Note: Yolanda has been contacted by someone allegedly involved with this transaction, who tells us that the information contained below is wrong, wrong, wrong. However, Yolanda’s sources stand by their word, saying that Mr. Rollins sometime very soon will seal the deal for the property in question. For what it’s worth, the property remains active on the MLS. 

Has your 2018 gotten off to a rocky start? Too bad. But it could be worse — you could’ve been busted with 52 pounds of pot in the backseat of your car and be facing a minimum of 8 years in the pokey. Oh dear, we digress.

Yolanda thought we’d get the year started off right with a record-breaking sale. Yes, we know sales records seem to get broken every single day. And they do. But this is a biggie! Not only is the transaction the only eight-figure sale in Encino history, it is nearly $2.5 million bucks more than the previous record-holder — Mauricio Umansky and Kyle Richards’ Smokey Robinson estate — sold for just a few months ago.

Clearly Encino, located in the San Fernando Valley and long the red-headed stepchild in LA’s family of luxury real estate neighborhoods, is coming into its own. We’ve seen a big spat of expensive sales of new spec-mansions bought by an increasing number of wealthy celebrities who are gladly forgoing the Westside, drawn in by this Valley area’s less pretentious atmosphere, the (dwindling) value its real estate still provides, and its easy access to many of LA’s suburban amenities.

A little birdie whispered to Yolanda that a wealthy married couple named Jimmy Rollins & Johari Smith have their eyes locked on a spec-built monster mansion located in a leafy pocket of Encino, just south of Ventura Boulevard. Little birdie swears that the couple will very soon fork over a porky (and unprecedented) $10,650,000 for the property.

Ignoramus that we are, Yolanda confesses that she had never heard of Mr. Rollins or Mrs. Smith-Rollins. But two minutes of Googling reveals that Mr. Rollins was a very big deal in the world of professional baseball. Per our pal Mr. Wiki Pedia, our boy spent 16 years in the major leagues before hanging up his hard had following the 2016 season.

Born and raised up north in Alameda, CA, the gap-toothed and smiley Mr. Rollins spent his first 14 MLB years with the Philadelphia Phillies before spending his final two seasons with the LA Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox, respectively. At least one website pegs his net worth at $40 million.

Now retired from pro baseball, Mr. Rollins will turn 40 this year and Yolanda believes he wants a big, fancy pad as a place to raise his kids — he and Mrs. Rollins have two young daughters — and as a luxurious way to enjoy the fruits of his ball-hitting labor. But we are only guessing, of course.

The new home’s developer purchased the .6-acre property for just $2,712,000 back in 2015, after which the existing residence was quickly torn down. In its place sprang up a nearly 15,000-square-foot elephantine abode. Let’s call the new home’s architectural style Neo-Palladian, shall we?

Clearly designed to impress guests and passers-by, the house looms large behind front driveway gates. The developer attempted to reduce the visual impact of the two front-facing garages by blacking out the doors, but Yolanda still finds this solution to be far from graceful.

Anyway, the front door opens to a tall-ceilinged foyer. Overhead is a contemporary brass chandelier and ahead is a rather cliche “bridal staircase”. Egads, didn’t those things go out of fashion in the early 2000s?

The main level features a living room with a gigantic fireplace. Check out that mantle — you’ll need a stepladder just to place anything atop it! The family room opens to the backyard and to the kitchen.

As you might expect for $10.65 million, the house is packed to the damn gills with gizmos and luxury features. There’s a full security and home automation system, an elevator, a bedroom-sized wine cellar, a wood-paneled library with cathedral-esque chandeliers, a home theater with captain’s chair seating for 8, and a mirror-walled gym with white oak hardwood floors, high celings, and multiple televisions. There is also a maid or nanny’s bedroom suite on the main level.

The second floor has 5 bedrooms suites including the master, which has a rather incongruous beige fireplace, a spacious private deck, and a spa-like master bathroom.

Although there isn’t much landscaping on the mini-estate — it’s only .6 acres, after all — it will require a great deal of water. There’s a pool-sized fountain out front, an indoor pool in the main house, and an outdoor pool. Also on the premises is a pool cabana, a putting green with faux grass, a half basketball court, and a two-story guest house with two more guest bedroom suites.

Back in 2012, Mr. Rollins paid $3,000,000 for a 6,500-square-foot waterfront mansion in Tampa, Florida. He also has a 5,292-square-foot home in New Jersey city of Swedesboro, currently available with a $799,000 asking price.

Listing agent: Marc Noah, Sotheby’s International Realty

For the past couple years, things on the real estate front have been somewhat muted in the “Bird Streets” neighborhood, which has long been the most coveted (and most expensive) section of the Hollywood Hills. We’ve seen only a couple sales in the $20+ million range recently, while other wealthy areas (Trousdale Estates, Bel Air, Holmby Hills) remain quite hot.

Perhaps that sluggishness is due to a lack of inventory, or perhaps folks are realizing those other areas (generally) provide more bang for one’s big bucks. Most of the time. But not always!

Whatever the case, huge sales in the Birds have not stopped happening altogether. Witness these two side by side homes, which are situated on a tiny cul-de-sac near the tippy-top of the neighborhood.

Both homes were sold on the exact same day last year by two different sellers (neither of whom is famous in any way). Neither home was ever listed on the open market, and both properties were sold to the same mysterious entity called “9016 Hopen LLC” that leads down a dead-end road, to a law office in Westwood. It does not appear that the buyer took a mortgage on either property, and the pair went for a combined total of $24,650,000. Spending almost $25 million cash is a big deal — ain’t it?

Naturally, Yolanda was curious about the identity of the mega-rich buyer, particularly because this is a celebrity-intensive area. For starters: of the five homes on the cul-de-sac where the compound is situated, 2 of the other 3 properties are owned by famous folks. Directly next door is a fancy-ass house owned by sitcom royalty-rich actor Matthew Perry, who recently attempted to sell it (without success) with a $13.5 million pricetag. And also next door (on the other side) is a mid-century house that is owned by The Biggest Loser star/trainer Bob Harper.

Anyway, Yolanda happens to know that a lady named Sandra Barros recently moved into the $25 million, two-house spread. This puzzled Yolanda. We believe that our Ms. Barros is the CEO of JSC Concrete Construction, a contractor based in Washington DC.

What on earth would this lady from Washington D.C. suddenly want with a $25 million compound in LA’s Bird Streets? Yolanda was bamboozled. That is, we were until we found out that Ms. Barros is the lady-friend of a man named Peter Lowy. Our Mr. Lowy happens to be part of a very wealthy family — he is the middle child of Frank Lowy, a multi-billionaire who was at one time ranked as Australia’s richest man.

Frank Lowy founded Westfield Corporation, a global shopping center empire that has approximately $30 billion in assets under management. And his son Peter currently serves as the conglomerate’s co-CEO, which means that the younger Mr. Lowy is obviously enormously rich, just like his papa. Sometimes that wealth has attracted unwanted scrutiny — apparently Mr. Lowy (and his father and brothers) were once investigated for allegedly hiding money — a lot of money — in offshore tax havens. Oh dear.

Mr. Peter Lowy has long resided in LA, and thus Yolanda was already well aware of who he is and knew he had the financial wherewithal to afford a $25 million compound. But we did not know he had a girlfriend — in fact, we had no idea he had split with his longtime wife Janine, to whom he was married for many years and with whom he has four children. And in fact, Mr. and Mrs. Lowy hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at their home not too long ago, back in summer 2015.

But the clocks keep turning and love keeps drifting, and a bit of research reveals that Mrs. Lowy quietly filed a dissolution of marriage (aka: divorce) against Mr. Lowy back in early 2016.

Oh my, the drama! But we digress. Mr. Lowy and Ms. Barros have been photographed together recently, so we would guess that things are still going strong for the loved-up pair.

Anyway, the real estate. The two houses are not architecturally similar at all. One is an oddball Spanish-style concoction that was built in 1978 and has 2,990-square-feet of living space, plus an outdoor pool/spa combo. The other is a renovated mid-century modern with 3,081-square-feet of living space. Below are a few photos of the mid-century house, which had been available for lease back in 2016.

The blocky updated pad has garage space for two luxury vehicles, a gated courtyard entry, a somewhat dated-lookin’ kitchen with stainless appliances, and a sweet master suite with floor-to-ceiling windows and a built-in soaking tub. The most impressive feature, however, is that jetliner view of the city basin and downtown LA.

Yolanda believes that Mr. Lowy is living up here in the Bird Streets with Ms. Barros. We don’t have any direct confirmation of that as of yet — we only know for a fact that Ms. Barros is living there — but that is what we suspect.

For those curious, the new compound spans half-acre of land in the Bird Streets (.55-acre, to be exact). What exactly Mr. Lowy is planning to do with the two separate houses remains to be seen, but neither is particularly architecturally significant and therefore Yolanda would imagine they could both be torn down or significantly remodeled at some future time.

Despite their split, Peter and Janine Lowy still own their longtime residence in one of the best parts of Beverly Hills. Records show that Mr. & Mrs. Lowy bought the 1.21-acre property together (in happier marital times) way back in August 2000 for $6,600,000. They quickly tore down whatever structure existed then and spent several years building a 13,666-square-foot Traditional-ish mansion. The house is not currently on the market, but Yolanda can tell y’all it was completed in 2004 and has 7 beds and 9 baths. There appears to be an underground garage, a pool, a sports court, and a small guest house plus some sort of vegetable garden on the mini-estate’s lush grounds.

Yolanda would make an educated guess that it is the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Lowy who is currently living in the above Beverly Hills house. But again, that’s just our silly guess.

And in other Lowy family real estate-related news, Peter Lowy has an older brother named David. And lil’ Davey made all the headlines when he recently paid a fat $36,600,000 at a foreclosure auction for a full-floor apartment near the top of NYC’s highly hyped One57 building.

A $36 million apartment may seem like a ridiculous extravagance to all but the obscenely wealthy, but Mr. Lowy actually got himself that place at a steal (depending on how one looks at is). Just two years ago, the very same apartment sold for more than $50 million to Kola Aluko, a shady Nigerian businessman that Yolanda has written about several times in the past.

Yolanda thought we’d do something a wee bit different today. Instead of talking about some random person’s new mega-mansion from the outside looking in, we think it might be a fun idea to hear all about a shockingly expensive house from a buyer’s point of view. Luckily, your generous clicks and the continued growth of this silly little blog has now enabled us to do just that.

Occasionally, you see, we get contacted by the subject of one or another of our stories. The reason these folks reach out to your gurl is — frequently — because they would like some particular portion of our story redacted or perhaps a certain photo removed. Usually people are nice enough, although Yolanda has had annoying experiences with one or two douchewads, too. Y’all know who you are, so we won’t put you on blast. At least not this time.

Yolanda has also been contacted by a small handful of homeowners who share our property passion and enjoy being featured on here. A couple of them we’ve become friends with outside of this blog. No lie.

Anyway, if you’re a longtime follower you may (or may not recall) that in summer 2016, Yolanda discussed a rather famous Beverly Hills house called the “Harvey Mudd Estate”. That property sold in a quiet off-market deal that July (2016) for a wallet-busting $14,574,000, so naturally we wrote about the transaction and gave a brief overview of the home’s history.

Almost immediately after we published the tale, Yolanda was contacted by the new homeowner, who said he loved our blog and the detail we laced into our stories!

Awww. He must’ve been drinking, right? But we will take a compliment any way we get it, sincere or not. We got no appreciation from our third ex-husband Randall, ever. That old bastard thought of women as mere appliances to do his bidding. But he found out the hard way that the only time Yolanda goes to the kitchen to make a sandwich for a man is on our own terms! You hear, Randy?!

But we digress. In addition to his (probably) liquor-influenced blog love, the new homeowner invited us to come over and take a look at the house! What? No he didn’t! Oh yes he did! Yolanda could’ve fainted.

Well, not so fast. New homeowner told us that he and the missus were doing some renovations and making a few cosmetic changes — nothing major — to correct some of the shoddy work previous owners had performed. It would only take a couple months, and we could come visit once he’d moved in.

Two, three, four months passed. Yolanda thought new homeowner must’ve been teasing us. But then, out of the blue, he reached out again. Construction was delayed, said he, but we should be in by the end of the year. Again, months passed. Another delay, new homeowner explained. Tick tock. More months. Rinse and repeat. Yolanda cynically assumed we were being strung along. The nerve of that guy, we thought. But then, just days ago, new homeowner hit us up once more. Heaven’s floodgates had opened! After 1.5 years, the “cosmetic refresh” (which eventually morphed into a full renovation) was complete.

In the spirit of keeping this blog interesting, Yolanda thought y’all might like to see some photos of what is truly an exquisite piece of LA history, flaws and all. Keep in mind that when we visited the house, we had no idea that we would have time for pictures. We assumed our tour would take about 15-20 minutes, tops, and then our uncouth self would be quickly ushered outside the gates and sent packin’.

Completely unexpectedly, Yolanda ended up exploring the estate and chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Smith — that is what we will call the married homeowners — for more than 2.5 hours. When we were finally done, we couldn’t believe that the whole afternoon had escaped us. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are two of the nicest folks we’ve ever met, and Yolanda does not believe in that false compliment bullshit. We hit it off right away — they have the same temperament/sense of humor as Yolanda — and they very generously invited us to explore every nook and cranny of their massive mansion and take all the photos our heart desired. Nothing was off-limits.

What a pity that Yolanda had only brought her baby blue flip phone. No worries, said Mr. Smith. Come back over when we’ve got some new furniture and you can take some pro-style pics with a real camera. (Yep, he’s a very nice guy to invite some random ass blogger to traipse all over his pad not once but twice).

Mr. and Mrs. Smith made only one request of us: that we please do not publish their names. The couple are very successful self-made entrepreneurs, you see, and they have global business interests that could become compromised as a result. Fair enough, said Yolanda.

Speaking of names, the house has had a lot of big ones in its history: originally commissioned by wealthy glass manufacturer Charles Boldt and built in 1922 by noted architect Elmer Grey (who also designed the Beverly Hills Hotel), the house got its name from the philanthropist and mining tycoon who owned it from 1925 through the late 1950s. In the late ’60s, the home came to be owned by an oil tycoon named Harry S. Rothschild.

Perhaps the most famous owners, however, were the late Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau and his now-ex-wife, Emmy-winning actress Barbara Bain. The Mission: Impossible dynamic duo owner the home for about 20 years until 1991, when they sold the house for about $2.5 million to film producer Jack Rapke. Since then the property has traded hands three times, including the Smiths’ purchase. About 10 years ago, the house was renovated by noted interior designer Mary McDonald.

The estate, which is located in the Benedict Canyon section of the 90210, was in a flurry of activity upon Yolanda’s arrival. A handyman was wiring electrical circuits inside, and gardeners were trimming hedges outside. The Smiths’ nanny was taking their kids out to the pool for swimming lessons.

Despite the Benedict Canyon address, the house actually sits about a half-mile off that main road, down a wooded private drive that it shares with the next door neighbor — Michael Ovitz and his 28,000-square-foot contemporary mega-mansion. “Michael actually owns the easement rights to the private road we use to get to our house,” Mr. Smith later informed us. And Mr. Smith also told Yolanda something else we did not know — unlike Mr. Ovitz’s manse, the Smiths’ house is actually not part of Beverly Hills — it is in Beverly Hills Post Office, which is technically the city of LA. “We’re right on the border.” Mr. Smith acknowledges.

Mr. Smith greeted us by our red Cadillac and brought us to the kitchen entrance, which is located past the garage and up a stone staircase. “We never use the front door. Someday we will, but right now the kitchen is so much more convenient,” he said by way of explanation. He then asked us to remove our shoes before entering (“I know that’s not a typical thing for Americans, but we always do.”) And so Yolanda quickly acquiesced — we are American, but we do the same thing at home, too.

For the record, a little background: Mr. and Mrs. Smith are not local, they are sophisticated international buyers. Mr. Smith is Canadian, and Mrs. Smith originally hails from Hong Kong but has lived in Toronto, Canada for many years. It would’ve been uncouth to ask the Smiths’ ages, but if we had to guess we’d say that Mr. Smith is in his early 40s and Mrs. Smith is in her 30s. The couple have two young sons that are approximately kindergarten age.

After meeting them, Yolanda can confirm Mr. and Mrs. Smith are not your typical Beverly Hills mansion homeowners, in many ways. They are significantly younger than one might expect and have none of the entitlement typically associated with 90210ians. They are also quick-witted, happy, and are blessed with a razor-sharp sense of humor. In summary, we’d say the Smiths are a nice young family who just happen to own several jealousy-inducing homes that 99.99% of young families cannot dream of affording.

And they seem to like Yolanda, so there’s another oddity.

The family lives in LA only 5-6 months of the year, tops. When they are not here, they are living in Toronto, where they own another multi-million dollar historic mansion. That house features a unique contemporary (and award-winning) addition that was commissioned by the Smiths and built by the high-priced Audax Architects. Click here for a few photos of their swanky pad up north.

Anyway, the Smiths’ generosity also extends to folks not named Yolanda. In late 2016, the couple invited Martin Landau (who by then was in poor health) to visit the old house and give his opinion on their renovations. He came with his adult daughter, and then unfortunately died just a few short months later.

“It was really special to have Martin Landau visit us here,” Mr. Smith told Yolanda. “He seemed really touched by it, even if he wasn’t thrilled with some of the changes that prior owners had made.”

For his part, Mr. Smith acknowledges that his $15 million dream home is inherently flawed. Since the 1990s, the house has been remodeled several times. “And all of those people fucked the house up,” Mr. Smith cattily informed us. “They either didn’t have the money to do it right and cut corners, or they had no idea what they were doing.”

Witness the kitchen, which had been done up on the cheap by a prior owner. The Smiths ripped out the center island and all the appliances (except the super-expensive SubZero fridge, which they merely re-paneled). They installed a box-car sized marble center island.

The Smiths hired celebrity interior designer Jeff Andrews — his other clients include the Kardashians and actor Michael C. Hall — to give the interiors a sprucin’ up. The grey-and-white vintage marble tiles were selected by him, Mrs. Smith informed us.

Off the kitchen there is a maid’s bedroom suite and a spare room that has been converted into an office for Mrs. Smith. The kitchen also opens to a backyard terrace that is complete with an outdoor dining table and a built-in stone fireplace. Indoors there is also a breakfast nook and a windowed breakfast room with a fancy chandelier (selected by Mr. Andrews) and no chairs. “We’re still working on furnishing this place,” Mr. Smith admits.

Perhaps Yolanda’s favorite room in the house, however, is the dining room. The groovy chandelier was custom-made for the Smiths by an artisan in Canada, and the stunning dining room table is vintage rosewood, imported directly from Hungary. Yes, kiddies, the Smiths had their massive table shipped over from Hungary. Can y’all even fathom what the cost of that must have been?

“It really wasn’t as expensive as you might think,” Mr. Smith rather unconvincingly told us. “There are great deals to be found on beautiful pieces. You just need patience, and you have to know where to look.”

A particular source of design frustration for Mr. Smith was the gothic-style entrance foyer, where the original hardwood detailing had been painted over by one of the previous owners’ celebrity designers.

“[Designer’s name redacted] fucking ruined this house,” Mr. Smith whispered to Yolanda in one of his many moments of candor. “She has a following, and I just don’t know why. She’s awful.”

The Smiths hired a team of workers to delicately — by hand — strip off the paint that covered all the hardwood in the house, a job that took weeks or even months and surely cost a small fortune.

Like all good 100-year-old mansions, the house has several hidden cubbyholes and perhaps even a secret passageway or two. Mr. and Mrs. Smith shocked Yolanda when they opened up a hidden closet in one of the walls and revealed a giant (empty) safe. This is also original to the home, the Smiths told us. “What a pity Harvey Mudd didn’t leave any of his cocaine in here for us,” Mr. Smith joked. Without missing a beat, Mrs. Smith followed up with a “He did, we just snorted it already. Remember?”

Perhaps surprisingly, the Smiths confess they do not know exactly how large their house is. “We never actually had it measured,” Mr. Smith admits. “But I’ve been told it’s between 10,000 and 11,000 square feet, which it feels like. “Yeah, it feels like right about 11,000,” Mrs. Smith agreed. (And that number, kiddies, does not include  the home’s substantial basement level, which we shall discuss momentarily).

“I do know that the house has five bedrooms,” Mrs. Smith said. “But I’m not sure about how many bathrooms, to be honest.”

Speaking of money, the Smiths did not mention to Yolanda how much they had spent on 1.5 years of remodeling, but Yolanda would not be the least bit surprised if it was $1 million or even more. In any case, the home’s look is much improved and were the Smiths to sell today, Yolanda would guess that the property might go for somewhere very close to $20 million.

But would the Smiths consider selling?

“You never know,” Mr. Smith told us. “I love this house. I dreamed about owning it long before I could dream of affording it. But who knows? We might be out of here in five years. There’s always a new project to look forward to.”

It would be hard to leave the luxe master suite, which was redecorated by the Smiths in a Frenchy manner. The master bathroom has dual vanities, a glass-walled shower, and about 15 tons of marble.

There are three more bedrooms upstairs — one a large attic room for guests, one the older son’s bathroom suite. Yolanda’s favorite, however, is the younger son’s bedrooms suite, which has hand-painted murals that are original to the home. “I love this room, too,” Mr. Smith said when we commented on it. “And you know what? Susan [Martin Landau’s daughter] told us that this was her room as a child, too. She told us that it hasn’t changed a bit!”

We went back downstairs, where Mr. Smith sat down at his computer and giddily started to browse real estate with us. “I’ve always loved Hancock Park homes,” he said. “Back in 2011, I wanted to buy this property. But I didn’t have $6 million to spend back then. I wish we had bought it anyway. It’s worth like $12 million today. How crazy is that?”

We showed Mr. Smith photos of a different Hancock Park house, a Tudor-style palace that just sold for $12.4 million to producer Brian Robbins. Our boy loved the architecture (“Wow, the outside is spectacular,” said he) but got majorly turned off when viewing the home’s renovated interior. (“Good God, what did they do to that place?! No character left. I’m out. I would never!”)

“Before moving here, we lived in the Crest Streets area of Beverly Hills Post Office,” Mrs. Smith informed us. “But that house was just whatever.” Mr. Smith agreed with his wife. “Unfortunately, we’ll probably barely break even on that place.”

(For what it’s worth, a thorough evaluation of property records reveals that the Smiths’ “just whatever” house in the 90210’s Crest Streets is actually a snazzy contemporary with a mansion-sized 6,400-square-feet of living space and is located just a few doors away from the enormous estate of Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. That home — still owned by the Smiths, for now — is worth several million dollars, according to tax records.)

Towards the end of our visit, Mr. Smith turned to Yolanda and said simply “So what do you think? Would you give us an 8/10 in terms of the remodel?”

Yolanda thought Mr. Smith was joking at first, but we looked at him and he was dead serious. This ultra-successful whippersnapper really wanted to know what a random old coot like Yolanda thought of his design. We told him the truth, that so few buyers in this price range have any taste at all. And how we’re confident that the ol’ gurl is in great hands now. And we truly believe that, y’all.

Mr. Smith took us outside, where he admitted that he and the missus are still trying to figure out what to do with their grassy yard. “We really shouldn’t have this much greenery in this desert climate.”

Yolanda did not snap any photos of the pool area — the Smith kids were swimming with the nanny, and we didn’t want to disturb their play — but the Smiths have significantly altered it since their acquisition. For starters, the lawn that surrounded it has been removed and replaced with a broad stone terrace. “The lawn looked pretty, but was a landscaping nightmare,” according to Mrs. Smith. The Smiths also installed a giant spa next to the pool (“I wasn’t here when the contractors did this. I had no idea they were going to make it so big. Who do I look like, Hugh Hefner?” Mr. Smith sheepishly said by way of explanation).

The contractors also installed a massive firepit with a built-in stone seating surround. Again, Mr. Smith says he would have done it differently if he had been in town.

“Back in the day, in the 1930s, this estate was 20 acres and stretched all the way down to Benedict Canyon Drive. Now all that remains is this one acre portion with the main house,” Mr. Smith informed us. Because of that shrinkage, entering the home — or even just parking one’s vehicle — is a somewhat awkward situation.

“This garage was added on many years after the home was built. It’s a monstrosity, really.” Mr. Smith said regretfully. “We can’t remove it or change it. But we installed new garage doors, and we removed those hideous stone steps next to it. We did the best we could.”

Midway through our tour, Mr. Smith had to depart Yolanda for a few minutes. The handyman was having trouble with the wiring. Mrs. Smith graciously took us down to the basement — which is actually bigger than many “normal” homes — for a look-see.

Mrs. Smith admits the basement is still a work in progress. There is a big room in the back that is completely bare inside, save for some fabric covering all the walls. “It’s completely sound-proof,” Mrs. Smith said by way of explanation. “This will be our movie theater. Once we actually get the screen and the couch, of course.”

Also surprising: the Smiths have converted their wine cellar into a mudroom. Mrs. Smith tells us this was done “because we don’t know a $10 bottle from a $1,000 one”.

Elsewhere there is a large game room/lounge type area. “We created this because we wanted the kids to have their own private space. Once they hit they become teenage years, they can bring their friends over and hang out with them in private down here” Mrs. Smith said (seemingly contradicting her hubby’s supposition that the couple might sell the house in five years).

As Mrs. Smith and Yolanda were waiting for Mr. Smith to join us, the conversation somehow turned to other neighborhoods. We discovered that the Smiths looked at a number of homes in the Beverly Hills flats and in Bel Air before settling on the Harvey Mudd estate in 2016.

“My favorite street in the flats is Foothill. But [Mr. Smith] is partial to Arden. There are some really cool houses in the east flats. Too bad so many of them have been trashed on the inside,” she said thoughtfully. “The west flats, forget about it. So much bad taste, it’s unbelievable.”

“Before we bought this, we were in escrow for two weeks on a house in Windsor Square,” Mrs. Smith continued. “My husband loves the Hancock Park and Windsor Square homes. And they really are beautiful.” Yeah, but why didn’t y’all buy out there? Yolanda wondered aloud.

“Hancock Park is a wonderful neighborhood,” Mrs. Smith said. “But every other area surrounding it isn’t so great. They’re sort of ghetto, really. And I love to cook, and so I’m always at the market. That Whole Foods on Third Street can get raunchy. We’d see bums doing drugs right in the parking lot.”

“Of course, we’ve had to make concessions for living here, too,” Mrs. Smith admitted. “The boys can’t ride their bikes on the sidewalk here, which they could have done in Hancock Park. And because it’s so hidden, none of our vendors, delivery people can ever find this house. They just drive around in circles looking for it.” (And even Yolanda — whose success is based on knowing where people live — had a difficult time locating this place. And that’s got to be annoying. In the mere 2.5 hours we were at the property, Mr. and Mrs. Smith had at least three different vendors deliver parcels to their home.)

“I have lived in many places, and I’ve traveled the world. But it’s so different here,” Mrs. Smith said to Yolanda as we padded around in our socks. “In Toronto, we have a highly diverse community. But here, go to the market on any given day and you’ll see Bentleys parked next to beat-up old Toyotas.”

Mrs. Smith focused her eyes on the hallway in the basement of her $15 million third home. The old church pews coupled with the antique light fixtures and dungeon-ish door give the dim corridor a deeply atmospheric feeling. “It’s just so black and white here in LA. Either you have money, or you have nothing.”

Tell Yolanda what you want to read about, and we’ll do our best to accommodate. That’s our motto up in here. Of course, we’re not about to write about politics or technology or other assorted foolishness — surely you can read about those things on a million other websites — but when it comes to luxury real estate, we’re all ears.

Last week Yolanda received requests from two separate people (or maybe it was the same person asking under two names, we really don’t know) for a story about a fat-ass mansion out in the guard-gated city of Hidden Hills. And Yolanda herself has a peculiar fondness for Hidden Hills, even if many homes out there aren’t necessarily our architectural cups of tea. And so we were more than happy to oblige our reader(s) in this case.

Anyway, we can see why folks might want to learn more about this particular property. It sold for just over $2 million in 2013 to a prominent local developer who spec-built a mammoth mansion. He then slapped an eyebrow-raising $18.5 million pricetag on the hedonistic heifer and watched as it languished on the market for nearly a full year. But then — glory be! — along came a buyer who paid him $16 million for the keys. That’s a big discount off the ask, but it’s still one of the largest sums ever paid in pricey Hidden Hills, which is itself easily the most expensive community in the entire San Fernando Valley.

Whoever bought this place is very rich. That much is obvious.

Our new owners’ identities are guarded behind an LLC, but a wee bit of research very clearly shows that they are a married couple whose names are Dan Funsch and Sheree LaDove Funsch. And while those certainly aren’t household names for most regular folks, the Funsches are well-known — some might even say famous — in the $170 billion cosmetics industry in which they both operate.

The Rolls Royce-driving Mrs. Funsch is CEO of LaDove, a Miami-based “one stop development boutique” where haircare and skincare products are tested and developed. Basically Mrs. Funsch manufactures many of the products you can buy in a fancy salon or uptown shopping mall, you just don’t know it. Here she is talking about her business, if any of y’all are interested. “At heart, I’m just a cosmetics geek dressed in Chanel and Louboutins,” Mrs. Funsch says in her video. Well, alrighty then.

Mr. Funsch also runs his own business — he is CEO of Intarome, a New Jersey-based corporation that specializes in manufacturing a wide range of custom fragrances and flavors to companies in a number of industries, including cleaning supply, food and beverage production, and household product companies. (However, Intarome’s main product line appears to be manufacturing fragrances for men’s cologne.)

Since both Mr. and Mrs. Funsch run successful businesses in different states — and both admit to being frequent globetrotters — the couple likely rack up more air miles in a single year than many folks do in their entire lives. In 2016, Mrs. Funsch spoke of her fondness for Swiss private aviation startup VistaJet.

“With businesses around the world, my husband and I need a global solution that accommodates many different types of trips, so owning one aircraft or a fraction of one doesn’t work for us,” she told Fast Company magazine. “We pay for occupied hours only, give very little notice when we are ready to depart, and everything is included, from a cabin hostess to catering from the best restaurants and hotels in the world.”

Anywho, Mr. and Mrs. Funsch were both married to other people before they hitched their proverbial wagons to one another. Mr. Funsch has two sons and one daughter from a previous marriage (all of whom are now adults) and Mrs. Funsch has two daughters from her own prior marriage. Her elder daughter is an adult college grad, while the younger one is 16 years old and is an aspiring singer named Ashley Brinton Kent who has more than 30,000 followers on the Instagram contraption. But we digress.

We are a little unsure about what the proper architecural vernacular is here (neo-Palladian?), but the Funsches’ Hidden Hills house is certainly large and in charge. And it should have no trouble at all impressing their less financially fortunate guests. But good golly, do those windows have enough arches, or what?

Were the front door a bit larger, an experienced pilot could probably land a midsized jet in the entrance foyer without scathing a single wall, but we doubt the Hidden Hills HOA would take kindly to that sort of tomfoolery. Don’t get any ideas, Funsches.

As you might expect in a $16 million Hidden Hills mansion, the home has a baronial paneled office, and a swanky living room and swanky dining room, both of which are fireplace-equipped and open to the backyard/pool area. Floor materials are throughout the home are of marble and herringbone-patterned hardwood. Nice.

Yolanda is not crazy about some of those ceiling treatments, however. Looks a little ticky-tacky, a bit too “Look at me, I’m a mansion and I was built on spec!!!!11” to your gurl.

The family room opens to the kitchen, which features a portly center island with bar-style seating and a glass-fronted SubZero fridge that probably cost more than an off-lease Mercedes-Benz C-class. Elsewhere there’s a wine cellar/wine rack and a formal dining room area set off by more darn arches.

Indoor recreational amenities are plentiful and include a serious home theater with tiered couch seating, a pool table- and wet bar-equipped game room, a massage room w/ steam bath, and a home gym. Somewhere there’s also an elevator.

The estate is comprised of three separate structures: there is the main house (two stories with an attached 5-car garage) plus a guest house and a detached 7-car garage, for a total of 12 covered parking spaces. There is a total of 13,895-square-feet of living space with 7 beds and 9.5 baths spread across the compound.

Most impressive, of course, is the master suite with its prairie-sized bathroom and two enormous walk-in closets.

The 1.12-acre spread provides plenty of space for outdoor entertaining — there’s an unconventional indoor/outdoor bar, for starters. More mainstream perks include a pizza oven, BBQ grill, a firepit, and a vaguely tomahawk-shaped negative-edge swimming pool for cooling off on all those hot Valley days.

Some of the Funsches’ new neighbors include music stars like Drake and The Weeknd, comedians like Howie Mandel and Russell Peters, and sports celebrities like Vin Scully and Paul George. Oh, and a gaggle of those quickly-reproducing Kardashians. Can’t forget them!

For the last year or so, the Funsches had been renting an $8.5 million mock-Med mansion in the western Beverly Hills flats.

The 6,749-square-foot structure has 5 beds and 5.5 baths. And while we’re not sure how much the couple was paying to rent the property, the house recently popped up for lease with a jaw-dislocating $37,500/mo asking price. Holy mackeral! $37k for that?! We can see why the Funsches wanted to buy, if they were paying anywhere near that ask.

Since long before she married Mr. Funsch, Mrs. Funsch has owned a 10,000-square-foot waterfront mansion in Florida’s Delray Beach neighborhood. (Mrs. Funsch attempted to sell the property in 2016 at a $14,995,000 price point, but was not successful).

And since long before he married Mrs. Funsch, Mr. Funsch has owned a 2.4-acre spread in fancy-pants Saddle River, New Jersey, which has frequently been ranked as one of the wealthiest communities in all the United States.

Listing agents: Marc & Rory Shevin, Berkshire Hathaway HomeService
Mr. & Mrs. Funsch’s agent: Milla Pariser, Rodeo Realty

All of y’all who hang around here long enough eventually learn that Yolanda loves us some Tina Trahan real estate cray-cray almost as much as we hate our rich, old, third ex-husband Randall. Bless her heart, Ms. Trahan is back in business and she’s saving the day by giving us life through her real estate moves.

What a gal! And for those out there who don’t know who Ms. Trahan is, what the hell is wrong with you?

Just kidding. But we still won’t bother telling you who Ms. Trahan is — just go read one of our 15,000 other posts about her and you will know everything you need to know.

Anyway, some time ago one of our devoted readers forwarded us an article from a prominent Chicago newspaper. Apparently our Ms. Trahan — born and bred in Chicago, she was — recently gave her very first public interview and it is every bit as juicy and entertaining as we might have expected. It’s also a wee bit annoying because Yolanda has only been asking Ms. Trahan for an interview for, like, the last two years or so. And she always tells us no! But then she goes and blabs away to Crain’s Chicago Business and then blabs some more to Lake Geneva News just to spite us!

Whatever, lady!

The articles deal with Ms. Trahan’s excessive spending in the faraway resort town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which has all the locals agog. To begin with, Ms. Trahan has spent $16 million to purchase 5 of the 6 condo units in a 40,000+ square foot mega-mansion called Stone Manor. She has also announced her intention to convert the property into a single-family home, the way it was when it was originally constructed in 1899. Lastly, Ms. Trahan hired acclaimed interior designer Michael S. Smith (he was the Obamas’ White House decorator, FYI) to give the ol’ gurl a facelift, surely at massive cost.

For a couple tantalizing photographs of the ultra-modernized behemoth, hop on over to Ms. Trahan’s interview with Crain’s.

We digress. Buried in all of Ms. Trahan’s fun newspaper quotes (“It looked like Marie Antoinette threw up in there.”) and eye-popping wealth (She plans to spend only six weeks per year at Lake Geneva, despite the fact that she will have invested over $20 million into the giant property once all is said and done) was also something that Yolanda found extremely surprising. You see, Ms. Trahan told Crain’s that she is currently building a mansion in LA’s Pacific Palisades that will cost her $18 million.

Huh?! This shocked Yolanda. We like to think we know Ms. Trahan pretty well (not that well, but you get our drift), yet we had no clue she owned anything in the Palisades. So we did the only sensible thing: we sprang into action and opened an official investigation.

Lo and behold, a quick stroll through property records reveals that less than one month ago — in late December 2017 — our very own Ms. Trahan forked over a massive $16,000,000 in a totally off-market deal for an unfinished spec-mansion located in the most fashionable (and expensive) Palisades neighborhood of all: the Riviera.

Unfortunately because of the off-market sitch, Yolanda does not have any photos to share with y’all. We wish that weren’t the case. Next time we’re in the Riviera we will try to snap a few exterior pics of the unfinished pad. We also do not know which architect designed the hulking Traditional-style beast, but we would not be the least bit surprised if it turns out to be Ken Ungar. Our Mr. Ungar is a very successful fellow who specializes in Traditional Palisades mansions, in case y’all didn’t know.

We are also not sure what the exact size of the new house is, but Ms. Trahan says it will clock in at 12,000-square-feet. And Yolanda believes her. Remember, kiddies — if anyone knows how to count numbers, it’s Ms. Trahan. The lot size, however, is public record: just .42 of an acre.

And while $16 million might seem like an utterly ridiculous price to pay for an under-construction house on less than a half-acre of land, keep in mind that it is in line with recent sales in the neighborhood. Last year, a richie-rich couple named Matt & Kathy Barrett dropped a $22 million bomb on a 10,000-square-foot spec-mansion just up the street. And just around the corner is another huge spec house that sold for $22.4 million last year to prominent violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and her loaded hubby Jason Subotky. Oh, and let’s not forget the contemporary Riviera extravaganza that was designed by uber-successful architect Paul McClean and sold for a maddening $32.5 million in 2016 to private equity guru Richard Hollander, an amount that remains the most ever paid for a Palisades house.

Ms. Trahan currently resides in another (smaller) spec-mansion in a leafy section of eastern Santa Monica near the Brentwood Country Mart, though we are certain that Ms. Trahan’s current Santa Monica neighbors will shed no tears over her departing the neighborhood. As y’all might recall, she royally pissed off everyone all when she illegally destroyed a beautiful old tree in front of her house (the tree was actually growing on public land, believe it or not). We can’t imagine that many of them will be sad to see Ms. Trahan depart the 90402.

Over in the Palisades Riviera, some of Ms. Trahan’s new neighbors include a whole slew of famous/notable folks like Michelle Pfeiffer, Sam Raimi, Molly Sims, Jennifer Garner, Brooke Shields, JJ Abrams, Sam Harris, Kate Hudson, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Bill Cosby, Joseph Gordon Levitt’s mother-in-law Tamme Mccauley, and many more. Let’s wish her better luck with those folks, shall we? Just don’t get any ideas about their trees, Ms. Trahan.

For those of you wondering how Ms. Trahan can afford to spend $16 million in the Palisades, $16 million in Wisconsin, and $7 million in Santa Monica all in less than two years, it’s because she is married to a very powerful media CEO named Chris Albrecht. Our boy rules the Starz cable TV network and in 2013 alone his pay package was an unfathomable $31 million (yes, in just one year Mr. Albrecht earned more than 99% of people will earn in their entire lives).

Mr. Albrecht’s name does not appear on the Pacific Palisades deed (only Ms. Trahan is listed) but if he isn’t the financial firepower behind this purchase… well, Yolanda will eat our Ann Maree Willett-made hat.

And listen, Ms. Trahan. Show your gurl some love and invite us over. Just because you’re blessed with an inordinately large bank account and an extraordinary life of leisure doesn’t mean you don’t need Yolanda’s sassy tongue to appraise your interior decor choices. We’re house-trained now, promise.

Y’all might think that Mr. Albrecht and Ms. Trahan are crazy to drop $40 million on luxury real estate within the span of just two years. But Yolanda gets it. You see, the couple were a couple back in the early 2000s. But then the couple weren’t a couple anymore, for unknown reasons! Mr. Albrecht married and divorced some hot young thing, and Ms. Trahan gave birth to two daughters with two different baby daddies (neither of whom is Mr. Albrecht).

But then, 15 years after their breakup, here they are. Back in love, back together, now married. And they clearly don’t want to waste any more time. While they can’t change the past years, they can alter the future. So they will lock down this place, this time, hold on and try to make it last forever. Step out into the light, Ms. Trahan. You’re still young and free and about to burst…

What a gal!

A sprawling and elegantly preserved 1920s mansion located on a prime street in the coveted eastern part of the Beverly Hills “flats” neighborhood recently sold for a major league $14,812,500. The buyer’s identity is shielded behind something called “LABH Realty LLC”, an entity that leads down a dead-end road, but Yolanda happens to know for a fact that the new owners are a super-rich couple from Chicago named Jeffrey & Linda Hammes. But before we digress to Chi-town, let’s give a very quick background on the house, which is really rather spectacular.

Built in 1928, the tastefully upgraded estate boasts a total of 11,202-square-feet of living space (including the guest house). Although the listing calls the property a “country English-style estate”, the first descriptor that springs to Yolanda’s mind is “Gothic Tudor”. We aren’t sure who originally commissioned the home, but during the 1990s it came to be owned by an heiress to a substantial soybean fortune.

In 2006, the house was sold for $8,800,000 to JAG actress Marcy Kaplan and her producer husband Eric Gold — the guy behind the 1990s TV show The Wayans Bros. and guilty pleasure films such as Scary Movie. At some point the Kaplan-Golds gave the ol’ gurl a substantial renovation. In June 2017, they put the beast up for sale with a $16,500,000 pricetag, and the estate transferred just four months later for the aforementioned $14,812,500.

Now then, y’all. Yolanda is not particularly fond of the Beverly Hills flats neighborhood, but this is one house we wouldn’t mind owning. We think some of the interior spaces could be edited a bit better or upgraded here and there, but overall this is a very nice property in an area that has sadly become known for gorgeous old houses marred by their owners’ rather ghastly tastes in decor.

Naturally we wanted to know who the new owner was and a we were shocked (yes, shocked!) when we found out it is a lawyer. Despite the long-running assumption that attorneys make big money — and yes, many of them do make beaucoup bucks — there are very, very, very few lawyers who can afford a $15 million vacation house. Probably less than .001% of those practicing today. No joke.

But here on Yolanda’s Little Black Book we deal with the .001% and thus we bring you Mr. Jeff Hammes.

Since 1991,  our Mr. Hammes — who originally hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and stands a short but sturdy 5’9″, FYI — has been a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, an international law firm. And in 2010 our boy assumed his current role as Chairman of Kirkland’s 15-person Global Management Executive Committee. In simpler terms, Mr. Hammes is the head honcho at the Chicago-based firm, as far as Yolanda can tell. That means that Mr. Hammes is a very big deal in the law community — Kirkland is not only the richest law firm (by far) in Chicago, it is the second-biggest grossing law firm in all the world. In 2017 alone, the global juggernaut reportedly hauled in a staggering $2.65 billion in revenue through its 1,900 attorneys among 13 worldwide offices.

As a 1985 graduate from Chicago’s Northwestern University School of Law, one of Mr. Hammes’ earliest assignments at Kirkland & Ellis was helping former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney with legal representation needs related to his Bain Capital outfit. Nevertheless, Mr. Hammes appears to be a Democrat — he and wifey Linda hosted some sort of Chicago dinner/fundraiser/gabfest for Hillary Clinton back in 2015. And from a bit of research, it appears that he also donated nearly $20k to her campaign in the years of 2015 and 2016. Clearly, if the $15 million vacation home wasn’t already an indicator, Mr. Hammes has a very high net worth. But we digress.

Records show that Mr. Hammes is a member of the bar in both Illinois and California, and per reports he was instrumental in founding Kirkland’s profitable San Francisco base. Mr. Hammes is also a philanthropist — he spearheaded Kirkland’s major $5 million donation to Northwestern’s law school.

Mr. Hammes’ friends and ex-colleagues have frequently described him as a “born leader”. For his part,  Mr. Hammes was quoted as saying “I was dealt a good hand,” and “I thought I’d end up in business—and, in a sense, I am right now,” in a 2012 interview with Crain’s Chicago Business magazine.

The meticulously-maintained mansion is located on North Elm Drive, one of the premier streets in the Beverly Hills flats. A double-gated semicircular driveway sets off the ivy-covered front entryway.

Yolanda loves the black-and-white checkerboard floors, although we know that motif has been done up to death recently. A wooden staircase has a carpet runner and stained glass windows midway up. Naturally there’s a spacious formal living room, which doesn’t have much original detailing but does sport a large fireplace and a comfortably (if not exactly exciting) clean-lined, contemporary decor vibe.

Something about the kitchen’s chunky granite countertop is a bit too ’90s for Yolanda; however, we do love the fabulous La Cornue range. But that blue in the breakfast nook will not do.

The formal dining room has a rather massive table that can easily seat 10 or more, a crystal chandelier, and a very red ceiling. Elsewhere, the family room is very casual with its giant couch and built-in TV area. Three sets of French doors open to the lush backyard.

The main house has a total of 7 bedrooms and 8.25 baths. The master suite has a fireplace, sitting area, and a private balcony overlooking the backyard. The master bath has marble floors, marble countertops, dual vanities, and a built-in soaking tub.

Other luxe amenities include a billiards room equipped with a pool table, fireplace and wet bar. There’s also a stone patio out back (just off the family room) with an outdoor dining set.

The formal landscaping includes carefully clipped boxwoods, evergreen trees, and a sizable lawn. Then there’s an elegantly simple rectangular swimming pool with an inset spa. A broad patio beyond leads to the one-bedroom, one-bath guest house, which is also ivy-covered and done up in the same 1920s gothic Tudor style. The half-acre estate is carefully made invisible from neighbors via towering hedges.

It is clear that the Hammes (Hammeses?) appreciate a nice bit of historic architecture, whether here in LA or back in Chicago. In 2014, Mr. and Mrs. Hammes laid out an impressive $4,150,000 for a rather gorgeous 1876-built three-story mansion in Chicago’s pricey Gold Coast district. Called an “Italianate home” in marketing materials, the ornate red brick edifice has a 2-car garage  discreetly accessed from the rear and a comfortable 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.

The 5,500-square-foot residence sits on a very pretty street and just down the block from Lake Michigan. Similar to their new house in Beverly Hills, the Chicago estate retains its old-timey exterior but has been extensively renovated on the inside in an aesthetically-pleasing (but decidedly not original) manner. That could be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on one’s point of view and taste in home decor.

We’re not sure how much time Mr. & Mrs. Hammes plan to spend in their new $15 million Beverly Hills vacation mansion, but some of their nearest notable neighbors in the flats include shopping mall heiress Erika Glazer, 99-year-old billionaire Leslie Gonda, former model Christina Estrada, and TV personality Leeza Gibbons.

Oh, and for those of you with a taste for the macabre — don’t lie, we know there’s plenty of y’all out there — directly next door to the Mr. Hammes’ big new Gothic Tudor is an equally large 1927-built mansion that was the site of the grisly Menendez murders during the late 1980s.

Listing agent: Billy Rose, The Agency
Jeff Hammes’ agent: Stephen Shapiro, Westside Estate Agency

New Girl‘s Zooey Deschanel may be known for the quirky characters she frequently portrays in film and on the tee-vee, but her real life taste in residential real estate indicates to Yolanda that she’s a decidedly more traditional gal than a cinema-addicted person may think.

Before we begin: for those of you who appreciate the human element of real estate, Ms. Deschanel grew up rich in the posh parts of Los Angeles, the daughter of five times Oscar-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. Her parents have long owned a multi-million dollar home in the Pacific Palisades.

Ms. Deschanel rose to fame initially through supporting roles in blockbuster films (Almost Famous, The Good Girl) before carving out her own comedic niche in bigger starring roles (Elf, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Failure to Launch, Yes Man, and (500) Days of Summer). For the last 6+ years, Ms. Deschanel has hauled in the big bucks as the star of the aforementioned Fox sitcom New Girl.

Anyway, Ms. Deschanel surprised everyone less than three years ago when she shelled out the big bucks ($4,569,000 to be exact) for a spec-house. The unusual thing is that the property is not private (at all), does not sport a pool, and is located in a not-particularly-choice neighborhood. Though it’s technically in LA’s Manhattan Beach — and therefore still searingly expensive — the house is 10 minutes (by car) from the sand and is so far east that it’s practically in the hardly desirable Hawthorne section of town. In summary, Yolanda is of the opinion that it was a poor choice for a very famous celebrity. We are also of the opinion that Ms. Deschanel rather seriously overpaid for her house, as nothing in that locale has sold for anywhere close to $4.5 million.

Well, it seems we will soon know if Ms. Deschanel — who is married and has two young daughters, FYI — really did overpay for her Manhattan Beach house. Why? Because Yolanda has reason to believe she will want to sell it very soon.

Although Ms. Deschanel and her hubby Jason’s names do not appear on the deed, Yolanda happens to know that the couple have just slammed down a significant $5,575,000 for a 2004-built Manhattan Beach house that is less than a mile away from her current digs.

Called a “Cape Cod” in marketing materials, the new structure bears more than a passing resemblance to her old pad. Unfortunately, just like her former home, the house does not contain a pool. For more than $5.5 million, that would be a deal-breaker in Yolanda’s book. But apparently the very fair-skinned Ms. Deschanel doesn’t care much about such things. And in actuality, the $5.5 million pool-less pricetag is comparable to other sales in the immediate vicinity.

Yes, y’all, LA folks are crazy. But Manhattan Beach is a very nice area, of course.

We digress. The paltry .14-acre lot doesn’t allow much space, but there is a mostly undeveloped (save for some stone pavers) backyard that could hold a patch of grass or maybe a vegetable garden. Per public records, the new house of Deschanel clocks in at 4,704-square-feet of living space with 5 beds and 4.75 baths, which is actually slightly smaller than her current home.

So why on earth would Ms. Deschanel spend a million more bucks for a similar-lookin’ house that is both smaller, older, and situated on a more cramped lot than her current digs?

It’s all about the location, kiddies. Although both properties are (technically) in Manhattan Beach, this one is located in the very desirable “Tree” section of the city and is but a brisk 10-minute walk to the beach.

The online listing has notably few photographs, but the open-concept floorplan incorporates a rather ugly breakfast breakfast nook area, a family room, and a windowed kitchen equipped with stainless appliances, an island, and bar-style seating. A staircase with white risers lies off the entrance foyer.

All 5 of the bedrooms are located upstairs. The master suite has a petite private balcony overlooking the petite backyard. Somewhere there’s a hideously tacky wood-paneled game room with a cobalt blue ceiling and one of the ugliest pool tables we have ever laid eyes on. Yolanda advises Ms. Deschanel to burn it, burn it all to the ground.

Listing agent: Edward Kaminsky, Strand Hill Christie’s International
Zooey Deschanel’s agent: Tad Thormodsgaard, Palm Realty Boutique

It was our longtime BFF Our Mama at Variety who first whispered to us that 30-something-year-old fashion entrepreneur slash billionaire heir Adam Pritzker is looking to dump his sublime Spanish-style casita in Beverly Hills with an asking price of $13,150,000.

As y’all may (or may not) recall, Yolanda previously snitched that Mr. Pritzker bought the spread only about three years ago (in December 2014) for a fat $12,100,000 in an off-market deal. The property was sold by Liv Ballard, the jewelry-designing ex-wife of legendary Grammy-winning songwriter/producer Glen Ballard (he made oodles of moolah writing and producing songs and albums for luminaries such as Michael Jackson and Alanis Morissette).

The Ballards had owned this house — originally built in 1926 by the legendary Roy Seldon Price — for many years prior to their divorce. Sometime in the early 2000s, they hired venerable architects Tichenor & Thorp to give the ol’ gurl a facelift, surely at great cost. Oddly enough, however, the current listing makes no mention of the home’s considerable pedigree.

To begin with, the property sits on a beautiful but very busy B.H. street. However, the residence itself is completely invisible from the road, however, hidden behind one of the most imposing (and tallest) front gates that Yolanda has ever laid eyes upon.

The “Chimorro House“, as it is known, was built in a Hispano-Moorish style not typical of Beverly Hills and spans a generous (but not huge) 5,512-square-feet with 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, although the listing claims the house is actually substantially larger 6,500-square-feet. Perhaps the tiny tea house — which is not original to the property and was added during the Tichenor & Thorp renovation — is part of the discrepancy.

Anyway, original details abound: the exposed wooden ceiling beams in the living room (painted black to match the ebonized floors). Elsewhere there are terracotta tiles and exquisite details indicative of the masterful craftsmanship of a bygone era.

The kitchen isn’t especially large but it does sport a center island and a vaulted ceiling. There’s also a windowed breakfast nook with French Door access to the side yard, and a formal dining room.

It appears to Yolanda that Mr. Pritzker bought many of the Ballards’ furniture pieces, as many of the tables and chairs appear to be the same as when the house was featured in a 2013 issue of C Magazine.

Isn’t that one of the coolest tasting rooms y’all have ever seen?

The master suite isn’t as cavernous as one might expect in a $13 million house — but remember, this pad dates to 1926, when homeowners didn’t find themselves needing a master bedroom the size of a aircraft carrier. However, it is light and bright and has a private balcony overlooking the backyard. The master bath has a built-in soaking tub.

Outside, the pool (complete with a fountain centerpiece) and courtyard area are essentially unchanged since 1926. The .4-acre lot includes numerous gardens, leafy foliage, and a variety of mature tropical palms.

Although the property is located on a busy street and just a few hundred yards north of freeway-like Sunset Boulevard, Yolanda thinks the home’s rich history and private setting would make it ideal for a loaded celebrity in search of something unique and with an eye for design.

Yolanda is unsure where Mr. Pritzker has decamped, but as an heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune — he is the son of John Pritzker, worth $2.4 billion according to Forbes — he certainly has the financial wherewithal to live just about anywhere he pleases. Records show he still owns a townhouse in New York City’s West Village neighborhood that he scooped up a decade ago for about $7.3 million and unsuccessfully tried to sell in 2016 with a $16 million asking price (that eventually dropped to just under $15 million before being taken off the market).

The property is represented by Million Dollar Listing star Tracy Tutor Maltas, who herself is an heiress to a massive fortune — her father is the mega-rich construction tycoon (and Beverly Park resident) Ron Tutor. But we digress.

Listing agent: Tracy Tutor Maltas, Douglas Elliman

Yolanda apologizes for dawdlin’ on posting this latest story. We don’t know if this summer weather in January is to blame, but we’ve been feeling so damn lethargic lately. Just yesterday we had to take a couple siestas, and we’re still plum tired. But we’re soldiering on through regardless. Only for y’all!

Few homes contain more indications of celebrity ownership than the one we shall discuss today. To begin with, this brand-new residence is located on a celeb-popular canyon lane in the 90210 (other homeowners on the same dead-end road include Taylor Swift and Jessica Alba). The spec-mansion was recently sold and it appears the enigmatic buyer was not at all concerned with getting a discount on the property — the transaction closed only a month after listing, and for the full asking price of $8,500,000. All signs indicate that the big-bucks buyer paid cash. And all but one listing photo was mysteriously yanked off the MLS upon closing.

The buyer is shielded behind a strangely named entity (“Tom Sharpe LLC”) that leads down a dead-end road to an NYC law firm, so our boy Vlad the Revealer over at Celebrity Address Aerial asked for our help in identifying the suspicious individual. Yolanda, of course, immediately grabbed our hoe and shovel and proceeded to do some digging. And after some toilin’ in the soil, we discovered that the proud new owner is an extremely wealthy widowed lady from San Francisco named Alexandra Llewellyn Clancy.

While hers might not be a household name, you most assuredly have heard of her late hubby, bestselling espionage novelist Tom Clancy. His best-known novels — all of which have been turned into successful films — are The Hunt for Red October (1984), Patriot Games (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1989), and The Sum of All Fears (1991). He sold 100 million books worldwide, y’all.

We digress. Our Mrs. Clancy is a young widow — she was but a mere 34 years old when her hubby passed at 66 years of age. The couple were married in 1999, fourteen years prior to his 2013 death, and have one daughter together.

For all of you busybodies, let’s get the proverbial elephant in the room herded on out: yes, Mrs. Clancy was 32 years younger than her late husband.

But before you catty Cathys start hissin’ and dissin’, please do not assume that Mrs. Clancy was just some gold-digging bimbo. Although it was she — and not the four children from her husband’s first marriage — who inherited the bulk of his $82 million estate after a long and bitter court battle, the truth is she really didn’t need Mr. Clancy’s money.

You see, Mrs. Clancy was already a wildly wealthy heiress to the fortune of her late father, prominent businessman J. Bruce Llewellyn. Our Mr. Llewellyn was an attorney-turned-corporate maverick who became the owner of the Philadelphia Coca-Cola bottling company. Coca-cola by itself made him an extraordinarily rich man. But he also had numerous other investments and successes in industries as varied as banking, technology, and cable television.

For decades, Mr. Llewellyn was considered to be one of the wealthiest African-Americans in the entire USA. And at the time of his 2010 death, the self-made fellow was estimated to have a net worth of $160 million, give or take a few small fortunes. From what Yolanda can tell, he was also influential to a new generation of black businesspeople (and businesspeople in general). Additionally, Mr. Llewellyn cultivated a powerful circle of friends that included former Secretary of State Colin Powell. (And it was Mr. Powell, no lie, who introduced Tom Clancy to Mr. Llewellyn’s daughter Alexandra).

As for Mr. Llewellyn’s daughter, she has undertaken a business venture of her own. Alexandra Clancy presides over her own line of posh women’s handbags, some of which retail for thousands of bucks apiece. Imagine that. (In case y’all doubt Mrs. Clancy’s designer skills, her bags have been carried by big celebs like Jessica Biel and Jennifer Lopez. She’s legit).

But suffice to say that regardless of whether she ever sells another python purse, we highly doubt Mrs. Clancy will ever have to worry about pesky little people problems like money. Or affording an $8.5 million vacation house, for that matter.

Now then: we’re more than a little enthralled with this house. Not because of the architecture itself — it was built by an investment group and is rather grey and white and boxy and blah — but rather, this listing has some of the most flamboyant language we’ve ever seen. The “Beverly Field Residence”, as it is strangely termed in marketing materials, is “incredibly inspirational”, “has tremendous emotional horsepower”, and is “captivating and artistic”. Um, yeah, okay. Gurl, take a seat.

Anyway, while we have no intel as to whether the listing agent (or his marketing person) was indulging in edibles while writing these marketing materials, the house is admittedly quite fancy and luxurious. From the driveway, a short concrete pathway leads past and over a tranquil water feature and to the glassy residence. Listing information does not call out square footage, but Yolanda would peg it at about 6,000 or so. Maybe?

And although the property sits rather hard up on the street, it is still made private by a gated front driveway and riotous thicket of mature hedges that mostly shield the abode from view.

The interior of the home is clearly meant to impress guests with an epicly voluminous great room, white oak floors, and soaring walls of glass. The family room also features a TV and a real wood-burning fireplace, plus more walls of glass that open to the backyard. Somewhere there’s a rather dowdy-looking screening room with a sad grey carpet.

Just behind the living room/front entryway is the kitchen/formal dining room combo. The kitchen has every high-tech appliance known to man: Miele dishwashers, dish warming drawers (yes, that’s a thing), and Wolfe/Sub-Zero appliances. There’s also a massive center island with exotic-sounding “Silver Brown Wave marble” countertops. Sorry, Yolanda does not know what that means, but it sure sounds real fancy and expensive.

The house boasts a total of 5 beds and 5.5 bathrooms. The upstairs master suite features a fireplace, sitting area, and a private deck overlooking the hillside. The property backs directly up to the Franklin Canyon reservoir area, so Mrs. Clancy can literally go hiking anytime she pleases from the comfort of her own backyard.

Thanks to the steeply-sloped yard, the .46-acre property doesn’t feel particularly spacious, but the rear area does have a pool plus a spa and enough lounging/outdoor dining space for a good-sized party. There’s an outdoor kitchen and BBQ plus a built-in table with bar-style seating.

Anywho, Yolanda happens to know that Mrs. Clancy and her daughter have not yet moved into this property. That’s because she has engaged a contractor to remodel this house to better suit her extravagant needs. (Yes, Mrs. Clancy is remodeling a brand-new house that nobody has ever lived in because it’s still not good enough yet. That’s just what really rich folks do, kiddies).

Mrs. Clancy presides over a baller-status amount of luxury real estate: she still owns her late hubby’s epic compound consisting of a 12,000-square-foot mansion and a couple of sizable guesthouses on several hundred scenic acres with thousands of feet of pristine frontage on Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County, Maryland.

In addition to the Chesapeake Bay spread, Mrs. Clancy owns an immodest crash pad in Baltimore. In 2009, she and her late hubster shocked the city’s real estate watchers when they paid a fat $12,600,000 (a city record at the height of the recession!) for three adjacent units in the Ritz-Carlton Residences along the Inner Harbor. They later acquired three more adjacent units and combined four of the six units to create a rather minimalist “mansion in the sky”.

The chic super-sized penthouse (above) is currently available for sale with a much-reduced $7,900,000 pricetag, while the remaining two units are still used as rentals by Mrs. Clancy. The penthouse has three private elevators, a gym, and (naturally) a grandly-scaled library filled floor-to-ceiling with real books.

Even in the unlikely event of a full-priced sale, records are clear that Mrs. Clancy will take a multi-million dollar bath on her Baltimore Ritz-Carlton residence. Not that it really matters to a lady as rich as her, of course. That’s just a tax write-off, right?

Based on some intel in our possession, Yolanda believes that Mrs. Clancy’s current main residence is not in Beverly Hills or Baltimore but rather somewhere in the San Francisco bay area. However, kiddies, as of yet we are unable to pinpoint the exact coordinates of Mrs. Clancy’s SF abode. We expect her ownership is cloaked behind a typical maze of LLCs and blind trusts.

But if you have any info on Mrs. Clancy’s Bay Area house — we suspect it is an inordinately expensive mansion/compound of some sort — please do be a dear and let Yolanda know. We promise to keep your identity on the DL.

Listing & selling agent (90210): Paul Wylie, LAMERICA Real Estate
Listing agent (Baltimore): Cummings & Co.

The ever-vigilant Vlad the Revealer at the Celebrity Address Aerial website rang Yolanda’s bell yet again. This time it was about a big ol’ house in prime Brentwood Park — one of the most exclusive neighborhood pockets in all of LA — that recently transferred for $10,484,000 to a mysterious buyer hidden behind an uncrackable blind trust.

Before we get to the buyer, Yolanda thought y’all might be interested in a brief history of the property. Located just a quick skip south of Sunset Boulevard, the Mediterranean mansion was constructed in 1994 and weighs in at a portly (but not mega) 8,829-square-feet of living space sprawled across a .44-acre lot.

It appears that the then-new mansion was sold in 1995 to investment banking guru Robert Beyer, who held onto the house for a full decade before selling out for about $7 million to a wealthy couple named Robert & Annie Joubran. (Our Mr. Joubran is a first cousin of billionaire Tom Gores, and Mrs. Joubran is or was an executive at Platinum Equity, Mr. Gores’ megabucks private equity firm. If you didn’t know, now you know). The Joubrans recently downsized to a cute spread high in the Topanga Canyon wilderness. But we digress.

Anyway, the house was sold again for $9,935,000 in late 2015 to hotshot music manager David Benveniste, who flipped it just a few months back at a very slight profit to the current mysterious owner.

Now, Yolanda had to pull out all the stops for this one but we finally uncovered the buyer’s identity: it is a prominent fellow named Imran Khan and his wife Catherine (“Cate”) Khan.

40-year-old Mr. Khan, born and raised in Bangladesh, currently toils away as the Chief Strategy Officer at Snapchat, that bizarrely popular $25 billion disappearing-message-sexting-thingy that all the young kiddies love. That app — silly as it may be — has been proven exceptionally lucrative for Mr. Khan: in a February 2017 filing, the company disclosed that he had been granted a brain-freezing $145 million worth of shares. And he’s only been at Snapchat for three years! Before Snap, Mr. Khan was an investment banker at global juggernaut Credit Suisse.

Yolanda has never downloaded the Snapchat (and we never will), we have never used the Snapchat, and we will certainly never send nude snaps on the Snapchat (not that anyone would want to see that anyway!), but we do know that everyone loves it blah blah blah.

Well, not everyone. Snapchat’s share price is in the pooper right now, although some folks are still holding out hope.

Mrs. Khan, for her part, isn’t anywhere as well-known as her hubby — who appears to be the third in command at Snap behind the two co-founders — but she is an executive at an “Amazon-owned e-commerce firm”. The couple have at least one daughter.

The house is mostly hidden from the road out front by a riotous (and some might say overgrown) array of tropical shrubs and palm trees. The double-gated driveway leads to a front-facing two-car garage and a stone staircase leading to the ornate double front doors.

Double-height ceilings and lustrous hardwood floors are clearly meant to impress guests in the entryway. Just beyond is an open living room area which French door access to the backyard.

Things are a little too beige and safe indoors for Yolanda, but it’s certainly nice enough. The formal dining room has another (too-chunky) fireplace, and the living room/lounge area has more access to the backyard. Somewhere there’s an office/library with real books and real bookshelves — imagine that — and custom wooden cabinetry.

The kitchen has upgraded appliances but still looks farrrr too 90’s for Yolanda. We’d advise the Khans to rip out all that cabinetry and (including the island with the butcher block countertop) and replacing the whole shebang with something more contemporary and exciting. At least there’s a downstairs wet bar for the maid to drown her sorrows after scrubbing the grout in between those no-good floor tiles! Yippee.

There are a total of 5 beds and 5.5 baths. All of the bedroom suites are upstairs, Yolanda believes.

The master suite looks far more contemporary than the guest bedrooms with its hardwood floors, French doors to a private balcony, and a quiet sitting area for reading a good mystery novel. The master bath has a glass-walled shower and a built-in tub.

Out back there are “elegant terraces and pergolas for entertaining”, a grassy lawn, tall hedges for complete privacy, and a child-safe gated pool area with an inset spa and a waterfall feature.

As Yolanda has reminded y’all many times, Brentwood Park is one of the poshest areas in LA and as such the Khans are now neighbors with a whole slew of high-profile peeps: Christian Bale, James Corden, and Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, just to name a few. The Khan house is also sugar-borrowing distance from Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s “starter home” which he still owns but does not occupy. (Mr. Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr have long since moved on to much grander Brentwood digs).

Before moving to Brentwood, Yolanda happens to know the Khans were leasing a big house in the nearby Pacific Palisades. And although we don’t know what they were paying in rent, the property was recently listed with a heart attack-causing $40k/month asking price. You’d have to be certifiable, Yolanda thinks, to pay the full cost of a new BMW 3-series each and every month in rent for what is a very nice (but nothing special!) Palisades pad.

Good thing LA has no shortage of coked-up, real estate lovin’ rich folks with money to burn. Oh, snap…

Listing agent: Robby Sutton, Rayni & Branden Williams, Hilton & Hyland
Imran Khan’s agent: Kenneth Davis, Full Circle Realty Group

Today Yolanda thought we would take things in a slightly different direction with this one. Instead of blabbin’ about some immodest sprawling palace on the Westside, let’s keep it more casual with a quietly lovely compound hidden in the hills above Hollywood.

Built in 1948, this .37-acre gated spread is invisible from the street out front, hidden behind a dense (but carefully manicured) row of hedges. Beyond the foliage lies an updated 1948 spread with a 3-bed main house, a two-story guest house, and a separate music studio. Perfect for an artist client of some sort, right? And even moreso because the property is located in the heart of Nichols Canyon, long a haven for celebrities from all walks of life. Current residents include Lady GaGa, Will Ferrell, and Rose McGowan.

And the sellers of this property themselves were certainly well-known in Hollywood, if not exactly famous. They were film score composer Woody Jackson and his wife Sharon, a high-powered talent agent at William Morris Endeavor (WME), arguably the most high-profile talent agency in LA.

The couple appear to have purchased the property back in 2003 for just $925,000 and obviously substantially upgraded it in the 14+ years since.

Anyway, the house popped up for sale last year and quickly sold little more than a month later for $3,290,000, a whopping $391,000 more than the asking price. Clearly, multiple parties wanted this property quite badly. But there can only be one winner and records show that something mysterious “Damn The Torpedoes LLC” acquired the spread at a hefty $3,290,000 final price. Yolanda just happens to know that the entity is a front for a young-ish lady named Jaime Johnson, an heiress to a multi-billion-dollar fortune.

Our Ms. Johnson — not to be confused with her documentary filmmaker cousin Jamie Johnson — is an heiress to Johnson & Johnson, the $76 billion worldwide conglomerate that was founded back in the day (1886, to be exact) by her great-great-granddaddy, Robert Wood Johnson I, the originator of New Jersey’s wackiest and wealthiest family.

Because of her propensity to avoid public events and the party circuit, you may have never heard of Ms. Johnson herself. But you have probably heard of her other family members. Her daddy Woody Johnson is owner of the New York Jets and is currently United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, appointed by President Trump. Per the Bloomberg Billionaires’ Index, he is also worth a paltry $4.2 billion.

And also back in the day, Ms. Johnson’s older sister Casey was a big tabloid queen, hangin’ with celeb pals like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. You may recall Casey passed away at the age of 30 after a short life filled with hard partying and high-profile relationships with both men and woman. Perhaps that is why her younger sister chooses to eschew the nightlife scene, perhaps not.

But we digress.

Privacy, security, and serenity are virtues valued here. The house is surrounded by a bevy of security cameras — 16, to be exact. Access is provided via a large iron gate, which guards a wooden carport capable of covering two vehicles. Gravel pathways lead to the single-story main house.

Inside, the fully renovated main house has wide-plank white oak floors, snow white walls, and an open floorplan. The icy-lookin’ all-white kitchen sports marble countertops, glass sliders opening to the side yard, and top-of-the-line designer appliances.

As previously mentioned, there are a total of three bedrooms and four baths in the 2,500-square-foot structure. The master suite has more glass sliders, a bathroom that looks entirely hewn from one chunk of marble, and a walk-in closet.

An outside staircase leads down from the off-kitchen deck to the private music studio. A manicured walkway connects the main house to the two-story guesthouse that sports a bedroom suite a living room, and a kitchenette.

Before we jet off for the evening, let’s quickly put into perspective just how rich these Johnsons are. In 2015, Woody Johnson — Ms. Johnson’s daddy, as we have already told y’all — sold his New York City penthouse for a shocking $77,500,000 to Ukraine-born billionaire Len Blavatnik. But what is even crazier is that Mr. Johnson never even lived in the apartment — he had bought it many years prior but only used it for parties and fundraisers. Oh, and as a profit-generating box in the sky. You know what they say about the rich getting richer and all that.

Listing agents: Billy Rose & Jon Grauman, The Agency
Jaime Johnson’s agent: Alexander Barad, Sotheby’s International Realty

Yolanda has just risen from the dead after a protracted battle with the vicious influenza that continues to besiege the nation as we type. Thanks for your prayers. And to atone for our absence, we wanted to kick off the week with something fun.

Fitting the bill is this cavernous contemporary, which was spec-built and recently completed and sits on a particularly prominent promontory above the celebrity-swarmed Benedict Canyon neighborhood, high above Beverly Hills. The house sold for a fat $16,000,000 this month to a blind trust and Yolanda happens to know the new owner is a 28-year-old dude named Anton Zaslavski. A little investigation reveals that Mr. Zaslavski is one of those new-fangled DJ people and is better-known by his stage name: Zedd.

Yolanda swears we had never heard of this Zedd person before today. And even after Googlin’ the dude, we still wouldn’t call Mr. Zedd a celebrity, at least not of the A-list variety. But he does seem to be fairly well-known and obviously successful, if he can afford a $16 million house.

Although Mr. Zedd doesn’t sing — most DJs are far too cool for that, duh — he did have some songs that were big hits here in the USA. His songs “Stay” and “Clarity” both peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and the latter garnered him a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.

Undoubtedly much of Mr. Zedd’s loot comes from his rigorous touring schedule: he is set to perform in Vegas, Cabo, Japan, and China. And that’s just within the next month alone. Tickets ain’t cheap, either.

Not to be snarky, but we have no idea why any sane, sober person would want to pay to see some dude press buttons on his laptop. And we’re not throwing shade, we swear. Isn’t that just what a DJ does?

So why? Or did we already answer our own question?

The house sits commandingly at the end of a small private cul-de-sac that is located very close to the top of Benedict Canyon Drive. A gated driveway leads down to the front entryway, which crosses over a moat before ending at the home’s wooden front door.

The 9,341-square-foot residence is an origami-like confection of wood, concrete, and rich wood detailing.

Accenting the bachelor pad vibe is the sunken living room/party center, with its walls of glass overlooking the 90210 and the enormous chimney/wall feature that looks to be made from some volcanic stone or maybe it’s black-veined marble or something.

The kitchen sports two built-in smokeless hibachi grills and top of the line appliances.

Other features include a glassy dining room, a glassy office (both overlooking the Benedict hills) and a four-car garage plus ample off-street parking for at least a dozen more vehicles. The house is sited on an unusually generous 3.22-acre lot, though a portion of that is hillside.

There are a total of 5 bedrooms and 8 baths, and most of them are relatively ho-hum for as contemporary as this place is. The standout, however, is the master retreat, which has wrap-around glass walls, a chunky fireplace, an enormous resort-like master bath, and a walk-in closet with an island and full custom cabinetry.

The master suite also features a private outdoor terrace with a seating area and another (outdoor) fireplace. The terrace overlooks the home’s backyard swimming pool, which is raised and infinity-edged for max drama.

If it were up to Yolanda, we’d cut down those trees that are partially blocking the pool’s view (and yes, they are on Mr. Zedd’s land).

What else is there to mention? There is a private maid’s quarters with a separate entrance, and lots of green lawn on which to roam free.

Some of Mr. Zedd’s closest celeb Benedict Canyon neighbors include action star Vin Diesel, model Kate Upton and her pitcher hubby Justin Verlander, rocker Gene Simmons, “77 Sunset Strip” star Roger Smith and his Golden Globe-winning singer/actress wife Ann-Margret, Max Baer Jr. of the Beverly Hillbillies, film producer Mark Amin, British actress Anne Heywood, actor turned international producer Mark Damonand his actress wife Margaret Markov, and his maroon worshipfulness Adam Levine, who Yolanda has repeatedly heard is on the hunt for a big new house. Also nearby is the $15 million Benedict Canyon compound of fellow DJ Calvin Harris.

This is not Mr. Zedd’s only house in Los Angeles, it turns out. Back in 2014, he busted out $3,900,000 for another (smaller) new-fangled contemporary located in the celeb-swarmed “Outpost Estates” neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills. Yolanda assumes that Zeddy boy wishes to sell this house, but as of today it is not listed on the (open) market.

Listing agent: James Harris, The Agency

It was just a few months ago that Dave Keuning, the longtime guitarist for rock band The Killers, announced he was taking a break from the group’s touring schedule to spend more time with his family. Mr. Keuning was not, his other bandmates stressed, leaving the group entirely. Just a short break.

In addition to spendin’ time with family, said touring exit also allowed Mr. Keuning the time to start spendin’ that hard-earned cash on a big new house. Last week, a fancy-pants pad in the hills of Los Feliz sold for an aggressive $4,950,000 to a mysterious blind trust — a trust that a little birdie squawked to Yolanda is a front for our very own Mr. Keuning.

The house in question is located just down the street from the world-famous Ennis House — currently owned by billionaire Ron Burkle — and also around the corner from “The Castle“, which was last sold in 2014 for a then-record-breaking $8,300,000 to noted language translator Muna El Fituri.

We digress. Mr. Keuning’s new pad was last sold only two years ago, in February 2016, for $2,100,000. The new owners (a not-famous couple from Las Vegas) gave the place a quick but thorough refresh/update before flipping it to a Killer.

Originally built in the 1930s, the house presents itself as a rather Traditional-style affair from the street out front, where the front-facing two car garage and rambling facade give it a rather matronly appearance. Out back, however, the party gets started with a Bangkirai deck and a big infinity pool that befits a $5 million house.

And no, Yolanda had no idea what “Bangkirai” meant either. But a quick convo with our friend Mr. Google let us know that it is some sort of Burmese mahogany or similarly exotic wood. Whatever the case, it looks good!

Indoors, the kitchen draws yer eyeballs with its azure blue (?) cabinets offsetting the marble countertops and the oak flooring. Yolanda is rather loving the look, and we are not ashamed to admit it.

The 5,049-square-foot abode is big enough for a large family with its 5 bedrooms and 6 baths. As y’all might expect, the master suite is large and comes complete with vaulted ceilings, a private balcony overlooking the city, and a bathroom with marble, dual vanities, and a glass-walled shower.

Elsewhere there’s a libary without any books, and an outdoor dining area plus an outdoor lounge.

Just imagine curlin’ up in that spa on a chilly Valentine’s Day with your significant other. Listen to the wind whistlin’ through the palm fronds. Maybe the toads will be rustlin’ in the bushes. At least, you better hope those are toads. Y’all should know that Mr. Keuning’s house is in the Los Feliz hills and very close to Griffith Park. That is also mountain lion territory — P-22‘s ‘hood, to be exact.

Internet rumors say that Mr. Keuning owns homes in both San Diego and Las Vegas. Try as we might, however, Yolanda could not unearth a San Diego address for this fellow. But that does not necessarily mean he has no home there, it just means we were unable to locate it, if it exists.

However, we did find that Mr. Keuning owns a luxury Sin City condo in the guard-gated Park Avenue complex, near the city outskirts.

Listing agent: Justin Mandile, Mercer Vine
Dave Keuning’s agents: Boni Bryant & Joe Reichling, Compass

As Yolanda has said before, we have never watched that bizarrely popular HBO montage of nudity, violence and swear words that is Game of Thrones. And we very likely never will. But although we publicly roll our beautiful eyes and purse our luscious lips whenever a friend mentions that silly show, we do recognize its immense impact and respect the mountains of moolah it has generated for its creators and assorted cast of actors.

For the last several months, Yolanda has been attempting to uncover the identity of the person who secretly paid a fat $9,000,000 (through a mysterious blind trust) for a lovely ol’ house in the historic old-money bastion of Hancock Park. Turns out, as we finally discovered, that person can afford to live in $9 million splendor because of that damn stupid series. Okay, we’ll shut up about GoT now, because we fear there are multiple fans sharpening their spears in preparation for piercin’ Yolanda’s throat. Forgive us!

This house sale went down totally off-market, so y’all already know what that means: we unfortunately have no (current) photos of the house to share. But we will link y’all to a site that shows how the house looked back in late 2012, when it was publicly sold for $3,110,000. (Yes, in just five years the house tripled in value. How crazy is that?)

Keep in mind that the property has undergone a significant remodel in the last five years and the interior photos do not reflect the current look of the home. But use your imagination and you can see that this is a very lovely 1930s Mediterranean in an equally lovely neighborhood.

According to records, the property sits on a flat .36-acre of land. There is a two-story main house plus a detached garage/guest house combo out back for a total of 6 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in 5,828-square-feet of living space. As of late 2012, the house sported formal living and dining rooms, a sun room, a wood-paneled library, and a big swimming pool out back.

The buyer? Oh heavens, didn’t we mention? It’s Dan Weiss, aka D.B. Weiss, who with David Benioff created the Game of Thrones madness. As an aside, Mr. Weiss’s writer wife Andrea Troyer is also longtime BFFs with Mr. Benioff’s wife, actress Amanda Peet. Oh, but we digress…

Although Mr. Weiss and Ms. Thoyer have already moved into their new Hancock Park mansion, they still have yet to sell their old house, which is located only about 5 minutes (by car) due west from their new spread. Records show they laid out $1,250,000 for the Beverly Grove property way back in 2007, when GoT was still just a golden twinkle in Mr. Weiss’s eye. Although the house is not currently listed for sale, if you happen to be on the lookin’ to buy a cute Beverly Grove Spanish, we think Mr. Weiss and Ms. Troyer would be happy to show y’all the one above. Just give them a ring-ring.

In Los Angeles, as all of y’all should know, there are a whole heap of successful real estate agents who have made millions of dollars in commissions just by representing the people we talk about on this blog in their buying and selling of luxury real estate.

Atop that heap is a man named Kurt Rappaport. Our Mr. Rappaport is the founder of the uber-successful Westside Estate Agency — a boutique luxury real estate brokerage based on the Westside (no, really!) — and has been raking in millions of dollars in commissions for… well, we really don’t know how long. But a long ass time.

Mr. Rappaport is so successful at selling expensive houses that now he has now become one of the .0001% to which he caters. Way back in 2007, he got that weirdo actor dude Tom Cruise to pay him $30,500,000 for a house on Beverly Hills’ Calle Vista Drive and in early 2010 — at the height of the economic recession — he somehow persuaded carpet mogul Ben Soleimani to drop $15,975,000 for his mansion on North Crescent Drive (also in prime 90210).

Our Mr. Rappaport is also the guy responsible for the $88.3 million transaction of Suzanne Saperstein’s Fleur de Lys to Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and he repped both sides in the $85 million sale of David Geffen’s Malibu home to billionaire Dodgers owner Mark Walter, which holds the crown as LA’s most expensive sale of 2017.

Lest we forget, Mr. Rappaport done sold his ex-wife Juliette’s Beverly Hills pad for a fat $14 million and then secured her a new $6.6 million compound on Summit Drive in the 90210. (However, a careful examination of property records reveals that the ex-Mrs. Rappaport’s Summit Drive house is currently in the early stages of foreclosure. Yikes! But we digress).

Nowadays ol’ Kurty is newly married to a lovely lass named Sarah Mutch (a model, she is) and is has just finished building himself a big-ass mansion above the Sunset Strip area of Los Angeles — very near the Bird Streets. Which might be why he is thinking about divesting in Malibu. Or maybe he just sees an opportunity to make big bucks. There’s that, too.

As you all should know by now, Mr. Rappaport just sold his main Malibu residence for a mind-blowing sum. It was the peeps over at TMZ who first reported that Canadian billionaire Daryl Katz threw down an epic $85,000,000 for the property, an amount that is tied for the biggest sale ever in the oceanfront city and is among the top 10 biggest residential sales in the LA area. Ever. Records now show that the sale officially closed in early February (2018).

If you were to ask Yolanda, we’d say that Mr. Rappaport is the greatest real estate salesperson this town has ever seen. Why? Because in our very humble opinion — and certainly some folks will disagree with us, and that’s okay — his Malibu house was not worth anywhere near $85 million. Maybe half of that. On a good day.

Seriously, come on now. Mr. Rappaport paid $6,835,000 for the then-vacant lot in 2007 and records show he spent years and a ton of money — mortgage documents suggest it was $20 million or possibly even more — to build his 9,000-square-foot dream house on 5+ prime acres.

The house is quite stunning, no doubt, the views are magnificent, and the pool is reportedly the longest residential cement pond in the whole damn state. But $85 million for a 9k square foot Malibu house that’s not even on the sand? Wow!

It may (and should) shock you that an $85 million house in Malibu has no beach access (isn’t that what Malibu is all about?) but yes, that is indeed the case here. On the other hand, home prices in LA are sanity-defying these days — and they seem to grow only more ludicrous every year — so there’s that. And obviously Mr. Rappaport’s house was worth $85 million to Mr. Katz.

Speaking of our Mr. Katz, he also has a history of paying extraordinary sums for prime LA properties. Back in summer 2015, he bought his friend Francisco Aquilini’s unfinished Bel Air mega-mansion for $34,500,000 and then proceeded to hack it up some more. Nearly three years later, as far as we know, that Bel Air monstrosity remains unfinished and uninhabitable.

Oh dear, we digress again. We aren’t here today to talk about Mr. Katz’s Bel Air spread or regurgitate the news of the big $85 million sale in Malibu. Today we’d like to highlight Mr. Rappaport’s other fancy Malibu house. Yes, ol’ Kurty had not one but two swanky Malibu pads. And this one is actually located on the sand.

Now that he’s sold his big Malibu house, Mr. Rappaport has no need of the smaller cottage. The fully renovated pad on Malibu Road is asking $11,995,000 and has several nifty features like an unusually large amount of off-street parking, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a “designer inspired living room”, a chic and sleek kitchen with high-end Viking appliances, and a roomy open floor plan. There are a total of 4 beds, 3.5 baths in 3,305-square-feet of living space.

Y’all might be interested to know that Mr. Rappaport bought this house in early 2015 for $7,700,000 from a very wealthy Tampa, Florida-based couple named Tom & June Simpson. Unfortunately for the Simpsons, records show that they had forked out $9.3 million for the house back in 2006, which means they took a $1.6 million bath on the property when ol’ Kurty got the deed. Not that it really matters to them — they had other problems. For instance, their son’s adulterous wife shot her 23-year-old lover in her husband’s house and then dropped more than $80,000 on the Simpson family credit card at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club! After her divorce, no less!

Good gracious! Nothing says “klassy” quite like pullin’ out a damn Glock and blastin’ your tatted-up young boytoy and then going H.A.M. on your mother-in-law’s credit card at Wal-Mart! Walmart? Really? (How does one person even spend $80k at Wal-Mart?!)

Ugh.

Anywho, time will tell as to whether Mr. Rappaport will be successful in getting near his asking price for his oceanfront property — house sales in Malibu tend to be a bit more sluggish than in the Platinum Triangle — but if he were to ask us for advice (and he won’t), we’d have him dial up Mr. Katz again and sell him on this one. Even billionaires like to have a toehold in the sand, after all.

Listing agents: Mark Gruskin & Kurt Rappaport, Westside Estate Agency

Though his name may not conjure the instant residential cachet of, say, Richard Neutra or Frank Lloyd Wright, Harold “Hal” Levitt was one of LA’s great mid-century architects. He designed gracious homes for a legion of Hollywood notables (and other not-famous rich people) including Lew Wasserman, Ross Hunter, Quincy Jones, Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Debbie Reynolds, and Lionel Richie.

Anyway, a Hal Levitt-designed house in prime Beverly Hills sold less than a week ago for an even-steven $20,000,000. Make no mistake, that is a big chunk of change, particularly since the house looks to be in need of a freshening-up and clocks in at “just” 5,614-square-feet of living space. And as the Wall Street Journal first reported, the buyer is a gal named Sue. Not a boy named Sue, mind you, a gal. A very rich gal.

Like Mr. Levitt — may he RIP — Susan “Sue” Gross may not be a household name, but she is a real damn billionaire. Or she very soon will be one, provided her acrimonious (and ongoing) divorce ends as she would like. Forbes says Mrs. Gross’s estranged hubby Bill — founder of bond investment giant PIMCO — is worth $2.5 billion. And the couple have been married for over 30 years!

Yolanda wrote about Mrs. Gross’s marital split more than a year ago and provided an in-depth look at their extensive real estate holdings. Like all good billionaires, the Grosses maintain an electrifying array of fabulous properties. Their crown jewel, if you will, is their three-house compound down in Laguna Beach, behind the guarded gates of Irvine Cove, which is often considered to be the most prestigious gated community in all of Orange County. Yolanda believes their Laguna compound may be worth as much as $70 million.

The Grosses also have a $9 million house in the OC’s Corona Del Mar area, a huge pad out in Indian Wells (CA), and as well as a big house in Beverly Hills for which they paid Jennifer Aniston $35,000,000 back in 2011. Yolanda still recalls the shock and awe that deal sent through the real estate community. Ah, and it feels like it was just yesterday! Time, you are such a cruel and sly fox.

Turns out Mrs. Gross must really love herself a good Hal Levitt, because her $35 million B.H. house was also designed by the same fellow.

Anyway, though none of the properties in the Gross portfolio have come to market since the couple’s 2016 separation, it is all but guaranteed that some (if not all) will soon be sold. The OC Register reveals that Mr. Gross has been living in the Laguna Beach compound while the divorce is pending, while Mrs. Gross has ensconced herself in Corona del Mar and in the big Bev Hills pad.

Court papers also brought to light exactly how mean-spirited the divorce has become: Mrs. Gross allegedly showed up uninvited at the Laguna Beach compound with a bodyguard and stole items from the property. Bill Gross allegedly sent her “threatening” emails and called her “disgusting”. Then Mrs. Gross apparently disconnected all services at the Indian Wells house, causing the swimming pool to turn green with algae. Oh, the horrors!

But we’re here today to talk about Mrs. Gross’s new house, right? The property sits in a section of Beverly Hills that is quite frequently considered to be the best neighborhood pocket in the entire city. It’s on a very quiet dead-end street but just north of Sunset and has easy access to West Hollywood, canyon roads leading to the Valley, and downtown Beverly Hills.

Marketing materials contain no images of the home’s current interior. Y’all should also know that the property was previously in the hands of the same owner for 50+ years, so it’s a good guess than the place is in dire need of a cosmetic overhaul. Still, the grounds look to be in decent shape, and the views are quite impressive, even if the low-slung house itself isn’t exactly stimulating.

It’s not so surprising that Mrs. Gross is apparently planning to spend a good chunk of her time up in Los Angeles. Though he was born and raised in the O.C., Mr. & Mrs. Gross’s only child — their adult son Nick — resides here in LA, in a $9 million contemporary pad above the Sunset Strip, as Yolanda already revealed,

One of Mrs. Gross’s nearest new neighbors in the 90210 is Ellen DeGeneres (their properties actually border one another). Also a resident of the same dead-end street is Amazon gajillionaire Jeff Bezos. And other nearby folks include Casey Wasserman, shopping mall heir Emerson Glazer, and a shady pharmacist lady named Nima Rodefshalom who recently paid $15,940,000 for a house formerly leased by pop star Ariana Grande. Yolanda has also repeatedly heard that Comcast billionaire Brian L. Roberts owns a house on the same road, though we have not yet been able to confirm that.

We hear that Mr. and Mrs. Gross’s $35 million house in Trousdale Estates — the other Hal Levitt property — will soon become available for sale. Yolanda is very interested to see who will buy that place and how much they will spend, particularly since we are of the opinion that the Grosses may have grossly overpaid. But who knows? Not us.

Oh, and speaking of Hal Levitt and Trousdale, Yolanda also hears that Simon Cowell would very much like to unload his never-lived-in Hal Levitt house high up in Trousdale Estates. This despite the fact that the property is in the middle of a comprehensive remodel. To be more specific, we hear whispers that Mr. Cowell would very seriously entertain offers in the $21 million range.

But that’s a story for another day.

Listing agent: Josh Flagg, Rodeo Realty
Sue Gross’s agent: Nelson Moe Properties, Coldwell Banker

Last week, after years of speculation, the Wall Street Journal finally pulled the curtain back on the identity of the mysterious buyer who paid nearly $100.5 million (in cash) for the most expensive residence ever sold in New York City. Turns out it was Texas-based tech billionaire Michael Dell and his wife Susan.

Although the sale did not close until late 2014 — when the One57 penthouse in question was completed — it was originally announced and agreed to way back in 2012. Since then, the owner’s name had been a closely guarded secret. At one point Yolanda even wondered if it might be Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.

Curiously, on that very 2017 story about Mr. Milner, we received an anonymous reader comment insisting that the One57 buyer was indeed Michael Dell. This was months before the WSJ story, and we have no idea who this reader was or where they got their information, but obviously they were not incorrect. Unfortunately, Yolanda was unable to confirm that intel on our own.

Anyway, we digress. The Dell family is based in Austin, Texas — where they reside in an ultra-contemporary Gwathmey Siegel-designed mountaintop extravaganza — and they also have homes in NYC and Hawaii. They do not yet own any residential real estate in LA, at least as far as we can tell.

However, the Dells have four adult children (they range in age from 20 to 26) and we do know that at least two of them mainly reside here in the City of Angels. Their son Zach attends school at USC and their daughter Alexa bunks up in the 90210.

So we thought it might be fun to examine the Dell kids’ West Coast living circumstances. We don’t care much about the USC dorms (Yolanda herself lived there about a million years ago and they are still mostly nasty) but Miss Alexa Dell has much nicer digs up in the hills. Let’s discuss.

First, a little background. Alexa Dell is 24 years old and is the second-eldest of Michael & Susan Dell’s four children. As an heiress to a $23.5 billion fortune, she can afford anything she pleases. And what she pleases, according to the Instagram contraption (where she has over 37,000 followers) is a frighteningly enormous array of designer labels. Yolanda could not finish looking through all 600+ of her photos, but we counted dozens of Chanel, Givenchy, Bottega Veneta, and Hermès products adorning Miss Dell’s svelte frame.

Miss Dell has lived in LA for some time and was previously in a longterm relationship with Tinder co-founder Sean Rad. After that breakup, she hooked up with a 40-year-old dude named Harrison Refoua and they became engaged last year at the Four Seasons in Kona, Hawaii, which her daddy owns (duh).

We’re not really sure, but Yolanda would guess that Miss Dell’s gigantic engagement ring required a forklift to hoist it up to finger level. Seriously, that thing is big enough to affect the Earth’s gravitational pull. Good ol’ Miss Dell made sure to Instagram and Snapchat the $3 million sparkler with the caption “He did good” (oh, brother!).

Yolanda was overjoyed the other day when we realized that we share a mutual friend with Miss Dell. Let’s call him Tolled U. So. Obviously we called up Mr. So to get the scoop on Miss Dell’s current living circumstances. The chatty and catty Mr. So gladly whispered that only about two weeks ago (in February 2018), Miss Dell moved into her “LA starter house”, a leased residence in the mountains high above Beverly Hills proper, in a Los Angeles neighborhood known as Beverly Hills Post Office.

The contemporary house has views overlooking Benedict Canyon and down to Century City. And maybe even the ocean, on a clear day. Miss Dell has some famous neighbors — Family Guy creator Seth Macfarlane lives directly across the street, and WME co-CEO Patrick Whitesell is within batting range. According to records, Miss Dell is paying $23,500 per month for the privilege of occupying the premises.

Our friend Tolled U. So told Yolanda that Miss Dell “just couldn’t resist that view” and also incongruously added that “she has [the name of a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon] on speed dial.” According to him, Miss Dell has already placed one 911 call from her new leased residence for “an emergency lip plumping”. Somehow we kinda doubt that (but who knows) and we have no idea how Mr. So knows who is on Miss Dell’s speed dial, but we didn’t dare ask questions.

Originally built in 1961, Miss Dell’s leased B.H.P.O. abode was substantially renovated by its current owner, a former MTV executive named Andrew Schuon. It appears Mr. Schuon picked up the property in 2009 for just over $1 milliion.

The 5,300-square-foot sprawler sits on a sloped .48-acre corner lot. A concrete, essentially windowless front facade gives the place a rather forbidding presence. There’s a three-car garage, a gated front entryway, and terrazzo floors in the open-plan living area. The listing highlights the “42 Fleetwood doors and windows”

The kitchen is essentially carved from a giant hunk of marble and seamlessly flows to the formal dining room and family room. Elsewhere there’s a library with a wet bar, because who doesn’t like a little nip of cognac with their Catcher In The Rye?

The master bedroom appears to have more of that terrazzo flooring, and the master bath is slathered in marble. A roomy close  A rather smallish glass gym has blonde hardwood floors and thrilling views. The dual closets aren’t quite as big as we expected for a lady like Miss Dell, but at least one has a large center island, so there’s that.

The puffy-lipped heiress will no doubt appreciate the infinity pool that accentuates the home’s jetliner views and a patch of lawn plenty big enough for a dog run. According to the listing, the property is also a “true smart house” with full audio, video, and lighting, plus a HEPA/UV climate control.

Naturally, the residence is surrounded by a bevy of security cameras and Miss Dell is constantly shadowed by her father’s Presidential-level security detail. Do not even think about showing up unannounced at her 90210 house, looking to borrow one of her Balmain gowns for the latest charity gala. Y’all will find yourselves in deep, deep shit.

Our chatty friend Tolled U. So couldn’t help but extol Miss Dell’s work ethic. Apparently she has been “studying hard and taking notes” on LA’s luxury neighborhoods in preparation for the purchase of her very first home. Mr. So expects her to be ready to make a residential big splash “within the next year or so”. And she’s no dummy, according to him. “Alexa wants the perfect contemporary house. Trousdale, the Birds, Bel Air, she’ll look everywhere. And if she has to measure the closet space herself or test the selfie lighting, she’ll do it. Whatever it takes.”

Realtors, gird your loins.

Listing agent: Juliette Hohnen, Douglas Elliman

In case y’all somehow missed the memo, 2018’s real estate market is still blazing hot. Take this big house in Brentwood for example. You’d think the realtors might have to work hard to sell a $10 million listing, right? But nope. This house sold so fast — and for the full $9,950,000 asking price — that it never even hit the MLS. In fact, according to the Westside Estate Agency website, the property sold “less than 24 hours” after initially being floated off-market. Clearly this was all-cash deal, and clearly the buyer wanted this place quite badly.

Yolanda has been around the proverbial block more than a few times and we like to think we’re a bit jaded when it comes to LA real estate, but our mind still boggles when we think about the fact that someone had $10 million in cash (just sitting in their bank account!) and in less than one day, they decided to throw it down on a random ol’ house.

So who is the outrageously rich buyer? Her name is not in public records — it is carefully concealed behind a blind trust — but Yolanda just happens to know that it is a woman named Krista Raine aka Krista Levitan, the ex-wife of Modern Family creator Steven Levitan.

It really shouldn’t be surprising that Mrs. Levitan would have the cash to spend on a $10 million house, or that she would want to acquire one very quickly. Since August 2017, Mrs. Levitan has been essentially homeless. It was then, if y’all recall, that she sold her recently-completed Santa Monica dream house for a brain-exploding $41,082,000, an amount that still stands as the most ever paid for a residential property on LA’s Westside. The buyers were a young couple named Kevin & Chelsea Washington.

(In case you’re wondering how the Washingtons can afford a $41 million house: Mr. Washington is the younger son of Montana-based multi-billionaire Dennis Washington).

For those of y’all who care about such things, Mrs. Levitan’s former Santa Monica house was designed by Napa Valley-based architect Howard Backen and was built in that “modern farmhouse” style which is ever so popular nowadays. You can find a few more photos of the property by jogging on over here.

Anyway, back to Mrs. Levitan’s new pad. Unfortunately, since the sale went down completely off-market, Yolanda does not have any MLS photos to share with y’all. However, if you’re interested, hope on over to The Agency website where y’all can get a quick glimpse of what 10 million smackers will buy you in Brentwood.

The house has a rather interesting history, it turns out. The mid-century modern was originally constructed in 1954 and sometime in the early 1960s was featured in Architectural Digest.  The property has been remodeled several times over the ensuing decades, and from 2006-2013, it was owned by film producer David Linde. Our Mr. Linde sold the house for $4,600,000 in June 2013 to prominent talent agent Bob Bookman.

At the time of Mr. Bookman’s acquisition, the ol’ gurl was rather down on her heels and therefore Mr. Bookman generously spent an arseload of money to revamp and upgrade her looks into the snazzy place you see below.

Details are scarce, but we do know that the house has 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms in a substantial (but not humongous) 6,386-square-feet of living space. There is a front-facing two-car garage, glass-paneled doors galore, and travertine walls contrasting with pale oak floors. The house wraps around a central open-air atrium, and there is a pool/spa combo out back with peek-a-boo views over the city skyline and out to the Pacific Ocean. The .34-acre grounds were designed by noted landscape architect Jay Griffith.

As for Mr. Levitan, he still owns a large oceanfront home on Malibu’s Broad Beach, so Yolanda assumes (without proof) that he is currently living there. The erstwhile Levitan sold their longtime home in nearby Brentwood Park for nearly $10 million in 2016. The buyer, Yolanda has discovered, was British-born Late Late Show host James Corden.

Listing agents: Richard Ehrlich & Stephen Shapiro, Westside Estate Agency

As you may have heard and/or experienced, there is an ongoing crisis in the United States. Several of them, actually, but today we are referring to the national opioid crisis that has devastated families across America, but has been particularly devastating in the Midwestern states. The National Institute of Drug Abuse provides us with a few, ahem, sobering statistics. Among them: the economic burden of opioid misuse is estimated at an unfathomable $78.5 billion per year, more than 33,000 American died in 2015 alone as a result of opioid overdose, and at least 21% of people prescribed opioids for chronic pain end up misusing the highly addictive drugs.

How exactly this crisis came about can mainly be traced back to 1996, when one simple sentence effectively kickstarted the nationwide epidemic. The sentence was “Delayed absorption as provided by Oxycontin tablets, is believed to reduce the abuse liability of a drug.” It was penned by a company called Purdue Pharma and pasted on to the label of their newly FDA-approved painkiller medication.

If y’all are not aware, Purdue is the pharmaceutical company that produces Oxycontin, the prescription drug that is widely believed to have opened the proverbial floodgates to today’s rampant opioid abuse. And despite the fact that an LA Times investigation revealed that Purdue had for decades known about the highly addictive qualities of the drug, the company kept the misleading label on its Oxycontin bottles for five long years, until the FDA finally ordered them to strip and replace it with a warning label. By then, however, the damage had been done. Estimates show that more than 300,000 Americans have died as a direct result of their addiction.

Who exactly to blame for this mess is not for Yolanda to decide, but the moving finger is often pointed at the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma and the ones responsible for the agressive 1990s marketing blitz that catapulted Oxycontin to superstar sales and reaped a vast fortune for the family.

You see, Oxycontin — in addition to being highly addictive — is also enormously profitable. Since 1996, this single brand alone has generated what is estimated to be in excess of $35 billion in revenue for Purdue. And as a family business, revenue for Purdue is essentially revenue for the Sacklers.

The Sacklers remain (probably deliberately) low-profile, refusing nearly all media interviews and distancing themselves from the very product that pads their pocketbooks. But the New Yorker recently published an in-depth profile on the clan, and Forbes estimates their current collective net worth at $13 billion, making them one of the wealthiest families in the entire country. That’s a lot of pills!

To their credit, we suppose, the Sacklers are highly philanthropic — they have donated tens of millions of dollars to prestigious academic and art institutions (Yale, Harvard, the Brooklyn Museum among them).

But we digress. Fast forward to 2018 — Hi 22 years after Oxycontin’s debut — when a substantial estate in Bel Air transferred for a major $22,500,000. The sale appears to have been all-cash, and the mysterious entity that bought the place links back to — somewhat surprisingly — an address in Oklahoma.

It wasn’t long before Yolanda was able to connect said entity to the Sackler clan, but it was Our Mama at Variety who first pinpointed the name of the specific Sackler family member who bought the place. His name is David Sackler, and he is a gent in his late 30s. Our Mr. Sackler is the only son of Austin, Texas-based billionaire Richard Sackler, the very fellow who spearheaded the development of Oxycontin.

We don’t know much else about Mr. David Sackler — heck, we couldn’t even dig up a photo of him — but we do know that he “runs a family investment fund” and is the only member of the Sackler third generation who sits on Purdue Pharma’s board of directors. He is also married to an “art world patron” named Joss Sackler — she has more than 75,000 followers on the Instagram contraption — and together the couple have two young children.

And naturally,  can afford just about any house he pleases. So what does he please? A very grand ’80s take on contemporary, it would appear.

The house was long owned by an advertising executive named Jack Roth and was custom-built in 1987, according to public records. The approximately 4-acre estate is one of the most private in all of Bel Air. It lies hidden at the end of a gated and epicly-long driveway at the end of a small cul-de-sac in the Stone Canyon neighborhood pocket.

Interior spaces of the 9,753-square-foot palace are decidedly dated, but the views through the floor-to-ceiling windows are certainly lovely.

The kitchen is spacious and comes equipped with upgraded stainless appliances, though that grey tile floor is rather icky. There’s also a movie theater with a starlit ceiling, a game room, and a gym.

The backyard sports a full outdoor kitchen, a full-size lighted tennis court, and a pool with a spa and a raised fountain feature. The entire estate is landscaped and carefully manicured.

To Yolanda’s surprise, this is not Mr. Sackler’s only house in Los Angeles. A little research reveals that scarcely 8 months ago — in July 2017 — he paid prolific TV producer Caryn Mandabach $10,845,000 for another dated yet sublimely situated pad, this one located in the posh “Riviera” section of Pacific Palisades.

The chunky California contemporary sprawler sits on a very large one-acre lot with head-on views of the Riviera Country Club, where membership will set one back a stupendous $250,000. The 1985 multi-level structure was designed by noted architect Peter Choate and has 7 beds and 9.5 baths in nearly 7,000-square-feet of living space.

Indoors there are formal dining and living rooms, a kitchen with stainless appliances, medium-brown hardwood floors, a bunch of raggedy-looking drapes, and an awning-shaded back patio with plenty of room for lounging and entertaining.

The house itself is set towards the rear of the lot, up against the golf greens and hidden from the street out front behind a lushly landscaped front yard. The backyard features an outdoor dining/sitting area and a BBQ. Elsewhere on the grounds is a lagoon-style swimming pool with flagstone terracing and there is also a guest house of unspecified square footage.

Yolanda has no inside intel about what exactly Mr. Sackler is planning to do with his homes in Bel Air and Pacific Palisades that have combined cost him more than $33 million. But if we had to guess, we’d say that he might renovate and sell one or both of the properties at a substantial profit. If there’s one thing the Sacklers are good at, after all, it’s making money. Maybe we will see if their success in drugs also translates to success in real estate.

Anyway, according to reports, Mr. Sackler’s daddy Richard Sackler currently resides in Austin, Texas, in a house perched on top of a damn mountain. The 8,000+ square foot abode sits on a nearly 5-acre lot and sports views of the majority of Austin.

For more pics and even a video of the Austin estate, click here.

And just for shits and giggles, David Sackler’s sister Marianna Sackler — she is also a daughter of Richard Sackler, in case you’re confused — recently paid $12 million for a house in San Francisco where she lives with her hubby, a guy named James Frame.

The Sackler-Frame couple sued the owners of the vacant property next door after they discovered that they were planning to construct a giga-mansion on the premises. Oh Lordy, there’s no fight like rich folks fightin’ over mansions, right?  And for more pictures of Mrs. Sackler-Frame’s house, click here.

Listing agents (Bel Air): James Respondek & Erin Garrity, Sotheby’s International Realty
David Sackler’s agent and listing agent (Pacific Palisades): Josh Altman, Douglas Elliman

Towering far above “Billionaire’s Beach“, Pacific Coast Highway, and trendy local watering holes like Nobu is a tiny enclave that is accessed by an alarmingly steep and narrow winding road. Though less than 5 minutes’ drive to PCH, the gated community is wondrously secluded on its cliff and even the vast majority of Malibu residents are unaware it exists.

There are only 8 homes in this gated enclave — Villa Costera, they call it — all of them large, multi-million dollar properties. Some of the structures are portly enough to qualify as mansions.

A few months ago, a designer-renovated house in Villa Costera sold for a fat $10,125,000. And wouldn’tcha know, our longtime friend Vlad the Revealer at Celebrity Address Aerial quickly came a-knockin’ on Yolanda’s door with news that the property had transferred to a mysterious blind trust that links back to a Chicago law firm. Who could it be, Vlad wondered.

Well, it took Yolanda many moons to sort it all out, but eventually our investigatin’ revealed that the new owner is a woman named Karen Henrietta Keland. And while y’all may have never heard of the gal, you probably are familiar with the products her family produces. In fact, you probably have some in your house right now.

Ms. Keland, you see, is the great-great-granddaughter of S.C. Johnson, the fellow who in 1886 founded his eponymous Racine, Wisconsin-based household products company. The firm is the maker of a whole bunch of cleaning supply brands like Ziploc bags, Saran Wrap, Drano, Glade, and Raid. And many more.

Anyway, the S.C. Johnson company grew, and grew, and then grew some more. More than 130 years later, the company rakes in an estimated $7.5 billion in annual revenue and employs a staggering 12,000 people. Yet some things remaind unchanged: the firm is still headquartered in Racine, Wisconsin — albeit now in a substantially larger facility — and remains owned and tightly controlled by the Johnson family, now in their fifth generation of leadership. As they say, it’s “S.C. Johnson, a family company“.

Despite her vast personal wealth, Ms. Keland — who occasionally goes by “Henni” — remains steadfastly low-profile. We couldn’t even dig up a photo of this lady, and not for lack of trying. Yolanda does know, however, that she is in her late 60s, is unmarried, and has no children. She does, however, have one niece (whose name, confusingly, is also Karen Keland. But she goes by her middle name, Onnolee. We digress). Ms. Keland’s niece either attends or recently graduated from UCLA, so maybe she’ll be coming out to Malibu to visit her aunt’s swanky new digs.

Ms. Keland seems to have had a very enviable childhood, and not just because her late mama (also named Karen!) was a multi-billionaire. Her childhood, you see, was every architectural lover’s wet dream: she was born and raised in a Frank Lloyd Wright house — a house that he custom-built for her mother in 1954. Let’s digress real quick and rewind.

The grandfather of Ms. Keland was a guy named Herbert Fisk Johnson Sr. In the 1930s, while already a wealthy CEO from his S.C. Johnson co’s success, Mr. Johnson met ol’ FLW himself. They would forge a friendship that eventually led to Johnson commissioning Wright to design him a house near his company headquarters in Wisconsin. That house became known as Wingspread and was one of the most expensive and elaborate Wright-designed homes ever built. And construction was overseen by a young John Lautner!

Today, Wingspread is owned by the The Johnson Foundation, who have essentially bequeathed it to the public: the property is open year-round for public tours. Additionally, the 14,000-square-foot behemoth was designated a historic landmark in 1989.

Mr. Johnson’s daughter Karen Johnson Boyd — Ms. Keland’s mother — spent her teenage years growing up in Wingspread. She loved it so much, apparently, that in the early 1950s, as a 20-something-year-old heiress, she hired Wright to design her very first home.

Ms. Johnson Boyd’s father initially was reluctant to hire Wright for her — although he was a personal friend of FLW, the architect had a reputation for mismanaging money and his own home had gone way over budget — but Karen was insistent and Wright was reportedly very excited to design a home for her, as he had known her since she was just a young child.

Thus was born the Keland House, as it is known. It is a multi-winged, mostly single-story sprawler and one of the largest examples of Wright’s Usonian homes. Ms. Johnson Boyd evidently loved the place — she lived there for over 60 years, until her death in 2016 at the ripe old age of 91.

But we digress. Let’s chat about the new Malibu house that her daughter — Ms. Keland — just purchased.

At 3,910-square-feet, this is actually one of the smallest homes within the Villa Costera enclave. And online marketing materials provide almost no photographs of the home’s interior — the only ones Yolanda could find are of some of the public spaces, as shown above. We do know, however, that the structure contains 3 beds and 3.5 baths.

From what we can tell, the home has been fully renovated and offers open-plan indoor spaces with vaulted ceilings, newly-installed hardwood floors, and a renovated kitchen with a large center island and marble everything. There’s also a small table with a huge ceramic “foot”, which could be a good conversation piece.

Clearly designed for outdoor livin’ and entertaining, the house wraps around an immense courtyard of crushed gravel and enough seating options to accomodate anything from a large baby shower to an intimate, candlelit dinner party.

The property also offers a self-contained 1 bed/1 bath guest house with garage parking for two vehicles. The landscaping was designed by noted architect Maureen Barnes and the grounds boast a water feature, olive and palm trees, liquid amber trees, and a rose garden. The rambling estate additionally boasts numerous pathways and hidden outdoor nooks and crannies. Perfect for slipping away for some privacy with your hot cup of cocoa in the dewy mornin’.

The estate comprises more than four acres of land and the birds’ eye views of the coastline it provides are really rather spectacular. There are crystal-clear vistas from Point Dume all the way down to Palos Verdes. And then there’s that sea air without the traffic and audio annoyances that come from living right on the sand and/or PCH.

When she is not sunning herself in Malibu, Karen Keland bunks up in Chicago, But lo, it seems that she might be planning to desert the windy city permanently! Her longtime duplex apartment recently (in January 2018) popped up for sale.

Ms. Keland would very much like someone to pay her $2,995,000 for this duplex unit. What does one get for almost $3 million in Chicago? A fully gut-renovated apartment with 4,720-square-feet of living space (that’s way bigger than most houses, FYI) and 3 bedrooms/2.5 bathrooms.

The unit is actually a combo of two apartments (and a portion of a third) that Ms. Keland spent years renovating and piecing together to form one cohesive space. She knocked down walls ‘n shit to build this minimalist place!

Anyway, there are acres of polished white oak floorways, miles of windows, and no furniture whatsoever. Clearly, Ms. Keland has already made her move out to Malibu. (Oddly enough, she left behind thousands of books in her custom library, along with a bunch of expensive-looking artifacts).

Beware of vertigo, but the high-floor apartment (it’s located on the 55th and 56th stories!) has stunning southeast views that take in Lake Michigan and a portion of the Chicago skyline. There are also uber-expensive Viking, Miele and Gaggenau appliances in the chic kitchen, and the master bath has not one but two giant gold Buddhas watching over the toilet.

Honestly, we find the Buddhas rather creepy. We don’t like the feeling of those little gods peeking at us as we perform our ablutions. But that’s just Yolanda.

Listing agent (Chicago): Jennifer Ames, Coldwell Banker
Listing agent (Malibu): Ellen Francisco, Coldwell Banker
Selling agent (Malibu): Melanie Sommers, Pacific Union