Every neighborhood in LA (or most anywhere, for the matter) has a unique flavor. And Hollywood Hills’ Outpost Estates area is known primarily for its romantic Spanish and Mediterranean housing stock, much of which dates to the 1920s. It is also famous — or at least famous to Yolanda — for its proliferation of mature trees and leafy foliage. Feels like drivin’ through a park or forest every time we’re out there.

Because of their close proximity to Hollywood and the natural privacy the dense fauna affords them, many Outpost homes have long been, as y’all might expect, a proverbial magnet to both celebrities and wealthy business folks who want to go Hollywood. One good example of that is this house we shall discuss today, which is an atypical-for-the-area Contemporary.

Built a few years ago by Maxim Cherniavsky — a high-end property developer who once starred on Russia’s version of the Bachelor and has nearly 600,000 followers on Instagram — the pad was sold to Olympic-gold-medalist-turned-successful-entrepreneur Shaun White for $6,400,000 back in 2015. Our Mr. White — who buys and sells multi-million dollar homes like most folks go through underwear — flipped the property for $6,700,000 a couple months ago.

As noted by our friend Vlad the Revealer at Celebrity Address Aerial, the buyer of Mr. White’s Outpost Estates bachelor pad was a mysterious entity called the “Woolloomooloo Trust”. And now, after a hot minute of investigatin’, Yolanda can tell y’all something fun. Behind that bizarrely-named trust is a real human — the new owner! His name is Robert Herjavec.

Mr. Herjavec is a Croatian-Canadian businessman who grew up in poverty but is now the CEO of the Herjavec Group, a security solutions integrator, reseller and managed service provider that he founded in 2003. The company is one of Canada’s fastest-growing businesses and has done over $500 million in sales.

Our Mr. Herjavec may best be known, however, for his role as a judge on Canada’s uber-popular TV show Dragon’s Den and its sister US show Shark Tank. The popularity and fame he achieved from his Shark Tank role catapulted him onto Dancing With The Stars. Though he did not win (he finished in a respectable 6th place), we doubt Mr. Herjavec cares much. That’s because his dancing partner, a ballroom dancer named Kym Johnson, is now his wife! The couple were married last year (2016) — mazel tov!

At roughly 4,500-square-feet, the view property is definitely spacious but not humongous. The home’s front facade sits up hard on the street and is a mix of concrete, glass, and horizontally-applied wood siding. The front door is accessed by passing by the two-car garage and opens into a kitchen/dining/living room combo that spans nearly the entie downstairs and includes ash hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, and some snazzy suede sofas.

Also of note, lest we forget, is the unusual lighting situation. The criss-crossed strips of LEDs are certainly guaranteed to impress family, friends, or maybe Mr. Herjavec’s fellow Shark Tank judges, should they ever drop by for a cup of tea.

The kitchen is outfitted with high-end appliances (natch) and opens to the dining room, which overlooks Hollywood and the western LA basin. On a clear day, there are views of the Pacific Ocean; on a clear night, the city lights are dramatically laid out below like a glittery magic carpet.

And let’s not forget the glassy wine rack/closet, which is prominently placed to ensure “oohs” and “ahhs” from guests/staff.

Perhaps the most bizarre feature of the 5-bed, 5-bath house, however, is the master suite. The bedroom is fancy with all that wood and glass but is inexplicably accessed by entering through the bathroom, which is also open and completely visible to anyone lying in bed. Yolanda ain’t down with that exhibitionist shit, so we’ll move on.

The backyeard shorts a large lawn and a swimming pool with inset spa.

And the best part of the house, of course, is that view. On a smog-free day, the Century City skyline is plainly visible.

Our Mr. Herjavec has lived mainly in LA for the past few years and has owned at WeHo’s Sierra Towers luxury high-rise condo, where he paid $3.2 million for a 17th-floor unit in 2015, only to flip it one year (April 2016) later for $4.15 million. Also in 2016, according to our friends at The Real Deal, he paid $3,900,000 for a contemporary casa in the Hollywood Hills. Records show that Mr. Herjavec dumped his old Hollywood house earlier this month (October 2017) for $4,150,000 to a real estate investment company exec named Brett Ersoff.

Mr. Herjavec also owns (or owned) a mansion in Toronto’s mega pricey Bridle Path neighborhood, the same area where Drake is custom-building a colossal 35,000-square-foot mega-mansion for his part-time use. That pad includes a “snack lounge”, an “awards room”, and But we digress!

As for Mr. White, he has moved out to Malibu’s celebrity-swarmed Point Dume neighborhood, where he owns a $20 million blufftop compound that Yolanda has previously written about on several different occasions.

Shaun White’s agent: Scott Bross, Duke Partners Properties
Robert Herjavec’s agents: Josh & Matt Altman, Douglas Elliman

Yolanda apologizes for being AWOL the past couple days. You see, we were chompin’ away at a big plate of our gurl Martha’s famous (and Snoop Dogg-endorsed) bacon-cheddar grits on Saturday when we wondered why they tasted like asphalt! And then we realized all our teeth were gone. Yes, Martha’s grits knocked our socks off and our teeth out. But don’t blame that on her. Yolanda re-read the packaging and we realized it said “microwave for 4 minutes”! We actually did it for, like, four hours. Oops! That’ll teach us to read the directions without our spectacles. Now $6,000 and a full set of new veneers later and here we are, back again and good as new.

Anyway, last time here we wrote about Canadian-Croatian entrepreneur turned reality TV star Robert Herjavec and his fancy house in the celebrified Outpost Estates neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills, which he recently bought from an Olympic gold medalist turned successful entrepreneur and allegedly kinky sex-lovin’ fellow named Shaun White.

Whew! That was a mouthful.

Anyway, Mr. Herjavec used an anonymously-named blind trust to acquire the property. While writing about the house, we did some checking up on the neighbors and were intrigued to discover that the house next door — while significantly smaller and much less flashy — was recently sold to a different and no less mysterious blind trust that has all the hallmarks of celebrity.

Yolanda did a little digging and it wasn’t long before we discovered that Mr. Herjavec’s new next door neighbor is a prominent talent manager named Bernie Cahill. In addition to a multitude of other high-profile clients, he manages the Zac Brown Band, the Grateful Dead, and the Hemsworth brothers through his ROAR, LLC firm, which has several dozen employees and space in Beverly Hills. Obviously, Mr. Cahill has a lot of moolah and a pricey new house, so we thought we’d do a quick post on him today. Here goes.

Oh, by the way, it was Mr. Cahill’s romances that originally attracted him much media attention. Though he was in a long-term relationship with ol’ crazy fiddlin’ fishsticks herself (Sharon Stone), but they broke up sometime in the mid-2000s. Our Mr. Cahill is now happily married (since 2014) to Dexter actress Jaime Murray. Belated congrats! But anywho.

The hillside lot spans slightly more than a third of an acre and includes a generous motorcourt in addition to a two-car garage. Though relatively close to the street, the house itself is set behind a motorized metal fence and thick hedge for maximum privacy. Though a mid-century, the home appears to have been updated extensively in proceeding decades (for better or worse). Yolanda likes the somewhat-forbidding front facade but that dumpy rear view leaves us feeling blue. (Is this the house version of Kim Kardashian)?

Mr. Cahill paid a fat $4,967,000 for the 3,471-square-foot abode. Unfortunately, y’all, current listing materials do not include any photographs of the home’s interior. But indications from when it was on the market in previous years show that it has a recently-redone open floorplan with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms on the main floor. The home’s entire second story is a luxuriously done-up master suite with a fireplace, two walk-in closets, and a private balcony overlooking the western Hollywood Hills and down to Century City. Additionally, there are a whole bunch of fancy upgrades: French white oak wide plank hardwood floors, Carrara marble countertops, Viking appliances, a Bertazzoni range, and a wine cellar/room done in walls of glass.

The backyard is actually fairly large for a home in the jam-packed hills of Hollywood and includes a well-watered lawn and stone pavers leading down to a simple rectangular pool and large concrete patio area. There’s also a solo palm tree to give off a bit of that California dreamin’ vibe. Know what we mean? No? Well, whatever.

In addition to Mr. Herjavec, some of the Murray-Cahill couple’s new neighbors on the same dead-end street include actor Kyle Maclachlan and the high-paid musician/DJ known as Zedd.

Mr. Cahill and Ms. Murray moved to their new Outpost Estates home from the venerable Franklin Towers condo complex in the heart of Hollywood. Records indicate that Mr. Cahill bought his  high-floor unit (photos above) in September 2013 for $979,500, thoroughly modernized it, and sold the pad just a few weeks ago (in September 2017) for $1,550,000 to a well-off but not famous buyer.

Listing agent (Outpost Estates): Galina Blackman, Coldwell Banker
Selling agent (Franklin Towers): John Steiner, Keller Williams Beverly Hills
Mr. Cahill’s agent: Brian Ades, Sotheby’s International Realty

There is a very large mansion on a Santa Monica hilltop that dwarfs pretty much everything in the surrounding area. Built on spec by controversial (yet highly successful) “starchitect” Richard Landry, the structure was commissioned by a prominent developer and listed with considerable fanfare in early 2013. The asking price? An eye-watering $35 million.

Unfortunately for the developer, the house took its sweet time to sell. It didn’t transfer until more than a year later, in March 2014, and for “just” $24,500,000. The buyer, as many of y’all may already know, was billionaire Colony Capital founder Thomas Barrack, a close friend of President Trump whose firm has — unfortunately for him — been dragged into the Paul Manafort money laundering scandal. Anyway, Mr. Barrack had personal issues of his own: Rachelle Roxborough — his third wife and 30 years his junior — recently filed for divorce. What a tangled web some folks weave! But we digress.

Anyway, the house/shopping mall has a mega-mansion-sized 23,515-square-feet of living space with 7 beds and a 13 baths spread across three levels. And since he’s a bachelor (once again!) Mr. Barrack recently dumped his colossal money-suckin’ Landry in an off-market deal.

Strangely enough, the most recent purchase price is not entirely clear. At least one database we consulted showed the estate transferred for $24,250,048, which seems entirely too low, given that the house was recently listed at $46 million. The peeps at the LA Times say it went for around $34 million, which makes more sense but seems a somewhat odd figure, given that the house last traded hands only three years ago for $24 million and hasn’t changed much.

Yolanda has heard, however, from two knowledgeable real estate professionals that the actual closing price was $31,000,500. So we’re going with that both because it seems most logical and is also the number most frequently banded about — but if we’re wrong, we’re wrong. And maybe we really are wrong.

But we mustn’t dive into the weeds! Sale price aside, this is clearly a very expensive and luxurious property (likely the second-most-expensive house ever sold in Santa Monica), so we naturally wondered who the new owner was — property records only show the buyer as an entity named “Aref Corona LLC”. Much to our surprise, it’s no one Yolanda had ever heard of before. The owner is an retired oilman-turned-entrepreneur from South Africa named Kirk Lazarus.

There’s not too much information about Mr. Lazarus’s business beginnings floating around online, but we do know that he spent 18 years working as a Glencore executive, where he was “one of the first guys [at the company]”, according to him. The Swiss-based commodity trading/mining giant now has $120+ billion in assets and over 150,000 employees, though Mr. Lazarus is no longer involved with the firm.

After retiring from business some years ago, the cash-flush Mr. Lazarus sought to pursue his real passions: travel and luxury. He is the owner of Molori Resorts, a worldwide private resort chain that includes Molori Safari Lodge in South Africa; Molori Air, a private jet fleet for charter (all jets owned by Mr. Lazarus himself); and he enjoys sailing (he once owned a superyacht called Told U So that was sold back in 2015).

In recent years, however, Mr. Lazarus has been spending a considerable amount of time in Santa Monica and its surrounding environs. His interior design firm, Molori Design, is headquartered in Venice Beach, after all, and he has several projects in the area. More on those in a moment.

The flag-shaped 1.3-acre lot is completely invisible from the public boulevard out front. A tall white gate guards a rather narrow driveway that leads to a plaza-sized motorcourt filled with crunchy pea gravel (at least that’s what Yolanda thinks it is) and centered around a trough-like fountain. Around the back of the motorcourt is another entryway that leads to an underground 15-car garage.

Interior spaces verge on the monumental and floor choices include some sort of grey stone and ebonized hardwood. The structure has enough space on the whitewashed walls to house a supreme, world-class art collection.

Yolanda would call the style here a “contemporary take on Traditional”. And it’s all very nice, albeit a bit too formulaic and also rather austere for our personal tastes. As expected, the house has every amenity and then some: two kitchens, a dining room that seats 25, a fireplace-equipped library, a two-story entryway w/ limestone staircase, a massage/indoor spa room, and a screening room.

Ebonized hardwood continues into the master bedroom, which has a sitting area, fireplace, and a private terrace overlooking the backyard and the Riviera Country Club below. Both (2) master bathrooms sport marble floors and a hot tub for soakin’. The entire master suite is 2,500-square-feet, bigger than most single-family homes.

If Mr. Lazarus enjoys the game of basketball, he’ll be delighted that the basement level offers a half-size, sound-proof court for shootin’ hoops. And after a sweaty game, what better way to cool off than in the big-ass pool out back. When folks have dried off, how about a light lunch underneath the shade-providing trellis?

While we don’t know exact specifics of what Mr. Lazarus plans to do with his giant new house, there are clues that he plans to give the place a facelift (at the very least). On his firm Molori Design’s Instagram, there were several pictures of this house and captions indicating that Mr. Lazarus was to make this place his latest design project. (Said photos have since been deleted, sadly).

But one thing Yolanda does know about ol’ Kirky is that this dude has a lot of money. That’s because this mega-manse is not the only property Mr. Lazarus owns in Santa Monica. Oh no.

Between 2010-2012, Mr. Lazarus spent exactly $32,500,000 to acquire four 1920s/30s oceanfront homes on extremely busy Palisades Beach Road. According to the folks at CurbedLA, Mr. Lazarus bought these properties in order to restore them to their original Old Hollywood state (with the help of archival photos) and eventually list them as luxury rentals. And indeed, Mr. Lazarus has at least one of the homes currently up for lease.

Although he owns $60+ million in luxury LA real estate, we can’t see that Mr. Lazarus’s net worth has ever been estimated, although he’s certainly wealthier than most folks we’ve discussed on this blog. And it seems as though his real estate story is just beginning: we have heard that he is still in the market for multi-million dollar homes on LA’s Westside. Stay tuned…

It seems as though gigantic, Rob Kardashian-sized mortgages have become quite the popular thing these days. Just to give y’all a couple examples, first there was Jay-Z & Beyoncé’s highly-publicized $52.8 million loan on their new $88 million Bel Air trophy compound. Hong Kong-based billionaire heiress/businesswoman Karen Lo paid $70 million in cash for her epic Malibu estate, but several months later borrowed $35 million against the property.

And then there’s Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who also purchased his $88.3 mansion Holmby Hills mega-mansion in cash. But records show that he received a whopping $50 million mortgage scarcely a month ago (late September 2017). There are other big loans, of course, but those are the three fattest we’ve seen in the past few weeks.

Yolanda confesses that we are not entirely sure what has caused this conflagration of home liens and borrowed funds. These folks are billionaires! What do they need with a few extra tens of millions?

Well, we did a little asking around and everyone seems to have a different opinion. Some folks say it’s done merely to scare up some quick liquid cash for a new project. Interest rates are still relatively low, after all. Other more cynical folks — including Our Mama over at Variety magazine — point out that huge mortgages taken out on properties is an important step taught in Money Laundering 101. An offshore corporation buys the house in cash, then later takes out a mammoth mortgage from a legitimate bank. Voilà — clean money!

Not that we think that Beyoncé is hiding suitcases of dirty cash under her Lion King costume. Please don’t misunderstand Yolanda! And we have no reason to believe that Karen Lo and Yuri Milner are acting shady, either.

It’s worth noting, however, that both Mr. Milner’s and Ms. Lo’s homes are currently owned by offshore corporations formed in the British Virgin Islands, a notorious tax haven that prides itself on secrecy. Not that there’s anything wrong with setting up a corporation there, at least on the face of it. In another coincidence — or maybe not — both Mr. Milner’s and Ms. Lo’s jumbo mortgages were granted through Citibank. Oh, but we digress.

Anyway, we thought it’d be interesting to open a very brief discussion about Yuri Milner, because homeboy doesn’t get enough press on the real estate front. In our not-so-humble opinion, at least.

If Mr. Milner’s name sounds strange being associated with Holmby Hill’s Fleur de Lys mega-compound, you haven’t lost your mind. There was indeed some initial confusion about who actually purchased the property back in 2014. The house was bought by LLC, you see, that links directly back to the address of billionaire Michael Milken’s foundation. And then Mr. Milner was represented in the transaction by Mr. Milken’s real estate agent son-in-law Fred Bernstein. Beyond that, Mr. Milken threw some sort of party for his annual Milken Conference in the house back in 2014, shortly after it sold.

Naturally, many folks (yes, including Yolanda) initially assumed the buyer was Mr. Milken. That wasn’t the case, however. Our dude Yuri Milner is a very sneaky fellow. And in the years since the purchase, Yolanda first heard from Our Mama at Variety that the house is actually owned by Mr. Milner. Then we heard it from another person, and then another. And finally Yolanda confirmed it for ourselves. As ya’ll might expect, Mr. Milner and Mr. Milken are good friends and the former has been a recurring featured speaker at the annual Milken Conference, including at this year’s event.

Anywho. In 2016, title was transferred from the original LLC purchaser to Mr. Milner’s “Pollmark Limited” offshore entity. It was this British Virgin Islands entity that borrowed the $50 million, and records show that an attorney with clear links to Mr. Milner signed off on the documents.

As a quick refresher, the 35,000-square-foot, French limestone-slathered colossus was sold by divorcée Suzanne Saperstein and was built in 2002 by her ex-hubby as a modern day Versailles. Some folks might say it’s trashy and tacky, an ode to conspicuous consumption and a mightily expensive attempt by low-brow new money to purchase class and sophistication. Others admire the lovely symmetry of the gardens and argue that the home’s architecture stands far above that of, say, The Manor. Either way, all are agreed that this isn’t a warm and fuzzy home of the sort where one can lounge around on a armchair in one’s knickers, ya know?

To be certain, Mr. Milner is an interesting fellow who made much of his $3.5 billion net worth through strategic early investments in Facebook, Twitter, and Alibaba, among other techy companies. He also has a voracious appetite for extremely expensive homes. In addition to his nearly-$100 million Holmby Hills estate, he also owns another $100 million house up in Silicon Valley’s Los Altos Hills.

Like Fleur de Lys, Mr. Milner’s other California home also sports a fancy name (albeit one that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite so easily): Palo Alto Loire Chateau. And also like F.D.L., the multi-winged sprawler was modeled after traditional 18th-century French architecture. The home weighs in at a mega-sized 25,545-square-feet of living space with 7 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms set on multiple acres of hilltop land.

More interesting to us than these California mansions, though, is Mr. Milner’s real estate story in New York. That’s because there is none! Not one NYC real estate-related article (at least that Yolanda can find) exists about him, though he is known to spend a significant amount of time in the city each year. In 2016, in fact, he was listed as one of the “New York elite” who hosted a welcome reception for Stephen Hawking when he visited the Big ol’ Apple.

So where does Mr. Milner reside? Hmmm. Could it be that Mr. Milner was the buyer of One57‘s top-level penthouse? The glassy duplex pad sold to a still-unidentified buyer for a nearly unbelievable $100.5 million in 2014, an amount that remains the most ever paid for a Manhattan condo.

Yolanda thinks he could be! And here’s why. For one, Mr. Milner clearly has no limits when it comes to real estate. And he’s got a peculiar fondness for residences around the $100 million mark. For another, he already owns a palatial duplex penthouse in Moscow, so Yolanda figures he might like something similar in the US of A. He also, as we’ve already established, likes lots of living space. At more than 11,000-square-feet, the One57 penthouse is absolutely giant (by Manhattan standards).

Though the One57 sale closed in late 2014, the purchase agreement was actually finalized back in May 2012, barely a year after Mr. Milner purchased his $100 million Los Altos Hills residence. At that time, kiddies, the world was still emerging from a powerful economic recession. Not many folks, even hedge fund tycoons, were looking to spend $100 million on a private residence. But Mr. Milner was, duh!

As always, we digress. Mr. Milner could very easily not be the buyer of the penthouse in question. But our speculation has been fueled by One57’s developer. At the time of purchase, the only clues he would provide were that the buyer was “someone recognizable” who had “a very nice family”, which could easily be Mr. Milner, his wife, and their three kids. But like we said, Yolanda has not one shred of evidence the buyer was Mr. Milner, so don’t nobody go waving around that guess like it’s gospel. Capiche?

Listen up, y’all. We are writing about this house because Yolanda is always curious about how the kiddies are making money these days. We haven’t been young since the Industrial Revolution, you see, and it never ceases to amaze us how some of these millennials, confounding as they may be to us old fogeys, find new and creative ways to haul in the dough. For starters, did you know that that pushing buttons on a laptop in front of a huge crowd of boozed-up young fools could earn someone $66 million in 2014 alone?

Well, now you know.

Just above the world-famous Sunset Strip — in the Hollywood Hills — lies a sexed-up ultra-contemporary crib that was designed by noted firm Whipple Russell Architects and completed some years ago. The property clings to the side of an steep mountain with panty-dropping views of the city and was sold just last month for $5,050,000. The seller, interestingly enough, was Ali Jassim, who has been described as a “close adviser” of Sheikh Mansour, the bazillionaire United Arab Emirates ruler.

As you might expect, the house was acquired by a mysterious LLC that is controlled by an LA attorney. Yolanda just happens to know, however, that the buyers are a young lady named Nicole Christine Johnson — also known as Nicole Nightly — and a young man named Dan Morris. Both hail from sunshiney Florida.

We don’t know much about Mr. Morris, other than he is Ms. Nightly’s partner in business (and beyond, so it seems). But young Ms. Nightly — who like Mr. Morris may still be in her 20s — has an interesting life story. She first tried to make it big as one of those now-ubiquitous “beauty bloggers” on the YouTube. When that didn’t pan out, she switched to more behind-the-scenes work. She founded a company called SkinnyFoxDetox that is one of those new-fangled (and arguably quite pricey) detox/cleanse programs that are all the rage right now.

Ms. Nightly’s detox program is quite popular — it has over 400,000 followers on Instagram, after all. But it wasn’t until just recently that our gurl really hit the proverbial jackpot. Within the last couple years, you see, Ms. Nightly released a new product called SugarBearHair.

Now then. If y’all are regulars on the Instagram contraption (Yolanda is not), you’ve probably seen this product being endorsed by your favorite celebrity, model, or Instagram “influencer”. That’s because SugarBearHair pays substantial amounts of money to have folks with many followers endorse their products. Even folks like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner — each of whom can easily command $300,000 per endorsement — have flaunted SugarBearHair on their respective Instagram pages.

So what is SugarBearHair? Well, kiddies, it is a jar of blue gummy bear vitamins that is only sold online. They contain all the vitamins and minerals for “stronger, healthier hair”, allegedly. And while they are certainly cute and sweet, certain folks have negative things to say about them, sadly. A few critics have lambasted the innocent bears for being overpriced (it’s $30 for a jar of 60 gummies) and have noted that the little guys don’t provide any extra nutrients than can be obtained in a typical grocery store vitamin. And obtained for a fraction of the price, at that!

So you might think that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay celebrities to endorse an (arguably) overpriced and (possibly) silly product like blue gummy bear HAIR vitamins is an utterly ridiculous way to waste money, right?

But you would be wrong. And that, y’all, is why only a small percentage of folks are successful entrepreneurs. Who would think these gummies could make anyone wealthy? But so it is.

Not only do those blue bears sell like hotcakes, they are the #1 best-selling vitamin (in their category) on all of Amazon.com. Seriously! We swear. They are so popular, in fact, that despite the fact that the SugarBearHair company was founded only two years ago (in May 2015), they have already made Ms. Nightly (and Mr. Morris) a multi-millionaire who can afford to buy a $5 million house in one of LA’s most famously expensive areas.

How you like them apples?

The 4,200-square-foot crib sits hard up on the street with no windows out front, only a wooden front door flanked by black garage entryways for three luxury automobiles. The house drops mullet-style to three full floors out back. The main level up top includes a glassy great room with panoramic views over West Hollywood and Los Angeles. Snazzy gadgets include LED mood lighting, fingerprint entry, mobile controlled sound and automated shades.

The main level also contains a booth-style dining room table, a austerely contemporary kitchen with high-end appliances, an indoor firepit, and space for a mini dance floor. The home’s glitzy interiors were done up by Palumbo Design, which is the firm responsible for the interiors of many fancy contemporaries in the nearby Bird Streets ‘hood.

A glass-and-metal staircase leads down to the second level, where the master suite is located. Though the home sports a total of three bedroom suites, this is a pad clearly meant for a wealthy young bachelor/bachelorette or young couple (as in this case). At night, the master bed appears to be suspended over a magic carpet of twinkling city lights below.

Oh, by the way, Yolanda hates hates HATES that carpet (or whever it is) on the master bed’s floor. And we’re also not feeling the very black-and-grey wet bar setup. Something tells us that the original developer was going for a masculine look, but it just looks tacky to your gurl. You know what Dolly says about spending loads of money to look cheap and all that, right?

Anyway, listing materials for the property brag that the home is “low-maintenance”, which it may indeed be. As long as you, er, forget the window washing fees. But other than that, the steeply-sloped .15-acre lot has almost no yard, so we don’t think Ms. Nightly even need hire a gardener.

On the other hand, the listing also notes that “plans for a pool are approved and permits are shovel ready.” 

Ahem. Excuse Yolanda’s ignorance, kiddies, but if we were forking over more than $5 million for a house in the Hollywood Hills, Yolanda would definitely expect — nay, demand — that there already be a cement pond installed. It seems a huge hassle to move in and then have construction workers traipsing throughout the entire house (you’ve gotta start at the top level to get downstairs to the backyard area) in order to build a costly infinity edged pool. And installing a pool on a steep hillside in the Hollywood Hills is a major expense. Major. Trust us! Yolanda knows.

But anywho. Some of Ms. Nightly’s new neighbors include Dakota Johnson and Jimmy Kimmel, who live a couple streets away on a road where Kendall Jenner just sold a house for $6.85 million. Next door to Ms. Nightly is a house owned by high-end realtor Brett Oppenheim, and on the other side of Ms. Nightly’s pad is a house owned by Nicolas Berggruen, the billionaire who recently bought a $40 million Holmby Hills estate. Directly across the street from Ms. Nightly (and Mr. Morris, lest we forget) is a large 1920s Spanish-style mansion that was once owned by Liberace and is today owned by producer Jeffrey Soros, a nephew of George Soros himself.

Listing agent: Stacy Gottula, The Agency
Mr. Morris & Ms. Nightly’s agent: Roger Perry, Rodeo Realty

Yolanda thought we’d stay in kidzone today, and we’d like to apologize to your eyeballs in advance. We’ll try to be brief with this one.

Besides spending absurd sums of money to watch one of those DJs press some buttons on his/her laptop and buying thousands of $30 jars of blue gummy bear “hair vitamins”, those crazy millennials have at least one other hobby. And that hobby is watchin’ other kids make a damn fool of themselves on the YouTube, duh! Take the Paul brothers, two hyperactive young blonde dudes from Ohio who embody every negative frat boy stereotype known to mankind.

Both Pauls — Logan, 22 and Jake, 20 — hit it big on the now-defunct Vine app before transitioning to the money-making machine that is the YouTube. Though they’ve been famous for a remarkably short period of time — four years or less — the unlikely entrepreneurs have become extraordinarily wealthy. Logan, the elder Paul bro, recently slapped down $6,550,000 for a big-ass Robert Byrd-designed (and eccentrically renovated) mansion in the best part of Encino.

As a remarkably useless aside, Yolanda briefly crossed paths with Mr. Logan Paul and his then-girlfriend at an event way out in Bradbury Estates about a year or two ago, though at the time we did not realize he was famous on the YouTube. Suffice to say that the persona portrayed in Mr. Paul’s videos does not differ from his offline act. But we digress.

Jake, the younger Paul boy, is the one we shall discuss today. Our Mr. Paul is known for his trademark phrase/song “it’s everyday bro” and for royally pissing off his Beverly Grove neighbors. And when discussin’ someone’s house, kiddies, Yolanda likes to “get to know them” by conducting a thorough examination of their career, their portfolio of work, etc. For research purposes only, of course. But sorry, y’all. Yolanda tried to watch one of Mr. Paul’s videos and we couldn’t get through 30 seconds before we were crying for mommy.

Anyway, young Mr. Jake Paul recently also (like his big bro) moved to the big bad San Fernando Valley, albeit much further out in the boonies. The wilds of Calabasas, to be specific.

The house in question was purchased by a mysterious blind trust, but Yolanda just happens to know that Mr. Paul is the new owner. Not that it’s any big secret — Mr. Paul has already conducted several online tours of the new pad, which was originally built in 1990 (per property records) and has one foreclosure and at least five previous owners in its 27-year history, all of them non-celebrities.

Though somewhat remote (even for Calabasas), the property is located in a luxurious (if oft-overlooked) gated community just off Mulholland Highway and not far from Old Topanga Canyon Road. Unfortunately for Mr. Paul — or maybe this is a good thing — the house is set down a long driveway at the very back of the gated enclave and backs directly up to a mobile home community. Yes, kiddies. This $7 million house borders a trailer park (albeit a pricey trailer park, as trailer parks go). Somewhat appropriate, no?

As for architectural style, it’s indeterminate. Some folks might call it a “Persian Palace” though Yolanda sees a clumsy take on Neoclassical with truly ungainly proportions. Check out those two windowed lumps above the garages — the phrase “warts and all” springs to mind.

But there’s an ass for every saddle and it seems rather fitting that Mr. Paul’s ass found this particular saddle just right. And though the style does not interest Yolanda, the property has plenty of land and contains a massive, fancy mansion. When it comes down to it, that’s probably what Mr. Paul wanted. So ignore Yolanda’s snark.

The ornate front door opens to an enormous three-story entrance foyer that is clearly meant to wow guests. Newly-renovated interiors were done up in a clean-lined contemporary theme that we suppose is nice enough, but it still leaves Yolanda feeling blue and uninspired. Maybe it’s because the rooms are so gosh-darn enormous that they feel empty no matter what the decor situation is. The beast of a mansion spans more than 15,000-square-feet of living space with 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.

A baronial kitchen is ready to party with four ovens and a supersized center island with all high-end Miele appliances. The adjacent family room features a coffered ceiling, and the dining room includes two chandeliers and an eye-catching array of wine bottle holsters on the wall. Yolanda can only assume those will be filled with Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider, as Mr. Paul is not yet old enough to legally imbibe alcoholic beverages. Right, Mr. Paul?

Naturally, there are more hokey columns indoors.

The master bedroom has hardwood floors, a fireplace, and a private balcony overlooking the grassy backyard. The master bath has a party-sized glass shower with its own Bluetooth music system and steam feature — perfect for a rowdy bachelor. Other creature comforts include wood-paneled library with real bookshelves, a home theater, a lagoon-style pool “with multiple waterfalls”, a Tesla charging station, and a full security system with surveillance cameras.

The listing notes that the 3.5-acre property includes a second graded pad that is currently undeveloped but can accommodate “championship tennis court, equestrian pursuits or soccer field”. Meanwhile, there’s already two built-in BBQ centers and extensive patios out back.

Congrats to Mr. Paul on his very first house! And to his WeHo neighbors for the relative calm that shall be returned to them.

Listing agents: Marc & Rory Shevin, Berkshire Hathaway HomeService
Jake Paul’s agents: Matt & Josh Altman, Douglas Elliman

We know this story has already been bludgeoned to death, brought back to life and then murdered again, but Yolanda can’t resist putting our own little spin on it. It’s just too damn good!

As y’all have certainly heard, showbiz supernova Kim Kardashian and her hot-headed hubby Kanye West have sold their freshly-renovated house in the affluent (and guard-gated) Bel Air Crest neighborhood for a truly shocking $17,800,000. And the new owner paid cash, y’all.

Good for Kimye! Or good for Kim, at least. Records show that the couple picked up the property in January 2013 — long before they got hitched — and Ms. Kardashian’s trust is the only entity listed on the deed. So it appears Kim K was the sole beneficial owner of the property, technically speaking.

For those number crunchers keeping track, the $17.8 million sale price — though lower than the $21 million off-market ask — is easily the most ever paid in the Bel Air Crest community, which (despite the name) is much closer to the San Fernando Valley community of Sherman Oaks than it is to prime lower Bel Air.

The buyer was identified by the Wall Street Journal as Marina Acton, a philanthropist and Ukrainian citizen in her early 30s. Our Mrs. Acton — formerly known by the names Marina Green and/or Maryna Gryn — was formerly the secretary to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Piskun. And now, with her newfound billions, she apparently wants to pursue a singing career in Hollywood.

And really, what better way to kickstart a career than by buying the home of one of the world’s most famous couples and generating an enormous load of free publicity?

For her part, Mrs. Acton publicly declared her love for the extensive press her purchase received. She even shared our own Mama’s Variety article on her personal Facebook page and stated “I like the gossips” and “I’m real and you will see me soon.” She also revealed (and Kim K confirmed on her website) that Ms. Kardashian personally toured her through the home before she purchased the property.

So where does all Mrs. Acton’s money come from? It probably helps that the former Miss Green/Gryn was married this year to Brian Acton, a Silicon Valley-based tech entrepreneur who happens to have a net worth of a paltry $6.7 billion. Our Mr. Acton co-founded the WhatsApp instant messaging service, which was sold to Facebook in 2014 for $22 billion in stock and cash. That lottery win is enough to make him the 269th richest person on the globe, according to Forbes. Cha-ching!

It should be noted, however, that a careful examination of records indicates that this home was purchased by an LLC whose sole managing member is Mrs. Acton, indicating that the property is solely and separately owned by her. You go, gurl! Spend that cash.

Despite the huge sale price, Yolanda is not sure how much Ms. Kardashian actually profited on the sale of this home. That’s because she bought the 9,000-square-foot house for $9,000,000 nearly five years ago and then spent 2-3 years and an unknown amount of money (probably several million bucks) to totally transform the Mediterranean mess into a starkly contemporary showpiece.

The house sports a front-facing two-car garage, a large motorcourt that can easily accommodate another dozen vehicles, a grassy backyard, and a negative-edge swimming pool on less than an acre of land.

Things adhere to the austere indoors and include a professional-grade kitchen that looks more like an doctor’s operating room than a homey place to grab some grub. White walls, a sweeping staircase, and hundreds of fluorescent ceiling lights span the rest of the home.

The property sits on a tiny cul-de-sac and right next door to currently unemployed comedian Kathy Griffin and two doors away from KB Home CEO Jeffrey T. Mezger, who is definitely not laughing at Ms. Griffin’s jokes. Perhaps Mrs. Acton can use her music to bring some peace to her new ‘hood?

This is not Mrs. Acton’s only multi-million dollar mansion, however. Oh no.

Less than 6 months ago — in July 2017 — Mrs. Acton paid $8,400,000 in cash for another sleekly contemporary home in the proverbial heart of Palo Alto.

The mini-compound was built in 2006 and sold by its original owner to Mrs. Acton. We’re sure she will enjoy the 5-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom main house and the separate 1-bed, 2-bath guesthouse, which could be converted into a recording studio. There are walls of glass, a spiral staircase, a “chef’s dream kitchen” that looks not unlike the kitchen in Kimye’s old pad, a home theater, and a somewhat cramped-looking gym. All this in a total of 4,469-square-feet spread out between the two structures on a .28-acre lot. And while $8.4 million may seem like a steep price for a quarter-acre of land, it’s not really that unheard-of up in Palo Alto, kiddies. This is prime Silicon Valley.

Some of Mrs. Acton’s new Bay Area neighbors include real estate baller Brendan Iribe, former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, and billionaire Marc Andreessen.

Anywho. We digress. Yolanda loves this story because it involves a gal who received mountains of fame and fortune because of an explicit homemade video selling her house to a gal who married a billionaire dude significantly older than herself and is not pursuing her pop star dream. Oh, you young’uns. Isn’t it just so delicious?

And really, is there anything more perfectly LA than that?

Listing agents: Matt & Josh Altman, Douglas Elliman
Marina Acton’s agents: Matt & Josh Altman, Douglas Elliman; Sandy Papale & Joel Goodrich, Coldwell Banker

It took 10 long months, but billionaire heir and real estate mega-baller Kevin Washington has divested himself of his fully renovated home in the Beverly Hills Post Office neighborhood. Tucked into a tree-shaded 1.06-acre lot near the back of a dead-end canyon road, the house sits privately behind tall hedges and big gates.

Yolanda has discussed Mr. Washington at least a couple times in the past, so we won’t dwell too long on the personal details in this particular episode. Suffice to say that Mr. Washington’s daddy is worth something like $6 billion and thus Mr. Washington has the financial wherewithal to afford to be a voracious collector of LA luxury homes. Other details: our boy is also married to a beautiful model named Chelsea Salmon, and together the couple have two young children.

Though the Washingtons have been livin’ large for the past several years, it was only recently that they popped up on Yolanda’s radar in a big way with their record-breaking $41 million Santa Monica mansion purchase, which remains the most ever paid for a house on LA’s Westside.

But we digress. In July 2015, Mr. & Mrs Washington paid $11,995,000 (the full asking price) for a 7,256-square-foot Traditional up in the B.H.P.O.

Almost immediately, the Washingtons became engaged in a full-scale remodel of the premises. The house now weighs in at nearly 10,000-square-feet (per the listing) and the interiors now sport a clean-lined contemporary theme that was dreamed up by prolific WeHo-based interior designer Trip Haenisch.

Listing materials say that Mr. Washington spent a fat $4 million on the renovations, which we hope (for the sake of his pocketbook) is not the case. Records show that the property finally sold for either $13,500,000 or $14,000,000 in October 2017, depending on whether you trust public records or the MLS, respectively. That’s only $1.5 million or $2 million more than he paid a couple years ago.

The new owner’s identity is shielded behind an entity called “Temerity Trust Management LLC”, but was identified to Yolanda as one William Sadleir, a former hedge fund manager hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah who now lives in LA and heads up a Beverly Hills film production outfit called Aviron Pictures.

Fledgling upstart Aviron, which only officially launched this May (2017), has already launched the Halle Berry vehicle Kidnap, which has so far grossed $32+ million against a $21 million budget. Good for Mr. Sadleir, we guess.

Mr. Sadleir was also the chairman of something called Clarius Capital and is married to a lady named Hannah Kadadu Sadleir. The couple have at least one small child, and Mr. Sadleir also has adult children from previous marriage(s).

Anyway, the house. The double-gated entryway opens up to a driveway that slopes downward to the semi-underground two-car garage. Alternatively, a car can park along the wraparound front motorcourt, in front of the staircase leading to the front door, which is flanked by dual white columns on each side. Gives the pad a bit of a colonial vibe, don’t it?

A checkerboard-style tile entrance foyer could have been cliche, but instead Mr. Washington and/or his interior designer opted for a more unusual grey-and-white color combo, rather than the typical black-and-white motif. However, Yolanda isn’t sure we love the way the tile floors abruptly turn to honey-hued hardwood in the sitting rooms. The staircase also sports hardwood stair tops with white risers unfortunately obscured from view by a rather drab grey carpet runner.

The completely remodeled kitchen is big but not overwhelming. Check out the La Cornue range, which appears to be a $15,000+ Ilve Majestic model. The formal dining room has some sort of poofy chandelier and some rather fabulous blue velvet (leather?) chairs.

Elsewhere there is a contemporary-flaired formal living room w/ fireplace, a gym, a sauna/steam room, and a library/private office that is equipped with a marble fireplace and purple-painted walls that are certainly somethin’, albeit maybe not what Yolanda would choose for her own home.

The renovated/expanded property now contains a total of 8 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. There is a terrace-equipped master bedroom with wide-plank oak floors, a fireplace, and a sitting area. The master bath contains dual vanities and a soaking tub, and the dresser contains the requisite show and handbag shelves. Also on the premises is a playroom located in an unknown part of the house (possibly the basement) that sports a ball pit and a rope ladder. Yolanda we weren’t too old to jump in that pit.

Time is such a bitch! Say it ain’t so.

There’s also an underground “man cave” with an enormous wet bar, a home theater setup, and a ping pong table that looks remarkably ornate (as ping pong table go). And the home’s backyard has fruit trees, a pool/spa, and an outdoor fireplace for chilly nights.

Our Mr. Washington has been remarkably busy with real estate this year. In addition to dumping his $13.5 million B.H.P.O. house, he also quietly sold his home on Malibu’s Carbon Beach for over $9 million to CAA bigshot Russ Jones. As we’ve already mentioned, he also spent $41 million on the newly-built dream home of now-divorced Modern Family couple Steven & Krista Levitan.

Mr. Washington is not yet done selling, however. Oh no. Our boy is currently hoping for a Christmas miracle over in Beverly Hills’ fiendishly-expensive Trousdale Estates neighborhood, where his renovated contemporary stunner (above) is currently listed with an aggressive $27,500,000 pricetag.

As for Mr. and Mrs. Sadleir, Yolanda happens to know they have been leasing a $3 million house in Beverly Hills Post Office for the last couple years. Online records indicate they pay $11,000/month for the privilege of occupying the 3,234-square-foot premises, which is located only about a mile (as the crow flies) from their fancy new mansion.

Listing agents: Branden & Rayni Romito, Hilton & Hyland
Selling agent: Jon Grauman, The Agency

Those of you who have been following real estate gossip for at least the last few years (and particularly LA real estate gossip) may recall the epic World War III: Mohamed Hadid vs. All His Neighbors. Oh, the horror! There was much fighting, tears shed, and gnashing of teeth up there in the hills of Bel Air. Y’all can read more about it here and here, if anyone dares.

The saga continues with minor skirmishes but the battle really came to a head in July 2015, when Mr. Hadid’s 89-year-old wheelchair-bound widow of a next door neighbor was interviewed (and photographed) at her home by the Daily Mail. Carole Cramer — that was her name — was clearly in fragile health at the time. But she still made sure to let her interviewer know that Hadid had called her a “bitch” and had (allegedly) stolen a strip of her 2.6-acre property in order to build a retaining wall. According to Mrs. Cramer, Hadid brazenly took the land because she “would die soon” anyway.

Yikes! Yolanda really hopes those allegations were not true. In any case, Mrs. Cramer passed on to the other side less than a year later, in April 2016.

For the last 50+ years of her life, Mrs. Cramer had presided over a sublimely-located 2.6-acre property in the heart of lower Bel Air. The very private land lies on a hilltop at the end of a cul-de-sac. So when the property became available as a probate sale in July 2017 with an asking price of $9,900,000, many investors jumped at the offer. Despite the somewhat bedraggled condition of the historic estate, many folks (including Yolanda) believed the property was underpriced.

Last week (early November 2017), the winning bidder closed the deal for $14,600,000 in cash, a flabbergasting $4.7 million more than the asking price. Clearly, multiple parties wanted this Bel Air acreage quite badly.

The new owner’s identity, of course, is concealed behind an LLC. But Yolanda knows that it is a guy named Bill Laurie and his spectacularly rich wife Nancy Walton Laurie, a multi-billionaire heiress to the fortune of Walmart through her father Bud Walton and uncle Sam Walton, both now deceased. Forbes says she currently makes do with $5.4 billion in the bank.

Mrs. Walton Laurie has long lived next door to Mrs. Cramer’s former property on a multi-acre compound of her own. And yes, she also got involved in World War III as well. In 2015, Mrs. Walton Laurie filed a lawsuit against Mr. Hadid, accusing him of cutting the roots to her “cherished eucalyptus tree”. The lady also wanted Mr. Hadid to pay $90,000 for her tree’s pain and suffering.

Well, hot damn! If Yolanda were a bit more uncouth, we’d say that’s the very definition of “rich people problems”. But we aren’t, so we won’t. Right, Donald?

Anywho. We’ll talk more about her main compound in a moment but first, Yolanda will take you on a quick walk-through of Mrs. Walton Laurie’s new $14.6 million acquisition.

Listing information states that this is a “potential teardown” and “exciting/contractor opportunity”. Marketing materials go on to say that “Per Wikimapia it is the oldest standing structure in Bel Air”, though Yolanda is unable to confirm that assertion. Anyway, records show that the 4,428-square-foot house has 5 bedroom and 5.25 bathrooms.

A long asphalt driveway leads to a broken-down gate that leads to a red-brick motorcourt with space for 8 or more motor vehicles. The house appears to be a mishmash of architectural styles, but the rooms are pleasingly big with marble floors and walls of glass. The real star of the show, however, is the nearly-unobstructed views of downtown Century City and the surrounding hills.

As for Mrs. Walton Laurie, she now owns one of the largest compounds (in terms of acreage) in all of Bel Air. According to Yolanda’s research, she now presides over 9+ prime acres spread across no fewer than 12 separate parcels of land. We also find evidence that the Walmart heiress has spent a breathtaking $57,100,000 to assemble the properties. Her 8,500-square-foot main residence was acquired way back in 2001 for exactly $20 million, and the other parcels appear to have been added on gradually, beginning in 2012. In case you’re wondering, the folks at Reveal calculated that Mrs. Walton Laurie probably uses a gasp-worthy 2.3 million gallons of water per year to keep her Bel Air kingdom looking so lush. And that was before she added on the 2.6 acres she just bought!

Listen, kiddies, no cracks about Yolanda’s photoshop skills. We know those aren’t the exact boundaries of Mrs. Walton Laurie’s property in real life, but we do the best with the limited budget our stingy ex-hubby gives us for spousal support. Oh, and see that yellow circle? That’s Mr. Hadid’s still-illegal and still-unfinished mega-mansion! Maybe Mrs. Walton Laurie will swoop in to buy and demolish the beast?

Some of the biggest neighboring estates are owned by former U.S. Ambassador Robert H. Tuttle, current Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, Salma Hayek, Lance Milken, and Third Point hedge fund honcho Daniel S. Loeb. And just across the street from Mrs. Walton Laurie is the multi-acre spread of the late billionaire Jerry Perenchio, which is currently listed with an unprecedented $350 million ask.

We digress. Mrs. Walton Laurie owns a variety of other homes/structures that include several properties in Columbia, Missouri, where the family has roots. Then she’s got a $17.5 million pad out in Henderson, Nevada. And her daughter Paige Laurie has an $11 million house up in the “Bird Streets” area of the Hollywood Hills that she bought from Tobey Maguire way back in 2007.

Listing agent: Sue Bernstein, Rodeo Realty
Nancy Walton Laurie’s agent: Michael Collins, Coldwell Banker

Listen up, everyone. Although our third ex-husband Randall left us with a fat settlement, spousal support and a red Cadillac, Yolanda remains a slave to the almighty dollar just like all you folks reading this story. And half the time the old bastard doesn’t pay us our monthly checks! What a loser. But we already digress — anyway, we try to post stories about people and houses that cater to what y’all might want to read, not just what Yolanda wants to write about. That’s why we pepper our blog with celebrity stories, to keep y’all’s real estate appetites whetted.

Anyway, we diligently check the news on a daily basis to see who is making headlines. What a great day it was yesterday, eh? That top story — about U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his actress wife Louise Linton artfully posed while holding a sheet of freshly-steamrolled money. Oh, man. Just too damn good! Yolanda loved it.

Listen, kiddies, we’ve never been one to talk politics or try to weave policy discussions into our stories. And we never will. But no matter which side of the spectrum y’all fall on, you have to admit that the photo is destined to become a meme classic (and it already has). Christina Wilkie from CNBC had Yolanda’s favorite description of the couple — “[they] look like Bond villains”.

It’s not the first time Mr. Mnuchin — a former Goldman Sachs managing director who is reportedly worth north of $300 million — and Ms. Linton have faced scrutiny over their alleged wealth flauntin’, but it is definitely the most memorable.

All that aside, we’re just saying that Mr. Mnuchin is everywhere today. And we’ve been sitting on this story about his second ex-wife for months now, so today we are finally pullin’ the trigger, so to speak.

Mr. Mnuchin and his second ex-wife Heather Mnuchin were married for nearly 15 years and have three minor children whose names and ages Yolanda cannot be bothered to remember, sorry. The couple lived in New York during the first half of their marriage — way back in 2000, they paid $10,500,000 for a duplex apartment in NYC’s legendary 740 Park Avenue, which has been called “the world’s richest apartment building”. For what it’s worth, the duplex was purchased by the Mnuchins from art collector Carol Lederman, who just happens to be Mr. Mnuchin’s aunt. Apparently money flows thick in this clan.

In 2009, Mr. Mnuchin purchased OneWest Bank in Pasadena, California. The couple therefore traded Manhattan for the mean streets of Bel Air, where they quickly paid $26,500,000 for a rather bland Tuscan-style mega-mansion in a particularly swanky neighborhood pocket where most of the neighbors are billionaires. They include Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie, hedge funder Daniel S. Loeb, hotelier Beny Alagem, luxury goods mogul François-Henri Pinault and his actress wife Salma Hayek, and Michael Milken’s son Lance.

Mr. Mnuchin continues to own and reside (with Louise Linton) in the Bel Air estate. Following the couple’s split, however, Ms. Mnuchin (who appears to still use her marital name though she is now in a longterm relationship with a guy named David Ford) “downgraded” in March 2014 to a Beverly Hills mansion that we’ll discuss in more detail a wee bit later. In time, it seems, she tired of slumming it in the flats of Beverly Hills and has now decided to give the Westside a spin.

In May of this year (2017), a brand-new mansion within Brentwood’s guard-gated “Brentwood Circle” enclave became available for sale with a hefty $12,950,000 pricetag. Scarcely a month later, the house sold — for the full damn asking price. And though we can’t say for certain on this one, the transaction has all the indications of being an all-cash deal.

Naturally, the buyer’s identity is shielded behind one of those tedious LLCs, but we do know that it is our homegurl Heather Mnuchin who now has the keys to her new palace. Let’s see what those 13 million dollar bills (some possibly with her ex-hubby’s name on them?) hath wrought.

Spec-built and completed in 2017, the 9,167-square-foot bi-winged mansion is described in listing materials as a “Modern Contemporary”. The three-story structure is completely walled and gated (even though it also lies within a guard-gated community) and includes a front-facing three car garage.

A glassy front door swings open to a two-story “Gallery Reception Hall” that spans the entire length of the house. The hall doesn’t seem useful for much of anything other than being a place for the staff to park guests while they wait for the homeowner to descend her from her upstairs quarters, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Elsewhere, there’s a living room with a fireplace and its own private balcony. Custom “European oak” wide-plank hardwood floors grace most of the public rooms.

The theme of relaxed decadence continues into the kitchen, which blends together with the family room to become the “lifestyle center” of the home.There are top-of-the-line Wolf and Viking appliances plus a center island topped with pricey Carrara marble and plenty of barstool seating.

Yolanda has gotta remark, however, that we just find the kitchen to have a little too much wood for our personal tastes.

Off the family room is the staircase that leads upstairs to the astonishingly luxurious master suite, which has six rooms all to itself. There’s the bedroom, which has a sitting area next to a fireplace, behind which is a “lounge” with a TV and a big couch. Then there’s a dressing room and two “wardrobe rooms” (not pictured) plus the bathroom, which has one of the largest showers we’ve ever seen. It’s all done up in glass and marble and looks ready for some wild parties! (Consenting adults only, please.)

In addition to the master suite, there are 5 more bedroom suites. And some of the home’s recreational amenities include a game room w/ sports bar and a movie theater.

The .66-acre lot isn’t particularly big, but the smallish backyard is admirably and completely shielded from neighbors behind a riotous cacophony of mature trees of varying species, making y’all feel that you’re overlooking a private park. Outdoor amenities include the requisite pool w/ inset spa and an outdoor BBQ. Yolanda isn’t particularly fond of the structure’s rear view — sorta reminds us of a high-class motel — but there’s no denying this is quite the fancy house and many folks may think Ms. Mnuchin got herself a decent deal at $13 million.

As we’ve already mentioned, Ms. Mnuchin has been living in Beverly Hills since her split with her Treasury Secretary hubby. In March 2014, she paid $8,900,000 for a 2008-built mock-Mediterranean mansion on one of the premier streets in the flats of Beverly Hills. The 9,957-square-foot mansion sits on less than a third of an acre of land and contains 7 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms.

For what it is worth, Ms. Mnuchin bought the property from John Hemmingson, a Washington state-based businessman who once served time in prison for money laundering. (But we digress). Our gurl Ms. Mnuchin hired her longtime friend, interior designer Tracy Bross, to re-do the interiors in a semi-girly fashion with lots of whites, greys, and lavenders.

Ms. Mnuchin put her Beverly Hills pad up for sale in June of this year, and the property soon sold for the complicated sum of $11,083,955 to a local stock trader named David Salomon. That’s a nice $2+ million return on the property for Ms. Mnuchin.

As for Mr. Mnuchin, when he’s not traveling via private jet with his wife #3, he’s living at either his leaky 740 Park duplex apartment or his 25,000-square-foot Bel Air mega-mansion. Those two properties alone are probably worth $70 million today, give or take a few million greenbacks. And he’s also got a spread in the Hamptons and a new $12 million pad in the posh Massachusetts Avenue Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

It’s all about them Benjamins, baby. Or Washingtons — right, Ms. Linton?

Listing agent (Brentwood): Ernie Carswell, Teles Properties
Heather Mnuchin’s agent (Brentwood): Steven Schaefer, Newmark Residential
Heather Mnuchin’s agent (Beverly Hills): Edward Fitz, The Agency
Selling agent (Beverly Hills): Darla Sue Gilmartin, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices 

Billionaire Hollywood dealmaker Jerry Perenchio passed on to the other side this year (May 2017) at the ripe old age of 86. Soon enough, pieces of his epic real estate portfolio began surfacing on the open market. We’re sure most folks reading this have already heard about his historic Bel Air mega-compound, which is currently available with a record-shattering $350 million asking price.

In addition to his business activities, our Mr. Perenchio was also one of Malibu’s largest landowners. We certainly can’t forget his sea-view golf course, which he built without the proper permits. And Mr. Perenchio owned no fewer than six homes within the guard-gated Malibu Colony community, As Our Mama at Variety has already snitched, one of those popped up for sale in August. Thought the wee house is quite tiny and is not even oceanfront, the property itself is nearly a third of an acre — a good amount of land in the tightly-packed Colony.

Anyway, records show that the property sold on Halloween for $6,800,000 — more than $1.3 million over the asking price. Clearly, at least two bidders were engaged in a hard-fought battle over this quaint cottage.

The new owner’s name is cloaked behind a mysterious LLC, but Yolanda just happens to know that it is none other than 84-year-old casino tycoon/philanthropist/Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who happens to be one of the richest people in the whole wide world. At one point he was 8th on Forbes’ list of billionaires, thought he’s slipped a bit in recent years and now makes do as the 20th wealthiest person on the globe with a net worth that hovers around $36 billion.

If you’re surprised that one of the world’s richest men would want to buy this itsy-bitsy little Malibu cottage, don’t be. Our Mr. Adelson, you see, loves Malibu Colony and has been on a quiet real estate tear behind those gates for the past several years. In fact, he now owns no fewer than six properties in the ritzy enclave. Yolanda is not sure why he needs so many parcels of land — especially since none of them are contiguous — but there you have it. Maybe he’s trying to buy up the whole shebang for himself?

The Malibu properties include (but may not be limited to):

— A 5,018-square-foot oceanfront house, custom-built by Mr. Adelson and completed in 1998 (he later sued his contractor over a pesky mold problem)
— A 4,225-square-foot oceanfront house, bought for $9,980,000 in 2015 from the estate of Barbie doll inventor Ruth Handler
— A 3,755-square-foot oceanfront house, bought for $10,400,000 in 2015 from Mega Millions lottery winner Kevyn Ogawa
— A 3,295-square-foot oceanfront house w/ swimming pool, bought for $12,000,000 in 2013 from Lee Phillip Bell
— A landlocked lot featuring little more than a tennis court and a chain link fence, bought for $1,750,000 in 2013 from Lee Phillip Bell
— A landlocked lot with a 936-square-foot cottage and parking for six vehicles, bought for $6,800,000 in 2017 from the estate of Jerry Perenchio (the one we are discussin’ today)

Mr. Adelson has now spent $40,930,000 on his Malibu Colony collection, not counting the fat construction fees on his first residence there. So let’s take a very quick look at his latest acquisition.

The .32-acre property features a two-care garage with an attached 2-bed, 1-bath guest apartment. Beyond that lies a broad lawn — perfect for a game of croquet — and the petite 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom “main house”, if that’s even the right term here.

The main house/cottage dates to the 1940s and includes a cute and spacious front porch that spans the width of the residence. Inside there are polished hardwood floors and a combo living room/family room with a stone fireplace. The structure’s kitchen is puny by today’s $6.8 million house standards but it does include upgraded stainless steel appliances.

When he’s not living in Malibu (and not traveling), the still-spry Mr. Adelson resides in a colossal mega-mansion in a swanky guard-gated community on the outskirts of Las Vegas. The red brick Georgian-ish-style behemoth was custom-built by our boy, completed in 2013, has 20 bathrooms and its own private water park, and reportedly weighs in at nearly 44,000-square-feet of living space.

Well, hot damn. Yolanda would call that thing almost ludicrously enormous! It’s so big that the house takes up three parcels of land, each of which could easily contain a “normal-sized” mansion. And just think of how much money it must cost to heat and cool that beast out there in the desert, kiddies.

But Mr. Adelson can certainly afford his utility bills.

Listing agents: Marcus Beck & Tracy Lynn Testin, Sotheby’s International Realty
Sheldon Adelson’s agent: Chad Rogers, Hilton & Hyland

Although the LA real estate market’s appetite for ultra-high-end spec-built contemporary mansions has cooled considerably from its peak in 2014, certain developers are still raking in the big bucks. Just ask Dean McKillen, the Irish dude who just sold a trophy Bel Air spec-mega-mansion to Jay-Z & Beyoncé earlier this year for a breathtaking $88,000,000.

Just a wee bit further up in yonder Bel Air hills lurks a smaller but no less eye-catching contemporary. Endowed with a new louche new mansion and blessed with 280-degree views spanning mountains, valleys and oceans, the hilltop property is less a typical “home” than a party showpiece, explicitly designed to forever awe guests who can’t even dream of affording the annual maintenance bill.

Anyway, the whole shebang hit the open market with a $45,000,000 thud of a pricetag this September (2017) And within a month, despite the cost, the swoopy temptress had managed to entice a big-bucks buyer. Though the transaction has not yet closed, the MLS makes plain that a sale is pending.

Though we can’t yet prove it, a certain someone who would know tells Yolanda that the new owner will be a low-profile fella named Jay Paul. Our Mr. Paul, though hardly a household name, just happens to be a multi-billionaire Silicon Valley real estate developer. Forbes says his net worth is somewhere in the area of $2.7 billion.

Yolanda attempted to research Mr. Paul, but he seems to keep his personal life private. There ain’t much in the way of details about him out there on the interwebs — to be honest, Yolanda isn’t even sure if this dude is currently married or single. But his developments, by contrast, are some of the most glamorous and conspicuous in all of the Silicon Valley.

Mr. Paul is the developer behind 181 Fremont, an 802-floor mixed-use skyscraper in the South of Market district of San Francisco. Upon completion, the building will be the tallest residential skyscraper in the western United States and is home to a James Bond villain-worthy penthouse with a record-breaking $42 million asking price. It’s a veritable mansion in the sky, kiddies. Additionally, all the office space inside the tower is already leased to Facebook — it will serve as their San Francisco outpost.

In addition to those crazy Facebook peeps, some of Mr. Paul’s other clients include a few companies you may recognize — Apple, Amazon, and Hewlett-Packard. It’s Mr. Paul’s company, y’all, who paid about $177 million for a massive development site in Sunnyvale, CA that is slated to house Apple’s future HQ.

In general, techies just love leasing office space from Mr. Paul! But we digress.

The Bel Air mansion that will (allegedly!) soon belong to Mr. Paul is located in a very posh little pocket — right next door to Motown record label founder Berry Gordy‘s sprawling compound and directly across the street from Jennifer Aniston’s own compound, on which she was once hilariously reported to be building a runway for her private jet. Bet the neighbors would’ve loved that!

The .92-acre promontory property was last sold in 2014 for $11,450,000 to New York-based developer Zach Vella. The property has been dramatically transformed since his purchase, as y’all can see. We also believe this house has been featured on Million Dollar Listing at least a couple times.

Anyway, the new house is completely invisible from the street out front, hidden behind tall hedges and down a long gated driveway. Designed by South Africa-based firm SAOTA Architecture, the structure now boasts a three-car garage and 5-beds/9-baths in an aggressively contemporary shell of unknown square footage.

The main level of the residence is defined by the spare use of indoor walls and the substantial ceiling heights. Disappearing walls of glass seamlessly marry the indoors with the out in a quintessentially SoCal style. Honey-hued hardwood floors give the rooms some visual warmth. Check out the scale of that great room and dining room! Yowza.

Upstairs is the master suite, which sports dual bathrooms, in addition to three additional guest/family bedroom suites. Per the listing, other features include an indoor wellness center w/ massage therapy area, gym, sauna, steam shower, bath & “Zen garden”. Also out back is an oddly-shaped infinity pool (doesn’t look made for for serious swimmin’) with views out to the Pacific Ocean.

Though Mr. Paul keeps his personal life carefully under wraps, he has a well-established taste for living in unabashed grandeur. In late 2012, Mr. Paul coughed up $28,250,000 for a very famous and very conspicuous mansion in the heart of Pacific Heights, San Fran’s most fiendishly expensive neighborhood. At the time of his purchase, it was the third most-expensive sale in San Francisco history.

Located on SF’s “billionaire’s row”, the massive pile was marketed as a fixer and was once listed for a bewildering $55 million. To be fair, the house does sport one of the only private tennis courts in all of the city. Or it did, rather. Since his purchase, Mr. Paul has been engaged in a complete overhaul of the premises that involves gutting the interior, adding a subterranean pool and spa, building an at-home art gallery, and replacing the sport court with formal gardens. Five years later, the project remains unfinished and work continues.

For more photos of how the 10,000-square-foot, 1925 manse looked at the time of Mr. Paul’s purchase, go here. Yolanda near chokes at the thought of how many millions in upgrades he’s sunk into this thing!

Listing agents: James Harris & David Parnes, The Agency

It’s no secret that enormously famous celebrity supernova Kim Kardashian and her momager mama Kris Jenner share a close relationship. For heaven’s sake, the reality star lived at her mom’s Hidden Hills house (off and on) until she was well into her mid-30s. Heck, she might even be living there now that her old house has been sold to billionaire wife Marina Acton.

We are also sure that y’all know that Ms. Kardashian and her hot-headed hubby Kanye West are still in the midst of renovating their “dream” residence. Records show they purchased the 4.5-acre Hidden Hills compound in two separate transactions in 2014 that totaled $22,675,000. Since then, the couple have spent millions of dollars to rip out all the landscaping, gut the interiors, and expand the main house to suit their extensive — ahem — needs. Rumors say it may be another six months before the property is finalized and safe for move-in.

Anyway, now that Kris Jenner’s five daughters are all set for life and livin’ large in mansions of their own (the cheapest of which cost $7,200,000), Ms. Jenner is an empty nester. And what do empty nesters do when their kids move on out? They downsize, of course! Or that’s what they do if they’re not a Kardashian. Yep, you read right. Grandma Jenner is moving, but she ain’t downsizing — she’s upsizing. Remember, y’all, Ms. Jenner used to drive a beat-up old Mazda back in the day. But now she rolls a Rolls (she’s got two of the $300k vehicles, actually) and she is determined to flaunt her success and her resultant big bucks.

Since early 2010 — when she and her ex Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner bought it for $4,000,000 — Ms. Jenner has resided in a 1998-build mock-Mediterranean mansion in Hidden Hills. The 8,860-square-foot house has 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, and sits on a 1.38-acre lot that is thickly wooded and hedged for max privacy. As y’all should know, Ms. Jenner was awarded the house in her 2014 divorce and has thoroughly renovated it since her 2010 purchase. We’re sure the property’s value has dramatically increased during Ms. Jenner’s ownership — Yolanda would not be surprised in the least if the house is now worth $7 million, nearly double what she paid seven years ago.

But we digress. Yolanda just happens to know that Ms. Jenner will soon pay $9,925,000 (nearly the full $10 million asking price) for a brand-new spec mansion with a fat 9,400-square-feet of living space that is located barely a half-mile from her current residence. And it could be coincidence, although Yolanda rather thinks not, but the house happens to be almost directly across the street from Kim & Kanye’s unfinished $30+ million mega-compound. It’s so close that y’all could walk there blindfolded.

The new 1.28-acre pad lies near the dead-end of Long Valley Road and features a sprawling two-story mansion done up in that “Modern Farmhouse” style that is so en vogue right now and painted in a chic grey. Situated privately behind a small thicket of weeping willows, the house has a substantial motorcourt plus a four-car garage to house Ms. Jenner’s small collection of luxury vehicles.

Upon entering through the glass front door, visitors are treated to gorgeous burled-walnut floors underfoot and views all the way through the home, to the pool/spa out yonder. The floating staircase and the two-story foyer with a vaulted skylight make Yolanda think we’re in some sort of luxury loft in downtown, or maybe that’s just the early mornin’ Four Roses talkin’.

Naturally, the kitchen verges on hedonistic with designer-done (whatever that means) wooden cabinets and high-end Wolf and Miele appliances. There’s a marble-topped center island and an attached breakfast area with seating for 8 overlooking the lush backyard.

One unusual feature of this property is that the master suite is conveniently located on the main floor rather than in the second story. Walnut floors and contemporary finishes run through the fireplace- and balcony-equipped master bedroom, the expansive closet (for Ms. Jenner’s Birkin collection!) and the bathroom, which boasts a glassy shower area that’s great for exhibitionists to flaunt their bodily goods, whether au naturale or surgically-enhanced.

There are five additional light-flooded bedroom suites, so Kimmy should have no problem finding one that suites her needs.

Other amenities of the deluxe abode include smart home system with alarms and security cameras, a full sound system, and a comprehensive lighting system that can be controlled from afar. Out back is a large grassy backyard with a zero edge pool, a party-sized 10+ person spa great for family get-togethers or maybe just Rob Kardashian, a BBQ center and firepit. The property is an easy jog to numerous hiking trails and the Ahmanson Ranch State Park, though somehow we can’t imagine Ms. Jenner trudging around on local trails and shimmying down untamed hills.

In addition to her $4 million and $10 million Hidden Hills mansions, Granny Jenner also owns three luxury condos — one in the Wilshire Corridor neighborhood area of LA, the other two in the as-yet-unfinished Avanti complex in Calabasas that she purchased for a total of nearly $5 million.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, y’all. Don’t forget to eat, drink, be merry, and bathe in the purple rain. And be good.

Listing agents: Marc & Rory Shevin, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
Kris Jenner’s agents: Tomer & Isidora Fridman, Compass

Some time ago, our friend Vlad The Revealer at Celebrity Address Aerial asked Yolanda if we knew who had bought a certain house out in the wilds of Tarzana, inside a guard-gated community called Silver Hawk Ridge. Records show that the mini-compound was sold last year to an enigmatic corporate entity that links back to a New York wealth management firm that is known for having a long list of celebrity clientele, many of whom hail from the music industry.

Now, y’all know that Yolanda is a wee bit old school. These days, the once-maligned San Fernando Valley is no longer just a place for “the poors” and porn stars. Certain areas — Encino, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, and yes, even Tarzana — are now every bit as pricey as the Westside. But we were raised in a different era by parents who classier folks might describe as nouveau riche. And thus Yolanda was strictly taught to never venture over to the “bad side” of the hills. Only darkness, despair and bankruptcy lurks in that Valley, our daddy told us. And so the stigma continues.

But we digress. People seem to like reading about these Valley stories. And after a long time, Yolanda found out that the Tarzana mini-compound in question was sold to a guy named Sir Robert Bryson Hall II. Naturally, your gurl’s first question was “who the bleep is Sir Robert Bryson Hall II?!”

Turns out it’s not an English nobleman but rather a young rapper dude from a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. Our Mr. Hall’s rap moniker is Logic, which seems like a very silly name but is certainly less silly than other monikers we’ve seen recently. And it sorta makes sense, given that he can solve a Rubik’s cube while freestylin’. That’s certainly a talent, we suppose.

Mr. Logic first hit it big in 2013, when he signed with Def Jam after the release of his critically-lauded fourth mixtape, Young Sinatra: Welcome to Forever. Since then, he has steadily increased his profile and popularity, culminating this year with the release of his album Everybody, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard album chart and spawned the top 3 single “1-800-273-8255” (that’s the suicide prevention hotline, in case y’all didn’t know).

But let’s move on to a more unfortunate subject. Our Mr. Logic seems like a young man with a good head on his shoulders: he no longer drinks or smokes and he put a ring on his former girlfriend (now wife) Jessica Andrea in 2015. What a pity that his house doesn’t show the same potential. And that’s not just because of the location.

Admittedly, the place isn’t so bad from the outside. It’s a typical 90s mcmansion, of course, but it does have some cool features. There’s a four-car (unfortunately front-facing) garage plus a lighted sports court on a very generous 1.89-acre lot. Located privately at the end of a cul-de-sac, the main house has lovely park views and 4,000-square-feet. of living space And there’s also a 2,000-square-foot guest house that Mr. Logic could use for any variety of purposes: recording studio, storage space, staff quarters, mother-in-law suite. Plus the grounds look well-maintained.

For $1.9 million, it almost seems like a steal, right?

Unfortunately, the interior is a different story. It’s a complete hot mess, actually. We know that some folks complain about the generic look of staged houses, but Yolanda will always advise y’all to spend the cash and hire a stager unless you’ve already got a professional decorator. Ain’t nobody wanna see your tacky old crap strewn around everywhere. Just take a look at this place. There’s so many knick-knacks and so much bric-a-brac littering the joint. And those colors! Lord, take us now.

The thought that someone actually spent time to collect all this junk and then thought to themselves “wow, this looks good” is troubling to Yolanda. Come on now. It’s hideous!

And it’s not just the decor. Strip all that crap out and the rooms are still wonky. That’s one of the oddest staircases we’ve ever seen, and what the hell is going on with the roof in that dining room? There just seems to be some bad, bad feng shui up in this bitch.

Problems continue into the kitchen, which has icky flesh-colored tiles and a nasty ass pot rack. Don’t bother asking Yolanda what those alien-shaped red objects behind the sink are — we don’t know and we don’t want to know.

The house also has a pink felt pool table, naturally. (Was Angelyne having a yard sale?) But at least there’s a nice outdoor kitchen/BBQ area, so Mr. Logic can escape the interior horrors of his pad.

A magnificently ugly four-poster bed dominates the master bedroom. And what adult sleeps with a stuffed bear? Creepy! The master bathroom isn’t particularly heinous, but it is in desperate need of a full-scale remodel.

Out back is a large sparkling pool and there’s also a spa lurking around somewhere. Ironically enough, the guest house is actually much nicer than the main house. It’s got dark brown hardwood floors, a simple but functional kitchen, and another nicely sized bedroom suite that is mercifully free of ugly clutter.

Listen, kiddies, we know that $1.9 million doesn’t go very far in exorbitantly-priced LA these days. But we can’t help thinking that Mr. Logic could’ve got something nicer with his money. On the other hand, the house is located in a guard-gated community and it’s got space and privacy. Maybe those were his only requirements? We just hope he has another $500k or so for a major remodel.

There aren’t too many celebs in Silver Hawk Ridge, as far as Yolanda can tell, but the house immediately next door to Mr. Logic’s was until recently leased by Rob Kardashian’s ex-stripper baby mama Blac Chyna, a “lady” whose popularity (she’s got nearly 14 million followers on the Instagram thing-a-ma-jig) Yolanda will forever be unable to understand.

Listing agent: Avi Barazani, Coldwell Banker
Logic’s agent: Mica Rabineau, Nourmand & Associates

Though long eschewed by local rich folks, LA luxury condo living is finally — slowly but surely — coming into its own. Prices at the venerable Sierra Towers are as sky-high as the views, The Century is still popular, and the Ritz Carlton Residences at LA Live are completely sold out. Perhaps the most prestigious (and exclusive) condos in LA, however, are located at the Montage Residences in the downtown area of Beverly Hills, just a couple blocks away from world-famous Rodeo Drive. If y’all didn’t know, the Montage is a five-star hotel/condo complex and the Residences are located on the top three floors of the building. Owners have access to all the same concierge services as hotel guests, naturally. There are only 20 units in the building — four on the 6th floor, eight on the 7th floor, and eight on the 8th floor — all of which are in the hands of private owners. The average cost of entry is nearly $10 million.

Recently, one of the 20 residences at the Montage transferred in a secret off-market deal for an outrageous $19,700,000. That’s not only the highest price ever paid in the hotel, it utterly blows the previous record-holder ($14 million, paid by oil heiress Ariadne Getty in 2012) out of the water.

The seller of the unit — hedge funder Reagan Silber — made an absolute killing on his investment. Records show he bought the condo in 2011 for just $11,900,000, meaning he raked in an astonishing $7.8 million in profits (before those pesky taxes and fees, of course).

So who paid almost $20 million in what Yolanda happens to know was an all-cash deal? Records show the house was purchased by an LLC that is a known front for LA Fitness CEO Louis Welch and his longtime wife Michu Yi Welch, who was born in Korea.

For those who may not know, LA Fitness is a privately-owned gym chain that (despite the name) has 700+ locations in Canada and all across the United States, not just in LA. In fact, it’s the biggest non-franchised gym operation in the entire country and generates nearly $2 billion in revenue each and every year.

For such a large and successful business, the history and owners of the company remain somewhat shrouded in secrecy. It is known that the business was co-founded in 1984 by Mr. Welch and his business partner Chin Yol Yi (Mrs. Welch’s brother, we believe) and remains headquartered in Irvine, CA. Both partners are low-profile to the extreme — Yolanda can’t find any indication that either has ever granted a published interview, and pictures of them both are notoriously scarce. Yolanda practically had to ransack the entire internet to come up with a decent photo of Mr. Welch. Data about how the company grew so large is also rather lacking on the interwebs, so much so that the company’s “quiet ascension” eventually became a Harvard Business School case study.

It is known, however, that both LA Fitness co-founders — Mr. Yi and Mr. Welch — reside in Laguna Beach oceanfront homes, each of which cost more than $20 million apiece. About the only other detail Yolanda knows about Mr. Welch is that he is in his late 60s with three adult children and two grandchildren.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about the real estate. Unfortunately, however, we don’t have any photos of the unit Mr. & Mrs. Welch just bought. At 4,900-square-feet, however, it is one of the largest condos at the Montage and is located on the top floor (the 8th). Known features include 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, and the unit includes four dedicated parking spots in the hotel’s underground garage. There is a private elevator that is strictly for residents only (no hotel guest hoi polloi allowed).

This is not the Welches’ only unit at the Montage, however. Since early 2012, the couple have owned a smaller 3-bedroom spread on the seventh floor that they bought for $6,085,000. This particular unit has only 2,710-square-feet and 3 parking spaces but comes with access to all the same concierge services as the larger unit. The two condos are not contiguous in any way, and Yolanda is unsure if Mr. & Mrs. Welch plan to keep both or sell the smaller one, even though they clearly don’t need the money.

Below are some generic hotel photos included with the smaller unit’s old listing.

In 2008, Mr. & Mrs. Welch shook Orange County’s real estate market when they forked out $34,500,000 for an oceanfront house in guard-gated Emerald Bay. At the time, it was the second-highest price ever paid in Orange County. Though the deal has since been eclipsed several times, most notably by Patrick Soon-Shiong’s $45 million splurge last year and Larry Van Tuyl’s ungodly $55 million compound buy a few months ago, it remains in the top 10 of all-time in Orange County.

Believe it or not, the $34.5 million home is one of no fewer than four properties the Welch fam owns within the exclusive Emerald Bay gates.

Way back in 2001, Mr. & Mrs. Welch paid $4,500,000 for a house in Emerald Bay. But after moving into their new $34.5 million pad a quick jog away, the smaller house was sold in 2012 for $4,800,000 — significantly less than its fair market value — to their son Brendan, who continues to own and reside on the property. Then in March 2014, a model named Brittany Welch — who just happens to be Mr. & Mrs. Welch’s daughter — paid a fat $9,250,000 for a 6,500-square-foot Emerald Bay mansion. Scarcely two months later, the Welches’ younger daughter Courtney Welch paid $6,570,000 for yet another Emerald Bay house. Altogether, the Welch family has spent a rather astonishing $55,120,000 on their four homes in the Emerald Bay enclave.

Their $34.5 million main residence has four levels and an elevator in nearly 8,000-square-feet of living space with 65 feed of beach frontage. The swoopy contemporary was designed by a somewhat under-the-radar architect named Leason Pomeroy III.

Like all good real estate ballers, the Welches also have some fancy vacation homes. Their “winter” retreat is a 10,000+ square foot mansion in La Quinta, CA — out in the Palm Desert area. The contemporary sprawler — custom-built for Mr. & Mrs. Welch — includes an infinity pool overlooking a swanky gold course, and the property is located inside a secure gated community.

Perhaps the most interesting (former) property in the Welches’ portfolio, however, was their former penthouse at the Walker Tower in downtown Manhattan. In late 2014, the couple paid a shocking $40,730,000 — all of it in cash, according to the Observer — for the brand-new Penthouse #2. According to the agents at that time, the couple would remain based in California but planned to use the penthouse as their NYC pied-a-terre.

However, plans change. The Welches flipped the pad less than two years later — in summer 2016 — in a secret $45,000,000 off-market deal. Unfortunately, the $45 million buyer’s identity is shielded behind an entity that Yolanda is unable to crack.

Anyway, Mr. Welch is now one of only two individuals at the Montage Residences who own more than one unit. Our boy has units 7B and 8D. Australian shopping mall heiress Monica Saunders-Weinberg also owns two: units 7A and 8C, which she purchased for a combined total of $20,850,000.

Yolanda looked over property records for all 20 of the Montage Residences and many of the other units are owned by low-profile financiers and businessmen. Some of the more notable residents, however, are oil heiress Ariadne Getty, sharp-tongued TV star Judge Judy, philanthropic widow Hisako Terasaki, and powerhouse talent manager George Shapiro.

Oh, and two of the newest residents in the complex are multi-billionaire sports team owner Stan Kroenke and his multi-billionaire Walmart heiress wife Ann Walton Kroenke.

Those of y’all who have been following this blog for some time should know that one of Yolanda’s all-time favorite subjects is a lady named Tina Trahan. We have written about her real estate exploits and other such matters at least two or three times on this blog. And here we go again. Hey, it isn’t our fault she provides us with gobs of juicy property fodder.

Now Ms. Trahan is not a famous actress, businesswoman, singer, model, or heiress. But people seem to love reading about her, for whatever reason. Her stories on here get a lot of clicks. Clicks up the wazoo, in fact. But anyway, If you’re a newbie and want to know more about Ms. Trahan, click here to read our original article on her. Suffice to say that she was once linked (non-romantically, allegedly) to Tiger Woods (she was a member of his “private plane posse”, ooh la la). She has also long been romantically involved with a powerful media CEO named Chris Albrecht. Yolanda originally thought Ms. Trahan was just Mr. Albrecht’s girlfriend, but as was revealed by Page Six, the couple recently got married. Mazel tov!

Anyway, Yolanda knows for a fact that Ms. Trahan reads our blog, so we are a bit disappointed that our wedding invite got lost in the mail. Why didn’t you just email us, gurl?! Shoot.

For those of y’all keeping track, this is the marriage #3 for Mr. Albrecht. Yolanda is not sure if Ms. Trahan has been married previously, but she does have a teenage daughter from a prior relationship.

On to the real estate. Nearly two years ago, Ms. Trahan (and Mr. Albrecht) paid $7,150,000 for a big (and somewhat bland) spec-mansion in a leafy part of Santa Monica, CA. It was this house that Yolanda originally wrote about. And on our original story, we received a comment from someone claiming to be a neighbor, who tattled that Ms. Trahan had illegally cut down a large cypress (?) tree in front of her home. We weren’t sure if the post was serious, but whatever.

But lo, kiddies. Yolanda happened to be cruisin’ by Ms. Trahan’s house the other day — we were on our way to do some arduous shopping, you see — and we couldn’t help noticing the huge stump right in front of Ms. Trahan’s house. A stump! Oh, the horror. We slammed on the brakes and had to back that ass up to snap a quick iPhone pic of the newly-barren front yard. What a disaster!

The house looks ugly without the tree. But the really bad thing, kiddies, is that the tree was situated on public land and not in Ms. Trahan’s yard. Yolanda cannot fathom how her removal could have been legal?! Maybe a Santa Monica tree trimming/removal expert can chime in and let us know.

We digress. It also appears to Yolanda that Ms. Trahan and Mr. Albrecht are doing some sort of remodel to their mansion. The driveway gate seems to have disappeared, and there are new walls surrounding the front grass area. Clearing a pathway?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Mr. Albrecht and Ms. Trahan recently spent more than $1 million to book Snoop Dogg and DJ Khaled for a kids’ Halloween party at their home? According to Page Six, the performers rapped for 75 kids ages 7 to 12. (How does a 7-year-old even know who DJ Khaled is?! But we digress again…)

Anyway, the other big news about Ms. Trahan is that she now, as of about two weeks ago, owns nearly the entirety of what might be the second-largest mega-mansion in all of Wisconsin. That’s right, Wisconsin. Our Ms. Trahan originally hails from Chicago, you see. And Lake Geneva — located about 1.5 hours northwest of Chicago by car — has long been a popular resort destination for wealthy financiers and businesspeople from the city.

Stone Manor is probably the most talked-about mansion in the area. Originally called Younglands, the nearly 50,000-square-foot beast is situated with 400 feet of frontage on Lake Geneva’s shore, and was built way back in 1899 by a Chicago-based German immigrant named Otto Young. The exterior walls feature Bedford limestone, while the interior walls are covered in Tennessee marble. Hand laid parquet tile floors and 14kt gold plated fixtures are spread throughout the main level. There’s an epicly-scaled ballroom, and the basement has a bowling alley. On and on it goes. And it reportedly Mr. Young cost nearly $2 million in construction fees, a colossal amount of money in 1899. What is that in today’s dollars, like $200 million?!

After Mr. Young’s death in 1906, the house remained in the family until 1939, when his granddaughter donated it and the surrounding land to the Episcopal Church to be used as a private girl’s-only school. Unfortunately, the school failed financially and the mansion was sold in 1945 to a Korean businessman. By the 1960s, the mansion had been seized for back taxes and  was eventually sold to a developer who transformed it into a restaurant. Eventually, the house became a hotel and eventually a Christmas tree museum (?!).

By 1990, the humongous spread was in derelict condition and close to facing the wrecking ball. But a local Lake Geneva developer swooped in to save the day! He renovated and transformed the manor into a luxury condo co-op with three units on the top floor, three units on the second floor, and one mansion-sized ultra-swank unit spanning the entire main floor. Eventually, a buyer combined two of the three units on the top floor, leaving a total of six units in the entire mansion.

Last November (2016), Ms. Trahan steamrolled into town (via private jet) and paid exactly $5,995,000 for the entire first-floor unit (above). And while that might not seem like a huge amount to us jaded Californians, it was one of the biggest sales of the year for the entire state of Wisconsin.

But what happened next really surprised Yolanda. Ms. Trahan proceeded to buy both third-floor units in March (2017). Then she swooped in and picked up one of the three second-floor units in August (2017) and another in November (2017).

Yes, everyone. But for one small unit, Ms. Trahan now owns the entirety of Stone Manor.

Yolanda isn’t great at reading Wisconsin property records, so we’re not sure exactly how much Ms. Trahan has spent on her purchases thus far. But the Geneva Shore Report themselves said that she has paid approximately $18,000,000 for her five units. According to the local paper, Ms. Trahan would very much like to spend more to acquire the last unit, but the owner — some dude named Craig — is being a feisty old coot and is so far refusing to sell. The nerve! Nobody puts Ms. Trahan in a corner.

Luckily, Ms. Trahan is married to a guy who can afford to buy out those pesky neighbors. In 2013 alone, Chris Albrecht hauled in a $30.5 million salary. Cha-ching! (It’s worth noting, however, that Mr. Albrecht’s name does not appear on any of the Stone Manor unit deeds. They are all, technically speaking, owned solely by Ms. Trahan).

But what could Ms. Trahan, whose hubby is based in LA, want with a 50,000-square-foot, 100+ year old shopping mall-sized mansion in Wisconsin? And why would she spend a record $20 million to buy up the whole thing? And the renovation costs! This isn’t the sort of place where you can just slap a new coat of paint on the walls and call it a day. Every change — even a little change — on 100+ year old limestone needs to be overseen by legit craftsmen, or else it’ll just end up looking a hot mess.

And just imagine what the annual maintenance bill for a property of this size must be. A 50,000-square-foot antique limestone box on 10 acres of landscaped land. Let’s also not forget that the house has a huge pool — a heated pool — on top of the damn roof. Um, all that has gotta take enough money to give any run-of-the mill millionaire heart palpitations.

Anyway, it’s all simply insane! And in Wisconsin! And if Ms. Trahan gets her way and purchases the last unit, she’ll have spent upwards of $20,000,000 on her residential magnum opus. That might just end up being the highest price ever paid for a home in the entire state, so stick that in your juice boxes.

And she will get her way, y’all. Money talks, and money always wins. And Ms. Trahan has plenty of money.

Stone Manor photographs: David Curry

This story is gonna be a quickie because Yolanda is on her way out the door to do some Hanukkah and Christmas shopping and attend to an urgent mani/pedi appointment. Stressful stuff.

Anyway, a little birdie whispered to Yolanda that there’s a new famous resident in the already celeb-swarmed Mulholland Estates guard-gated community located way up in the mountains above LA. His name is Sean Anderson, but he’s probably better known to you young’uns as Big Sean, the rapper.

Mr. Sean, as we shall call him, hails from Detroit. The first song that Yolanda recalls hearing from him was this one, where he and Nicki Minaj set a new world record for saying the word “ass” 1,871 times in the span of four minutes. Our Mr. Sean made the Guinness record for that, we swear! Just Google it.

Yolanda spoke to our little birdie and asked how Mr. Sean got his “Big” nickname. Is he tall in stature? No, said Lil’ Birdie, the nickname actually comes from his big — well, you know. Bratwurst.

Good gracious! Don’t call Yolanda a prude, but we were raised in an era where any gentlemen who had to brag about the size of his ding dong probably didn’t have a very sizable “package” at all, although TMZ claims otherwise in the case of Mr. Sean. But that is all we shall say on that subject. We digress!

Anyway, the house that Mr. Sean has bought was previously owned by another famous musician: rocker Slash of Guns ‘n Roses fame and fortune. Our boy and his now-ex-wife Perla Hudson bought the house together in happier marital times for $7,300,000 (back in 2009)

Although Yolanda’s property records database has not yet been updated, our little birdie told us the off-market sale went down for $8,700,000, significantly less than the $10,995,000 that Slash was originally asking two years ago but still comfortably above what he paid in 2009.

Now Yolanda knows that not all readers here are from LA, or are familiar with this particular neighborhood. So let us give you a wee geography lesson. The guard-gated community of Mulholland Estates was dreamed up by some crafty developers a couple decades ago. Said developers managed to finagle a 90210 zip code for the houses in the enclave, so most residents write their address as “Beverly Hills, CA 90210”.

However, y’all, this community is not within the city limits of Beverly Hills and is actually — technically speaking — located in the hills above Sherman Oaks, meaning that Mulholland Estates is geographically part of the San Fernando Valley, zip code be damned. Yolanda realizes this may seem like a very silly thing to get technical about, but you’d be surprised how many people in Beverly Hills care about this inconsequential stuff. It can be a damn big deal. We’re just sayin’.

But more importantly…

The 10,471-square-foot mansion was built in 2005 and set on a .45-acre lot near the entrance to the community. Described in the listing as a “Modern Mediterranean masterpiece” (hmmm…) the two-story pad features a double-height entry vestibule that leads to a stone staircase and a rather elegant living room that is unfortunately thrown off by the overgrown and gaudy fireplace/mirror combo. Egads!

The kitchen has two center islands and high-end appliances, and the mirror-filled dining room has a coffered ceiling. The backyard contains a sand volleyball court, a pool/spa combo, and a outdoor BBQ station plus a fireplace.

The home theater has a rather unpleasantly lurid red ceiling but is decently large, and in the basement lurks a home nightclub. Yes, kiddies. Mr. Slash installed a nightclub in his home, complete with a chrome stripper pole.

Real klassy!

There are a total of 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms in the mansion — the master suite is surprisingly demure (save for that purple carpet in the closet) and contains a fireplace, a sitting area, and a glassy shower.

We’re not sure if it had anything to do with him purchasing this house, but Big Sean’s new crib happens to be directly across the street from the even larger mansion that DJ Khaled bought for $9,900,000 last year from British crooner Robbie Williams. (Mr. Sean and Mr. Khaled have collaborated on previous musical compositions, in case y’all were not aware).

In addition to Big Sean and DJ Khaled, other celebrity residents in Mulholland Estates include Paris Hilton (who has lived in the community for a decade and has had numerous security issues), Charlie Sheen (who has also had numerous security issues), Adrienne Maloof, Tracey Edmonds, Brian Wilson, Judith Light and Robert Desiderio, Vanna White, billionaire Sumner Redstone’s ex-girlfriend Sydney Holland, Christina Aguilera, and Kendall Jenner (who just bought in the enclave a couple months ago).

Slash’s agents: Matt & Josh Altman, Douglas Elliman; Jordan Cohen, Re/Max
Big Sean’s agents: Kevin Crane, Compass; Kofi Nartey, Compass

Put on your thinking caps and y’all may recall that Yolanda blabbed about a very big (and very unique) Bel Air compound that would (allegedly, according to your gurl) soon be hitting the market with an elephantine $125 million pricetag.

Well, nearly three months have passed since we wrote that story, and the compound remains unlisted. But we can now guarantee that it will soon be publicly available for purchase with that billionaires-only asking price — provided it is not sold quietly off-market beforehand. And we have some excellent evidence, too. You see, Yolanda happens to know that Mr. & Mrs. Bronfman Hauptman — the owners of the Bel Air property — have already forked out a fat $16,000,000 to downsize their residential circumstances.

For those who missed Yolanda’s last story, the Bronfman-Hauptmans are a low-profile but inordinately wealthy family who have long resided in Los Angeles. Our Mr. Hauptman is a Harvard MBA who was formerly a Universal Studios exec and is now the owner of the Chicago Fire, a Major League Soccer team. He is also the owner of Andell Entertainment, which has produced several big-screen feature films.

However, it is Mr. Hauptman’s wife Ellen Bronfman Hauptman who has the real big bucks. This lady, y’all, is an heiress to the multi-billion dollar Seagram Company liquor fortune. Her father, Charles Bronfman, is a legit billionaire philanthropist (according to Forbes).

According to Architectural Digest, the Bronfman-Hauptmans have a hardcore affection for some delicious real estate minimalism, as is plainly evident in the custom-built Bel Air mega-mansion that they just vacated. Designed by John Pawson, the 20,000-square-foot boxy main house sits on several acres of land and also features a 6,000-square-foot guest house (originally designed by Paul Williams). For many more photos, click here.

And while their new house isn’t quite on the same architectural level as all that, it is fairly minimalist (as LA spec mansions go).

The house is located in the fancy-pants Brentwood Park neighborhood, one of the wealthiest areas in all of Los Angeles. Built by prolific Westside mansion developer Ken Ungar, the 11,935-square-foot Traditional porker sits behind a long gated driveway on a high knoll overlooking the street. There is a three-car garage that faces the motorcourt, and a short row of steps leads up to the front door.

Inside the residence, blonde hardwood floors and crisp white walls set the tone. The living room has treetop vistas and a coffered ceiling, and elsewhere is a glassy (and temperature-controlled) wine cellar.

The formal dining room is elegantly spacious, and the kitchen is equipped with a marble center island and high-end appliances. An attached informal eating area casually opens up to a generous family room that itself opens up to the backyard (via a disappearing wall).

The mansion has a total of 8 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms. Espeically sweet is the master suite, which features his-and-hers bathrooms, his-and-hers walk-in closets, a sitting room, and a private office.

There is also a lower sub-basement level to the structure that sports a host of luxury amentities: a pool table that sorta looks like a James Perse design, another family room w/ a wet bar, a gym, and a professional-grade screening room.

The .48-acre lot is spacious but not overwehlmingly big. Naturally, there are grassy lawns, a large saltwater pool/spa, an outdoor kitchen w/ bbq, and a shaded outdoor dining area.

Although the estate is brand-spankin’-new, it is Yolanda’s understanding that the Bronfman-Hauptmans are or were doing some sort of interior remodel to the place to suit their persnickety tastes. When you’re rich enough to afford a $16 million house (before even selling your old house), you can afford to indulge your every architectural whim, kiddies.

Anyway, if you’ve got $100 million lying around and you fancy a spot of minimalism in Bel Air, give Mr. & Mrs. Bronfman Hauptman (or their real estate agent) a ring-ring. Yolanda is certain they will be happy to hear from you. And you might even get a personal tour of the Bel Air spread from the Bronfman-Hauptmans, but don’t quote Yolanda on that.

Listing agent: Gary Glass, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
Andrew & Ellen Bronfman Hauptman’s agent: Jeffrey Hyland, Hilton & Hyland

Yolanda’s disclaimer: this story is old, nearly a year old. This sale closed way back in January (2017). But it doesn’t appear any other outlet has written about it yet, so here goes. We’ll have something fresher for you real estate connoisseurs ASAP.

Several months ago, Yolanda’s friend Vlad the Revealer (proprietor of the Celebrity Address Aerial website) approached us and inquired about a large house located in Brentwood Park, a low-key yet very exclusive neighborhood on the Westside of LA. This house — actually, at 8,081-square-feet it’s more a mansion than a regular ol’ house — was sold back in January for $8,800,000 to a blind trust with all the hallmarks of being a front for a celebrity owner.

Our instinct told us this trust would not be difficult to crack. But surprisingly, we were wrong. The identity of the owner here was locked up much tighter than almost anything we’ve seen before, obfuscated behind a web of names and addresses that got Yolanda all screwed up. We suspect that someone went to a lot of trouble to deliberately confuse curious cats like us.

Anyway, a leg up from a kindly tipster provided Yolanda with the break we needed and now we can y’all that the proud new Brentwood Park homeowners are a couple named Christian Bale & Sibi Bale.

Mr. Bale is, of course, the A-list British film actor who has starred in a very wide range of films over his 30+ year career. To the general public, however, he may be best-known for his role as Batman in Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). That three films alone grossed something like 2.5 billion bucks worldwide. Ka-ching!

In addition to cash, Mr. Bale has critical acclaim to his name. Let’s not forget that he won an Oscar for his role in The Fighter (2010).

Since 2001, Mr. Bale has been married to Sibi Bale (nee Blažić), a former make-up artist, and together they have two children: one boy and one girl. And though the family has a sky-high pile of money in the bank (probably) and have lived in LA for the last 25 years, the only house they have ever been publicly reported to own is a wee bungalow in Santa Monica that they bought for $1,765,000 in 2001.

Though they continue to own that Santa Monica property, Yolanda happens to know the couple has not resided there in a decade or more. That’s because they are undercover real estate ballers! But we digress for now — let’s dissect their new manse and we’ll return to Mr. Bale’s other real estate in a bit.

For those of you who regularly troll fancy home listings (hey, Yolanda does the same thing!) y’all should recognize this house. That’s because it was for sale (off and on) for at least five years before Mr. Bale took ownership. Although it looks older (at least to us), the house was actually spec-built in 2007, at the height of the real estate market before the big economic crash. The house was sold that same year for a whopping $11,200,000 to a low-profile couple named Len & Georgina Bailes.

The Bailes couple does not appear to have enjoyed their Brentwood mansion for very long — by 2011, the house was back on the market. For the next 5+ years, as we’ve told y’all, it bounced on and off the MLS at a wide variety of asking prices that peaked at $11.5 million and bottomed out at $8.5 million. Finally, along came Mr. & Mrs. Bale who generously paid the aforementioned $8.8 million, an amount that represents a $2.4 million loss to the Bailes family. Ouchies!

Anyway, the lot size is fairly small for Brentwood Park (just .36-acre) but the property is sufficiently private for a celebrity, with the house set far back from the road behind a double-gated driveway and a tall thicket of hedges. As for the home’s architecture, the listing terms it “Hamptons Style”.

Now let’s be clear here. Yolanda is not fond of this house. We find the whole “fancy log cabin mansion” thing going on here to be poorly executed at best and a jumbled hot mess at worst, to be honest. We are sure that other people like it, but we are just throwing out that this is not the sort of house on which we would imagine Mr. Bale throwing down almost $9 million. Nevertheless, depending on y’all look at it, Mr. Bale may have got himself a good deal. Considering that other folks are paying almost double the price of this house to live in the same neighborhood, you know.

A stone pathway leads to an all-white front door that opens to an regular-height entrance hallway. To the left is the living room with its gaping fireplace; to the right is a the formal dining room with its plaid chairs and bronze chandelier. And if you ask us, all that hardwood would look much better if it were stained black or a very deep brown.

Straight ahead is generously-scaled family room with a row of French doors to access the backyard. The “chef’s kitchen” has granite countertops and high-end stainless appliances (including multiple dishwashers, apparently.

Elsewhere there is a library (probably the best-lookin’ room in the whole house) plus a ping pong table and a home theater in the lower/basement level.

There are a total of 6 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms spread throughout the house. The master suite has a fireplace plus a sitting room and the expected glassy shower in the bathroom. Rather disturbing is one of the spare/family bedrooms, where someone has jammed a bunch of exercise equipment up next to the bed. Who does that?!

As we have already explained, the yard is not huge but it is thoughtfully laid out with all the expected creature comforts: patio for loungin’, grassy lawn for frolickin’, pool/spa combo, and an outdoor kitchen/BBQ station.

Over in Santa Monica, Mr. Bale owns this cute little Spanish cottage (above). He has not lived there in many years, however. That’s because he paid a hefty $13,500,000 way back in 2008 for an 8.5-acre ranch that is located somewhat remotely in the very back of the Sullivan Canyon neighborhood, an equestrian-oriented area set between the hills of Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. It is here where Mr. and Mrs. Bale are or were living for the last decade or so.

Mr. Bale’s $13.5 million ranch does not include a mansion, but it does have several structures including a 4,000-square-foot single-story main house with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms plus a large sparkling pool, horse stables, and dozens of mature trees.

We digress. Some of Mr. Bale’s newest neighbors in Brentwood Park include LeBron James (who lives just a quick skip away), Andrew Hauptman & Ellen Bronfman Hauptman, James Corden, Spencer Rascoff, Marcy Carsey, Tobey Maguire, Trey Parker, and many more other notable folks.

Listing agent: Mary Lu Tuthill, Coldwell Banker
Christian Bale’s agent: Ron de Salvo, Coldwell Banker

Listen, everyone, today’s tale is going to be a quick one. We really wish we had time to chat and get to know y’all first, maybe even buy you dinner, but those fires are a-ragin’ and traffic is egregious and we are just plain tuckered out. We do apologize.

Anyway, today’s story is a bit of a surprise even to Yolanda. You see, it was only about two years ago that professional basketballer extraordinaire LeBron James paid almost $21 million — $20,986,000, to be exact, as was first revealed by Our Mama — for a big and decidedly Traditional-style house down in the wildly wealthy community of Brentwood Park. The sale remains the most ever paid for a home in that particular neighborhood.

By all accounts, Mr. James has so far spent very little time in his $21 million pad. After all, he plays professionally for the Cleveland Cavaliers and as such is on the road a majority of the year. And then, if y’all recall, there was that unfortunate racially-tinged vandalism incident that occurred on Mr. James’s Brentwood Park home last year. Yolanda rather thought he might be inclined to say “sayonara” to LA after that whole headache. But nope!

Also in the 90049 and less than two miles away from Mr. James’s current home is a big new spec-mansion. The Tigertail Road pad was listed a few months back for $30 million amid fanfare and a swanky “VIP Unveiling” event attended by new Encino homeowners Mauricio Umansky and Kyle Richards.

A few days back, the house transferred for $23,000,000. That’s considerably less than what the developer originally wanted, but still way more than the $5.1 million they paid for the property in 2015. It is also — according to Yolanda’s research — the only sale in Brentwood to top the $20 million mark for 2017.

Naturally, Yolanda wondered who the big-bucks buyer was. At first we wondered if it might be Adam Levine. After all, he’s selling both his current homes and is looking for something big and new to shelter his growing family. But nope. Yolanda can tell everyone that the buyer is none other than — wait for it, wait for it — Mr. Lebron James.

Let’s take a quick peek at his new property, shall we?

Although the new Brentwood home is only marginally more expensive than his old Brentwood house, the structure itself is signifiacntly larger: a fat 15,846-square-feet here versus “just” 9,000-square-feet over there. The new residence is also considerably more private — while still visible from the public street out front, the house sits on a knoll well above the road and behind a long gated driveway. Said driveway leads to some rather inelegant (but convenient!) garage doors.

Out back, the house sports a saltwater pool and a big grassy field that’s perfect for dogs or a basketball court, although Yolanda does not know if Mr. James will attempt to install such a thing. Gotta love those over-the-treetop views of the Pacific ocean, too.

Conveniently located right off the entryway is the super-fancy kitchen, which sports natural French oak and marble floors reclaimed from Spain. There is also marble everywhere: countertops, backsplash, walls. They probably had to raid a whole damn Spanish quarry for this place!

Anyway, the kitchen has an exquisite-lookin’ La Cornue range and opens to various eating and family rooms. Great for entertaining, as they say.

Look, there’s even marble floors on the terrace!

Four of the home’s eight bedrooms are upstairs. Among these is the master suite, which features more honey-hued hardwood floors, a fireplace with a marble surround, his-and-hers closets and his-and-hers bathrooms. At least one of the baths is done up quite opulently in floor-to-ceiling marble.

Even when scrubbing down your hiney, kiddies, it’s never a good idea to forget how rich you really are. This bathroom will always remind you.

An elevator connects the upper bedchambers to the home’s lower level, which is kitted out to impress even the most jaded party animal. There’s an onyx wet bar that is bigger than many regular folk’s kitchens, a giant theater, a wine cellar, a cigar room with “air purifying technology”, an auto gallery, a guest suite and an indoor-outdoor gym connecting to a spa with steam room, sauna, shower and massage room. Talk about resort-style livin’ — if most resorts were this nice, we might be tempted to go on vacation more often. But Yolanda digresses.

Now for a wee geography lesson, y’all. Our Mr. James’s new pad is located in Brentwood, but not in Brentwood Park like his old mansion. Brentwood Park is a very leafy and very flat neighborhood that is conveniently centered around Sunset Boulevard. This house, however, is located up in the hills of Brentwood. It’s still only five minutes to Sunset, but things are considerably quieter up here.

Got it?

Yolanda is unsure why Mr. James would buy this house. Maybe he wants to be in the hills, maybe he’s looking for a size upgrade, maybe he’s looking to invest. Or maybe he just wants something new?

But if you’re worried that our boy might be overextending himself financially, don’t be. Remember, Mr. James hauled in over $30 million this year alone, and his career earnings have topped a truly shocking $233 million. And that doesn’t include endorsements or any other business ventures. So rest assured that he can afford the $44 million in Brentwood real estate he owns, and regardless of whether he sells his “old” house or not.

Some of Mr. James’s nearest new neighbors — those from whom he could reasonably borrow a cup of sugar, or whatever — include other amazingly wealthy folks like businessman Randall Kaplan, Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck, and makeup mogul Jamie Kern Lima.

Listing and selling agent: Santiago Arana, The Agency