In Case You Missed It: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson

SELLER: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson
LOCATION: Pacific Palisades, CA
PRICE: $5,225,000
SIZE: 6,289 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Late last week it was revealed by the folks at Zillow that two-time Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson put one of their many homes in the prosperous Los Angeles community of Pacific Palisades, CA on the market with an asking price of $5,225,000.

This isn't, so it would seem, Mister Hanks and Miz Wilson's first time to ride the real estate merry-go-round with this particular Spanish style casa. Your Mama uncovered online evidence the house was actually on the market with little or no fanfare last year (2012) with a higher $5,450,000 asking price.

Interestingly, since all the hoopla and hoo-ha about the listing hit the internets over the weekend most but not all online listings for the celeb-owned Spanish have all but disappeared from the interweb. However, thanks to some creative digging and an assist from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air Your Mama has managed to locate current and active listing details that show the so-called "legendary villa" was originally built in 1929 on a tight .3 acre lot and has four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in 6,289 square feet.

Property records show Mister Hanks acquired the walled, gated, and high-hedged property in Pac Pal's quietly ritzy Riviera 'hood for $1.9 million way back in April 1988, right about the time and Miz Wilson were united in legal matrimony and not long before his first Oscar nominations for Big.

A grand and monochromatic beige double-height foyer, lit by a glimmery crystal chandelier, is ringed by a second floor gallery. Strongly pedimented pocket doors lead to a robustly scaled formal living room with nearly white hardwood floors, a white-washed (or maybe it's limed) wood ceiling, a wood-burning fireplace, and a series French doors with semi-circular transoms, some of which open to a loggia that overlooks simply landscaped gardens. Pedimented pocket doors also mark the entrance from the foyer to the formal dining room that has a built-in bookcase/china display cabinet and a coffered wood ceiling. Somewhere in the house, presumably in close proximity to the formal living and dining rooms, there's also a library described in current listing details as "intimate" and "ideal for meditations or reading."

Numerous windows and several large sky lights placed between heavy duty wood beams on the ceiling flood the oppressively all-beige kitchen with natural light. The floors appear to be some sort of stone, possibly Travertine or limestone, and the top quality appliances include a mac-daddy six burner range and side-by-side fridge freezers. A shipping container-sized center island with veggie sink separates the kitchen proper from a roomy informal eating space and sitting area with direct access to the outside.

A "pretty, sun-filled" guest suite with newly remodeled bathroom is, as per listing details, well separated from the upper floor family quarters that include four bedrooms plus a "romantic" master suite complete with "stylish" bath and direct access to a meandering covered terrace with over the tree tops ocean view.

Curiously, the property does not have a swimming pool but it does have a number of other notable features and amenities that include: lots of archway, columns, and hand-frescoed ceilings; a basement level space converted to what listing details describe as "an incredible closet and storage space;" a private beauty salon—they are regular red carpet walkers, after all; and a window-ringed second floor sun room with fireplace. A guest suite with recently updated bathroom is situated well away from the four upstairs family/guest bedrooms and the master suite includes a fireplace and a "stylish bathroom that opens to a meandering ocean-view terrace.

The Tinseltown A-list royals maintain a healthy if not outright hefty portfolio of luxury residences. Way back in 1991 they paid $2.95 million for a modestly sized ocean front home in the coveted guard-gated Colony enclave in Malibu and in 2010 they paid 8-time Oscar nominated movie producer Kathleen Kennedy and five-time Oscar nominated movie producer Frank Marshall just over $26 million for a muscular 14,500+ square foot Gwathmey-Siegel-designed residence on a private promontory in Pacific Palisades. At the same time they bought the Kennedy-Marshall mansion they also forked over another $1,450,000 for an adjacent property with a much smaller 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom house, presumably for staff, family or guests.

According to our brief and unscientific research The Hanks-Wilsons also keep a substantial multi-million dollar residence near Sun Valley, ID as well as a down on her heels ranch style residence on a double lot in the Riviera area of Pacific Palisades plus a pair of much more modestly sized side-by-side residences a few short blocks the heart of downtown Pacific Palisades.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

In Case You Missed It: Robbie Williams

SELLER: Robbie Williams
LOCATION: Compton Bassett, Wiltshire, U.K.
PRICE: £5,500,000
SIZE: 1,850 square meters, 9+ bedrooms, 13.5+ bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: First came word in late May that increasingly out of the limelight British pop star Robbie Williams sold—and took an approximately half million dollar loss—on a multi-residence compound on L.A.'s famed Mulholland Drive that's complete with full-sized lighted soccer pitch. Now comes word down the international celebrity real estate gossip grapevine via the always helpful Florinda Flapjaw that the nearly forty year old former boy bander has recently re-listed Compton Bassett House, a substantial, landed gentry-type 18th century mega-mansion on 71.55 acres in Wiltshire, about 85 miles west of Central London and 25 miles north of Stonehenge.

So the stories go, Mister Williams was interested in the mystical Ley Lines that (allegedly) criss cross the hills and dales of Wiltshire and purchased the property in 2009 for £8.1 million. A few clicks and clacks on Your Mama's currency conversion contraption shows that amount equalled about $13.4 million in June 2009 and comes to exactly $12,714,600 at today's rates. He quickly caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and flipped the country spread back on the market in 2010 with a £7.5 million price tag. Alas, the property did not sell and was eventually taken off the market. It's returned in the last week or tow with a new and prodigiously lower listing price of £5.5 million ($8,633,35) that represents a pearl clutching £2.6 million ($4,081,220) loss for Mister Williams on the updated and upgraded estate, not counting carrying costs, upkeep and improvements.

A long, tree-shaded driveway snakes through the estate's verdant grounds to the front of the ivy-encrusted residence that looks to Your Mama like it might have once been a very fancy stables or carriage house. The driveway continues around to the rear of the residence where there's a small parking area and access to a pair of side-by-side two-car tandem garages.

The long and squat three floor mansion has a less than elegant floor plan—check the exhausting distance from the inset reception hall/foyer to the main drawing room—and measures in at a whopping 1,850.65 square meters. That's 19,913 square feet for all us Americans. Although current listing details indicate there are seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms Your Mama counts seven bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms on the floor plan included with digital marketing materials plus two attached but separate staff suites—each with bedroom, bathroom and living room/kitchen combination space—as well as a couple of changing room bathrooms in the lower level leisure complex.

In addition to a grandly proportioned 43-plus foot long main drawing room with (off-center) fireplace, high ceiling, and huge windows on three sides, the ground floor public and family spaces include a fairly small formal dining room, a spacious eat-in kitchen, and a cozy children's play room. In addition to the guest/family bedroom suites, the upper level also has an awkwardly shaped library and a super-sized upper landing that connects through to a nearly 38-foot long office suite with a (properly centered) fireplace flanked by built-in cabinetry and a bidet-equipped attached bathroom.

The lower floor leisure complex includes a long but quite narrow fitness room, a 73-plus foot long indoor swimming pool and spa encircled by a series of stout pillars, a steam room and separate dry sauna, and the aforementioned his and hers changing rooms. There's also a wine cellar, laundry room, the garages, and one of the two staff suites. (The second staff suite is on the ground floor behind the master bedroom with exterior access.)

There are two small(ish) guest/family bedrooms with private attached bathrooms on the ground floor opposite the kitchen/breakfast room and four more bedroom suites on the second floor, each with a private sitting room and walk-in closet. The master suite, probably larger than most middle class homes, occupies its own wing of the ground floor and is comprised of a private study with built-in desk, a sizable sitting room, and and even larger bedroom, dual master bathrooms, and a fitted dressing room with a secret stairway that climbs up to the second floor bedroom corridor.

The park-like estate also has detached one bedroom and one bathroom cottage with 732 square feet as well as a 2,346 square foot structure that contains a helicopter hangar and adjoining workshop conveniently outfitted with wee kitchenette and half bathroom. There are acres of mowed grass, a walled formal garden with pavilion, a hedged water feature/fountain, a grass tennis court that does double duty as a soccer pitch, paddocks for the livestock, and unspoiled woodlands.

We're not sure of Mister Williams entire residential real estate holdings but we do know that he still owns the nearly 11,000 square foot residence in the Mulholland Estates community in Los Angeles (CA) that he picked up in July 2002 for $5,450,000 from country music king Clint Black and his actress/singer wife Lisa Hartman Black. A few of Mister William's Showbizzy neighbors include Saul Hudson (aka Slash), Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, Charlie Sheen, and Vanna White.

listing photos and floor plan: Knight Frank

It's Official: Jodie Foster Lists Sunset Strip Digs

SELLER: Jodie Foster
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $6,399,000
SIZE: 6,060 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in early December (2012) Your Mama let the cat out of the celebrity real estate bag about how smart, successful and semi-reclusive Tinseltown royal Jodie Foster very quietly shelled out $11,750,000 for a house set on a high ridge above the Coldwater and Franklin canyons in Beverly Hills, CA.

A few months later, in mid-April (2013), we passed along a bit of Sunset Strip real estate scuttlebutt about how Miz Foster was fixin' to hoist her long-time residence in the Bird Streets 'hood above L.A.'s Sunset Strip on to the open market with what Your Mama was then told would be a price tag of around five million clams. Well, it's official, Chicken Littles. As anticipated by property gossips of all stripes and types, the two time Oscar winner has officially put her 1930s Spanish villa on the open market. However, hunties, the price isn't five (or so) million clams but a substantially higher $6,399,000.

Your Mama doesn't know how much Miz Foster actually paid for the house but it appears she picked it in the mid 1990s. Various online resources suggest supermodel Cheryl Tiegs previously owned the house with former husband Tony Peck—Gregory's son—but it's not entirely clear if it was Tiegs and Peck who sold the property to Foster. The tax man's records show the house has four bedrooms and seven bathrooms in 5,357 square feet while current listing details show the 6,060 square feet residence spans three floors with four bedrooms and three full and two half bathrooms in the main house plus a separate guest/staff suite perched atop the garage that's self-sufficiently equipped with a separate, secured entrance; an alcove bedroom; a full bathroom and walk-in closet; a compact kitchenette; and a roof terrace with an over the tree tops city view.

Given her fierce and fastidious commitment to personal privacy—Miz Foster is not one of those famous people who call the tabs every time she goes to the supermarket—it should really come as little or no surprise to anyone that all that can bee seen from the narrow street at the front of the Foster house is a thick and towering wall of visually impenetrable hedges and a locked (and probably camera monitored) gate hidden by a riotous tumble of stickery bougainvillea. There is not, let it be said, a single shred of off-street parking at the front of the house. There is, however, an equally discreet gated driveway around the rear of the residence that accesses an attached two car garage. Anyhoo...

Behind the high hedge and weather worn wood gate a lushly planted, multi-level red brick terrace climbs up to the an inviting front porch. The airy entry has what we can only describe as baby-poo colored tiles under foot and a doghouse skylight over head that ensure the center of the house is swimming in natural light at all times of the day. There's also a half bathroom off the entry and a swoopy-swirly wrought iron banister that curls decadently down to the lower level.

The step-down living room to the left of the front hall has rustic wood floors, a carved stone (or poured concrete) fireplace, and a vaulted wood ceiling traversed by pleasingly muscular exposed wood trusses. A rhythmic row of French doors swing open to four Juliet balconies that overlook the entrance courtyard and two more sets of French doors at the end of the room access a slender semi-circular balcony. There appear to be even more French doors to the right of the fireplace that link to a secluded terrace on the side of the house.

The dining room, a couple steps up from the foyer, has a second fireplace, a built-in buffet with book shelves, and three more sets of French doors that open to a tree-shaded dining terrace. To the right side of the dining room fireplace there's a partially paneled study/office area with more wood floors and a third fireplace* and, to the left, an over-sized butler's pantry passes on through to an all beige, brown and white faux-farmhouse style kitchen.

The Shaker style cabinets in the kitchen have bead board accents, the counter tops and, we think, the floors are stone, there's a two-stool snack bar at the center island, and the appliances of a quality that one expects to find in the multi-million dollar celebrity-owned home. Naturally, Your Mama—an avid and life long pot rack detester—advocates the next owner remove the industrial-grade pot rack that looms menacingly over the island.**

The circular stairway in the foyer winds elegantly down to the lower level. The floor plan included with online marketing materials indicates the lower level contains: a tiny, tucked away bedroom/office with adjoining bathroom; a separate powder room; and an unexpectedly cavernous screening/family room with a massive carved stone (or poured concrete) fireplace flanked by built-in bookcases and theatrical, curved wall of floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall windows. The walls in the screening/family room appear to be sheathed in suede (or some other similarly textured sound absorbing material) that's almost the identical rose-tinted taupe color as the plush wall-to-wall carpeting.

Back upstairs a corridor off the dining room leads to the bedrooms. Two guest/family bedrooms share a spacious Jack 'n' Jill style bathroom and both have direct access to a shared terrace that offers what listing details alliteratively describe as "verdant views." At the extreme rear of the residence the master suite features: a bedroom with fireplace and an adjoining, slightly elevated sitting room; a custom fitted walk-in closet/dressing room; a sauna; and a very brown and beige bathroom fitted and kitted in a—well, let's just say what everyone is thinking—in a fairly masculine manner that would be right at home in a swanky private gentleman's club.

The back of the Y-shaped residence horseshoes around a high-hedged red brick courtyard with tree-shaded dining terrace, a lap lane swimming pool. and a bit of room for sunbathing chaises and yoga mats. As mentioned earlier, the gated driveway at the back of the house provides access to an attached two car garage. There's direct entry from the garage, which is nice, of course, but unfortunately the garage opens awkwardly into the master suite. That's probably fine for when Miz Foster comes homes from the Academy Awards or whatever but Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would hate to have to schlep guests from the garage through our inner most sanctum.

Not too long ago, the children may recall, Miz Foster sold another house in Beverly Hills that she scooped up in July 2005 for $8.1 and sold in September 2011 to Dallas-based budget eyewear tycoon Doug Barnes.

*Although listing photos show a fireplace in the study/office it is not indicated on the floor plan. We're not sure—and it's not really that important—but maybe its one of those portable, plug-in type fireplaces we've seen hawked via infomercials and the home shopping channels.

**If we've said it once we've said it 49,000 too many times: rule No. 7 of Your Mama's Big Book of Decoratin' Do's and Don'ts vociferously declares—and we paraphrase—that pot racks are entirely undesirable kitchen accoutrement due to their gleeful dust collection, propensity to snag and grab teased up weaves, and their occasional malicious intent to drop a copper pot on an unsuspecting pooch's tender cranium. 

listing photos and floor plan: Hilton & Hyland

Saxophonist David Sanborn Lists Manhattan Townhouse

SELLER: David Sanborn
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $12,000,000
SIZE: (approx.) 5,500 square feet*, 4-5 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama first saw the listing on the internet but the lightening fast property gossips at the Daily News were the first to chat up the New York City townhouse owned by five-time Grammy-winning alto saxophonist David Sanborn and (re-)listed this week with a $12,000,000 asking price.

This is not the first time Mister Sanborn and his missus, Sofia, have been to the real estate rodeo with their fully updated and upgraded turn of the 20th century townhouse located mid-block on a lovely, tree-canopied street just off busy-busy Broadway on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The legendary single reed woodwind blower and his educator wife listed the townhouse on the open market in September 2010 with a nine million dollar price tag. Several months later the price dropped to $8.45 million and in August 2011, for reasons Your Mama ain't privy, the well-maintained urban mini-manse was taken off the market.

We aren't exactly sure why the Sanborns and their team of moving and shaking real estate agents think the townhouse can now be sold for more than $3.5 million more than the reduced price it failed to sell for two years ago. Then again, children, business is quite brisk in the upper tiers of the property market in Manhattan and there is—some of y'all have surely heard it before—a certain school of converse real estate logic that suggests that if a high end house fails to sell at a certain price it sometimes and strangely becomes more desirable to deep pocketed buyers if the asking price is substantially increased. Don't scoff and pout and stomp your indignant feet, kittens. Believe it or not, this trick o' the trade isn't always effective but it works far more often than you might imagine or real estate agents would stop doing it. Anyhoo...

The 19-foot wide red brick and brownstone townhouse was originally built in (or around) 1900, according to current marketing materials, and was custom converted from a five unit multi-unit building to a single family residence by Mister and Missus Sanborn who bought it, according to the Daily News, more than 25 years for an unrevealed sum from an unidentified opera singer.

Current listing information shows the (unfortunately elevator-free) five-plus floor brownstone-type townhouse has a total of 13 rooms that include 4-5 bedrooms, depending on use, plus three full and two half bathrooms. Floor plans show half a dozen fireplaces (kitchen, parlor, living room, one guest bedroom, the master bedroom, and the music studio) although the listing description isn't specific about which of the four of them work.

A classic stoop that makes Your Mama ache at our very core with Big Apple nostalgia climbs to the parlor floor where the rehabbed interiors retain many original architectural details and features. There are intricate inlaid parquet floors, almost grand 11-foot-8-inch ceilings, meticulous mill work, and crown moldings. A narrow sitting room off the foyer overlooks the street while a larger living room at the rear of the residence benefits from a more serene garden view and an exquisite all-oak coffered ceiling that's original to the house. Mister Sanborn reportedly used the wee library beyond the living room as a meditation lounge.

The garden level kitchen has both wide-plank wood and stone tile flooring plus custom-crafted Shaker-style cabinets, some sort of stone or solid surface counter tops, a large center island with vegetable sink and snack counter, and high-quality commercial-style appliances. An adjoining breakfast room connects through to a 35-foot deep walled garden with foliage-ringed brick dining terrace. Also on the garden level are second, under the stoop entrance, a guest or staff bedroom that does not have a private bathroom and instead makes use of a nearby three-quarter hall bathroom off the laundry room. There's a full basement, which is fantastic for storage, but the floor plan shows it has but a 6'4" high ceiling height so it's not exactly the best spot for the next wildly wealthy owners to add a media room or fitness studio.

Two equally sized guest/family bedrooms on the third floor share a Jack 'n' Jill style bathroom. One of the bedrooms—listing photographs indicate Mister Sanborn uses it as a den—has a pocket door that slides open to reveal a cozy office/study. Both of the bedrooms have a shockingly stingy amount of closet space that would be barely adequate for weekend guests—never make 'em too comfortable, right?—but an out and out toy and clothing storage nightmare for a resident child or teenager. Think, puppies, about how many pairs of shoes and designer sunglasses a 16 year old New Yorker with wickedly rich parents is likely to have.

The master suite, a proper retreat the encompasses the entire fourth floor, has a comfortably-sized bedroom with a fireplace and direct access to a small, private terrace that peers through the trees over the the surrounding buildings' storage unit-sized backyards. A well-equipped (and windowless) galley-style bathroom connects the bedroom to an enviably spacious dressing room lined with built-in wardrobes.

Mister Sanborn old the peeps at the Daily News he'd recorded half a dozen albums in the 52-foot long, open-plan penthouse level recording studio that's painstakingly soundproofed so as not to disturb the neighbors. He said, in fact, that fire crackers we're set off in the space to test the heavy duty soundproofing. One end of the loft-like space has a fireplace and lounge area while the other has a jumbled plethora of musical instruments beneath a massive sky light. A half bathroom is convenient if not exactly as private as Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter might prefer.

Mister and Missus Sanborn plan to maintain a (smaller) residence in Manhattan but, according to the Daily News  are also shopping for a house in the country.

*Listing information from 2010-11 show the townhouse has about 6,800 square feet, the Tax Man's records put it at 5,529 square feet and Your Mama calculates it comes in at around 4,700 square feet, give or take a couple hundred square feet. 

listing photos and floor plan: Core