soros. With both her children now young adults it would certainly make sense to downsize. Then again, who would be surprised if she upsized? People of extraordinary financial means frequently make what seem to mere financial mortals like capricious and downright inexplicable real estate decisions. Larry Ellison maintains more high maintenance residences than Your Mama can count on both hands, including the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai that he bought this year for nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars. Entertainment industry honcho David Geffen—child-free and nearly 70—already owned a suburban mini-mansion-sized apartment on Fifth Avenue when he coughed up a blood-chilling $54 million to buy the tremendous, 12,000-ish square foot duplex penthouse upstairs. It just doesn't make sense. Howevuh, butter beans, if Your Mama has said it once we've said it 87,000 times too many, it ain't nuthin' but an effort in futility to try to comprehend the wild, wacky and often fickle real estate ways of the rich and famous.

*For the records, Your Mama has absolutely no notion of and makes not real claims about whether Daughter Soros and Second-Ex-Missus Soros are bosom buddies, sworn enemies or something in between. Okay?  

**Listing information actually shows the apartment has six bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms (plus the separate staff apartment)

***All the furniture? Really? Your Mama would bet Big Daddy's farm every stick and scrap of Miz Soros' furniture and day-core is among the most expensive money can buy but—let's get real children—who pays fifty million bucks for a New York City apartment and wants the previous owner's highboys, sideboards, sofas and commodes? Does that include the mattresses?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Ice Hockey Hottie Loui Eriksson Lists Dallas Digs

SELLER: Loui Eriksson
LOCATION: Dallas, TX
PRICE: $2,495,000
SIZE: 7,141 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few days ago Your Mama chit-chatted with the children about a glassy, modestly scaled mid-century modern that beau-hunky Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård purchased in the hills above Hollywood. Today—thanks to an informant we'll call Wanda Slipsomedish—we roll out Your Mama's celebrity real estate red carpet for another strapping Swede, this time professional ice hockey player Loui Eriksson who recently heaved his contemporary twisted traditional mini-mansion in Dallas, TX on the open market with an asking price of $2,495,000.

Your Mama does not follow ice hockey any more than we follow the lesbian rodeo circuit, but children, you should hear our boozy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau go on a tear about the ice hockey. If there's anything in this world that Fiona loves more than the big ol' backside of a swarthy professional baseball player—word to the wise, Angel Pagan, Fiona is coming for you—it's the sturdy blond haunches of a foreign-born puck pusher like Loui Eriksson.

Anyhow, once Fiona stopped screeching and hollering she told us young Mister Ericksson—six-foot-two and just 27 years old—hails from scenic Gothenburg, Sweden, and currently plays the left winger position (whatever that is) for the Dallas Stars, who first drafted the Nordic bruiser in 2003. During the 2008-09 season he played all 82 games, then he played for Sweden in the 2010 Winter Olympics and in 2011 he was selected for the NHL All-Star Game in which he scored the game-winning goal. So, clearly, he's kinda a big deal on the ice. Indeed, Mister Eriksson is such a big deal that his current, six-year contract with the Stars (2010-2015) compensates him with an average of $4,250,000 per year.

According to the various property records we peeped, Mister Eriksson and his long-time spouse/baby momma, Micaela Kanold, purchased their quarter acre-plus Dallas spread, located on a leafy lane in the posh Preston Hollow neighborhood in December, 2009 for an undisclosed amount of money.*

Current listing information shows the chunky, Prairie House style contemporary was custom built in 2007 by Geoffrey Grant, a bigwig builder of luxury homes in Dallas. The un-gated and undeniably airy two-story domicile includes, as per listing information, six bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms in 7,141 square feet of interior space, every inch of it all done up and did over in a glitzy but casual, whimsy-tinged and downright feminine decorative style Your Mama might inadequately describe as Tastefully Flashy Period Pastiche meets Corporate Boutique Hotel Chic.

As we do whenever we come across some intel about an upscale residence in Dallas, we queried Candy Evans, the sassy, entrepreneurial—and legally embattled—Dallas-based property gossip who works over real estate but good on her fab online endeavors Candy's Dirt and Second Shelters. Candy got back to Your Mama immediately—she's good like that—and, natch, she knew all about the Eriksson mini-manse. She was, she told us, at that very moment, sipping champers and typing her manicured fingers to the nubbins on a rather gushing report of Mister Ericksson and Miz Kaland's thoroughly and opulently decorated Dallas digs. Candy did take a quick break from her scuttlebutting duties—told y'all she was good like that—and, to our delight, further elucidated re: the house, "This is what we in Dallas call a Mini Honey Pot. You are east of the big acreages where the likes of Kelcy Warren and Tom Hicks and George W. nest. This is where you find those who want gigunta homes on a little less land so they can hop in their G-5s and go off to their Vail pads!" A Mini Honey Pot! Die-ing.

Anyhoo, glass and wood front doors painted a high gloss jet black and set into a colonnaded porch open directly and—some will surely feel—abruptly into a Texas-sized formal living/dining room that stretches than 30 feet with impressively lofty 13-foot ceilings, espresso-colored maple floors and wide banks of extra-tall windows and French-style doors. A fireplace centrally set into a paneled wall anchors the living room end of the capacious space and two walls in the dining room are slathered in an over-scaled red, white and pink floral print wallpaper that Your Mama really wants to detest, believes we really should loathe and would never, in a million years install in our own home but none-the-less inexplicably—and much to our own decorative chagrin—sort of has a cotton for.

The living/dining room opens on its long, rear wall—directly opposite the front door—to a central stair hall that steps down into second, less formal but equally as decadent family room that's all decked out in a monochromatic yet glittery, sophisticated lady palette of cream, crystal, dusty rose and chrome. A second fireplace is flanked by open display shelves backed with a shimmery brocade-pattern wallpaper and zhuzhed up with framed photographs and perfectly balanced clusters of decorator-curated tchotchke.** Eight foot French-style doors and windows look out and open the family room up to a deep, covered porch with monumental steel fireplace. 

Two steps up from and open to the family room a sleek-and-chic galley-style Balthaup-brand kitchen was designed and installed with a center island snack counter (for four), snow white slabs of quartz counter tops, a complete collection of commercial-style stainless steel appliances and a built-in breakfast banquette. A nicely equipped butler's pantry conveniently connects the kitchen to the dining room.

Behind the kitchen—at least we think it's behind or, maybe, beyond the kitchen—a window-lined room currently used as a children's play space (above, top right) has, matte black walls with cutesy artwork, a wall-mounted flat-screen t.v. for tuning the child out, a super-stylish modern-style play kitchen and direct access to the backyard.

A second family room (above, bottom), on the second floor, is perfect for keeping the kids out of the more adult-oriented areas on the main floor and is finished with a row of built-in homework desks and a complete wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and shelves custom-built around—of course—a wall,mounted flat-screen television.

Each of the home's half dozen bedrooms was, clearly—as seen in the delicious listing photos, worked over but good by a lady or nice-gay decorator with a lot of ideas, a thing for wallpaper and a decent but not unlimited budget.*** The roomy, white and silver-toned master suite (above, left) has a humongous, wallpaper and lattice headboard structure stuck to the wall behind the bed and an attached bathroom with a glass-enclosed—if not particularly private—open-plan bathing suite (above, right) comprised of soaking tub platform and separate multi-head shower area.

One family/guest bedroom doesn't have any wallpaper at all, another has super-graphic black and white vertical striped wall paper on at least three walls and another yet has shimmery silver- and mint-hued brocade-patterned wall paper up on just one wall plus the damn ceiling. Candy's very accomplished and regularly published lady decorator told her a wallpapered ceiling is de rigueur in au courant Dallas decoratin' circles.**** Well—all due respect, gurl—we are not convinced. It kind of gives Your Mama the vertigo, like we're standing on the wall, iffin that makes any sense. Anyhoo, you say luminescent patterned wallpaper on the ceiling we say super-matte white paint. Whatever.

Another bedroom—probably intended for a young girl based on an entirely stereotypical reading of the listing photograph—has plum colored walls that we think might be a soft fabric stretched over batting and a fifth bedroom—for an infant, duh—was done entirely—and we mean in its entirety, hunties—in a stunning but not particularly stimulating-to-baby blush kissed beige color.

A (thankfully) removable child-safety fence separates the covered outdoor living/dining area off the kitchen and family room from the over-sized concrete pavers that surround the slightly-raised spa and large, rectangular swimming pool with tanning shelf. There's also a diving board, the fulcrumless kind that hardly bends a smidgen even when ferociously pounced upon by a husky diver and that we imagine an insurance company would label as an attractive nuisance.***** A flat, but fairly petite patch of grass at the back of the house is the perfect spot to let the dogs do their business and/or install a super-sized and high-cost swing set and play structure.

Your Mama has no inside intelligence on where Mister Eriksson and Miz Kaland might be headed next but would anyone be surprised it it wasn't over to the east a little bit where, as Candy said, all the big acreage estates are located? No. We wouldn't either.

*We can not confirm the figure, but Dallas-based property fiend Candy Evans reported this week on her blog that the couple paid somewhere around $1,400,000.

**We can not confirm the pottery clusters and etc. seen on the shelves on either side of the family room fireplace in the listing photos were actually curated by a decorator. We only speculate they were because they're just so, well, so that it's a tell-tale sign a professional decorator has been all up in the house.

***We can not confirm the day-core in any or all of the bedrooms—or any other room in the house, for that matter—is the actual handiwork of a professional lady or nice-gay decorator. Maybe this was an singular effort by the lady of the house. It could be. It probably isn't. But it could be. We also can't confirm that Mister Eriksson did or did not have "a decent but not unlimited budget" for his furniture and other decorative items. We have absolutely no knowledge of what sort of budget he did or did not have for his obviously very thoroughly decorated residence.

****What Candy's Dallas-based lady decorator, Michelle Nussbaumer, actually said about wallpaper on the ceiling was that it's, "very NOW" and not, as we said, "de rigueur in au courant Dallas decortin' circles." It wasn't specified in Candy's report whether Miz Nussbaumer  thinks a wallpapered ceiling is NOW only in Dallas or if it's also NOW in well-dressed, upscale homes in other parts of Texas, the U.S. and/or the entire world.

*****We really have no idea if an insurance company would term this diving board or any other thing on this property as an "attractive nuisance" or any other kind of nuisance. 

listing photos: Dave Perry-Miller & Associates

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Alicia Keys Buys Bubble Hill

BUYER: Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz
SELLER: Eddie Murphy
LOCATION: Englewood, NJ
SIZE: 25,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 9 full and 4 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: According to the ever-in-the-know property gossips at the New York Daily News, 15-time Grammy-winning superstar singer/songwriter Alicia Keys and her hip-hop producer/entrepreneur hubbySwizz Beatz have agreed to cough up "around $12,000,000" for Bubble Hill, the lavish Englewood, NJ estate of comedian Eddie Murphy.

Depending on how you see the sitch, that just might be a pretty good deal when you consider Mister Murphy first hoisted his Garden State real estate white elephant on the market seven or more years ago with an in-hindsight grossly optimistic asking price of $30,000,000.

The 25,000 square foot, Georgian mega-mansion sits on five gated and manicured acres and is approached from a long driveway that passes under, what Your Mama opines, is an architecturally unnecessary porte-cochère that only makes the place seem like someplace where you go for an upscale Bar or Bat Mitzvah, an upper management executive's retirement party or, maybe, a charity benefit hosted by one of those excessively spray-tanned drama mommas on The Real Housewives of New Jersex. We humbly but very strongly suggest a removal of said porte-cochère.

Anyhoo, the unapologetically grand—and quite possibly even grandiose—residence includes, according to listing information and previous discussions of the property, 7 bedrooms, 9 full and 4 half bathrooms and numerous formal and informal living rooms and dining areas. The gigantic red brick pile is also said to contain a recording studio, a two-lane bowling alley, a pub room, a wood-paneled billiards room and a spa area with—natch— multiple hair and make-up stations. There's also a detached structure with multiple automobile garage bays and, at the opposite end of the massive manse, an attached, glass-roofed indoor swimming pool pavilion.

Mister and Miz Keys-Beatz will, so the celebrity real estate gossip goes, will also purchase a contiguous two-acre lot, also owned by Mister Murphy, with additional living space, a children's playground and a tennis court.

In early 2010 Miz Keys and Mister Beatz paid design-minded rocker Lenny Kravitz $12,750,000 for his long-listed duplex penthouse loft in New York City's SoHo 'hood. In March of this year (2012) the procreating couple heaved the nearly 6,200 square foot, four-terrace spread on the market in March 2012 with a much higher $17,950,000 price tag.

Mister Murphy still owns another opulent mansion in the guard-gated Beverly Park community in Los Angeles that's almost as big as Bubble Hill as well as a 200-plus acre country spread in rural Poughquag, NY that he had on the open market back in mid-2007 with an asking price of $5,995,000, reduced from $8,995,000.

listing photos: Prominent Properties Sotheby's

Actor Adam Scott Sells Silver Lake Abode

SELLER: Adam Scott
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,049,000
SIZE: 2,171 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1.75 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week word slipped down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine and into Your Mama's inbox that slim-hipped and prominently-jawed sitcom and movie actor Adam Scott's hillside house in Los Angeles's Silver Lake 'hood* was quietly put up for sale and quickly whisked into escrow with an asking price of $1,049,000.

Mister Scott has toiled in Tinseltown since at least the mid-1990s but for the last few years—five seasons, to date—he's shaken his wry-humored professional tail feathers on the idiosyncratically charming and often very funny, 8-time Emmy nominated sitcom Parks and Recreation. In addition to the numerous television programs on which he's appeared and/or starred—they include Party of Five, Six Feet Under, the under-rated Eastbound & Down, and the silly, smart and canceled cable sitcom Party Down that also starred the pre-Glee Jane Lynch—Mister Scott often appears on the silver screen (Our Idiot Brother, Monster-In-Law, The Aviator). His upcoming movie projects include the next Ben Stiller vehicle (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) and a feature-length version of the t.v. show Party Down that is slated to star most of the original cast along with the usually quite funny—except for that fuh-reeky, fake butter shilling gig a few years ago—two-time Emmy-winning Will & Grace star Megan Mullally.

Property records show Mister Scott and his writer/producer wife Naomi (Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Andy Milonakis Show) purchased the three-story Silver Lake abode in March 2007 for $889,000 and current listing information shows the tree-ringed, taupe traditional was originally built in 1935 and offers a flexible floor plan with 2 bedrooms and 1.75 bathrooms in 2,171 square feet of interior space.

This is not—as our stair-avoiding house gurl Svetlana vehemently pointed out—a home for the lazy, the weak hearted and/or the glutially frail. A locked entry gate next to the street-level two-car garage hides a fairly long slog up an exterior flight of hedge-lined concrete stairs to the front door that opens to an especially voluminous double-height entry where a sturdy stone staircase with wrought iron railing requires even more grocery-hauling stair climbing to reach the residence's main living, cooking, eating and sleeping areas located on the upper-most floor.

The top floor "formal" living room spans the full width of the front of the house with peg and groove hardwood floors; a shallow-beamed ceiling; a cutesy, built-in display niche; an Old-School bay window; and glass doors that slide open to a covered balcony with long views over the hilltops towards the iconic Hollywood sign.

The peg and groove wood floors run into the back of the house where a flexi-use room with tray ceiling and corner windows could be utilized, according to listing information, as a dining room, a third bedroom or—as it is by Mister and Mister Scott—a "children's creative play space." Without question, we'll take the dining room option, thank you very much.

The unexpectedly roomy, country-meets-modern eat-in kitchen looks to Your Mama like it might have been recently remodeled and equipped with a built-in breakfast banquette seating set into a sun splashed corner; the usual collection of higher-grade stainless steel appliances that include a muscular, extra-wide commercial style range; charcoal colored counter tops of unknown but probably high quality material; and two-toned painted wood cabinetry, white Shaker style stuff around the outside and a glossy, deep turquoise center work island outfitted with two seat snack counter and under counter wine fridge.

The wall-to-wall carpeted lower level living space is currently used as a media den/liquor lounge with vintage built-in bar—check the Old School porcelain slop sink—and an attached three-quarter lavatory with built-in toiletry dresser, pedestal sink, light camel-colored honey-comb tile floors and a white tile-lined corner stall shower. Sliding glass doors open the den/lounge, also convertible to home office, domestic quarters, home gym or—ahem—"children's creative play space," to a delicious roof terrace set atop the street-level two-car garage with over the roof- and treetop views

The terraced and fully landscaped areas that step up the hillside behind the house are somewhat constrained due to the upsloping geography but include a kitchen garden planted with herbs and heirloom vegetables and an elevated deck for dining and lounging with big sky and cottage-dotted canyon views.

A brief and entirely unscientific perusal of various property record data bases did not turn up any evidence that Mister and Missus Scott own any additional residential real estate. That does not, of course, mean that they don't. Since they'll soon have to vacate these premises, one imagines they're on a mad search for—or, perhaps, have already moved forward with the acquisition of—their next family homestead, one that Your Mama would bet both our long-bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, will have fewer stairs and be better set up to accommodate a pair of Tinseltown adults and their two young children.

*Silver Lake, in case y'all don't know, is where you go if you're an arty-farty, East Side type of Angeleno who wants delicious and affordable homemade pasta at Speranza on Hyperion or a $47 cup of custom-brewed, single origin goor-may cwawfee at Intelligentsia on Sunset Boulevard.** One friend of Your Mama called Silver Lake the Williamsburg of Los Angeles, a characterization that willno doubtoffend any number of Williamsburgians and Silver Lakers.

**A single cup of single origin coffee at Intelligentsia doesn't really cost $47, but it is, like, five or six bucks for a pretty damn wee cup of coffee. That's not six clams for a 17,000 calorie, half-caf-frap-crap thing drizzled with butterscotch (or some other gooey dessert topping), but a single cup of black coffee. If you're a somewhat snooty, eco-conscious coffee connoisseur, you'll totally get and happily cough up the eye-popping price. If you think Folgers does you just fine, well, you'll probably think it's foolish bordering on financially reckless to cough up $23 bucks for a pound of "refreshing and juicy" Fleca Roja from Costa Rica.  

The high prices are no deterrent to some heavy duty commerce. The shop—at least the one in Silver Lake—is jammed-packed almost all the time and snagging a hotly coveted table on a Saturday or Sunday morning involves an exhausting amount of stink eyed obstructionist maneuvering wrapped in a slouchy, I-might-be-hung-over sort of nonchalance because no body wants to actually look like they'd cut a bitch for the four top in the corner...but they would. Anyhoo...

listing photos: Michael McNamara, Shooting LA for Sotheby's International Realty