Dasmarka Real Estate

SELLERS: Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,495,000
SIZE: 2,265 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Exactly one week ago to the day Your Mama discussed a walled and gated country farmhouse-style residence in the Beverly Hills Post Office area of Los Angeles, CA recently acquired by married actors Eric Dane (Grey's Anatomy) and Rebecca Gayheart (Vanished) for $2,400,000. About half way through our little discussion we mentioned a house high above the Sunset Strip that property records show was purchased by the happy couple in July of 2006 for $1,640,000. As celebrity real estate fate would have it, just yesterday Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart hoisted the above mentioned Sunset Strip residence on the market with an asking price of $1,495,000.

Even the booziest and most dense of the children should immediately see what our over-worked bejeweled abacus reveals: even if Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart's top-flight property purveyor manages to conjure a real estate miracle and pull in a full price offer, they'll still face a $145,000 smack-down to their bank account, not counting the real estate fees that could easily run them another fifty grand.

Property records show Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart bought the sleek and sexy but still friendly abode from well-known music video director Marcus Raboy who has worked with hotsy-totsies like Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, the Dixie Chicks, Luscious Jackson and Avril "The Spitter" Lavigne whose latest video is little more than a shameless and annoying onslaught of product placement advertising.

Listing information for Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart's five-level contemporary crib above the swankety-swank Sunset Plaza shopping and dining district shows it was built in 1962, measures 2,265 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. That count includes the master bedroom with its huge custom walk-in closet, fireplace and attached pooper where stone tiles cover the floor and the walls all the way to the ceiling. Listen sugar cubes, Your Mama can tolerate the hotel-suite vibe of the bathroom and we can stomach the teeny-tiny window–a puny window is better than no window, after all–but we can not abide those silly sinks. Call Your Mama an old fashioned decorative curmudgeon–which we are not–but we like our bathroom sinks sunk into the counter tops old-school rather sitting on it like a couple of porcelain damn dog bowls. The swan neck-like Dornbracht (or Grohe) fixtures, on the other hand, are heavenly.

A short flight of exterior stairs, just enough to peeve our sometimes tyrannical house gurl Svetlana, connect the barely there driveway to an exposed porch and frosted glass front door. Inside, a visually complicated open-tread staircase that morphs into a vertigo-inducing spiral as it goes higher dominates the small but airy foyer.

Half a flight up from the wee foyer dark tiles cover the floor in the combo living and dining room. In the dining area smooth espresso-color paneling overs one wall and on another a trio of floor to ceiling windows look out over the dizzying traffic that winds up and down the nauseatingly windy road out front. Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart's nice gay decorator reinforced the sturcture's boxy architecture with a clean-lined parson's table but smartly turned things around with a glitzy old-timey crystal chandelier and eight Chippendale-style chairs.

A pair of vintage-looking swivel chairs upholstered in sunshine-colored fabric pump up the volume of the other wise neutral and sedate decorative palette in the living room area where the focal point is the sleek and massive stone-faced fireplace and hearth. We're not a huge fan of flat screen tee-vees mounted over fireplaces but in this case it sort of works because it's just about the exact same size as the firebox and creates a 1970s super graphic visual that we can support. Another wall of wood-framed floor-to-ceiling windows slide open and integrate the living room area to a very shady courtyard style backyard with dining area and petite plunge pool.

The cozy, custom designed u-shaped kitchen has mocha-colored flat-fronted cabinetry, counter tops that waterfall over the ends and high-grade stainless steel appliances including a 4-burner baby-sized Viking range. For what it's worth–and it ain't worth a damn thing–the nipple-like nickel (or stainless) pulls on the kitchen cabinets are identical to the ones that Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter installed on the kitchen cabinets in our former weekend house on the east end of Long Island.

Anyhoo, listing information indicates the house is also equipped with a 2-car direct entry garage, a serious security system, an office, media/music room, guest/staff quarters and indoor laundry facilities.

Iffin we're being honest–and we always are–we'd confess to a small affection for this house. We appreciate its modest size, linear architecture and attention to detail. However, Your Mama worries to the point of needing a nerve pill about the sheer verticality of this particular pad. As best as we can surmise the four-story (and five-level) residence lacks an elevator, a situation that makes it difficult for the glutially feeble or those with a bad ticker that might go kerplunk hauling a big bag of terlitries up from the garage to upper-most level bedrooms. Even still, the health risks of physical exertion pay off when the big ol' back side gets all the way up to the sizable if not gigantic roof top terrace that offers an bun sunning space, a pergola for escaping the direct sun, an outdoor fireplace and a quintessentially Sunset Strip-style view over the hills covered in gravity-defying homes, towards the towers of Century City and–perhaps on a clear day–all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency