Dasmarka Real Estate

Listen puppies, Your Mama has Your Mama's Momma up in our house for the weekend and we got the Sister Cooter coming over for a dinner of roasted chicken and root vegetables so we're slim on time and energy. However, in an effort to keep your real estate appetites whetted we figured we'd toss up a little bit o' floor plan porn to get you through the Sunday afternoon blues.

We don't know who owns this 13-room triplex penthouse in New York City that sits atop a fine but second tier pre-war Park Avenue building. The building, erected in 1927, has an somewhat over-articulated facade with consistent fenestration, rope quoins and a fancy cornice all of which are somewhat marred by the myriad of air-conditioners sticking out of many of the windows. While this is far from unusual in even some of the best buildings in New York, it does take (more than) a little something away from the elegance of the exterior. Anyoo, the 14 story building, which has only about 35 apartments, offers full time doormen requires 50% cash down payment.

The triplex penthouse, listed at $18,500,000 with monthly fees of $11,387, includes a well conceived floor plan with 4 family bedrooms and 4.5 poopers. There are also, according to the floor plan, two cell-sized staff rooms tucked up behind the kitchen that share a single terliting and bathing facility.

The main floor has private elevator vestibule, a coupe of closets for guests' coats, a large but not over-eager foyer, formal living room with fireplace, dining room and a library/den where–a bit awkwardly–the powder pooper is located.

The services quarters consist of a butler's panty that connects the dining room to the kitchen, a reasonably sized eat-in affair, laundry facilities, the two aforementioned cell-sized staff rooms, and an office with attached pooper.

The upper level has four bedrooms, well separated for privacy. The two bedrooms that do not open to the thickly planted terrace share one terliting facility, a third has terrace access and a pooper of its own and the master bedroom includes a walk in closet and an adequate but hardly over-sized bathroom. The children will note that the apartment has what our friend Hot Chocolate calls PPP. That's Proper Pooper Placement. Each of the bathrooms–besides the one stranded in the center of the apartment in the downstairs office–has a window for proper ventilation. How much do we love that?

The octagonal, top floor solarium, accessed by a spiral staircase hidden behind a door on the second floor landing, has a kitchen(ette), 270-degree views and access to a gigantic roof terrace with dramatic views up and down Park Avenue.

We're not thrilled that access to the wrap terrace on the second level is only through the bedrooms, and we're less than pleased that the only way to get up into the tower room is via a far from elegant spiral staircase and, of course, our dear but demanding housegurl Svetlana would insist we combine the two punishingly small staff rooms into one room. We'd also prefer the powder pooper be located in a less intimate location but, c'est la vie.

It ain't perfect, puppies, but–while Your Mama wouldn't dream of living up on Park Avenue even if we could pay out eighteen million for a triplex–as far as these ol' pre-war Park Avenue penthouses go, it's pretty damn good.

Now, off we go to cut up a rutabaga and, since both Your Mama and Your Mama's Momma are both thirsty, mix up an ice cold pitcher of gin and tonics. We suggest you do the same.

SELLER: Nancy Sale Frey Johnson Rashad
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $21,000,000
SIZE: 5,500 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to the eagle eyes of our informant Hot Chocolate we've learned that New York socialite Nancy Sale (Frey) Johnson (Rashad)–who we understand is called Sale by her mates and pals–has listed her Manhattan triplex maisonette for $21,000,000.

In 1977 the former model was married to Woody Johnson, scion to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and the current owner of the New York Jets. Before the Johnsons headed to the court of dee-vorce in 2001, the quiet but extraordinarily well-connected couple made three children. One of those children was bisexual socialite Casey Johnson whose short, antics-filled life ended in late 2009 due to some sort of snafu about her Diabetes and not taking the proper meds at the right time.

Mister Johnson, for what it's worth, has long owned an apartment at the very posh and über exclusive 834 Fifth Avenue building where, among other shockingly rich bizness barons, multi-billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch lives in a titanic 20-room triplex penthouse for which he paid a staggering $44,000,000 in late 2004. While it seems a shame and a pity to let it sit empty, it has been reported that Mister Johnson actually lives on the other side of Central Park at the equally expensive but far less elegant Trump International Hotel & Tower.

Soon after the Johnson's dee-vorce, the newly single and rich, rich, rich ex-Missus Johnson needed a place to live. So she went out and snatched up a triplex maisonette in a low-profile building just one short block south from her former marital home at 834 Fifth Avenue. That certainly made it easy for the movers but even still we doubt they simply carted Miz Johnson's things from building to building in a shopping car as Your Mama would have done.

Anyhoo, according to a New York Times report, ex-Missus Johnson paid about $10,000,000 for the triplex maisonette in August of 2002.

In 2007, just about the time her daughter Casey was adopting a baby from Kazakhstan, ex-Missus Johnson became the fourth wife of professional football player turned sportscaster Ahmad Rashad. As far as Your Mama knows they remain a happily married pair. It's believed that Mister and Missus Rashad will raise Casey Johnson's orphaned orphan child.
Listing information for Missus Frey Johnson Rashad's mansion-sized maisonette indicates the 10 room triplex has 5 bedrooms and 5 poopers. Your Mama's beady little eyes, however, counted 5.5 poopers on the floor plan (above). Can't forget the half bathroom down in the basement. A private entrance on Fifth Avenue opens into a large foyer with a dramatic curved staircase that climbs to a smaller but central foyer on the maisonette's second floor. To the right a corner library with sidewalk views, fireplace and adjacent office and to the left, a bedroom suite with entry hall, a wall of closets and two poopers.

The second floor, just high enough to peep over the taxi cabs and trees in front of the building, has a long formal living room with fireplace. A long curving corridor that leads back from the formal generously scaled dining room to the apartment's service areas that include an eat-in kitchen, large laundry room and a slim little room at the very back of the apartment perfect for a Pilates machine or some other type of body torture equipment.

The corner master suite includes a good sized but hardly lavishly sized pooper and a huge dressing room/closet area. While it would be utterly magnificent to have a bedroom-sized dressing room, we find it a little unfortunate that, in the case of Miz Frey Johnson Rashad's residence, one much trek through the pooper to get there. This is probably fine most of the time, but this set up can easily result in a debilitating olfactory event when all you wanted to do was get a pair of damn socks.

A long, dead straight corridor, which can be conveniently closed off to make the grand if not gargantuan apartment feel a bit more intimate, leads from the second floor entrance gallery to two large guest bedrooms, each with walk-in closet and private terliting facility.

An all but windowless basement level, which we hope and pray that Mister Rashad has not turned into some sort of "man-cave," has a built in wet bar, half pooper, wine cellar and two large storage rooms, rare commodities in even large Manhattan apartments..

Although the vast majority of the 14 residences at 817 Fifth Avenue are owned by bizness concerns and corporate entities, property records do reveal the identities of a a couple of the other residents. Casino king Steve Wynn and his then wife Elaine Wynn picked up a pied a terre at 817 in 2001 for about seven million smackers. In July of 2009, on the heels of word that Mister and Missus Wynn would dee-vorce for the second time the dee-vorcing duo put their pad at 817 on the market at $25,000,000, a price that included all the furnishings. In October of 2010 according to property records, soon to be ex-Missus Wynn bought the 2 bedroom and 3.5 pooper apartment from her soon to be ex-huzband for $17,155,125. Presumably this had something to do with the erstwhile couple's dee-vorce settlement but what do we really know?

Property records show that in February of 2001 mighty-fine actor Richard Gere bought a 6th floor apartment at 817 and sold it in April of 2005 for $8,600,000 to Marielle and Edmond Safra, the nephew of formidable high society doyenne Lily Safra and her deceased huzband Edmond. Something seems fishy there because although $8,600,000 is an ass-load of moo-lah it's nowhere near the clams laid out by textile tycoon Isaac Dabah and his wife Ivette who bought their high floor perch at 817 in April of 2003 for $16,701,000.


The listing of her triplex maisonette in Manhattan isn't the only real estate news Miz Frey Johnson Rashad has made in the last 12 months. In December of 2009, she and Mister Rashad shelled out $4,950,000 for a sprawling French Palladian style mansion in Jupiter, FL located behind the guarded gates of the the fancy-pants Bear's Club community. The main mansion measures 7,105 square feet, according to marketing materials Your Mama teased up out of the interweb, and includes 4 bedrooms and five full and 2 half poopers, one near the front door for guests and the other a cabana bath that opens both into the family room on onto the colossal covered terrace that looks over the swimming pool, pond an golf course.

The three family bedrooms, each with walk in closet and private facilities, are well separated from the multi-winged master suite that includes a semi-circular sitting area, French doors to the terrace overlooking the swimming pool, and dual poopers, each comprised of a vast bathroom with separate terlit cubicle and custom fitted walk-in closet. One of the master poopers includes an adjacent exercise room with what looks on the floor plan like a wet bar. Now, chickens, Your Mama likes a nip or two of liquor to keep us fresh and alert when we "exercise" but, let's be honest, how many other people consider a swig of an ice cold gin & tonic as part of the rotation?

A detached 615 square foot guest house, connected to the covered terrace by a colonnaded breezeway, offers lucky overnight guests privacy and luxury with a living room with kitchenette, bedroom, dressing area, pooper and a huge roof terrace some of which is open to the scorching southern Florida sunshine and some of which is covered.

Additional amenities of the mansion include something called a "club room," which just sounds to Your Mama like a room designed for boozing, a covered outdoor entertaining terrace with fireplace and nearby wet bar, and a vast kitchen complex comprised of family room, breakfast room, the kitchen itself, a walk-in pantry and a walk-in wine storage room. An attached garage holds three cars plus a golf cart or two, which is to be expected of a posh pad in a private, high-toned golf community.

The rear terraces as well as the 45-foot long swimming pool and raised spa overlook a grassy yard that spills into a small pond. In a lesser affluent neighborhood, this pond would likely be fetid, but we imagine that in a posh place like The Bear's Club these things get taken care of before they're a problem. Beyond the pond, the rolling greens of the club's Jack Nicklaus designed golf course stretch out to the horizon.

The children may find it interesting to know that when professional basketballer and notorious real estate size queen Michael Jordon completes his planned 26,000 square foot residential beast at The Bear's Club he will be the next door neighbor of Mister and Missus Rashad.

photo (exterior): Property Shark
floor plan: Corcoran via the New York Times
photos and floor plan (Florida): The Bear's Club Realty

4.
Young and telegenic real estate agents Madison Hildebrand and Chad Rogers from Million Dollar Listing better watch their pretty back because there's a new real estate reality show coming to Tinseltown. According to the Hollywood Reporter (via Curbed) the peeps at HGTV plan to spin off their successful Selling New York program and bring it to Los Angeles where it will be called, natch, Selling Los Angeles.

Like with the New York City version, the program will highlight the promotion of property listed and sold by three as yet unnamed boo-teek real estate agencies. Anyone what to clue Your Mama in on which agents and brokers are trying to get themselves up on the tee-vee?

5.
Not having had much luck selling her College Grove, TN farm the regular way, Grammy winning singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow opted to put her 150-ish acre spread up for auction with a current minimum bid price of $1,000,000. There's even a website and everything.

The bidding process for Miz Crow's Cross Creek Farm has already started and ends at 6pm on November 23rd, 2010.

Your Mama dissed and discussed Miz Crow's farm and its 10,264 square foot mansion in May of 2010 when it was officially listed with a sticker price of $7,500,000.

6.
According to the delightful Chloe Malle at the New York Observer, some wildly wealthy person has snatched up two adjacent condos at the Time Warner Center listed for a mouth-drying combined asking price of $57,500,000. The buyer of both apartments, a sprawling simplex and a slightly smaller doo-plex, was reported to be "an unnamed Russian tycoon" whose intent is probably to use the palatial pad as pied a terre.

It just goes to prove if you've got a billion bucks and you lose half of it, you're still filthy, stinking rich and have the financial wherewithal to lay our blood curdling sums of money for homes likely to only get used, at most, a few months of the year.

The smaller doo-plex, on the 74th and 75th floors, measures approximately 3,500 square feet and features 3 bedrooms, 5.5 poopers, a 40-some foot long living/dining room with unobstructed city views and a private elevator to lift all the people too damn lazy to climb one lousy flight of stairs. The apartment was last listed at $18,450,000 and reportedly went to contract for $15,700,000.

The larger, 75th floor simplex sprawler was last listed with a eyeball popping price tag of $34,950,000. If the children do the math as Your Mama did, you'll see that for some reason there was a $4,000,000 premium placed on purchasing the units together. We're not sure why someone would even consider paying four million clams more to acquire the condos together when they could simply do two separate deals and save themselves a considerable amount of money, millions actually.

Anyhoo, the 4,454 square foot apartment is being sold by "fortune telling phony" Steven Feder who made much of his money on the famous and infamous Miss Cleo pay-per-call psychic service where sad and lonely people paid big bucks to have some sassy ladee with a bad Jamaican accent offer wisdom and guidance over the telephone.

Mister Feder and his man-friend Lou Thomas Trosclair purchased the 5 bedroom and 6.5 pooper combined unit residence in January of 2008 for $24,480,000. The glassy aerie has a 40-some foot long living/dining room, a separate family room, a dee-luxe but windowless eat-in kitchen plus a second smaller kitchen at the rear of the apartment, and a master bedroom with his and his terliting facilities and a closet lined dressing area plus a walk-in closet.

The two apartments together measure a whopping 8,000-ish square feet and, according to Streeteasy, the combined common charges and taxes run an astounding $26,233 per month.. Unless a radical re-working of the floor plan occurs, by Your Mama's count there are a total of 8 bedrooms, 11 full and 2 half poopers, 3 kitchens, and a couple dozen closets.

This isn't the first time at the Time Warner Center Real Estate Rodeo for Misters Feder and Trosclair. In September of 2006, the two gays shelled out $9,750,000 to buy a 3,050 square foot apartment on the 65th floor of the south tower. They bought the condo from Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin who also happens to be gay but we doubt that was a factor in anything.

Now children, sit down because Your Mama is going to blow your real estate mind here: Misters Feder and Trosclair flipped the apartment just one year later. They sold to a neighbor for–are your ready for this?–$15,850,000. A few quick flicks of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus reveals that's a heart stopping and almost unimaginable $6,100,000 profit in just one year of ownership.

Remember those real estate salad days folks? They seem so far back in the rear view mirror now, don't they?

Listen up chickens because Your Mama's going to speak the truth you here: Pickins are a bit slim in the celebrity real estate game right now; At least they are for us. We do have a few things lined up but nothing that's making our heart sing and fingers tingle. These things happen. There's ebb, there's flow and we are at the mercy of the thinning amount of 411 in our Easter Basket.

In light of the current state of things and because Your Mama's Momma will be visitin' over the weekend, we're going to switch things up a little bit. Normally we save up the Real Estate Mish-Mash until the weekend, but we're going to get bizzy with it today, Thursday.

Buckle up them safety belts, babies, because it's going to be a bumpy ride for some of y'all.

1.
Dirty, nasty, wicked, razor sharp, and fuh-nee drag queen Jackie Beat recently opened the blood red front door to her campy, colorful and collection-filled Highland Park, CA home for the Los Angeles Times.

Hunnies, trust Your Mama on this, it's too good to be missed. We're sure some of you more traditional types will piss and moan and call Miss Beat's residence a tranny hot mess; And, it kind of is. But, children, it's a good tranny hot mess.

A ceramic ram with gold hooves as the dining room centerpiece? A framed photo of the cast of The Golden Girls? Ceramic owls? Yes, she did, people, because bee-hawtcha Beat plays that way. We don't care whatch'all think or how high-pitched your shriek, Your Mama would much rather look at a cockamamie but deeply personal home like Miss Beat's big bag of decorative bagatelles than all these gigantic and generic faux-Tuscan McMansion too deeply serious about impressing the guests with their hangar sized entrance halls, cook's kitchens and poopers slathered in travertine. Okaaay?

2.
While Jackie Beat was giving the grand tour of her abode on the West Coast, on the East Coast ceramicist and lifestyle guru Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan–who happens to be, among other amazing things, the Creative Director at Barneys–opened the doors to their zany Palm Beach on acid style Greenwich Village abode to the Wall Street Journal.

Like Miss Beat's abode, this too is kinda fantastic in its own way. We marvel at Mister Adler's fearless and willy-nilly approach to color, pattern and "wink-wink" geometric forms. We recognize that not every person will want a bronze boot up in their fireplace (or whatever that is) and we understand that there's a childlike quality to the day-core that many will find off-putting. But, seriously kids, Your Mama will happily take this crazy eclectium where you gotta wear your best damn sunglasses just to sit in the living room over a bunch of brand new beige and brown things all tarted up and carved up to look like antiques and stuck up into a tract development where every 4th house has the same floor plan.

3.
The folks at online real estate juggernaut Zillow compiled a detailed list of the home of 10 of the richest and most successful "tech tycoons" in the United States. They range from Facebook multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerbergs modest Palo Alto, CA rental house to the architectural extravaganza of Larry Ellison's 23-acre Japanese tea garden inspired compound in Woodside, CA.

It's worth a look if any of y'all ever wondered what happens to all the money spent on the latest and greatest gadgets and all the hours trolling around Facebook when you're supposed to be working.

Check back later for some additional real estate tidbits and morsels.

And remember, iffin any of The Children know something they might want to discreetly pass along, y'all should give Your Mama a ringy-dingy on the email right quick.

SELLER: Sally Hershberger
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $5,500,000
SIZE: 3,645 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in the golden olden days–that would be March of 2007–Your Mama discussed the Beverly Hills, CA house of super successful scissor sister Sally Hershberger. At that time the tress tycoon's low and sleek west coast residence was listed with an astonishing price tag of $6,500,000.

The fully renovated, updated and upgraded 1960s modern was only on the (open) market for a few months before it vanished. But it's back, butter beans, only this time with a new and lower but still back breaking sticker price of $5,500,000.

Born into a substantial Kansas oil fortune, Miss Hershberger took to doing hair at an early age. While her list of accomplishments as a honcho of high-end hair is long, her claim to fame is that she's the She-rah of the Shag. Miss Hershberger, who herself sports a version of her signature shag style, is the woman responsible for the precisely tussled and perfectly choppy do that arguably made Meg Ryan's trademark hair do more famous then she ever was. In addition to Miz Ryan, Miss Hershberger boasts a bevy of past and present celeb clients include Kate Moss, Sandra Bernhard, Jane Fonda, Calista Flockhart, Vera Wang, and Annie Liebovitz who–if y'all will allow Your Mama to be catty for a moment–really shouldn't be spending more than six bucks to have her hair cut since she's constantly on the precipice of bankruptcy.

The notoriously aloof Miss Hershberger, a slim, rough and tumble type of gal not known for having a very pleasant or chatty chair side manner, took the tonsorial world by storm in 2003 when she opened an eponymous (and unmarked) salon in New York City's newly gentrified Meatpacking District and charged $600 for a damn haircut. It wasn't long before fellow Meatpacking District celebrity hair stylist Orlando Pita had the chutzpah–or, some will say, audacity–to up the price of his coiffuring services to $800. Miss Hershberger soon followed suit and raised the cost of one of her hair clips to $800. And, cinnamon sticks, people pay it, willingly and frequently. If forking over $800 just to have your hair snipped and styled seems a bit steep–and let's be honest, chickens, it's more than most people in this good ol' U.S. of A. pay in rent every month–Miss Hershberger developed an affordable line of hair care products sold at mass retailers such as Walgreens.

While New York-based, Miss Hershberger still owns a salon space in Los Angeles, which happens to be in the very same building as the offices of decorating dervish Kelly Wearstler. In addition to the above mentioned unmarked Meatpacking District space, she has a second New York City hair care emporiums for all the uptown ladeez located on two floors of a posh townhouse on East 71st Street.

Anyhoo, property records reveal that Miss Hershberger bought her Beverly Hills home in January of 2004 for $2,400,000. Given the jacked up asking price, Your Mama has to assume that she spent boo-coo bucks working this place over and fixing every broken doohickey and thingamabob.

Listing information shows the single story house, fronted by a gated motor court, measures a sizable but hardly huge 3,645 square feet. The three bedrooms and five poopers including the master suite at the rear of the residence that includes built-in bookshelves, fireplace, large sepia toned photograph over the bed that shows a preening and shiny horse, and a large private pooper with a spa tub sunk in to the terrazzo floors and a glass box shower. A full wall of frameless floor to ceiling glazing completely exposes the bathroom to a courtyard area with a shallow, rectilinear and minimalist lily pond. While this is all very theatrical in photos, in practice things could get a bit dicey iffin yer in the shower or settin' on the terlit and around the corner comes the unsuspecting gardener looking to trim the bushes and mow the lawn. Perhaps these windows have some of that new-fangled technology that frosts them over at the flip of a switch.

The ample, prairie-like main living space, with its vast expanse of eggshell colored terrazzo floors, includes a dining area and several sitting groups, one of which has a minimalist firebox and wood storage box trimmed with polished stainless steel and chocolate and caramel colored marble accents. A sensually curving wall of floor to ceiling glass panels obliterates any visual separation between the living room and the terrazzo terrace that surrounds the small but adequate, abstract shaped swimming pool. Panoramic views, the kind that wealthy Angelenos pay multi-millions to wake up to–stretch dramatically from the Hollywood Hills all the way to–on a clear day–the Pacific Ocean.

In the dining room, Your Mama is all bugged-eyed and bewitched over the half dozen luh-shus tri-legged Hans Wegner Heart Chairs that surround a rustic tressel-style table that may or may not be a $65,000 George Nakashima Frenchman's Cove table. We are not so bugged-eyed or bewitched by the photograph–or maybe it's a painting–on the wall behind the dee-voon dining room table. The painting–or photo or whatever–depicts a couple of virile-looking, wild-maned horses rubbing noses in a moment of private horse passion. Iffin Your Mama is being honest, and we always are, we're not sure what to make of Miss Hershberger's confusing affinity for equine imagery.

A sliver skylight sends soft light down a geometrically textured matte-finish wall in the kitchen juxtaposed against glistening white flat front cabinets that both hide the refrigerator and hold an array of high grade stainless steel appliances. The stone counter top of the work island cantilevers over the base to create a bantam breakfast bar just big enough to two to sip coffee and eat grapefruit.

Additional living areas, according to listing information, include a den, library, "bonus room," exercise room, office and a media/music room. Where not sure how all that fits into 3,600 square foot, but that's what the listing says. Listing information also states Miss Hershberger's home was recently featured in House & Garden. Maybe it was, but it wasn't recently since that shelter publication, at least the American version, closed its doors and shuttered its windows at the tail end of 2007.

In July of 2010 Miss Hershberger heaved her 905 square foot New York City penthouse pad on the market with a hair raising asking price of $5,900,000. The small but dee-lishus apartment, worked over by architect Brad Floyd and interior designer to the rich and famous Joe d'Urso–he also did up the Hamptons digs of celebrity stylist Lori Goldstein, remains unsold an on the market with its rose-colored five-point-nine million dollar sticker price.

In addition her house in Beverly Hills and her petite penthouse in New York City's West Village neighborhood–both of which are for sale–Miss Hershberger also owns a weekend retreat in the Hamptons, natch. Property records show that in December of 1999 Miss Hershberger paid $930,000 for a waterfront retreat in a woodsy, less expensive area of hoity-toity East Hampton, NY known as The Springs. As far as we know, which is next to nothing, Miss Hershberger's house in The Springs is not for sale.

listing photos: Prudential CA via Redfin

Yesterday Your Mama rambled on and on (and on) about New York City's über exclusive 927 Fifth Avenue building where the estate of recently deceased financier Bruce Wasserstein has put the top half of the billionaire's titanic doo-plex on the market with an elephantine asking price of $26,000,000.

Interest in the 9 room sprawler, according to a new report from the always well-informed Josh Barbanel at the Wall Street Journal, has been so frenzied that the listing brokers quickly shifted real estate gears and opted to schedule for a one day auction.

Brokers with sufficiently interested–and financially qualified–buyers were instructed to submit sealed bid offers by the end of the day yesterday, November 1, 2010. Brokers indicated that the cooperative apartment would go into contract soon after. Your Mama read on the interweb somewhere–we can't remember where now but we'll keep looking–that in order to qualify financially to purchase a spread at 927 Fifth Avenue, a buyer must show 4 times the purchase price of the apartment in liquid assets. That means the buyer of the top floor of Mister Wasserstein's former doo-plex will need to have at least one hundred million clams sitting around in cold hard cash. Ain't life nice for some people?

Mister Barbanel reported that due to the heavy interest in the ritzy residence the deadline might be extended. That sounds like it might be a good thing since the crush of interested parties was so feverish that potential buyers were scheduled in over lapping 45 minute intervals on Monday afternoon with some brokers whining about how they had not been able to get in to view the apartment for or with clients.

Mister Barbanel's briefing included some juicy nuggets of information such as the confirmation that Mister Wasserstein's two full floor units at 927 Fifth Avenue, each around 6,000 square feeet, had indeed been doo-plexed into one vast, mansion sized apartment. In June of 2010, presumably in preparation for sale, permits were issued to close up the staircase that connected the two apartments.

If interest in the 11th floor unit is so great, Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that there is one or maybe even two stinking rich real estate size queens who will try to buy both floors of Mister Wasserstein's former doo-plex. At this point, we don't know if there are plans to sell the 10th floor apartment or if it too is for sale but not on the open market.

BUYER: Amanda Seyfried
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $1,909,218
SIZE: 1,585 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Given that child model turned in-demand young actress Amanda Seyfried is on record as disliking living in Los Angeles, it should come as no surprise that she opted to acquire her first home in downtown New York City.

According to the fine folks at Curbed New York, 24-year old Miss Seyfried–that's pronounced sigh-frid as far as we know–snatched up a condo crib at the recently re-worked Devonshire House building in Greenwich Village that had an asking price of $1,875,00. It don't take any flicking of the well worn beads of Your Mama bejeweled abacus to see that Miss Seyfried must have really wanted the damn apartment because, according to Streeteasy, she paid $1,909,218 for the apartment, otherwise known as more than the asking price.

The pretty pre-war Devonshire House, designed by the pre-war pasha Emery Roth and built in 1928, has long been a rental building of small but not inexpensive apartments. In 2008 the building was sold and the new owners converted the genteel old lady to a new-fangled condominium complex. The 12-story building now includes 24/7 doormen, concierge services, fitness facilities, a playroom for the kiddies, bicycle pen, on-site super, and refrigerated storage in the lobby. The interior spaces were all done over by talented and much-published designer Victoria Hagan, a kind of traditionalist who does a sophisticated, restrained and soft sort of contemporary style. The refreshing–or some might say ruination–of the original, deliciously gloomy and satisfyingly patinated Elizabethan style lobby has been a hot button issue for long time (renting) residents of the building.

Petite, flaxen haired Miss Seyfried, with her bee-stung lips, big ol' crazy wide-set eyes and an unreserved obsession with jeans, started up her ladder of fame as a child model. As a teenager she moved from still photos to soap stories (As the World Turns and All My Children) and in 2004, at the dewy age of 19, she got her big break in the movie bizness with a lead role in Mean Girls opposite the then white-hot teen queen actress Lindsay Lohan. Lawrd hunnies, not to get snarky or maudlin but how bad does that poor, sad, jail-going and frequently rehabbing Lindsay Lohan wish she had Miss Seyfried's career right about now?

Since Mean Girls, Miss Seyfried has successfully careened from the small screen (Big Love, Veronica Mars) to the silver screen (Letters to Juliet, Chloe) and earned herself a spot at the big gurls' table with all the other budding young powerhouse actresses in Tinseltown like January Jones (Mad Men), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine, Brokeback Mountain) and that sourpuss Kristen Stewart (the Twilight saga).

Along her professional way, according to the interweb, Miss Seyfried has gone steady with with a number of (semi) high-profile and arty-farty young men including actor Emile Hirsch (Milk, Speed Racer, Into the Wild), scruffy musician Jesse Marchant, and British actor Dominic Cooper her co-star in the successful but unfortunate Mama Mia!. Listen, kumquats, Your Mama just doesn't understand why these Hollywood types can't just leave near genius alone because, well, they're always ruining it with their sequels and stoopid adaptations of really good books. Seriously, it just makes Your Mama's blood boil. Anyhoo, that's another beef for another blog really so lets move on to the real estate matter at hand.

Part of Miss Seyfried's self-confessed reason for moving to New York was that she was dating London-based actor Dominic Cooper and New York is hours by plane closer to London than Los Angeles. However, that romance has swirled down the terlit of young love and Miss Seyfried was (allegedly) seen over the weekend–dressed in a dog costume–canoodling with well-formed actor Ryan Phillippe at both Kate Hudson's annual Halloween bash at her Pacific Palisades, CA mansion and later at CAA agent Todd Feldman's party in Bev Hills.

In March of 2010 Miss Seyfried told Vanity Fair magazine she took certain silly romantic comedy roles in order to be able to afford to buy an apartment in New York and the Greenwich Village apartment she suffered through Letters to Juliet to buy measures just over 1,500 square feet and includes two bedrooms and 2 poopers, both of which are, Your Mama is happy to report, blessed with windows.

While we find the location of the laundry facilities off the entrance hall awkward and we're not thrilled with the amount of square footage devoted to the traffic hub between the living and dining room, we do love how the apartment is open from front to back with large windows that allow light to penetrate deep into that dastardly traffic hub.

Typically Your Mama isn't down with kitchens open to dining rooms. We do not want to look at the damn toaster while trying to enjoy a plateful of scallops for dinner nor do we want to have to watch our imperious house gurl Svetlana huff, puff and scrub pots and pans while we're tucking into a dollop home made salted caramel ice cream sitting on a brownie made from a box. You know what we're sayin'? Never the less, the open plan dining room/kitchen works in this apartment, at least in part because the kitchen feels discreetly tucked away from the living room. If there is anything worse than having to listen to the damn dishwasher during desert it's trying to relax in the living room when looking directly at dirty dishes in the sink.

Anyhoo, the two bedrooms are sufficiently separated off separate corridors and share only one short wall, and even that is buffered by a couple of closets. The adequate not not particularly generously sized master bedroom includes a walk in closet and a private pooper with a stand up shower that looks plenty large enough for two or more.

In at least one interview, Miss Seyfried mentioned that she was making some renovations to her new apartment so Your Mama hasn't a clue whether any of Victoria Hagan's handiwork still exists or if it's been ripped out to make way for the work of a nice, gay decorator of Miss Seyfried's choosing.

Whatever the case, it's a lovely first (multi-million dollar) apartment for a sophisticated young actress in a swank location on Greenwich Village Gold Coast. It's not what Your Mama might choose for two million clams. We might have chosen something like this iffin we had the dough left over to make a number of immediate modifications like to do away with that ridiculous glass wall between the master bedroom and pooper. Even though it's a smaller apartment that the one Miss Seyfried chose and not as central of a location, we're a sucker for a small terrace with views of the the Hudson. That's why, as some Real Estates Your Mama knows often say, "There's a lid for every pot, a seat for every ass."

Your Mama's most trusted real estate spies tell us that Miss Seyfried still, whether she likes it or not, maintains a residence in Los Angeles where she rents an admirably modest for a successful actress apartment in a particularly pretty building the Beachwood Canyon neighborhood.

listing photos and floor plan: Stribling New York