Dasmarka Real Estate

...has ants in her real estate pants and plans to pack up the children and, once again, move mansions, this time to an exclusive, guard-gated golf community in the upscale and exurban outpost of Thousand Oaks, CA, about 35 miles northwest of Hollywood.

We first caught wind of the famously peripatetic pop star's' upcoming move to suburbia to exurbia about two weeks ago when we received an unexpected covert communique from Anne Teak, a woman of few words who wondered if little ol' we might be able to corroborate or squelch the latest neighborhood scuttlebutt about Miz Spears being the wealthy 'hood's newest celebrity resident.

It took us a bit of time and a leg up from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air but we finally secured a confirmation from our always impeccably informed friend and snitch Lucy Spillerguts who told us with "110%" certainty the Britney Spears household has or will soon relocate to a big, beige stone and stucco mcmansion that overlooks one of the fairways (or greens or whatever) of the private Sherwood Country Club.

According to Anne Teak the gossip goes that Miz Spears purchased a posh mansion in the Sherwood Country Club Estates and, indeed, the property in question was on the open market until sometime in September or October this year with an asking price of $8,900,000. However, charm bracelets, Miss Spillerguts told us Miz Spears has not bought but leased the property. We can't say how how the rent check she writes will be because, well, we don't know for sure. However, a little digging around in the murky depths of the interweb turned up multiple (expired) listings that reveal the 1.8-ish acre mini-estate was last but recently available for lease at $25,000 per month. Perhaps Miz Spears (or her people) negotiated a better price, perhaps not.

A person who cares about such trivial celebrity real estate matters could not legitimately be institutionalized for wondering aloud why a woman and mother of means such as Miz Spears would opt to rent a damn mansion rather than buy one and make it a (semi-)permanent home for her, her children, her man-friend Jason Trawick, and their retinue. We have no wisdom to offer about the specifics of that particular matter, puppies, but we do know since fleeing–ahem–vacating her post-Kevin Federline mansion in the guard-gated Summit community in the Beverly Hill Post Office area–the luxurious scene of so much crazy for the global superstar in 2007 and 2008–Miz Spears has preferred to rent a short succession of rather large and expensive suburban mansions. She first settled, for a couple of short years, at the dorkily-named Chateau Sueños in Calabasas (CA) and since early 2011 she, the children, and etc. have shacked up in a 19,107 square foot mega-manse with 10 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms in the horse- and celebrity-friendly community of Hidden Hills (CA).

Of course, Your Mama doesn't know a blow hole from a microwave oven so we can't very accurately speculate about the reason (or myriad of reasons) Miz Spears would choose to move again so soon after settling in to a rented mansion in Hidden Hills but maybe (or maybe not) it has to do with her recent turning of 30, the December 10th finale in Puerto Rico of her international Femme Fatale tour and/or the rampant rumors running 'round the blogs and gossip glossies that Mister Trawick plans to very soon put a sparkly ring on Miz Spears finger. Mazel tov to all!

Whatever the reason(s), listing information Your Mama squeezed like a pimple out of the interweb shows Miz Spears newest rented residence in somewhat-remote-to-the-Showbiz-World Thousand Oaks was built in 2004, stands two stories tall, and measures 10,567 square feet with a total of 5 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, at leasst 4 fireplaces (3 indoors, 1 outside), garage space for 7 cars, and one craptastically swelegant 8-sided foyer with inlaid marble floor, arched display niches, an unholy cacophony of doorway styles, and a wrought iron railing-ringed oculus that exposes the lower level foyer to the hand-painted geometric mural that spans the ceiling of the upper level gallery.

The main living areas include (but are not necessarily limited to) a formal dining room and a not-very-formal formal living room with lustrous random-width, honey-colored oak floors, a full wall of wood-framed glass sliders that peel open to a covered porch, an ornate and over-scaled carved stone fireplace at one end of the long room and what appears to be a built-in entertainment cabinet with exposed flat-screen tee-vee at the other.

A more manly architectural and decorative vibe was applied to the medium-dark wood paneled library immediately off the foyer that presents a coffered ceiling overhead, wall-to-wall carpeting the color of wet sand underfoot, a quartet of over-sized windows with a grassy backyard view along one entire wall, and a carved wood and marble fireplace with flat screen television mounted above it where there might more appropriately be a $47 painting of canines smoking cigars and playing poker.

The kitchen borders on colossal and includes a Suburu-sized center work island with veggie sink and under-counter booze fridge, many feet of custom milled raised panel cabinetry topped by swirly beige granite with double waterfall style edge detail, well-lit tumbled travertine back splashes, a full suite of high-grade appliances, and an adjoining breakfast area with backyard and swimming pool access through a bank of French doors. We're just going to totally pretend we don't see the dreadful swagged fabric valances and the hypertension-inducing items precariously set in to that slim and otherwise mostly useless space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling because otherwise we'd have a serious conniption fit.

Casual indoor entertainment areas include, as per listing and marketing materials, a home theater and a gigantic, partly wood-paneled second floor game room complete with fireplace, full-size wood and granite pub, poker nook, and at least three built-in flat-screen tee-vee because as if the sound of one tee-vee isn't enough to disturb the peace then three tee-vees blaring three different programs at the same damn time is enough to make Your Mama need a nerve pill and nap. Nobody in their right minds smokes indoors anymore–particularly if there are small children, pets, and/or old people around–so draggers and puffers will appreciate the long row of wood-framed sliding glass doors that provide convenient access to a covered outdoor balcony that also has a wide flight of steps that descend to backyard and swimming pool areas.

Miz Spears and Mister Trawick, both fit as fiddles with hard booties and firm stomachs, will no doubt make real and serious use of the home gym, located in the same neck of the mcmansion as the game room and equipped with a built-in flat-screen tee-vee mounted about a corner wet bar. We are, we must confess, a bit troubled by the wall-to-wall carpeting in the fitness room. Not only does it seem somehow counter-intuitive to work out–or "work out"–on semi-shag carpeting it seems downright unsanitary. Think about it for a moment. Iffin a person or persons actually uses and uses correctly all that exercise equipment–otherwise known by Your Mama as Self-Inflicting Body Torture Devices–that carpet could quickly become saturated with an upsetting amount of sweat.

Anyhoo, a tightly curled carved wood and wrought iron staircase tucked into its own vestibule off the foyer leads to the second level living areas where Miz Spears' (and presumably Mister Trawick's) private quarters occupy a private wing that includes a fully-carpeted bedroom big enough for a sizable sitting area with a huge carved stone (or cast-concrete?) fireplace. Glass sliders open to a private covered balcony with chunky stone balustrade and not-so distant view of the mansion-dotted rolling hills that weave their way around the unnaturally green golf course. There isn't a mention of it in the online listing we perused but we assume closet space in the master suite is both custom-fitted and commodiously celebrity-worthy but listing photographs do show a master bathroom dressed up in expensive but utterly banal and all-beige manner with double sinks, jetted soaking tub, glass-enclosed shower, and a dedicated hair and make-up station with the ugly sort of hydraulically-operated chair one might more reasonably expect to find in a beautician's workspace.

The house sits fairly hard up on the street with a small motor court wedged into the parcel at one end of the house and a soccer-pitch sized grassy space on the other where the current owners erected a jungle gym that we'd bet our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly cost more than a minimum wage domestic earns in an entire month. A long and wide free-form terrace extends off the back of the house and extends part way around the amoebic negative edge swimming pool and spa. At one end of the swimming pool an outdoor entertainment complex features an octagonal open air dining pavilion with massive outdoor fireplace and an adjacent conversation-friendly, horseshoe-shaped outdoor kitchen/barbecue center with a raised and umbrella-shaded snack & booze bar. A long, switchback stone staircase descends into a thickly wooded area below the house where Miz Spears boy children will no doubt  built a fort and another shorter set of steps curves down to a small plateau tucked into the gentle slope with built-in fire pit.

We're not sure if Miz Spears plans to hang around the country club much but iffin she and etc. were so-inclined membership would allow them access to a variety of facilities that include 72-par Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, a tennis club, swimming pool complex with junior-Olympic sized pool plus children's wading pool and bubbling spa, an extensive fitness center, full-service spa that offers massages, hair removal, and anti-aging treatments as well as mani-pedi services, and at least five separate members only dining and drinking venues.

Other rich and high profile residents/property owners at the Sherwood Country Club Estates include financier William Dallas who among other things manages some (or all, we're not sure) of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's vast fortune and tennis ace Pete Sampras who custom-built a 16,177 square foot lightly contemporary compound on a private knoll that he quickly flipped back on the market almost two years ago with a $25,000,000 price tag. As of today the Sampras' compound-like property remains on the market with an asking price of $19,950,000, a hugely reduced number that still makes it a titanic $11,450,000 more expensive than the next most expensive house on the open market inside the gates of the Sherwood Country Club Estates. The children may recall that some years ago professional baseball player turned dilettante entrepreneur spent close to $17,000,000 to buy one of the golf communities largest and most expensive estates from former pro puck pusher Wayne Gretzky and subsequently lost it down the jagged-toothed hatch of foreclosure.

Outside the manned and secured gates of the Sherwood Country Club some of the area's other name-brand property owners include comedian/actor/singer Jamie Foxx who owns 40-plus rural acres and a hill-top mega-mansion a few miles away and Ellen Degenere and Portia de Rossi who own a 26-acre equestrian facility in nearby Hidden Valley they've periodically had on the open market at $16,500,000 this year.