too close for comfort
We still can’t figure out why, but the tiny former child stars-turned-designers Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen remain terribly convinced that they are very important. So important, in fact, that they treat their various Manhattan apartments like Bel Air mansions and generally shit all over their neighbors. As one next-door resident put it, “you’d think the President was living here.” Sure, if Dubya got decked out in shiny skirts and pounds of jewelry before partying til the wee hours and coming home soaked in vintage wine and memories night after night (which, by all means, he might). More on what kinds of trouble the little rascals are rousing in their downtown party casa after the jump.
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Time for
more Jackson Manse financial woe, only this time it in regards to the L.A. house in Encino that members of his insane family has lived in for years. Records filed with the L.A. County Recorder's Office showed Michael had "$153,910 in missed payments as of January 17 on a $4 million loan serviced by Pasadena-based mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp." We can only pray Jackson can refinance in time, lest LaToya find herself homeless and turned out by Dr. Mustard, Ventura Blvd.'s most notorious pimp and part-time Wienerschnitzel manager. [
AP]
real estate
Reports circulated earlier in the week saying Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson's personal Touch Mahal, was in jeopardy: If the debt-ravaged superstar failed to pay the $24,525,906.61 required of him, the estate, including all "fixtures and appliances, furniture, and...merry go round type devices, any rides" on it, would be put up for auction March 19 at Santa Barbara's downtown courthouse. Now comes the happy news that the necessary financing is being drawn up, and that no auction will take place. Also, records show there was a release of lien on February 4, showing Jackson "paid off all or part of delinquent taxes to the state of California." Perhaps, finally, the rusted arms of the Great NeverClock will start up once again, the llama skulls and monkey bones will finally be cleared from the yellowed lawn, and the ghostly halls of Jackson's kiddie Valhalla will fill with the sound of children's laughter, their overjoyed host calling out, "Last one to the bottom of the IKEA ballroom in their underwear is a rotten egg!!!"
The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote next week on whether or not to preserve the bungalow where the hard-living and harder-drinking poet and author
Charles Bukowski wrote his first novel. The city's Cultural Heritage Commission is attempting to designate the nearly 90-year-old property as a historic monument, which would effectively rescue it from certain destruction at the hands
real estate developers who are just itching to put up some condos in its place. Wonder if someday someone will do the same for the apartment off The Strip that the members of Mötley Crüe once lived in? Somehow, we doubt it. [
Reuters]
heath ledger
So by now we've all seen what the building where
Heath Ledger overdosed looks like from the outside. But over at Corcoran.com, the NYC-based
real estate site, they have photos of what the apartments at 421 Broome look like on the inside. There is a three-bedroom loft space currently renting out for $23k a month. [
Corcoran, 421 Broome]
It seems the towering structure at Sunset and Vine, an accursed building that's fallen victim to
fires and a tragic
Transformers mega-billboard mishap last April, is finally getting some windows—but according to a Defamer operative, its biggest disaster is yet to come, and happening slowly before our eyes: "Having taken it down to the structural steel, they've started to put glass on it. There's just one problem: it's LEANING. Go check it out - very noticeable." Before any frantic Chicken Littles run into Amoeba Records to pronounce the sky is falling, we'd first like to throw it open to Defamer readers in the area to
send us photographic evidence. And no Photoshop shenanigans—Giant Fucking Buildings Are Falling!
flipping out
Continuing its proud tradition of reality programming centered around larger-than-sane-life characters whose low-grade mental illness enhances their professional success (see Blowout's narcissistic personality disorder sufferer Jonathan Antin and Hey Paula's apparent dissociative identity victim), Bravo tonight unleashes Flipping Out and its house-renovating, compulsively abusive protagonist on the world. Notes the NY Times:
Jeff Lewis is a very scary man, and he isn't scary solely because he treats his employees like dust mites or consults a psychic to assist him in the running of his business or sends his cat, Monkey, to an acupuncturist. No, Jeff Lewis, a Los Angeles real estate speculator, evokes a chill because he is so leveraged, a man balancing multiple mortgages like bricks on a noodle.
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"The pink stucco, H-shaped estate, dubbed Beverly House by the late newspaper magnate, is spread across 6.5 acres north of Sunset Boulevard. It has just about everything a billionaire could want — including three swimming pools, 29 bedrooms, a state-of-the-art movie theater and even a disco." For $165 million, all you get is one disco? We're pretty sure Brett Ratner's house has a disco on every floor. [
LAT]
defamer real estate
For a young actor making his way in Hollywood, nothing quite says "I've arrived" like plunking down your sitcom earnings for a first home in the Hills—a bachelor crib of one's own that can accomodate both raucous, hot-tub-mixer casting sessions, and quiet, introspective moments in a sauna-equipped oasis from the showbiz rat race. That's what this Beachwood Canyon home has offered former
That 70s Show star
Danny Masterson, a residence which can now belong to you, as the actor has decided to address his cramped-living-space thetans by putting it on the market. Our square-footage-obsessed pals at Curbed LA
have some of the details:
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britney spears
As a newly suedeheaded
Britney Spears enjoys the fruits of her follicularly unencumbered, wash n' go lifestyle, the early spring cleaning continues for America's Unhinged Sweetheart, as The Scoop notes she has put the Beverly Hills home she only recently purchased
back on the market:
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culture
Ask anyone in L.A. if they have ever seen the
House of Davids, and you're likely to be greeted with an enthusiastic round of nodding heads and disgusted faces familiar with the infamous Hancock Park residence one might describe as an architectural interpretation of the top tier of Siegfried and Roy's fantasy wedding cake. But not much is known about the house's owner—until now, that is, as
Losanjealous notes the following cast bio on the site for a new E! reality show already guilty of flagrant false-zip-code-advertising,
High Maintenance 90210:
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universal
There is little we find more scintillating than news that a moviemaking concern is planning on sinking billions of dollars into the more efficient development of an underexploited, extremely valuable parcel of land in its control, so we note that NBC Universal has announced that it intends to supersize its local production facilities, office space, and overrated theme park over the next 12-25 years, a massive project the company says will create tens of thousands of jobs and usher in an unprecedented, Universal-branded era of prosperity for all citizens of Los Angeles. Among the upgrades in store for Universal City, if neighbors expecting to be inconvenienced
by untold years of constant construction don't first burn down the lot:
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real estate
Radar offers a detailed description and photo tour of the legendary home of Don Simpson, former Jerry Bruckheimer producing partner and patron saint of fatal Hollywood excess, which they report is on the market for just over $3 million. Duly noted are the mansion's many unique, prostitute-related amenities: a master bathroom equipped with six hooker-dousing showerheads; a $40k bed featuring "heavy-duty metal hooks" to which he could lash spooked escorts who might flee a particularly vigorous paddling; and a secret hot tub in which Simpson and a handful of his favorite paid companions could relax in between coke-fueled orgies. And while all of these customizations certainly sound like good, clean, eventually-kill-you-on-the-crapper fun, the producer's onetime residence also reflects the dark side of his lifestyle:
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val kilmer
A Defamer operative in the market for multimillion-dollar, celebrity-owned New Mexico resort
real estate stumbled upon a listing for
Val Kilmer's Pecos River Ranch, a riverside spread up for sale for the low, low price of $18,000,000. Eight figures seems like an absolute steal for the ability to fly-fish in the same waters into which the renowned, if
currently doughy, actor cast innumerable, exquisitely tied lures, while the true, well-monied superfan will enjoy a unique opportunity to recreate Kilmer's monthly peyote binge, in which he casts the property's
stock of mule deers, turkeys, black bears, cougars, waterfowl, bobcats, beavers, eagles, and peregrine falcons in a community theater recreation of his favorite scenes from
The Island of Dr. Moreau.
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nicholas cage
As international airport security checkpoints are being frantically refitted with urinals and spitbuckets in a panicked effort to
confiscate every last drop of errant fluid that may later be turned into a deadly detonation device, it seems, for better or worse, that
World Trade Center couldn't have chosen a more appropriate weekend to premiere/re-scare the shit out of us. Satisfied that his work here is done,
WTC star
Nicholas Cage has reinvested some of the dividends from his
Campaign of Healing™ into himself,
purchasing his very own castle way off in, of all places, low-on-terrorists'-to-do-list Bavaria:
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Defamer
