It shouldn’t come as a major shock to anyone, but Yolanda has now heard from a handful of sources that the legally-embattled and cash-strapped firm known as Woodbridge Investments is actively looking to sell their entire portfolio of Los Angeles properties. Just last week, several of the city’s top agents — we’re talking the créme de la créme of real estate salespeople — quietly received a Request for Proposal (RFP) from the bankrupt company.

Apparently Woodbridge is asking all these folks to submit a pitch for why they should be the broker to sell off the company’s holdings. For now, we will wait to see who (probably more than one agent) winds up with the job. And what Yolanda wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall at these particular listing presentations!

Securing the Woodbridge gig would make any real estate agent’s wildest wet dream come true, Yolanda thinks. Folks must be frothing at the mouth to get this job. After all, the company owns dozens and dozens and dozens of ultra-prime properties all across LA, though most of them are located in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, and the Bird Streets. But there are others, as well — at least five parcels in Hidden Hills (CA). And then there is that $35 million Mount Olympus palace.

We have also been told by a well-placed source that at least three Woodbridge properties — two of them located in Trousdale Estates — are already quietly in escrow off-market and will soon transfer to new owners at eight-figure sale prices. When the dust finally settles, that is. Remember, any sale of a Woodbridge pad will have to be approved by the bankruptcy court.

The now-deposed king of Woodbridge, Robert Shapiro, still clings to the crown jewel of his kingdom: the Owlwood estate of Holmby Hills, which he bought in 2016 for an amazing $90 million, an amount that remains the fourth-largest price ever paid for a residential property in Southern California. To whom and for how much this property will be sold remains the biggest question of all.

While all the Woodbridge-owned homes are located in ultra-prime areas, Yolanda wonders if many of them will have to be sold at losses. While they were rollin’ in the dough, Woodbridge was known for paying top-dollar for just about any potential development site and then doing absolutely nothing to improve the properties. And demand for LA luxury residential development sites, while still very strong, just isn’t as insane as back in the 2014-2015 heyday.

But more importantly, Yolanda is worried about the impact the Woodbridge sell-off might have on the high-end market. The sudden glut of available development parcels a simultaneous sell-off could bring might effectively cripple demand everywhere. Are there even enough rich investors out there looking to buy all these properties? Yolanda kinda doubts it.

Perhaps we are are just paranoid. But as we noted back when Woodbridge first bought Owlwood — long before the Ponzi scheme allegations first surfaced — there is somethin’ shady in Memphis. Turns out we were right. And not to toot our own horn, but Yolanda has learned to trust our instincts.

Let’s see what happens.

Well, that was fast. Only two days after Yolanda wrote about it — and scarcely two weeks after first being listed — superstar realtor Kurt Rappaport’s Malibu “crash pad” sold for $11,000,000 in what was likely an all-cash deal. Though the buyer’s identity is concealed behind a blind trust, Yolanda happens to know the proud new titleholder is Michael Rapino, longtime CEO of multi-billion-dollar conglomerate Live Nation Entertainment.

Mr. Rapino hails from that wild and woolly foreign country up north — some call it Canada or America’s hat — and for the last 15 years he has been married to Star Trek actress Jolene Blalock, with whom he has three minor children.

Anyway, Mr. Rapino recently renewed his LiveNation contract for an additional five years, giving himself a base salary equivalent to $9 million in cash per annum, plus hundreds of thousands of company shares that vest over the length of his agreement. Cha-ching!

Since Yolanda wrote about this house barely two weeks ago, we don’t have much more information to add here, but below are photos and a quickie refresher to remind y’all of what this place is all about.

The oceanfront abode 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.

This, as you might expect, is not Mr. Rapino’s only eight-figure house in Los Angeles. This is merely his weekend retreat! Way back in 2013, he paid financier John Rocchio a fat $14,750,000 for a big Traditional-style mansion  compound on one of Brentwood’s best streets, located just off Mandeville Canyon.

The two-parcel estate features a gated entrance, a tree-ringed motorcourt, and a large grassy backyard. The rectangular pool is surrounded by a flagstone terrace and anchored by a large outdoor bar with BBQ and a built-in flatscreen TV. Numerous luxury features abound and include a full wine cellar, a home gym, and a formal dining room w/ a coffered ceiling. There is also a guest house and oodles of off-street parking.

Listing agent: Mark Gruskin & Kurt Rappaport, Westside Estate Agency
Michael Rapino’s agent: Mark Andrew Smith, Coldwell Banker

One thing Yolanda loves about LA — and that really separates this city from NYC and other major metropolitian areas, we think — is that when it comes to LA’s wealthiest neighborhoods, the human element is so… vivid. No, Yolanda really hasn’t been drinking this morning. What we mean by that is that the rich areas are so diverse, not necessarily in terms of culture or ethnic backgrounds but through the means these residents utilized to became wealthy. Even New York City, melting pot though it may be, has mostly just financiers and foreigners in its most expensive buildings. Over here, it’s a decidedly more cacophonous mix, which could be good or bad, depending on one’s point of view. But it certainly makes for fun blogging.

For example, we have a wide assortment of folks from the entertainment world (sports, films, music, etc). Mix in a dollop of financiers and captains of industry, a splash of tech titans, and top it off with all those peeps who inherited family money. And then we have a squeeze of wild card —  those fun people who came into money through the backdoor, so to speak. Ahem.

Sydney Holland, the lady we are discussin’ today, belongs in that last category. She is a very wealthy woman, though she is not an heiress and she does not work. She made her money the old-fashioned LA way. Can y’all guess how?

That’s right! She hooked up with a rich old dude and sugar daddy-ed him out! Classic.

If that sounds a bit crass, Yolanda apologizes. But that’s really the truth, and the truth is rarely squeaky-clean. Our Ms. Holland is the ex-girlfriend of 94-year-old media tycoon Sumner Redstone, a guy who makes do with a net worth of $4.9 billion, according to the beancounters at Forbes.

Mr. Redstone — who has looked rather like an ambulatory corpse for the last 10 years or so — is a longtime resident of Beverly Park, an (in)famous enclave that is often considered to be the most exclusive and heavily secured guard-gated community in all of the United States. It is here, at Mr. Redstone’s $20 million mansion, where our story begins.

Back in 2010, Ms. Holland was just another divorcée in her late 30s: deep in debt, driving an ol’ clunker automobile, and struggling to stay afloat in cold-hearted cesspool that is LA. She’d also had a bad luck for some time: she was a recovering alcoholic and her last boyfriend had died of a heart attack while she was having sex with him. (Egads!)

But Ms. Holland’s luck drastically changed when she met Sumner Redstone in 2010, after they were introduced by Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger. The wily Ms. Holland worked her way through a sea of ladies vying for Mr. Redstone’s affection to become one of his two main girlfriends/companions. After all, if you’re a billionaire, why settle for just one significant other?

Over the next five years, court documents would later reveal, Mr. Redstone gave Ms. Holland (and his other lady friend Manuela Herzer) cash and gifts totalling more than $150 million. Ka-ching!

Though she was never married to Mr. Redstone, our Ms. Holland was reportedly set to inherit his massive Beverly Park mansion upon his death. That plan went south, however, after Ms. Holland was scandalously caught cheatin’ with an ex-con from Arizona and quickly banished from Mr. Redstone’s presence (and barred from entering Beverly Park). But that’s all a story for another day.

Anyway, Ms. Holland and Ms. Herzer wisely invested much of their hard-earned money into real estate. Manuela Herzer lives very near to Beverly Park in a huge mansion overlooking Mulholland Drive . And she also purchased multi-million-dollar homes in the 90210 area for all three of her adult children. We digress.

Meanwhile, Ms. Holland has proven herself to be a particularly shrewd (or maybe just lucky, we dunno) investor. Back in October 2013, if y’all recall the gossip headlines, she paid loopy pop star-turned-business tycoon Jessica Simpson $6,400,000 for a house in a famously celeb-favored 90210 enclave known as Hidden Valley. After making only cosmetic improvements, Ms. Holland sold that house only a year later for $8,225,000 to A-list actress Jennifer Lawrence.

After selling her Hidden Valley house, Ms. Holland decided to try out another gated community in the B.H.P.O. area. She ended up in the notorious Mulholland Estates, a heavily secured yet oddly crime-plagued area not far from Beverly Park. It should be noted that while the community does have a 90210 zip code (and thus residents list their address as “Beverly Hills, CA 90210”), the community is miles away from the actual city of Beverly Hills and is actually — technically speaking — geographically located in the hills above the San Fernando Valley’s Sherman Oaks neighborhood.

Records show Ms. Holland paid $6,750,000 in July 2014 for her Mulholland Estates mansion, which is located at the very end of long (very long) cul-de-sac. Photos from the time she bought it show that the boxy, 1992-built Mediterranean mcmansion isn’t exactly inspiring or particularly attractive.

However, the crafty Ms. Holland gave the 7,166-square-foot place a freshening-up with the help of some snazzy new interior décor, including a bunch of astoundingly expensive art pieces by name brand folks like Jeff Koons, Retna, Andy Warhol, Lucien Smith, and Dan Colen. For more photos of her remodel, which was photographed last year by C Home, click here.

There are also vintage limestone tiles in the entryway, polished hardwood floors in the formal living and family rooms, and the kitchen features top-of-the-line appliances.

The master suite shines with its whitewashed vaulted ceiling, an all-marble bathroom, and not one but two master closets, where Ms. Holland stores her multi-color collection of 28 Hermes Birkin bags, which start at about $10,000 a pop. And the backyard? Those are James Perse chaise loungers, which retail for a pretty penny indeed.

In July 2017, a Daily Mail story indicated that Ms. Holland was looking to sell her Mulholland Estates mansion for $8 million. So the stories go, she planned to move to Brentwood because her community homeowners’ association would not allow filming. And Ms. Holland was just dying to join Real Housewives of Beverly Hills! Can y’all imagine? “Oh bother, I have to sell my mansion because my darn HOA won’t allow me to film my silly reality show!”

Anywho. Either Ms. Holland was being coy about how much money she would accept for her house or someone wanted this place very badly. Records show the house quietly transferred in late December (2017) — but not for anywhere near $8 million. Oh no. The place went for a whopping $10,200,000.

Yikes! That’s almost $3.5 million more than Ms Holland had paid only three years prior. And besides the interior decor, she only changed the pool and surrounding area!

So who is the big bucks buyer? Well, the house was purchased by a mysterious LLC with a Chicago (Illinois) address, but a little research makes clear that the new owners are a married couple named Robbie & D’Rita Robinson.

Mr. and Mrs. Robinson may not be household names, but in certain well-heeled Chicago social circles they appear to be right proper superstars. Our Mr. Robinson is a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and is currently a managing director at BDT Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm that handles investments for high net worth individuals. For the last year or so, Mr. Robinson has been on leave from BDT, as he was hand-picked by former President Obama to advise him on investments.

Like her husband, Mrs. Robinson is a busy individual — she is a philanthropist and “social impact entrepreneur” who is also the founder and CEO of Chatty Guest, a free app that “encourages collaboration, mentorship and global dialogue across disciplines”.

Yolanda is not certain if the Robinsons — who are in their early 40s and have been married 14 years, FYI — plan to relocate to LA permanently or if this is just a vacation home, but we do know that their luxury condo in Chicago is currently on the market and has already undergone several price reductions.

The 3,157-square-foot unit sits on a lower floor in the historic Palmolive Building not far from Chicago’s Gold Coast. There are 3 beds, 3.5 baths, and lots of brown-and-white tones. The building includes numerous amenities: a full gym, two covered valet parking spots, a clubhouse, and an indoor sauna.

Yet even if the apartment transfers for its current asking price of $1,800,000, it appears the the Robinsons are facing a loss on this place: they bought it way back in early 2011 for $1,850,000. Somehow, however, Yolanda is fairly certain that the Robinsons will be just fine financially — no matter what the final sale price is.

Back in Mulholland Estates, the couple will have multiple celebrity neighbors within sugar-borrowing distance. Immediately next door to their new house is an imposing mansion that was once the residence of Shaquille O’Neal and is today owned by retired Japanese pop star Kiyusuke Himuro. Their other next door neighbor is big-time producer Mark Burg, and just two doors away is the home of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo.

Also in the same gated community are the abodes of Paris Hilton, Charlie Sheen, Christina Aguilera, Vanna White, Adrienne Maloof, Big Sean, DJ Khaled, Kendall Jenner, and at least one Saudi princess.

Listing agents (Chicago): Pamela & Cameron Sage, Baird & Warner

Some time ago, as he is wont to do, our friend Vlad the Revealer at Celebrity Address Aerial rang our proverbial doorbell to breathlessly ask about a house.  Said house is a boxy contemporary thing in the proverbial heart of West Hollywood, and it recently sold to a mysterious blind trust controlled by a well-known Hollywood business manager. Yolanda was curious about the celebrity buyer’s identity, so we opened a right proper real estate investigation.

Lo and behold, much to Yolanda’s surprise, we were told the buyer of the house is not a famous entertainer but rather a local real estate agent! No, seriously. His name is Matt Altman, and he is currently with the Douglas Elliman brokerage. He also frequently pops up on that Million Dollar Listing TV show, where his brother/business partner Josh stars.

Naturally, Mr. Altman is one of the most successful agents around town and peddles some of LA’s priciest homes in the city to a variety of billionaires and assorted superstars. That has all made him a very rich man. Case in point: less than one year ago, he raked in $8,550,000 when he sold his personal residence in guard-gated Mulholland Estates to model/reality TV hog Kendall Jenner. (Mr. Altman had purchased the property only a year prior for $5.4 million from financially-beleaguered actor Charlie Sheen).

Since then, Mr. Altman’s whereabouts have been a mystery (if anyone was wondering about his whereabouts), but it seems he is willing to slum it down in WeHo for the time being. Records show that Mr. Altman’s trust paid $2,896,250 for the property, where he bunks up with his lovely wife Johanna Sicat.

Now kiddies, $2.9 million is a lot of money to most folks, but it is also nearly $500,000 less than this house sold for only 18 months prior, in December 2015.

Why the steep decline in value? Hmmm. We think it might be a combo of several factors. For one, the property was brand-new in 2015, so maybe that cool new-construction sheen wore off quickly. Perhaps the original owner just wildly overpaid. Or maybe other potential buyers were scared off by home’s connection to a particularly grisly 2016 murder. You see, the home’s original owner — the one who paid $3.4 million in 2015 — is currently incarcerated and awaiting trial for the torture killing of his girlfriend. If found guilty, he could potentially be saddled with the death penalty.

In May 2017, Canadian construction heir Blake Leibel murdered his model girlfriend (and mother of his infant daughter) Iana Kasian. The case made headlines due to both the graphic nature of the slaying and Mr. Leibel’s wealth. He is the son of Canadian construction magnate Lorne Leibel, and last year his brother Cody paid more than $25 million for a big house up in guard-gated Beverly Park. (But we digress…)

We refuse to recount all the horrific murder details here — call us a snowflake if you must, but it is simply all too shocking and might upset the young’uns who frequent Yolanda’s blog. But suffice to say that poor Miss Kasian was scalped, and her body completely drained of blood. If y’all can stomach the macabre, click here to read more.

Yolanda is not certain if Mr. Leibel had even moved into this house by the time the murder occurred, but we do know the killing did not take place here — rather, it went down in a nearby West Hollywood apartment. But now let’s thankfully get on to more pleasant things: the house in question.

While the .14-acre lot won’t win any size queen awards, the size is typically for this area and the house is fully hedged and gated for privacy. There is a two-car garage and off-street space for two more vehicles on the driveway.

The metal front door swings open to an airy inner atrium, which in turn leads to the 4,800-square-foot house. As is typical with most contemporaries in this area, the first floor is essentially one giant room of intertwined public spaces.

There is a formal dining area, a living area, a kitchen with high-end appliances, and acres of walnut hardwood flooring.

The master suite has a sitting area, a fireplace plus a cubbyhole to store one’s wood (ahem) and a large walk-in closet large enough to accommodate most designer wardrobes. The master bath takes a more austere approach with grey porcelain tiles, but it is equipped with a party sized-shower, dual vanities, and a soaking tub.

(And check out that Jeff Koons balloon dog hiding under the staircase!)

In addition to the master bath, there are 4 additional bedrooms and 5 more baths. Other spaces include an office and a rather cramped gym. The backyard contains a saltwater pool, but the standout outdoor space is the 1,600-square-foot rooftop deck, with its fireplace and numerous options for lounging. Plus, check out that over-the-treetops view of the city.

Mr. Altman and Ms. Sicat put this house up for lease at $22,500 per month earlier this year (2018), though as far as Yolanda knows they continue to reside there.

As for Mr. Leibel, records show he still owns a stately 1926 Tudor house in Beverly Hills for which he paid about $3.8 million in 2014. This house, Yolanda believes, is currently occupied by his ex-wife and their two young sons.

As we were beginngin to write up this story, Yolanda received word from a snitch that Mr. Altman’s older (and arguably more famous) brother Josh had also quietly completed the acquisition of a new home. If y’all care about the Altmans – or heck, even if you don’t — stay tuned.

Listing agent (lease): Matt Altman, Douglas Elliman

Over the weekend, Yolanda was reviewing the latest LA real estate transactions and we stumbled across this rather lovely mini-estate. Situated in the western part of the “Beverly Hills flats” neighborhood, the gracious 1938 Georgian Revival has a self-contained guesthouse and detached garage on a .28-acre lot.

According to tax information, the house quietly sold less than a month ago (in February 2018) for $6,700,000, and Yolanda quickly discovered that the new owner is top LA realtor/Bravolebrity Josh Altman and his wife Heather Bilyeu Altman.

(For the record, Mr. and Mrs. Altman’s names do not appear on the deed. The purchaser was a blind trust whose trustee is a well-known business manager. But hey, this is Hollywood. Even our real estate agents — especially our millionaire agents — need business managers).

Yolanda has to admit that we are a little shocked at Mr. Altman’s choice of home. We see him as the type of guy who would be happiest in a glassy, party-sized contemporary up in the hills somewhere. And indeed, Mr. Altman has lived in the foothills up above the Sunset Strip — records show that he has not yet sold his previous house, a rather fugly Richard Landry-designed sprawler up near the top of the Bird Streets neighborhood. Our boy picked up that place back in April 2016 for $6,221,250.

But maybe fatherhood has mellowed Mr. Altman (he and the missus are parents to a young daughter).

Anyway, the house was sold to the Altmans by Roxanne Storey, ex-wife of Reverend Tim Storey, the ordained minister/televangelist/motivational speaker whose parishioners/clients are some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Yolanda figures Ms. Storey must’ve had her ex bless her home in God’s name, because the $6.7 million sale price is almost $3 million more than she paid a decade ago. Hallelujah!

A gated red brick walkway leads past a meticulously maintained front garden (full of roses and such) to the stately 5,004-square-foot red brick residence. The ol’ gurl’s white exterior contrasts nicely with her black shutters. Four slender columns gracefully travel up to the roofline. Damn, this gal knows how to dress!

Inside, the done-done-done interior shows nicely with its checkerboard marble floors in the entryway, the ebonized walnut floors in other public spaces, and the designer-done kitchen with its top-notch Viking appliances.

The cozy family room has a custom oak ceiling and both it and the living room have fireplaces. Also somewhere downstairs is a library/study with real books on real bookshelves. How quaint!

The 5-bed/4-bath main house has a covered loggia out back with a dining space and a fireplace for those cool spring nights.

A dog-run-sized patch of grass leads down to the saltwater swimming pool and the raised spa. There’s a proper pool cabana plus a 1-bed/1-bath guest house of indeterminate square footage.

Marketing materials shout about how this place “is elegant luxury minutes from Rodeo Drive & the Golden Triangle“. And that is true — it is conveniently situated walking distance from high-end shopping and dining options. Which is nice, but it’s almost a little too conveniently situated for Yolanda. The house is only about 30 seconds from the busy-busy-busy intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, which means the Altmans might have to put up with traveling exhaust fumes and such.

But if you crazy kids fancy a little hustle ‘n bustle with your living circumstances, this is a winner.

Listing agent: Greg Engel, Compass
Josh Altman’s agent: Matt Altman, Douglas Elliman

Although she was unceremoniously banished from the guard-gated Beverly Park community and financially cut off by her vengeful 94-year-old ex-boyfriend Sumner Redstone back in 2015, professional gal-around-town Sydney Holland has still got plenty of cash. And she is not afraid to flaunt it.

After selling her old house in the Mulholland Estates enclave at a major profit, Ms. Holland packed up her sea of designer goods and decamped to parts previously unknown. It took some time for Yolanda to find the ol’ gal, but we eventually tracked her down way out west, in the most fashionable part of Pacific Palisades: the Riviera neighborhood.

Ms. Holland’s new house is only marginally smaller and less expensive that the big 90210 pad she just sold. But unfortunately for y’all snoops, the deal went down off-market. However, we did manage to dig up a few old photos from when the house was listed at $8,999,000 some time ago. Records show that Ms. Holland coughed up an even-steven $9,000,000 (through a blind trust) for the house in January (2018).

The seller, records, reveal, was Maura Kaplan, the wealthy daughter of legendary comedian Leslie Nielsen. Our Ms. Kaplan purchased the property way back in late 2000 (when she was still a single woman) for just $2,000,000 and then spent a couple years constructing a 6,620-square-foot Traditional mansion with 7 beds and 8 baths.

Why the reason for the hush-hush and quick sale off-market? Yolanda thinks it might have something to do with the fact that Ms. Kaplan filed for divorce from her longtime hubby Neil Kaplan in late 2017. Sad! But not so sad for Ms. Holland, who got herself a big new house thanks to the Kaplans going splitsville.

The walled and gated .34-acre lot sits conveniently just a block off Sunset Boulevard on one of the Riviera’s priciest streets. Partially shielded behind a young liquid amber tree is the front-facing three car garage and gated driveway. A separate gate leads up steps to the front door.

Things are kept muted and clean-lined inside. Medium-brown oak floors grace the “expansive” hallways. Downstairs there’s a formal library-sitting room with a very large fireplace and a wardrobe that may or may not lead to Narnia.

As y’all might expect, the kitchen has top-of-the-line appliances and an island with marble slab countertops and a farmhouse-style sink. An adjacent butler’s pantry provides numerous storage options, and a service staircase leading from the kitchen is perfect for Ms. Holland’s domestic workers. Yolanda has heard that she has several nannies, a chef, and a driver for her three toddler-age children (all born via surrogate, father unknown).

Perhaps surprisingly, the house does not sport a formal dining room. Maura Kaplan instead opted to create a more informal dining/living space that combines the dining room and family room into one open area. That room opens via French doors to the home’s lushly landscaped backyard. Naturally there’s an outdoor fireplace, dining table, and even an organic vegetable garden for Ms. Holland’s gardener to tend.

Yolanda assumes without any direct knowledge that Ms. Holland will soon bring in her longtime decorator — West Hollywood-based Tracie Butler — to glam up the interiors with some bright pops of color and the preposterously pricey artwork she has accumulated. And perhaps add a new closet for her 28 Birkin bags (one for every hue of the rainbow, and then some).

Some of Ms. Holland’s nearest new neighbors on the Riviera include actress Jessica Capshaw, blockbuster film producer Kevin Feige, Oxycontin heir David Sackler, and bazillionaire comedian Larry David.

In addition to the $10.2 million mansion she just sold to Chicago-based financier Robbie Robinson, Ms. Holland sold Jennifer Lawrence a 90210 house for $8,225,000 back in 2014. Records show Ms. Holland still owns a $2.9 million contemporary abode in the proverbial heart of West Hollywood. The 2,583-square-foot boxy contemporary was purchased back in 2014.

Our gurl also once owned a multi-million dollar home in Sedona, Arizona in which she reportedly never spent a night — she would fly into town via private jet, share a quick tryst with her ex-con lover, and then zoom back later that evening to Beverly Park, where she waited on her “official” boyfriend, wrinkly ol’ Mr. Redstone.

Alas, once Ms. Holland’s cheatin’ was discovered, she sold the Sedona house for just $2,950,000 — a whopping $550,000 less than she had paid less than two years prior, in late 2014. The buyer, in case anyone was wondering, was a meat company owner from Omaha, Nebraska.

Yes you read right — a meat mogul. Steaks and all that.

Put on y’all’s thinking caps and you might recall a massive (and massively minimalist) compound in Bel Air that was featured on a blog some time ago. Yolanda blabbed all about this place last September (2017), right when it had first been pocket-listed with a scary $125 million pricetag.

Though the property never officially hit the open market, records show it transferred in early March (2018), albeit for a lower $85,000,000 final sale price. However, that still makes it one of the top 10 biggest residential sales in Southern California history. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the sale.

Naturally, Yolanda was desperate to know who the billionaire buyer was, and so we quickly started slappin’ anyone and everyone to get an answer. Lo and behold, records show the property was acquired by a mysteriously-named corporation that is easily linked to a very wealthy (but very low-profile) CEO. His name is Hideki Tomita, and he hails from Tokyo, Japan.

While Mr. Tomita may not sport a household name, his Dip Corporation — an online employment agency, we gather — has for several years been ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in all of Japan. Founded by Mr. Tomita back in 1997, the publicly-traded firm has over 1,000 employees and a current market capitalization of $1.2 billion. And according to Yolanda’s research, Mr. Tomita — through shares vested in himself individually and in companies he controls — still owns nearly 50% of the company, which would make his net worth at least $500 million. On paper, that is.

Yolanda has already written extensively about the Bel Air property, but suffice to say that the land was acquired was back in 2002 for $20,750,000 by beer heiress Ellen Bronfman and her hubby Andrew Hauptman from media mogul Kevin Wendle. The Bronfman-Hauptmans then spent several years (and no doubt many millions of dollars) to construct a John Pawson-designed minimalist mega-mansion with approximately 19,000-square-feet of living space on a portion of the 4-acre compound. The abode was featured in the September 2011 issue of Architectural Digest. 

The flat-roofed architectural extravaganza was completed in 2009, and the residence appears smaller than its mega-mansion-sized 20,000-square-feet — or at least it does to Yolanda in photos. The structure consists of two slender boxes — one cantilevered over the other — plus a subterranean level that features a screening room, staff quarters, a children’s playroom, and storage space. The home’s exterior is clad in stucco accented by red cedar trim.

The master bath is a built-in soaking tub with Dornbracht fittings looking out into a courtyard featuring with an outdoor shower, a hot tub, and firepit.

It may look basic, but the appliances in this kitchen are probably worth more than 99% of folks earn in an entire year. That’s a super-expensive La Cornue range, the sink is Caesarstone, and the fittings are by Dornbracht. The dining room has crystal-clear views of the Los Angeles basin (on a clear day, natch). And there’s a outdoor dining room, too. The negative-edge swimming pool has city lights views.

Acres of oak flooring fill the home. The monolithic double-height dining room is completely featureless, save for a fireplace.

This compound additionally features a 6,341-square-foot Traditional-style mansion built in 1941 and designed by venerable American architect Paul Williams. There are 5 beds and 5 baths (including maid’s quarters), a master suite with a sitting room and fireplace, and a privately-situated pool.

Yolanda has no inside intel about why Mr. Tomita suddenly decided he needs an $85 million Bel Air compound — or what he plans to do with the property, for that matter — but we imagine that the complex could be easily subdivided into two smaller estates, either of which could potentially be sold off for tens of millions or used as an income-generating cash cow.

In any case, an $85 million Bel Air purchase seems like an unusually large acquisition for a guy who is clearly fabulously wealthy but has never before appeared on an international wealth ranking and has no known business interests here in LA, right? So Yolanda imagines we will be hearing more about this sale and the reasons why in the coming months. For now, however, we shall have to use our imagination to guess what inspired Mr. Tomita to make such a big splash into our market.

As for Mr. Hauptman and Ms. Bronfman, they have already “downsized” to a $16 million mansion in Brentwood Park, one of the priciest neighborhoods in all of LA. Their new spec-mansion is comparatively puny with approximately 12,000-square-feet of living space, but it is fully loaded with luxury features such as oak floors, a temperature-controlled wine cellar, a gym, and a basement movie theater.

Listing agent: Kurt Rappaport, Westside Estate Agency

Today’s story comes to y’all via special request from a guy names Tim Bucktwo. That is not his real name, of course, but suffice to say that Mr. Bucktwo is a subscriber to Yolanda’s silly blog. How sweet! And our Mr. Bucktwo is also a devoted fan of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.

Now, Yolanda also watches Stranger Things — if any of y’all have not watched it,  we would recommend not starting unless you’ve got several hours to spare, it’s strangely addictive — and we were more than a little amused by the performance of star Winona Ryder, who throughout the first season hacks apart her little house until little else remains besides a jumbled mess of wooden beams and ugly ’80s-era wallpaper. Oh, and she also “renovates” the place with help from some (indoor) Christmas lights and the ABCs.

Now, kiddies, let us first get the proverbial elephant in the room outta the way: Ms. Ryder is a talented veteran acress who has won many awards and achieved A-list-level success in her industry. Yet people still flap their lips about that 2001 shoplifting incident that unfortunately marred her career. Ugh! Get over it, y’all. Come on — that was in 2001! Seventeen years ago. And the lady did her time and paid her fine.

And come on. Who hasn’t fantasized about grabbing the latest Givenchy whatever from Saks or Bloomie’s and just runnin’ out the front door, sirens blazing and a million cops hot on our tail?

Yolanda has not fantasized about that, of course. We just used one of our former husbands’ credit cards and never once looked back. But we digress…

Anyway, Mr. Bucktwo asked about Ms. Ryder’s real-life residential circumstances. That interested Yolanda, because we hadn’t heard anything from Ms. Ryder on that front since 2011, when she sold her Sunset Strip-area house for $3,675,000. But last year, it turns out, Ms. Ryder had “her house” in Beverly Hills photographed in Architectural Digest.

However, kiddies, Yolanda’s investigation revealed that Ms. Ryder does not live in Beverly Hills. Yolanda is not even sure where that Beverly Hills house is or if Ms. Ryder still owns it — whatever the case, she is long gone from there.

Anyway, to summarize: in real life Ms. Ryder is a rich lady and thus she lives in rich lady circumstances. It took us some time to dig it up, but we finally discovered that she secretly paid $2,200,000 through a mysterious blind trust for a house perched near the top of the celebrity-soaked Outpost Estates neighborhood, in the eastern Hollywood Hills. The property is but a 5-minute drive to Hollywood and to popular neighborhood hiking destination Runyon Canyon.

Although this sale went down more than a year ago — in November 2016 — it does not appear as though any of our celebrity house gossip website compadres have written about this transaction. So discuss today, we shall.

The two-story Mediterranean casa was built in 1947, per records, and weighs in at a rather modest 2,154-square-feet of living space. Although the .33-acre lot also is not especially spacious, the property is unique in that it has no neighbors on any side: the structure is positioned on a private peninsula that is surrounded by road on three sides and borders open land around the back. Perfect for a celeb.

Out front, the property sports a gated entryway anchored by a brick courtyard and a fountain. On one side of the peninsula is a two-card garage, and privately situated around back is an oval swimming pool.

Both the family and living rooms sport fireplaces, and the petite dining room overlooks both the front and back yard. The kitchen has a bar area that overlooks the family room, which in turn opens via French doors to the outside in classic California style.

Speaking of the kitchen, it features upmarket stainless appliances and a rather tacky-lookin’ pot rack. We hope Ms. Ryder had the good sense to ditch that upon move-in.

The house has three bedrooms, at least one of which is on ground level. The master suite is upstairs and looks cozy with the sitting area and fireplace. It also overlooks bthe backyard pool area, which is hedged and gated for the ultimate celeb-style privacy.

Some of Ms. Ryder’s nearest famous neighbors in Outpost Estates include Grindr founder Joel Simkhai — who broke the Outpost Estates record last year with his $10,500,000 purchase — Duran Duran member John Taylor, and One Direction member Louis Tomlinson, who resides in a $7 million pad.

Listing agent: Ron de Salvo, Coldwell Banker
Winona Ryder’s agent: Aileen Comora, The Agency

Although much media attention is focused on the burgeoning tech industry — the ascension of the Facebook, Apple, Google and their ilk have been chronicled by everyone, and it seems as though there’s a new Silicon Valley startup billionaire every damn day — there is another industry that is minting bazillionaires real quick.

Yolanda is talking about the beauty industry, of course. Over the past few years — and arguably caused by the advent of the Instagram selfies craze — the traditionally unsexy cosmetics game has become crowded with upstart players, many of whom have recently sold out to larger, well-established makeup giants. Take IT Cosmetics, which sold for a $1.2 billion last year (its founder subsequently bought a big Brentwood pad to celebrate). Other newish brands such as Too Faced, Urban Decay, and Becca all sold out for hundreds of millions (or more, in certain cases). Even celebrities like Rihanna and Kylie Jenner are reaping untold millions from the cosmetics craze.

There is also another massive acquisition that recently allowed the founders to quietly acquire a massive compound in the San Fernando Valley. But that’s a story we shall save for next week.

Anyway, although it was never officially listed on the open market, a sprawling estate in the fashionable Pacific Palisades Riviera recently sold for $27,375,000. This transaction is noteworthy both because of the price — we think this might be the second-biggest sale ever in the Palisades — and because of the pad’s location: it lies directly below Steven Spielberg’s enormous hilltop compound.

Property records reveal that the main residence has about 5,800-square-feet of living space, though it was marketed at the significantly more substantial figure of 8,500. Yolanda is guessing that the discrepancy might have something to do with the compound’s guest house.

The estate was never listed on the open market, but it had been quietly advertised for sale as a $30 million pocket listing by a top local agent. Records indicate that the compound last changed hands many decades ago.

Though shielded behind an anonymously named LLC, the new owner is a woman named Carisa Janes. Our Ms. Janes is the  CEO of Hourglass Cosmetics, a Venice, CA-based “luxury, high-performance” makeup brand that she founded in 2004.

In 2017, after years of high-paced growth, the company was acquired by Unilever. Since terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, we cannot say for certain how much cash Ms. Janes raked in. But estimations put the dollar value at somewhere between $250 and $300 million.

Whatever the final sale price, it was obviously plenty. The very rich (net worth unknown) Ms. Janes just bought a $27 million house! How much in annual property taxes will she be paying, y’all? $300k? More?

Our lovely Ms. Janes has long been married to a Beverly Hills-based attorney named Jay Levitt. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Levitt retired from his law practice in 2017, the same year that his wife sold her company and became a mega-millionaire. While the couple have no children, they are parents to several “furbabies”. (Those are also known as dogs, for all you non-pet owners.)

Now we know Yolanda might take some heat for this, but we only have two photos to share with y’all. All we know is that the house itself is surprisingly modest for $27 million. Obviously the real value is in the 5.67 acres of land — that makes it one of the largest properties on the Riviera — and the epic privacy offered here. There’s also that ocean view, which is pretty sick.

Records show that Ms. Janes and Mr. Levitt have long owned a multi-million dollar home in the resort town of Palm Desert, CA. Their current main residence, however, is a Spanish-style house located on the water in the trendy Venice canals area. (We’re talking Venice, CA, not ol’ Italy. Obviously.)

The photos above show how the house looked when the couple picked it up for $2,750,000 back in 2013. The 3-bed/2.5-bath 3,247-square-foot property is squeezed onto a microscopic .07-acre lot. That might make it one of the smallest residences (by acreage) Yolanda has ever discussed! No wonder Ms. Janes and Mr. Levitt want some space in their next place.

Anyway, in late 2016, Ms. Janes and Mr. Levitt had their Venice house photographed for Covateur magazine, and it appears to Yolanda as though the couple have substantially renovated the structure since their 2013 purchase. The new look is contemporary, elegant, and filled with lots of white paint, white oak hardwood, and Carrara marble.

Back to the Palisades. We really have no idea what Ms. Janes’ (and Mr. Levitt’s) plans are for the sprawling estate. Maybe they’ll renovate and move in to the fairly humble abode. Or maybe they’ll bulldoze it and build a “green-themed” mega-mansion with an eye to sustainability and conservation, no doubt at extraordinary expense.

Don’t laugh. It has happened before, and Ms. Janes most assuredly has the financial firepower to make it happen again. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll hit up Yolanda to come visit when it is all done! Pretty please, Ms. Janes?

Listing agent: Dan Urbach, The Agency

Anyone worth their mettle knows that a knack for attracting attention and courting controversy is a far more marketable commodity than any traditional “talent” these days. At least when it comes to generatin’ stacks of cash. Just ask that squawking “Cash me ousside” chicken and the Paul bros. Or even our beloved Kardashians, who arguably redefined the genre and took it to new lofty billionaire heights.

Among this new wave of entertainers is a man named David Andrew Burd. For those of you unfamiliar with his name, our Mr. Burd is a 30-year-old fella from Philadelphia who was not blessed in life with rich parents, good looks, or any traditional talent. He’s an average dude in many ways. But he has a college education and he’s certainly smart enough to know an opportunity when he sees one. And so, armed with the publicity-assuring moniker “Lil Dicky“, he has risen to fame and fortune through the back door. So to speak. Ahem.

Full disclosure: before he bought the house we are about to discuss — in late March (2018) — Yolanda had never previously heard of Mr. Dicky. And just to remind y’all, we are an 83 year old grandmother who has become jaded with life. Three ex-husbands and a gasoline-guzzlin’ Cadillac will do that to you. So when we went to conduct research on Mr. Dicky — as we do everyone whose houses we discuss — suffice to say we were left distinctly unimpressed.

By research, we mean that we forced ourselves to watch his YouTube videos. We do apologize to any Lil Dicky fans reading this, but Yolanda does not understand the appeal of some dude “rapping” about how little money he has or how big of a loser he may or may not be. We also don’t understand the appeal of some dude rapping about how much money and how many “bitches” he has, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, Mr. Dicky’s latest hit — a collaboration with the troubled Chris Brown — seems manufactured specifically to generate controversy. And generate it has, to the tune of #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. Cha-ching!

But who cares about what Yolanda thinks? Obviously the gimmick works quite well for Mr. Dicky’s pocketbook. Less than five years after he begged for money through Kickstarter, Mr. Dicky can now afford to buy a multi-million-dollar house in Venice (CA), one of the hottest real estate markets this side of the Mississippi. You know you love them apples.

Records show that Mr. Dicky coughed up an even-steven $2,500,000 for the 2,162-square-foot cottage, which sits just a couple blocks from the hopelessly trendy Abbott Kinney Boulevard. A quaint white picket fence (with a vine-covered arbor) surrounds the property. The lot spans a microscopic .07-acre, typical of tightly-packed Venice. Despite the close proximity to neighbors, the house is shielded on both sides by riotous thickets of trees and privet hedges. Behind the house and accessed by an alleyway is a one-car garage.

Though originally built in 1922, the vaguely Craftsman-style cottage was recently re-imagined by prolific local designer Barbara Bestor. The main floor features a skylit open floor plan equipped with a combo living room/library and a formal dining area.

The kirchen rather conveniently (or awkwardly, depending on one’s point of view) sits smack-dab in the middle of the home. There are upgraded stainless appliances and adjacent walls of glass doors on either side that lead to various outdoor areas. Elsewhere on the main level is a guest bedroom plus a full bathroom.

The top floor features another guest bedroom and the surprisingly spacious master suite, which has a writing desk nook, a bathroom with a glass-walled shower and soaking tub, and private stair access to a attic area, which is perfect as a den retreat for Mr. Dicky. Just watch your head, boy!

The master suite’s attic space also has private access to a small rooftop deck that has treetop views of the neighborhood (and some power lines, too). Yolanda loves all the potted plants.

Within walking distance from Mr. Dicky’s pad is the $4.6 million home of Game of Thrones princess Emilia Clarke, the $5.6 million pad of tech CEO Walter Scopely, and the starter cottage of billionaire heiress Adriana Cargill. Maybe his next hit song will feature scenes from the monthly neighborhood cookout?

Listing agent: Juliette Hohnen, Douglas Elliman
Lil Dicky’s agent: Jacqueline Cahen, Compass

Although it has already been reported in just about every real estate gossip publication, Yolanda will remind y’all that controversial blockbuster film producer Joel Silver (The Matrix, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Predator) sold his massive pad on Malibu’s insanely pricey Carbon Beach just last week for $38,000,000 in an all-cash deal.

While $38 million is a life-changing fortune to 99.9% of folks in this world, Yolanda wonders how happy Mr. Silver and his longtime wife Karyn actually were with the final sale price. The couple originally wanted $60 million for the property and the last asking price was $52 million. That means the buyer acquired the parcel at a 27% discount, which is pretty damn huge as real estate discounts go. Still, the Silvers received a lot more than the $14,375,000 they originally paid way back in 2003. (However, records show they borrowed massive sums of money against the property, so how much they actually profited will likely remain a mystery, but we digress).

Y’all can decide among yourselves whether the buyer was just a great negotiator of if the house was massively overpriced. (For the record, we happen to think it is likely a mixture of both.)

Anyway, $38 million is still a huge sale, so Yolanda was naturally curious about the new owner’s identity. But silly us! We should have known immediately who it was.

Lo and behold, we discovered that the mysterious individual is none other than the King of Malibu himself: tech bajillionaire Larry Ellison, arguably the world’s foremost collector of trophy real estate.

According to Forbes, Mr. Ellison is the 10th-richest human on the planet with an unfathomable $56.3 billion to his name. Thus, it should come as no surprise that he can afford one or two very expensive houses. Or in his case, twelve. Yes, twelve oceanfront houses — and those are just the ones he owns on Malibu’s Carbon Beach, also known as Billionaires’ Beach. Yolanda tabulated all of Mr. Ellison’s purchases very carefully and we are quite certain that this is his twelfth — or 13th, depending on how you count a certain two-parcel property — home purchase on Malibu’s most exclusive strip of sand.

Since 2002, Mr. Ellison has spent $229,044,000 on his dozen Carbon Beach homes. The cheapest was purchased for $4,800,000, but the average acquisition price was a much more lofty $19,087,000. That means Mr. Ellison spent a small fortune (or a large fortune to most folks) twelve times. And that does not include his Carbon Beach commercial holdings, which push the value up to $300 million+ and include the super-trendy Nobu Malibu restaurant.

Just some fun facts for y’all to mull over. Sorta makes your heads spin, don’t it?

The most expensive single Carbon Beach acquisition to date in Mr. Ellison’s portfolio is the $48,000,000 he paid last year for wealthy widow Lisette Ackerberg’s contemporary mansion extravaganza, which is just two doors down from the house he just acquired from Mr. Silver. The Ackerberg-cum-Ellison property was designed by #MeToo-tainted “starchitect” Richard Meier, in case anyone was wondering.

So why did Mr. Ellison buy the Silver property? Just to add one more notch to his Gucci belt?

It is worth noting that although Mrs. Ackerberg’s property sporting a full-size tennis court, a public accessway dispute eventually forced her to remove it and replace it with a smaller garden and an open walkway. Thus Mr. Silver’s house was publicly marketed as “the only tennis court property on the beachfront“. And Mr. Ellison is known to be an avid tennis fan (and tennis player).

However, kiddies, Yolanda happens to know that there is one other Carbon Beach estate with a tennis court. That would be billionaire Michael Milken’s house, which he bought some years back. But Mr. Milken’s tennis court is smaller than Larry’s so there is that. Maybe the Silver-Ellison house is the only Carbon Beach property with a full-size tennis court?

Another interesting note is that the house between Mr. Ellison’s two newest Carbon Beach mansions has a couple claims to fame: in the 1990s, the property was famously owned by Demi Moore and Bruce Willis. Since July 2000, however, the house has been the property of Matt Groening, the widely acclaimed creator of The Simpsons and Futurama. 

Property records show that Mr. Groening originally paid $7,500,000 for this house, though Yolanda would bet our first grandchild that the house has tripled in value in the past 18 years. And given that Mr. Groening owns at least a couple other multi-million-dollar spreads in the Malibu/Santa Monica area, we don’t think he would be opposed to selling out for the right amount. Got another $20-$25 million to spare, Larry?

But we digress. Today we shall take a quick look at Mr. Ellison’s newest home.

The manse is hidden from the freeway (aka Pacific Coast Highway) out front by a curved brick wall with inset gates. Beyond is a tranquil courtyard area with a fountain and walkway that leads to the home’s double front doors.

Indoor spaces feature lots of wood and painted brick. Soaring, skylight-equipped ceilings and bright pops of color in the interior decor set off what would otherwise be a rather grim and dim space.

The main house features 5,879-square-feet of living space with 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, and a detached two-story guest house (of unknown size) includes another 2 bedroom suites and a two-car garage. The master suite in the main residence has walls of glass, a sitting area, and a private covered balcony overlooking the backyard.

The backyard is mostly free of greenery. Instead there is a massive red brick terrace — part of which is tented for sshade — and a dark-bottom swimming pool with a diving board, plus a tiny spa. Oh, and there’s that tennis court.

No word on what Mr. Ellison plans to do with Mr. Silver’s old house, but based on the deeply discounted sale price — and Mr. Ellison’s penchant for property perfectionism — an educated guess would be that the mansion is destined for a comprehensive remodel, if not a total teardown. Y’all can bet on it.

As you can see, Mr. Ellison still has a ways to go until he owns the beachfront in its entirety, but he has made significant ownership inroads on Malibu’s most coveted strip of sand, which has only about 70 private residences (plus a variety of commercial properties and condo complexes).

In addition to his Carbon Beach holdings, Mr. Ellison owns a plethora of other Malibu properties, including a massive compound on Cross Creek Road in the guard-gated Serra Retreat community. Then he has a San Francisco mansion, a $100+ million Japanese-themed compound in Woodside, CA, a Gilded Age mansion in the tony Rhode Island city of Newport, and a sprawling estate in the desert resort community of Rancho Mirage, CA that has its own private 18-hole golf course. And he also owns 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanaii, just in case anyone forgot.

Listing agent: Judy Feder, Hilton & Hyland
Larry Ellison’s agent: Kurt Rappaport, Westside Estate Agency

The cities of Calabasas and Hidden Hills in the far western San Fernando Valley suburbs are known for their large concentrations of famous residents, most of whom hail from the music and professional sports industries. So when our longtime friend Vlad the Revealer (owner of the Celebrity Address Aerial website) asked us to investigate a mysterious blind trust that recently paid $2,650,000 for a big Calabasas house, Yolanda obviously could not resist.

Turns out, as we soon discovered, the new owner is a young man named Kendrick Duckworth, better-known to his millions of fans as Kendrick Lamar. The 30-year-old Mr. Lamar was famously born and raised in the rough LA neighborhood of Compton before becoming a famous platinum-selling rapper.

Now, for any of you Kendrick Lamar fans who think it might be cute to roll by for a quick peek at his new house, don’t bother. First of all, Mr. Lamar’s new pad is located deep in a guard-gated community known as Calabasas Park Estates. Unless y’all already live in the enclave or know somebody inside, all you will see are tall fences and security guards.

Secondly, Yolanda happens to know that this house is not even occupied by Mr. Lamar. Rather, the property currently houses his mother, Paula Oliver, his 17-year-old sister Kayla, and Kayla’s two young children.

In addition to Paula and Kayla and her kids, we believe there are also a couple other unidentified Lamar family members living here, one of whom may or may not be Mr. Lamar’s father Kenny Duckworth, a former Compton drug dealer.

However many of Mr. Lamar’s relatives reside here, they still have plenty of room to relax in the 6-bed, 5.5-bath house, which sports a generous 5,433-square-feet of living space. There is also a three-car attached garage, which the family will also appreciate. Paula Oliver rolls around Calabasas in an $80,000 Mercedes-Benz SUV (bought for her by her son) and little sister Kayla makes do with a $25,000 Toyota Camry that big bro bought her as a high-school graduation present.

It’s all certainly a big come-up for the fam. For many years they reportedly survived on welfare and section 8 housing. But now they can afford to live wherever they please. After all, Mr. Lamar has won 12 Grammy Awards, sold millions of records, and even met Barack Obama, who has said that Mr. Lamar’s song “How Much A Dollar Cost” was his favorite of 2015.

The home’s awkward-looking architecture is somewhat masked by carefully-manicured ivy and hedges. Originally built in 1998, the structure displays many elements of late-90s-era suburban mcmansions: lots of beige indoors and out, a “grand” staircase, and some curious details like that wart-lookin’ second-story room that protrudes out over the garage.

Speaking of the afore-mentioned three-car garage, there is room in the driveway for five additional vehicles. A slim walkway leads to a slim courtyard and a slim front door.

Perhaps the home’s niftiest feature is the fireplace-equipped living room, which converts into a screening area with a projection screen. The formal dining room looks out over the backyard, while the kitchen has granite countertops and stainless steel Viking appliances.

It all looks comfy but very monochromatic, no? Even the tile and hardwood floors are the same shade of beige!

The listing does not feature any photos of the master bedroom, but promises it is “massive” with a double-sided fireplace, his-and-hers closets, and an attached gym.

Yolanda’s favorite part of the mini-estate is the sprawling backyard, which overlooks the rugged Santa Monica mountains.  There is a covered loggia with a firepit, an outdoor kitchen, and a free-form swimming pool and spa. Property records indicate the lot is a not-particularly expansive .31-acre, but it appears larger to us. At least judging based on the pics.

For what it is worth, the property backs directly up to the 106-acre Avalon Ranch, which sold back in 2015 for $13,950,000, an amount that remains the most ever paid for a residential property in Calabasas. The buyer, in case anyone was curious, was electronics heiress Katherine Strasburg, who already has the property back up for sale with a fat $14,900,000 price tag.

For such a famous and celebrated person, Kendrick Lamar is notoriously private, at least when it comes to his personal life. That’s a real rarity in this Instagram and Snapchat era, and Yolanda finds it rather refreshing. Our Mr. Lamar rarely posts on social media and Yolanda admits we have no idea where he and his longtime fiancée Whitney Alford currently reside. It does not appear that they own anything else substantial in the LA area. But, as y’all should know, appearances can be deceiving.

Listing agent: Jennifer Winchell, Rodeo Realty
Kendrick Lamar’s agent: Kathy Tyndall, Re/Max Estate Properties

The San Fernando Valley has long served as the butt of many a corny Angeleno’s jokes, particularly haughty Angelenos who reside on LA’s Westside. Folks out there like to imagine themselves superior to the “poor and trashy” individuals in the SFV. And yes, even Yolanda has been guilty of poking fun at the Valley for a few cheap laughs. Just once or twice, we promise.

But lo, from the exhaust fumes of traffic-clogged Ventura Boulevard springs wealth. The median sale Valley price recently hit an unprecedented $700,000. Peeps out there are raking in the dough!

Yes, y’all, the Valley has officially arrived. And Yolanda figures that now is a perfect time to discuss the biggest residential compound purchase in the area’s history.

Last year, a hulking hilltop mansion behind the guarded gates of Hidden Hills — long the Valley’s most expensive and most celebrified community — sold for a fat $12,550,000 in an all-cash transaction. The sellers were an uber-wealthy local couple named John & Gloria Gebbia, and the buyer’s identity was deliberately shielded behind an anonymously-named LLC.

Naturally, Yolanda attempted to uncover the new owner’s name, but we were stymied — the LLC is locked up real tight and the trail leads down a dead-end road, to the address of a prominent law firm in San Francisco (CA).

But wait, there’s more. Just 21 days after the above transaction went down, the vast vacant double-lot next door quietly sold off-market for $12,500,000 (also all-cash). The seller here was none other than hip-hop/headphones tycoon Dr. Dre and his wife Nicole, and the buyer was another anonymously-named LLC. As you might have already guessed, the trail for this entity also leads back to San Francisco, to the very same law office as the LLC that bought the house next door.

Obviously, or so Yolanda believed, the same enigmatic buyer had acquired both properties at a total cost of $25,050,000, all of it paid in cash. That’s a huge sale! That amount of money could buy someone a big estate in Beverly Park, arguably the most exclusive gated community in California. And in fact, it is the biggest compound purchase ever in the history of the San Fernando Valley — eclipsing the $22,675,000 that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West paid for their two-parcel Hidden Hills compound a few years back. (The Kardashian-Wests have since reportedly spent another $10 million or more to do a bunch of typically ridiculous renovations, but we digress.)

But who could the buyer be?

The San Francisco clue led Yolanda to assume the buyer was a Silicon Valley tech bazillionaire. However, y’all, after months of cryin’ and beggin’ for God’s mercy, we were shocked and awed. You see, Yolanda discovered that the purchasing entity’s trail leads not to a famous tech mogul but rather to the doorstep of a relatively low-profile woman from Porter Ranch, CA. Her name is Linda Tawil.

Porter Ranch, in case y’all didn’t know, is a San Fernando Valley community that is arguably one of the most overlooked neighborhoods in LA. It’s way far out there in the northwest reaches of the county. About the only publicity the place has ever gotten was when a huge gas leak went down a few years ago and folks were forced to evacuate their homes.

Anyway, Yolanda at first assumed that we had either made a mistake about the homeowner’s identity, or that Ms. Tawil was covering for someone else. But nope. As we eventually realized, Ms. Tawil is the real damn owner.

You see, back in 2012 Ms. Tawil took over a little business called Morphe with her older brother Chris. Morphe began humbly in 2008, as a tiny little store in Burbank, CA that only sold brushes.

It wasn’t until 2013 or so that Morphe began to, ahem, morph into the beauty industry juggernaut it is today. 2013, you see, was the dawn of the Instagram and Snapchat era. Folks began posting selfies by the billion. And the new iPhone had a front-facing camera! Narcissism flourished and sales of cosmetics exploded.

To their credit, the Tawil siblings spotted an immense growth opportunity before most of their peers. They had struggled to get their brushes into retail stores, but the barriers to entry were just too high. Social media, however, was — at least five years ago — a relatively untapped market filled with promise. Our Ms. Tawil quickly aligned herself with a multitude of top beauty gurus and models from Instagram/YouTube, in hopes that the goodwill would inspire these folks to begin testing Morphe products in their pictures and videos.

The strategy worked extraordinarily well — almost too well, in fact. The social media attention catapulted Morphe Brushes from a virtual unknown in the beauty industry to one of the fastest growing companies around. Along the way, however, some folks expressed their dismay with the “oversaturation” of Morphe on social media. So many gurus used and espoused Morphe, that it could kinda feel like a 24/7 company infomercial on the YouTube and Instagram contraptions, according to a few whiners.

Perhaps Morphe’s biggest celebrity supporter is YouTube star Jaclyn Hill, a close personal friend of both Linda and Chris Tawil. In 2017, the Tawils and Ms. Hill collaborated to launch the Jaclyn Hill makeup palette, which proved stupendously successful. The $38 palette — promoted only through YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat, mind you — sold more than a million units in less than a year. Cha-ching!

Ms. Tawil is in her late 30s and has a kindergarten-age daughter with her ex-husband, some dude named Nick. For his part, Mr. Tawil is in his early 40s and is married to his lovely wife Nancy, with whom he has a toddler-age daughter. The Tawils are of Lebanese ancestry, in case anyone was wondering.

While Ms. Tawil is the creative director and public-facing person at the Morphe — she has more than 160,000 followers on the Instagram contraption — her brother runs the business operations from the background, and is much less publicly known than his social sister.

So why did they buy the massive 7+ acre Hidden Hills compound?

The Tawil siblings, Yolanda has also been told, are very close and want to raise their children together on a family compound. Thus, Linda Tawil bought the $12.55 million house (which she plans to extensively renovate) and Chris Tawil bought the $12.5 million vacant lot next door in order to build a custom mega-mansion with a 30-car garage. Yes, a garage to house 30 luxury vehicles. (Mr. Tawil is obviously a bit of a car buff. More on that in a moment.)

Once Linda Tawil’s house is renovated and Chris Tawil’s mega-mansion is complete, they allegedly plan to gate and and install a guard house in front of the whole shebang. So much for friendly neighborhood Hidden Hills, right?

But where does the $25 million in cash come from, and why would the Tawils suddenly drop so much dough? The answer lies in a mundane article dated last April (2017), which revealed that Morphe (aka the Tawils) had forged a new “partnership” with a private equity investor. This partnership had provided the company with sufficient capital to begin a global retail expansion, and an expansion into other segments of the segments of the cosmetics market.

Terms of the partnership were not publicly disclosed, but there are rumors all over the internet that allege the Tawils received a eye-popping sum of money from the private equity group in exchange for a stake in their makeup company.

How much money? Some internet folks say $200 million in cash. And other gossips with claimed insider knowledge allege that the cash payment was actually $400 million. In return, so the rumors go, the private equity firm received a majority ownership interest — allegedly 60% — in the company.

Whatever the actual payment amount — $200 million, $400 million, or (most likely) something in between — everyone seems to agree that the Tawils’ net worth went from merely “well-off” to mega-baller financial status last year.

And if $200 or $400 million seem like unfathomable sums of money to pay for a majority stake in a firm that was not even on anyone’s radar five years ago, you are not wrong. But keep in mind the beauty industry is booming, and high-growth companies like Morphe will always be desirable acquisition targets.

By the way, kiddies, Morphe was originally headquartered in Burbank. But after last years “partnership” (and rumored majority acquisition), the Tawils now list a different city for address purposes. Yep, you guessed it — Morphe’s founders now call San Francisco, CA their correspondence home. And their private equity firm partner Elevate Brandpartners is headquartered in SF.

See where Yolanda is going with this?

The Tawils have not been shy about spending the cash windfall they received in 2017. In addition to their $25 million Hidden Hills compound, they have a taste for luxury automobiles. Our Ms. Tawil chooses to keep things expensive but not ostentatious — she alternates between a Porsche and a Range Rover. Her brother Chris, however, has purchased a new Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and a Rolls-Royce. All in the past couple years! His most prized acquisition, however, is his 2018 Bugatti Chiron.

In late 2017, Mr. Tawil became one of the first American owners to receive delivery of the supercar, which is perhaps the most expensive current production vehicle in the world. A Chiron, for those of y’all who don’t know, carries a base price of $3 million USD. That means that Mr. Tawil’s car is worth more than most mansions! Anyway, he has posted a picture and video of his car on the Instagram contraption.

Oh dear, we have rambled on for far too long. Let us discuss the Hidden Hills properties in question.

Ms. Tawil’s Hidden Hills monster mansion encompasses a whopping 14,829-square-feet of grandiose living space. The end-of-cul-de-sac lot is private and set back beyond a long driveway.

Records show that the sellers — the Gebbia family — bought the property way back in 2005 for $4,950,000 and proceeded to demolish the existing house. The current structure — the one they sold to Ms. Tawil — was completed in 2011 and done up in a bloated Tuscan style.

The five-car garage wing extends from the main structure like a giant middle finger to the sky above. A vast stone driveway can easily accommodate another two dozen vehicles, making the property ideal for an entertainer or a large family. Too bad Ms. Tawil and her young daughter are the only folks who will be living here, right?

The entrance foyer is vast enough to allow a midsized cargo helicopter to safely dock. (Well maybe not quite that big, but y’all get our drift). The public rooms display polished stone floors, endless hallways, and more ornate ceiling treatments than Yolanda cares to count.

The kitchen can feed an army of starving YouTube beauty gurus with its double center islands, high-end stainless steel appliances, and what appears to be not one, not two, but three (!!!) full-size ovens.

There are a total of 7 beds and 7.5 baths in the house. The master suite comes equipped with hardwood floors, a private covered balcony overlooking the Santa Monica mountains, and not one but two ridiculously overdone bathrooms (at least one with a column-equipped built-in bathtub). Naturally, there are also his-and-hers closets, hers done up designer-style with a chandelier and glass-fronted cabinets in a room larger than some boutiques.

Listen, y’all, Yolanda can appreciate trying to inject some character into a bloated mansion. But all the overwrought ceilings and the dizzying array of floor choices are just too much for delicate stomach.

It also appear as though the Gebbias focused too hard indoors and neglected the landscaping of their estate. Yes, there is a sport court, but the rest of the yard is essentially just grass, and not particularly well-kept grass at that. And that pool! Ugh. Way too small and poorly-positioned for a home of this magnitude. So we were told, our gurl Ms. Tawil plans to rip it out and replace it with a better pool, and we are behind her 100%.

Keep in mind, everyone, that Ms. Tawil is not a fan of this home’s style. Thus, she has not yet moved into the property and will not do so for at least two more years. Homegurl is altering the entire casa with a newer, cleaner, and more contemporary feel. No more frou-frou ceiling treatments. RIP.

As for Chris Tawil’s 5+ acre double lot — where he plans to built a 20,000+ square foot mega-mansion with that 30-car garage — Yolanda heard from someone who would know that little Miss Kylie Jenner was very interested in purchasing it last year. But for whatever reason, she “couldn’t get her act together in time”, whatever that means. And so Chris Tawil beat her to the proverbial punch. “Kylie was so pissed,” our sassy snitch whispered to Yolanda. “She had to settle for that other lot next to her current home.”

Oh, Miss Jenner. You know what they say about early birds and worms. Remember all that.

While the Tawil siblings await their compound’s completion, they are currently living in rather humble circumstances out in the Porter Ranch community. Humble for people of their net worth, we mean.

In August 2015, Chris Tawil coughed up $1,130,000 for a 3,303-square-foot single-story residence in the guard-gated Renaissance community in Porter Ranch. The 4-bed, 5-bath tract house was originally built in 2005 and sits on a quarter-acre lot with a three-car garage.

It is here where Mr. Tawil currently resides, Yolanda happens to know. That means, kiddies, that his Bugatti car is actually worth nearly triple the value of his current home. Yowza!

We digress yet again. Only a month after Mr. Tawil purchased the above property, records show that his sister threw down $1,299,000 for a 3,813-square-foot residence in the very same gated community, and only two streets away from her brother and sister-in-law’s house.

Ms. Tawil’s Renaissance pad includes a two-car garage out front and a resort-style backyard with a pool, spa, waterfall, gazebo, firepit, and a built-in BBQ.

Although their Porter Ranch houses are perfectly nice and inoffensive, Yolanda happens to know that the Tawils will very soon be moving to a new location. And we are not talking about Hidden Hills — it will be several years before either of their mansions there are finished. For now, the siblings are packing up their belongings and hustlin’ their fleet of luxury automobiles out to Chatsworth, CA.

Although the deal has not yet closed, Yolanda hears through the rumor mill that Linda Tawil is currently in escrow on a new spec-mansion in the guard-gated Indian Springs community. The house in question is currently listed at $2,450,000 — down from its original $2,647,000 asking price — but whispers say that Ms. Tawil will pay approximately $2,300,000 when the dust settles.

Yes, kiddies, this is a $2.3 million crash pad. Our Ms. Tawil plans to live here temporarily until her big kahuna in Hidden Hills is ready for primetime action.

The architecturally ambiguous house is accessed via a long driveway and sports a three-car garage plus off-street parking for several more vehicles. As is typical of most new-construction LA mansions, the main floor boasts an airy open floor plan, walls of glass aplenty, and hardwood is underfoot.

The kitchen is blessed with high ceilings, dual center islands, and fancy stainless appliances. Conveniently located off the kitchen is the fireplace-equipped family room. Walls of glass disappear to bring the outdoors inside and vice versa.

The 5,306-square-foot residence is not mega-sized by any means, but it is plenty spacious with a maid/guest bedroom suite downstairs and four family bedrooms upstairs. The master suite has a fireplace, private balcony overlooking the backyard, a bathroom with dual vanities, and a bathroom with a sitting area.

The 2.08-acre property comes fully loaded with a large swimming pool and raised spa.

And as y’all might expect, Mr. Tawil is also looking to buy a new house in the very same guard-gated Chatsworth community. Ideally next door to his sissy, but same street will do almost as well.

Listing agents (Hidden Hills): Aaron Kirman & Yawar Charlie, Pacific Union
Chris & Linda Tawil’s agents (Hidden Hills): Marc & Rory Shevin, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
Listing agent (Chatsworth): Desiree Zuckerman, Rodeo Realty

Today we are gonna be real upfront with everyone and admit that we have no photos of this featured house. We do apologize and beg forgiveness, and we promise to constantly strive to better ourselves in the future. And yes, we know that the reason most of y’all read this blog is for the pictures. Yolanda feels your pain, sweetie pies, we really do. But we ask that you dry your tears, contain your animosity, and kindly refrain from sending us irate emails laced with foul language (like the one we got the other day, but we digress). And above all, remember that Yolanda is here for y’all. If your therapist is out of town or booked solid for the week, we will be holding private counseling sessions at three o’clock p.m. in the Polo Lounge. Don’t be tardy for the party.

No, really — we do not have one single photograph of this house. That’s because this sale went down totally off-market. Wanna know why? Because the seller was Woodbridge Investments, the much-maligned (and now bankrupt) investment group that has been in the headlines lately. Rumors are rampant that they are soon to sell off their $400+ million portfolio of luxury Los Angeles properties. You know it, Woodbridge knows you know it, everyone knows it. So why the secrecy? Maybe because they don’t want photographs of their handiwork splashed on every real estate website? Who knows.

But we know someone out there has the house photos, and we know that someone might be reading this right now. Come on, be a doll and send us that shit! If you’re a cool cat you will do it for free because you love Yolanda, and we promise to keep your identity on the DL. But if you’re one of those mercenary types, we don’t like you as much but we will still pay you whatever pennies are left from the measly divorce settlement we received from our no-good third ex-husband Randall. Heck, we’ll even throw in a barely used can of Mr. Bubble to sweeten the pot! Dare you to say no to that.

Anyway, y’all know what to do. Hit your old lady up with those steamin’ hot pics! But we digress.

Hidden Hills is easily the wealthiest San Fernando Valley neighborhood. That statement may not startle any of y’all young’uns, but it means something to us old fogies. Back 30 years ago, Hidden Hills was kind of a slum. A nice slum full of horse poopoo. Nobody with real money wanted to be anywhere near there! Had you told someone that Hidden Hills compounds would someday sell for more than most of the best estates in Beverly Hills, you’d be laughed out of town.

But today, as everyone knows, Hidden Hills is a fancy city with guards and gates. The horse poopoo is still there, but now it lies in front of big-ass mansions. Ferraris and Bentleys whizz by the ponies. For better or worse, Hidden Hills has arrived and Celebrity has marched into the community, much to the unease of some longtime residents (though they can’t stay mad once they check their property value, right?)

Call it the kurse of the Kardashians.

Back in 2015, when their Ponzi scheme was still in full swing, Woodbridge coughed up the cash for five vacant lots in Hidden Hills. Three are located in the particularly swanky Ashley Ridge section of town, and the other two are hidden away on one of the city’s newest streets. The house we shall discuss is one of those two, and it was only completed a couple months ago, back in early 2018. The house next door — also owned by Woodbridge — is still under construction and will be even larger than today’s house.

Yolanda happens to know that this property has just sold for $14,950,000 (all cash!). Though the transaction is still pending bankruptcy court approval, we hear there are no objections and the deal is all but done, done, done. Ponzi scheme they may be, but Woodbridge knows how to make a legitimate buck, too. Records show they paid just $4 million for the lot (three years ago). And we highly doubt they spent $11 building the house.

Speaking of the house, we know very little about it, but supposedly it is over 10,000-square-feet in a “contemporary Traditional” style. The property has a pool and is surrounded by newly-planted trees for privacy purposes. There is or soon will be a half-size basketball court in the backyard. And that court will definitely be getting used, because although the buyer’s identity is concealed behind an LLC, Yolanda knows it is a young man named DeMar DeRozan.

Mr. DeRozan is a 6’7″ 28-year-old whippersnapper who has played professional basketball with the Toronto Raptors since 2009. And in 2016, the NBA all-star signed a five-year, $139 million contract with the Raptors. $139 mill is a huge deal, reportedly the second-biggest deal ever in the history of the NBA. For reference, Mr. DeRozan’s contract is worth more than any ever received by Kobe Bryant or Shaquille O’Neal. Some online naysayers, however, snidely insinuated that the enormous amount received by Mr. DeRozan is due more to how cash-flush NBA teams are nowadays than to his actual talents as a ball player. But we digress yet again.

So why would a dude from Toronto want a $15 million, high-maintenance estate in LA?

Well he’s got two young daughters with his baby mama Kiara Morrison, so there’s that. But more importantly, Mr. DeRozan is not from Toronto. He was born and raised in Compton (CA), and he obviously still loves living here during the off-season. Don’t we all!

Our boy’s new Hidden Hills pad is located at the end of a new cul-de-sac that will soon be lined with large mansions. But he’s already got some famous neighbors! Two doors away is little miss Kylie Jenner’s $17 million compound, and his property backs up to a ranch-style estate owned by Nicolette Sheridan of Desperate Housewives fame and fortune.

Other famous nearby neighbors include Drake, The Weeknd, Vin Scully, Paul George, Jessica Simpson, Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian & Kanye West, Howie Mandel, Jeff Dunham, Russell Peters, Melissa Etheridge, and a bunch more people whose names we cannot remember.

We think Mr. DeRozan will enjoy his new house, because he is clearly already a fan of guard-gated communities in the San Fernando Valley. Back in 2014, he bought a house in the wilds of Tarzana, in another guard-gated (albeit much less prestigious) gated community known as Mulholland Park Estates. His current neighbors include actor/comedians Kevin Hart and Chris Tucker.

Ho hum, the 1995-built Mediterranean McMansion has a four-car garage, a double “bridal” staircase, a kitchen with two islands, and 6 bedrooms plus 7 baths. By far the most valuable aspect of the property, however, is the rare double lot. Our Mr. DeRozan has himself almost one flat acre in Tarzana with his own private basketball court! So essentially he is trading up to Hidden Hills for a bigger, better, and newer version of his current home.

Okay, enough already. The pics, dammit!

Listing agents: Tomer & Isidora Fridman, Compass; Marc & Rory Shevin, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, 
DeMar DeRozan’s agent: Brian Pane, Wish Sotheby’s International Realty

A large house in the guard-gated and celebrity-swarmed Hidden Hills community recently sold for $4,800,000 to a mysterious blind trust with a Rialto (CA) address. Yolanda happens to know that the buyer paid all-cash, and no loan was taken on the property.

For those of y’all who either do not hail from LA or are trapped in your Westside bubble, let Yolanda give a wee geography lesson. Rialto is located in the oft-maligned Inland Empire neighborhood that encompasses San Bernardino County. It is 70 miles due east of Beverly Hills, 15 miles east of Rancho Cucamonga, and it borders Riverside and the bankrupt city of San Bernardino.

Rialto is not a wealthy area by any means, so naturally Yolanda was curious as to the identity of the person who could throw down millions in cash for a house in one of LA’s priciest communities. Lo and behold, we discovered the new owners are a married couple named Ronald Willis and Yolanda Mangum.

Our Mr. Willis was just an ordinary dude until September 11, 2012, when he beat nearly-insurmountable odds to win $120 million in a mega-millions lottery jackpot. For the TV press conference, Mr. Willis brought along his then-fiancee (now wife) Yolanda Mangum (we love your first name, Ms. Mangum!)

Anyway, six years have now passed since the couple’s life-changing financial windfall. Besides marrying Ms. Mangum, we are unsure what all Mr. Willis has been up to since 2012 — he certainly has the means to do nothing but eat bon-bons all day. However, Ms. Mangum has been quite the busy gal. In 2014, she founded Lady MV, a fashion boutique selling trendy clothes (primarily for plus-size ladies). The original store is located in good ol’ Rialto, CA. In 2016, Ms. Mangum opened a second location in nearby Corona.

Last year (2017), Ms. Mangum also gave birth to a daughter with Mr. Willis, making him a father of five. (At least two of his “kids”, however, are already adults.)

Since shortly after their win, the couple have resided in a large house in the swanky Orange County, CA city of Coto de Caza. Yolanda happens to know, however, that the pair have been looking to move back to LA for quite some time now. Though they both lived in the Inland Empire area for several decades prior to their lottery win, Ms. Mangum was born and raised in Compton and Mr. Willis also grew up in the area.

For nearly a year, the couple have been touring pricey mansions in some of LA’s swankiest neighborhoods. They originally began their search in the Beverly Hills Post Office, and Ms. Mangum posted several videos on Instagram of herself at various homes priced up to $8 million in the Benedict and Coldwater Canyon areas. (The sassy Ms. Mangum vocally expressed her displeasure at the quality of homes she saw in the B.H.P.O. — “Hell to the no,” she said about one).

Next, the Mangum-Willis duo shifted their attentions to the hot-hot-hot San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Encino, where they toured just about every big-ass mansion on the market. They toured a spec-mansion with a sports court and they peeped a renovated sprawler that was eventually sold for $6.55 million to YouTube star Logan Paul.

The Encino house that really struck Ms. Mangum’s fancy, however, was a $6.4 million spec-built “modern farmhouse” of nearly 10,000-square-feet. The couple loved it and we believe they even made an offer on the property last fall, but were ultimately outbid by another all-cash buyer: an obviously very wealthy Beverly Hills-based attorney named Lawrence D. Rose.

Despite losing out on the property, Mr. Willis and Ms. Mangum were allegedly not too bothered. After all, the house is nice but the parking situation leaves much to be desired — there is a three-car garage, but the driveway is somewhat awkwardly shared with several smaller adjacent houses. And Mr. Willis drives a $200,000 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG and a $300,000 Rolls-Royce. Ms. Mangum, for her part, alternates between a $200,000 Range Rover SVAutobiography and her $250,000 Bentley SUV. Trying to park $1 million worth of luxury vehicles in a shared driveway would just never do!

The couple eventually also gave up on Encino and started looking way out west in the celebrity-packed Hidden Hills guard-gated community. Our Ms. Mangum posted a video of their tour through Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s former estate, which is not publicly listed for sale but is available as a pocket listing with an asking price that we hear is in the $6 million range.

Ultimately, however, the couple opted to spend a couple million less than they originally planned. Their new $4.8 million house in Hidden Hills is definitely not the newest or biggest pad they toured, but they see the unfinished property as a good investment that will pay off big-time down the road. Take a look and see if y’all agree.

This house is rather unique for a couple of reasons. First off, it is one of the most private properties in all of Hidden Hills. The 1.23-acre estate is set down an epic long driveway and is mostly invisible from the street out front.

Another unique feature is that although the house spans a mansion-sized 8,023-square-feet of living space, it is all single-story and and looks much different than today’s spec-mansions. The structure was originally built in 1965 as a much more modest ranch-style abode. Over the ensuing decades, the house slowly grew and was remodeled several times.

The non-celebrity sellers purchased the property way back in 2003 for just $1,600,000, according to records. Photos show they recently completed a full interior remodel with lots of fancy materials and appliances. The outdoor spaces, however, leave much to be desired — the grounds are a mess, part of the driveway is dirt, and the pool/spa area is unfinished. Perhaps the sellers ran out of money, or (more likely) they decided to flip the unfinished property for a profit in its current state and be done with it.

Anyway, the mini-estate sports a four-car garage with off-street parking options for an additional dozen (or more) vehicles. The wood-and-glass double front doors lead directly — and dramatically — into the expansive great room. Yolanda loves the vaulted beamed ceilings, the custom stone-stacked wall, and 12-foot sliding glass doors, which open to an (unfinished) outdoor entertainers patio.

The great room sports views from one end of the home to the other. We are also a fan of the double-sided fireplace, which sets off the adjacent sitting are quite nicely. Elsewhere there is an intimate family room slash library with real books and real bookshelves. Dark brown hardwood floors set off the whitewashed walls.

The kitchen is decked out with custom wooden cabinetry, a massive SubZero refrigerator, and top-of-the-line Miele appliances. Adjacent is a formal dining room with an elegant carved wooden wall and a contemporary metal chandelier thingy. The master suite sports another stacked-stone fireplace, a sitting area, another vaulted ceiling, and an incongruously icky carpet that we hope Mr. Willis and Ms. Mangum will have the good sense to replace.

Some of the couple’s new Hidden Hills neighbors include Vin Scully, Howie Mandel, DeMar DeRozan, Paul George, Drake, The Weeknd, Kim Kardashian & Kanye West, Kylie Jenner, Kris Jenner, Jessica Simpson, and Melissa Etheridge.

Anywho, a thorough search through property records reveals that Mr. Willis and Ms. Mangum have a substantial real estate portfolio. Since shortly after their lottery win, Mr. Willis and Ms. Mangum have resided in Orange County community of Coto de Caza, another guard-gated city. One of their neighbors is Real Housewives of Orange County star Vicki Gunvalson.

Just two months after their lottery win, records show that Mangum-Willises paid a Chinese couple named Dejun Zou and Jianpeng Qiu $3,700,000 in cash for an enormous (16,505-square-feet of living space!) custom mansion set up a long driveway and behind a private gate. There are 8 beds and 10.25 baths, an infinity-edged swimming pool, and a 10-car air-conditioned garage.

Now kiddies, $3.7 million is a lot of money to most folks, but records show that the sellers — Mr. Zou and Ms. Qiu — actually had paid $5,300,000 for the property only two years prior. So that means they took a massive $1.6 million loss after only two years of ownership! Yowza.

Why would they sell so quickly at such a huge loss? Some online research reveals that this house was the subject of an SEC investigation. Mr. Zou and Ms. Qiu illegally diverted several million dollars from their company to purchase this pad. And once they got wind of the government on their tale, the couple became desperate to unload the beast. Along came the lottery winners and the rest is history.

$1.6 million down the drain! Well, good for Mr. Willis and Ms. Mangum. Bad for Mr. Zou and Ms. Qiu.

In January 2017, the Mangum-Willises threw down $1,575,000 (in cash, naturally) for a ski compound in the winter resort town of Big Bear Lake, CA, up in the snow-capped San Bernardino mountains.

The two-house compound has a celebrity history: it was designed by Oscar de la Hoya, who later sold the property to MMA fighter Tito Ortiz.

Back in November 2012, the lottery-winning couple also paid $1,550,000 for a house in the pricey Palos Verdes Estates community of LA.

It is apparent to Yolanda that the couple do not spend any time living in this structure, which leads us to believe that the house was likely purchased as an investment/income property.

Despite the fact that he has not lived there in six years, records also reveal that Mr. Willis still owns the Rialto condo that he shared with Ms. Mangum before his financial windfall. Way back in 2006, Mr. Willis paid $309,000 for the cramped spot in a large gated complex (his unit has just 1,462-square-feet of living space). Almost immediately following his 2012 lottery win, he quietly transferred ownership of the condo from his name to a blind trust.

Yolanda also uncovered tons of evidence that Mr. Willis and Ms. Mangum may own a waterfront vacation house in the resort community of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, but we were unfortunately unable to pinpoint their abode’s exact address.

Listing agents: Dana Olmes, Jeff Biebuyck, & Peter Radd, Compass
Ronald Willis & Yolanda Mangum’s agent: Will Wheaton, Will Wheaton Real Estate

Over the weekend, Yolanda was contacted by a new informant who we shall call Woodside Woody.  Our new buddy Woody is a snarky fellow, and Yolanda is a snarky lass. Needless to say, we got along famously.

Anywho, Woody dropped in to tell us that one of his famous Woodside neighbors had listed her baller-style compound for sale. Who, y’all ask? Why, our gurl Michelle Pfeiffer, that’s who. Or as Bruno Mars might say, “Miss White Gold”. Or as our bitches over at Dlisted might say, “that crazy ass blood-sucking ghoul.” But we digress.

Yolanda was a little surprised that we had not heard anything about Ms. Pfeiffer’s home becoming available for purchase on the other real estate gossip websites. Usually we are so late to the party with these things that we don’t even bother! But not in this instance. Well, ol’ Shelly has been out of the spotlight for some years now — albeit with a professional resurgence recently — so there’s that.

Yes indeed, Yolanda confirmed that Ms. Pfeiffer’s longtime main residence has quietly popped up for sale with a fat asking price of $29,500,000. Obviously our Ms. Pfeiffer is not interested in playing patty-cake with you non-billionaire prospective buyers.

Our research indicates that Ms. Pfeiffer and her longtime hubby David E. Kelley purchased the 8.67-acre equestrian compound in two separate transactions — the first in 2004 for $12,000,000 and the second in 2008 for $8,600,000 — for a total outlay of $20,600,000. That’s a lot of cheddar, but remember that Mr. Kelley is a very rich dude — he created a whole bunch of successful TV shows like The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Boston Legal, and Big Little Lies.

Fun fact: Ms. Pfeiffer’s Woodside compound is located on a cul-de-sac named “Why Worry Lane”. Our local informant Woody told Yolanda that the unusual name derives from the fact that the lane is built directly over a major earthquake fault line.

Get it, y’all? Although “the Big One” could strike at any moment, hey, the street is here to remind you that you’re a rich bitch living in Woodside — one of the most expensive communities in the world — so really, why worry.

Most of the multiple structures on the 8.67-acre estate date back nearly 100 years, although it appears the 6,379-square-foot Spanish-y main house was constructed in 1940. The main residence contains 4 beds and 4.5 baths, with all of the bedrooms located upstairs.

The entire property is lushly and meticulously landscaped, and Yolanda cannot even begin to fathom how much Ms. Pfeiffer’s monthly gardening bill must be. Thousands and thousands of bucks, we are certain. There are enough clipped hedges, neatly trimmed ivy bushes, and mature fir trees to fill an entire arboretum, not to mention acres of rolling lawns. And check out those cone-shaped trees! What the heck are those, and how does she keep them so lookin’ so pristine? We suspect an army of full-time landscapers are to thank.

We digress again. In addition to the main house, there is an octagonal barn with 10 horse stalls and a small turnout. Also on the property is a full-size riding arena, a private well for irrigation purposes, and backup generator to power things in the event of an electricity outage. There’s also an apple orchard, vegetable beds, a guest house of unknown square footage, and on and on.

Unfortunately for us nosy ninnies, Ms. Pfeiffer has decided to bless the public with only a handful of pics from the inside of her house. And none of them show the master suite or any bedrooms! Sacre bleu! You’d think that a Hollywood veteran like Ms. Pfeiffer would know by now that sex sells. Gurl, how you expectin’ some billionaire to plunk down $30 million and you’re not even willing to show off the goods?!

Anyway, photos of the family/living room spaces confirm what we all suspected: the house is decorated in a comfortable and traditional manner that is appropriate to a classy lass like Ms. Pfeiffer.

Also on the property is an enormous rectangular pool and adjacent spa. There’s a picturesque vine-covered arbor on one side of the pool, and on the other is a full-size tennis court accessed via another vine-covered arbor.

Being that we are perpetually trapped in our smoggy LA bubble, we know very little about the Woodside real estate market. So we asked our new pal Woody about how long he thinks it will Ms. Pfeiffer to unload this place, and whether or not it is priced appropriately. He snarked back that she will certainly grow “older and grayer” waiting to sell, especially now that the deep well of Chinese billionaire buyers — which took the Bay Area by storm a few years back — has essentially dried up.

Oh dear! Yolanda likes Ms. Pfeiffer, so we hope that is not the case. And the estate is really quite beautiful. We are gonna wish her all the best as she attempts to unload the beast.

Some of Ms. Pfeiffer’s Woodside neighbors include billionaires like Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, and manufacturing heir Riley Bechtel.

Back in 2016, as Yolanda first snitched, Ms. Pfeiffer and Mr. Kelley quietly paid $8,150,000 cash in an off-market deal for a rather bland two-story house on one of the most coveted streets in the Pacific Palisades Riviera neighborhood. The house has just 3,211-square-feet of living space on a .45-acre lot.

We can’t imagine that Ms. Pfeiffer would trade her amazing Woodside compound for this little house in the Palisades — $8 million or not, it’s pretty blah — but Woodside Woody swears up and down that Ms. Pfeiffer is leaving Woodside for good now that her kids are grown. She’s hankerin’ for some LA lovin’ now.

Or as Woody puts it, “she’s trading horse shit for the bullshit.” (His words, not Yolanda’s!)

Listing agents: Mary & Brent Gullixson • Alain Pinel Realtors

Though long considered the most prestigious guard-gated community in Southern California, the opulent Beverly Park seems lately to have declined in popularity among the ultra-wealthy jetset. Folks with cash to burn are routinely choosing other areas — Trousdale Estates, Bel Air, Holmby Hills — over the big BP.

For this, the most common reason cited is the very thing that makes Beverly Park so desirable to its loyal residents: the seclusion. Located high in the mountains above Beverly Hills, the remoteness of the neighborhood — while great for privacy and security — also makes access a tedious affair. The main entrance on Mulholland Drive is a good 10 minutes’ drive from anything, and that’s without traffic. And while the secondary entrance on Summitridge Drive will lead y’all to downtown Beverly Hills, that is also a 15 minute trek (without traffic).

Another big turnoff to today’s buyers is the style of homes in Beverly Park. Most palaces up there are turgid Tuscan behemoths or fat faux-French chateaus. Both styles, while exceedingly popular a decade ago, have fallen from grace in favor of sleek contemporaries or elegant Traditionals with contemporary interiors. Rich folks want clean lines and simplicity now, but the majority of Beverly Park beasts are frumpy, quite frankly.

However, just because the neighborhood is no longer as en vogue as it once was does not mean moneyed buyers have abandoned it altogether. Billionaire Tom Gores recently paid $38 million to buy his old house back, Kimora Lee Simmons busted out $25 million for a 6-acre estate, an Indonesian property developer spent $26.7 million the mega-mansion of another Indonesian, a wealthy Chinese couple spooned out $26.5 million for a turgid Tuscan, and Canadian construction heir Cody Leibel threw down just over $25 million for the former home of Reba McEntire, sold by businessman Yife Tien.

And then there’s this outrageously lavish property we shall discuss today, which just sold for $32,000,000. That’s a lot of moolah by anyone’s standards, but keep in mind that the 22,906-square-foot behemoth was originally asking $50 million nearly four years ago.

Yes, it took multiple price chops, a change of realtors, and four years to finally unload this puppy.

What’s more, records reveal the sellers — we don’t know exactly who they were, other than they were from the Ukraine — paid $27,400,000 for the house in April 2009, at the height of the economic recession. So that $32 million represents only a 16% increase in value after nearly a decade of ownership, and in a far hotter real estate market! Hmmm.

Anywho, we digress. The new owner is listed as an LLC that is easily linked to a dude named John Simonian. Our Mr. Simonian is of Armenian ancestry but was raised in Lebanon, and he is perhaps the most successful luxury wristwatch dealer and distributor in all of Los Angeles.

Westime, Mr. Simonian’s watch store chain, has locations on Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, and in La Jolla and Miami. And when we say watches, we ain’t referring to Fossil or Timex. These are watches that can cost more than luxury cars and small houses — Patek Philippe, Rolex, and Audemars Piguet.

In addition to whatever profits he hauls in through Westime, Mr. Simonian also makes money by serving as a major distributor to other luxury stores that sell these watches. So basically, if y’all are buying a fancy timepiece — especially here in LA — you are probably putting money into Mr. Simonian’s pocket. He thanks you for your purchase and for his new $32 million mega-mansion.

The palace was built back in 2008 on speculation by a local developer named Jeff Bazyler. Though the 1.92-acre lot is not particularly big for Beverly Park — the largest estates up here are 5+ acres — it is sizable enough to accommodate the nearly 23,000-square-foot pad. A gated driveway slopes up to a wooden bridge that crosses the moat.

Yes, y’all, if the mansard-roofed mammoth somehow didn’t pound home the fact that this place is a damn castle, the moat and the wooden bridge surely will.

Anyway, there is a six car garage and a motorcourt that seems rather too cramped for a house of these proportions. Carved wooden double doors swing open to the three-story palace’s interior.

For as garish as the exterior is, Yolanda was expecting a little more drama on the inside. Where are the gold-plated walls, the chinoiserie, the lavendar silk rugs? Adrienne Maloof’s old Beverly Park pad put this place to shame!

Well, at least there are enough coffered ceilings to fill a few cathedrals (do cathedrals even have coffered ceilings? We need to get our ass to church). And look, there’s a wood-paneled library with almost no bookshelves! But at least it looks cool, right? How very LA.! Cute.

The kitchen’s acres of neutral marble look blah to us, and we really dislike that massive overhang on the center island. At least the formal dining room is surprisingly intimate. And check out that 2,500-bottle brick wine cellar, which sits directly below the library. Guests upstairs are visible to folks in the cellar through a glass portal. Ladies (and gentlemen, for that matter) be sure to wear your knickers if you plan to stand on that glass.

The master suite is equipped with a private balcony, a laughably terrible four-poster bed that looks as though it was dreamed up by Marie Antoinette, and his-and-hers bathrooms and closets.

Her bathroom is light and bright, his is more moody with dark hardwood and black marble. Each has their own built-in soaking tub and glass shower.

There are a total of 10 bedrooms in the home, at least two of which are bigger than the master suite at most normal-sized mansions. Outside is a deep, shaded loggia with al fresco dining options.

As we say, his house was originally built on spec, so that could explain why there are a few wonky features here and there: the entire backyard is taken up by the full-size tennis court, leaving the gardens, lawn, and gigantic swimming pool to be located rather awkwardly off to the side of the residence.

For those of y’all who would prefer not to swim outside — you know how brutal those SoCal winters can get — fear not. The house comes fully loaded with an indoor swimming pool and spa, plus a sauna, steamroom, a gym, and a “treatment room”, whatever that is.

In addition to the folks we’ve already mentioned, some of Mr. Simonian’s new Beverly Park neighbors include Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Sylvester Stallone, Sumner Redstone, Jami Gertz, Paul Reiser, Rod Stewart, Haim Saban, and several Saudi princes.

Our Mr. Simonian is clearly a fan of the Beverly Hills Post Office area — his new Beverly Park spread is at least his third mansion in the neighborhood. His current residence is a big ol’ Mediterranean located in a small gated enclave not far from Beverly Park.

Records show that Mr. Simonian bought his Bowmont Estates pad back in 2013 for $10,500,000 from the late media mogul Bud Paxson. Directly next door is a large mansion that has been owned since 2011 by a Saudi royal, was previously leased to Nicki Minaj, and is currently leased to Mariah Carey.

Before moving to Bowmont Estates, Mr. Simonian lived in the Oak Pass gated community, also located in the B.H.P.O. near Beverly Park. In 2013, he sold his house there to film producer Mike Medavoy, who flipped it just last year for nearly $10 million to Jessica Alba.

Listing agents: Aaron Kirman & Neyshia Go, Pacific Union
John Simonian’s agent: Jeff Hyland, Hilton & Hyland

A mere three months have passed since the devastating Montecito mudslides, which killed more than 20 local residents, injured dozens, caused a mass evacuation, and devastated the local economy. Our scholarly Santa Barbara-based friend/tipster Barbara Bane — who we have previously mentioned on this blog — grimly prophesied that the mudslides will continue to haunt the wildfire-ravaged area for the foreseeable future.

Like nearly all local industries, the Montecito real estate market has suffered. Public records show that for the first quarter of 2018, only four Montecito homes transferred with sales prices of $4 million or more. By contrast, 12 homes transferred in the same price range back in Q1 2017. That’s a 67% decline! And it is a wee bit depressing.

One of those four Q1 2018 sales, however, was a huge anomaly. After years on the market, the major-league estate of the late billionaire Ed Snider — the Philadelphia-based business mogul who once owned the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL, the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA, and the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL — finally sold for an eyeball-shredding $35,000,000. And rumor has it the transaction was all-cash.

Our friend Barbara was the first to notify Yolanda about the big sale, and even a serious fellow like himself could do little to contain his shock and amazement over the amount and the fact that the transaction went down so soon after the devastation. We don’t know if this property was impacted by the mudslides, y’all, but given the fact that Oprah’s house is right next door and she was wading around in knee-deep mud, we think it very likely that this place was also touched.

And $35 million, if y’all didn’t know, is an absolutely enormous sum for Santa Barbara County. Yolanda’s research confirms this is easily the biggest area sale within the past three years. And our local expert Barbara, for his part, cannot remember seeing a more expensive transaction within the last decade.

Anyway, speaking of Oprah, at first Yolanda suspected that maybe she bought this place to expand her existing property. But nope! The agents on both sides of the deal hail from LA, and the strangely-named LLC that purchased the compound links directly back to a Brentwood P.O. box.

Obviously the buyer hails from our City of Angels. But who could it be?!

Well, kiddies, Yolanda had to open an old-fashioned real estate investigation. And what we discovered surprised even a jaded ol’ gurl like ourselves. Although Our Mama at Variety told us she heard whispers that the buyer might be billionaire heiress Megan Ellison, that is actually not the case. The new owner is former journalist turned makeup mega-mogul Jamie Kern Lima.

Our gurl Mrs. Lima has one of the most interesting life stories of anyone we’ve ever written about on this blog, we think. We have previously discussed her background, but a quick recap: Mrs. Lima was given up for adoption shortly after birth and raised by her adoptive parents in a rural Washington State town.

The straight-A student attended Washington State University — she was the first person in her family to attend college — and she competed in beauty pageants on the side, becoming Miss Washington USA 2000. She was also selected via a nationwide search to appear on the Baywatch television program.

Also in 2000, Mrs. Lima joined the cast of Big Brother season one, where she finished in a respectable fourth place and was the last woman standing. After her stint on reality TV, she was accepted to the the ultra-prestigious Columbia University — an Ivy League school, mind you — and graduated with an MBA. She was also selected by her peers to be the class speaker for her graduating year.

Mrs. Lima don’t fool around, y’all.

It was at Columbia where Mrs. Lima met her future husband Paulo Lima, a very bright fellow who originally hails from Brazil. After their wedding at Seattle’s Space Needle — they were the very first couple ever to get hitched at the landmark, naturally (would you expect anything less from Mrs. Lima?) — Mrs. Lima’s hereditary rosacea led the young pair to concoct a plan for selling innovative makeup to cover her blemishes. Thus, IT Cosmetics (IT stands for Innovative Technologies) was born.

The Lima invested all of their life savings into the brand, so we gather. They built the company from their small apartment in Studio City (CA) and struggled to make ends meet until 2010, when Mrs. Lima was eventually granted a quick spot on the QVC home-shopping TV network. Her entire inventory sold out in minutes, and the rest — as they say — is history. From there, the brand quickly became a perennial bestseller on the channel, and Mrs. Lima became one of QVC’s most recognizable faces.

In 2016 — a mere eight years after IT Cosmetics was founded in a small apartment, mind you — Mr. and Mrs. Lima sold their company for an unbelievable $1.2 billion in cash to L’Oréal. And though the firm is no longer hers, Mrs. Lima remains CEO of the brand, so we can only assume she is still hauling in a hefty paycheck (in addition to the proceeds she received from the sale).

Yolanda does not know what Mrs. Lima’s net worth is, but rest assured she now has the money to buy several $35 million estates, not just this one. And she can buy most of our lives, too.

For what it’s worth, Mrs. Lima personally reached out to Yolanda last year — after we wrote our 2016 story about her main Brentwood residence — and we can tell y’all she seems like a very nice lady who happens to be extraordinarily successful in business.

A cobblestone driveway lined with mature palms swoops elegantly around a grandiose reflecting pond — it’s more like a lake, really — and past formal lawns and gardens to end at the front of the mega-mansion-sized estate, which sprawls over 9.37 acres of exquisitely manicured grounds.

Interestingly, listing information indicates that the house has 22,019-square-feet of living space, but public records put it at just 7,605. We are clueless as to what accounts for this massive discrepancy, but we will trust the listing on this one. We doubt that the agents would put 22,000 unless there was damn good evidence to back up that claim. And the house definitely looks bigger than just 7k.

The Lamborghini-driving Mr. Lima will appreciate the home’s six-car garage, plus the additional off-street parking for dozens more vehicles.

Things indoors are kept elegantly restrained: there is a proper entrance foyer, a long hallway linking the public rooms, and a dining room with views out over the Pacific. Somewhere there’s a high-ceilinged gym, too.

The bedroom suites — we think there are six of them in the main house, plus another two in the detached guest house — sport trendy ebonized hardwood floors, and the master suite has a private balcony with clear views of the Pacific Ocean. Elsewhere there’s a humongous office with plenty of space for Mrs. Lima and her retinue of personal assistants.

Yolanda is not so fond of the colors in that movie theater, but at least the chairs look comfy. The booze house in us loves the wine cellar, but the adjacent bar/parlor area has entirely too much wood — ahem — for our personal taste. We think that design was all Mr. Snider’s. It just needs a gal like Mrs. Lima to feminize it up!

At the rear of the Mediterranean mansion — it was built in 2001 by Mr. Snider and is also where he passed away — are formal lawns and gardens that slope gently downward to groves of olive trees and yet another fountain.

Also on the property are a swimming pool, a tennis court, and an organic fruit and vegetable orchard. The grounds here are so sprawling and so obscenely high maintenance that it is virtually guaranteed that Mrs. Lima will need to employ at least one full-time groundskeeper — and probably more than one — to keep them in the same pristine condition.

Although Mrs. Lima’s 9-acre estate is pretty damn baller, it is absolutely dwarfed by Oprah Winfrey’s massive 66-acre The Promised Land spread next door. But we don’t think Mrs. Lima minds playing second fiddle to O — she has previously referred to Oprah as “my hero” and “my mentor”. And last year, Mrs. Lima posted a video on the Instagram contraption showing herself being toured by Ms. Winfrey through the latter’s Montecito estate.

Is it really just a coincidence that Mrs. Lima has now bought the house directly next door? Hmm.

Anywho, the Limas — both recently turned the big 4-0 — have no children of their own, but remain close with their family. We do know that Mrs. Lima’s little sister Karly lives with the couple in Brentwood.

Speaking of Brentwood, Mrs. Lima has kindly requested that Yolanda not post photos of her main residence up in this biznatch, for reasons we shall not get into here. But we can tell y’all that the three-story contemporary mansion was spec-built in 2015 and sits up on a hill with sexy views. The Limas paid more than $12 million cash for the property, and some of their closest neighbors are LeBron James, Brandon Beck, Jim Carrey, and Scooter Braun.

Finally, we confess we have no idea how much time Mrs. Lima plans to spend up north, and whether she plans to make the for Snider spread her main residence. Word on the street, however, is that several of Mrs. Lima’s personal assistants have already been hustlin’ and bustlin’ around the Montecito pad, so it looks as though her move-in is imminent (if it has not already happened, that is).

And yes, kiddies. When you’re as wealthy as Mrs. Lima, you don’t just have one personal assistant. You have a whole team of them, y’all.

Listing agents: Mauricio Umansky & Santiago Arana, The Agency
Jamie Kern Lima’s agent: Kurt Rappaport, Westside Estate Agency

Listen everyone: y’all are so, so lucky today. Normally Yolanda does not post up more than one story per 24 hours, but we stepped outside for a smoke and saw what a gorgeous afternoon it is here in LA! And suddenly, we had an epiphany: why waste our time going to the beach and frolicking in the surf? Let’s stay inside all damn day and type our wrinkly old fingers to the bone. So what the heck, here goes.

An impressive hilltop spec-mansion in the city of Beverly Hills recently sold for an A-list $22,000,000. Naturally, Yolanda was curious as to the buyer’s identity, but their name is locked up real darn tight behind a blind trust called the “Azteca Trust”, whatever that means. The new owner, for what it’s worth, was represented by Jay Harris of The Agency in his purchase.

Thankfully, Yolanda can tell y’all that we know who bought this house, thanks to a squawkin’ little birdie. It is Mexican billionaire Gabriel Brener, which makes perfect sense given that he is Mr. Harris’s stepfather.

Never heard of Mr. Brener? Don’t feel ignorant. He is a very low profile (yet extraordinarily rich) fellow and he clearly prefers to keep things on the DL. Most of his business enterprises are somehow kept off the internet and well away from nosy ninnies like Yolanda.

However, he does have at least one high-profile venture — he is the majority owner of the Houston Dynamo soccer club of Major League Soccer. And he is known for being a scion of one of the wealthiest families in Mexico, so business acumen runs in his blood.

Now then — Mr. Brener’s new house may look purty, but seems as though it was nothin’ but a heartbreak for the seller, a dude from WeHo named Mauro Santoyo. He paid $3,795,000 for the 1.05-acre property way back in 2003, eventually razed the existing home and began plans for a grand spec-mansion.

Our boy Mr. Santoyo partnered with acclaimed designer Tim Morrison to conjure up a real fancy-like structure. And Mr. Morrison did just that, but the partnership dissolved rather spectacularly somewhere along the line. Last year, the pair wound up in court, with Mr. Morrison suing Mr. Santoyo and Mr. Santoyo counter-suing Mr. Morrison. Yolanda is clueless as to what triggered the dispute, but these things usually trace back to disagreements over money.

Good golly! Well, we hope that Mr. Brener’s $22 million helped the pair resolve their little tit-for-tat. Y’all ladies better play nice and remember Yolanda’s words of wisdom: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

The 8,685-square-foot mini-estate lies at the very end of a winding cul-de-sac located in the foothills north of Sunset Boulevard. The hillside lot provides privacy, and the gated house is far back behind tall hedges and a long flagstone driveway, which leads to a three-car garage.

A three-car garage? Yikes. We know LA is finally embracing public transportation, but still. How many people that own a $22 million house only have three cars? Almost none, we would wager. At least there is plenty of space in the fountain-equipped motorcourt for extra vehicles. And the cars out there will have a nice view of Century City.

The Spanish Revival-style mini-compound features a two-story main house and a small guest house with one bedroom suite. The main residence has six suites — four upstairs, two down — and all are furnished in the comfortably luxurious style for which Mr. Morrison is known.

The all-marble kitchen features an L-shaped bar area and high-end stainless appliances. In the small backyard is a seashell-shaped swimming pool, which seems entirely useless for regular swimming but certainly looks cool.

To be honest, this particular style of house — faux-Spanish Revival mansion — is not Yolanda’s particular favorite. Of course, that’s just our useless personal taste. But while we are up here spoutin’ off, we can’t help commenting on the pool’s location. The unusual shape is one thing, but shouldn’t it have been placed on the other side of the house, facing the city view? Seems like a missed opportunity.

We do, however, love the master suite, with that cute fireplace, the built-in soaking tub, and the private balcony outside overlooking a wide swath of the city.

Large as Mr. Brener’s new pad may be, it pales in comparison to the contemporary compound looming directly overhead. That house was built (and is still owned) by prominent Italian film producer Aurelio de Laurentiis (yes, in case you were wondering, he is a cousin of our gurl Giada de Laurentiis).

Besides Mr. de Laurentiis, some of Mr. Brener’s nearest new neighbors in Beverly Hills include London-based art collectors Edward & Agnes Lee, Smartwater marketing guru Rohan Oza, and British entrepreneur Richard Caring.

Back in 2014, Mr. Brener sold his longtime Holmby Hills estate for $74,000,000 to Chinese billionaire Zhang Jun, the Chairman/owner of the Sino Life insurance conglomerate that has recently come under regulatory scrutiny from Chinese officials. Some of Mr. Zhang’s four children — including his social media-famous daughter Zhang Jiale — have since moved into the house, and the motorcourt is now clogged with all sorts of exotic automobiles.

The 35,000-square-foot mega-mansion was built by Mr. Brener in 2001 on the site of Walt Disney’s former estate, which he bulldozed to make way for his personal Shangri-La.

We are not certain where the Breners have been living for the last four years, since they sold the big Holmby Hills pad — rumors say Malibu’s Point Dume neighborhood, so they must have been renting something — but records show that Mr. Brener has long owned another Beverly Hills house just about a 3-minute car ride away from the $22 million house he just bought.

The 4,234-square-foot mid-century modern is set back behind a gated driveway and features 5 beds and 7 baths of single story livin’. Records show that Mr. Brener paid Ed McMahon‘s ex-wife Victoria just over $2 million for the house more than 20 years ago, way back in 1997.

It was here, Yolanda believes, where the Breners lived while their Holmby Hills mega-mansion was under construction. For better or worse, the house is only two doors away from Taylor Swift’s security-compromised $25 million estate.

Whew. Time for another ciggie.

Listing agents: Joe Babajian & William Strassner, Rodeo Realty
Gabriel Brener’s agent: Jay Harris, The Agency

It’s always fun to dissect a house that costs more than what 99% of folks will earn in their entire lives, but Yolanda has been floating far too long in the ultra-high-end sector of the real estate market. And it’s getting a wee bit hard to breathe — time to briefly ground ourselves by discussing a financially attainable pad. If y’all consider a $2 million house attainable, of course. Hey, this is LA.

Some time ago we stumbled over a mysterious blind trust that recently paid $2,150,000 for a fully renovated casa high up in a particularly celeb-packed area of the Hollywood Hills. Records show the property had been sold for just under $1.35 million in 2016 to a producer/developer named Logan Levy, who gave the pad a makeover and flipped it to the aforementioned blind trust at a healthy profit.

The new owner, Yolanda eventually discovered, is a 22-year-old singer fellow named Troye Sivan. And while we had never previously heard of this young man, a little Googlin’ reveals he is quite a big deal in the wacky world of social media.

Our Mr. Sivan was born Troye Mellet to a Jewish family from South Africa but was raised in Perth, Australia. He first came to attention at the tender age of 11, when he sang at the annual Australia telethon. But it wasn’t until 2012 or so that Mr. Sivan really went full throttle on his social media career — it was then that he began uploading regular video blogs and song covers to the YouTube. That resulted in a major label record deal, a top 5 Billboard Hot 100 album, and eventually a hit song in the USA.

As for his personal life, Mr. Sivan is openly gay. And in case anyone was wondering, one of his best friends is pop princess Ariana Grande.

Anyway, obviously the career gamble paid off quite nicely for Mr. Sivan — our boy now has more than 8 million followers on the Instagram contraption and more than 6 million followers on the YouTube. His YouTube videos have racked up more than a quarter of a billion views. Well, hot damn!

Mr. Sivan’s new house is located just above the Laurel Canyon neighborhood. Records show it was originally built in 1958 in the general Post & Beam style, but the structure has been renovated so many times over the past 60 years that the poor house probably doesn’t even know what architectural type it currently identifies as.

If you were to ask an ignorant lass like Yolanda, we’d say that this place looks like a quasi-Spanish with a radical contemporary makeover. And we actually don’t hate the front facade — we think the whitewashed walls against the black doors and the single porthole window giving the evil eye are kinda cool. So sue us!

The 3,380-square-foot house has hardwood floors that may or may not be white oak and a very livable open floorplan. The living/family area lies off the “gourmet” kitchen, which sports high-grade stainless appliances and a center island with bar-style seating.

There are 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths within the structure — the master suite has that porthole window, a sitting area, a very large fireplace, a walk-in closet, and a bathroom with an unconventional ebonized herringbone floor pattern.

There’s also an unexpectedly voluminous double-height living room with some sort of retractable glass ceiling, a formal dining area off the family room, and a built-in outdoor bench seating area.

The lot is a modest .11-acre, so a yard is virtually non-existent. And look at that little oval pool! Good gracious, that might be the smallest cement pond we’ve ever seen around these parts. Well, at least it does not appear that the very fair-skinned Mr. Sivan has much use for a pool. And no yard means low maintenance costs!

Some of Mr. Sivan’s nearest famous neighbors include Lady GaGa, Niall Horan, and Will Ferrell.

Listing agents: Aaron Kirman & Jonathan Mogharrabi, Pacific Union
Troye Sivan’s agent: Johnny Johnston, Compass