The big news around town this week is the DoJ has, at long last and as anticipated, filed presumptive documents to seize assets purchased with stolen cash in the never-ending 1MDB saga. Fresh off their $33.5 million (rumored price) sale in Malibu, they’re ready for bigger and better things.

If you’re like Yolanda, poring over the 100+ page lawsuit feels just like an alcoholic downing their first beer on Election Day. We loved it. We read the whole thing twice and we’re gearing up for round three after we finish this post.

If you don’t feel like diving in, we’ll give y’all a quick summary. The file details the complex ways that the sanity-defying sums of money (we’re talking billions in cash) were siphoned from Malaysia’s government development fund and laundered around the world. Much of the dough wound up here in the US, for better or worse.

Yolanda wonders what sort of implications this seizure may hold for US-Malaysian relations. Although Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is not actually named in the lawsuit, the file repeatedly references a “Malaysian Official 1” who many media sources believe is Mr. Najib.

Among the people the file does name as 1MDB money launderers are Riza Aziz (stepson of Mr. Najib), Jho Low (best friend of Mr. Aziz and long-rumored to be the 1MDB heist manager), and Khadem Al-Qubaisi (an Emirati businessman and party boy).

You may recall that Yolanda wrote about this case several months ago under the title “Is the FBI about to seize Jho Low’s $39 million house?”. Now it looks like it’s really gonna happen.

The 1MDB money laundering investigation, which is being conducted separately by at least six different nations around the globe, is widely believed to be one of the biggest — if not the biggest — money laundering cases of all time, at least in terms of the dollar amounts involved. For its part alone, the US DoJ is seeking to recover more than $1 billion worth of real estate, art, and movie rights.

That’s right, the suit specifically calls out The Wolf of Wall Street as being financed with stolen money. How ironic is that? So now the boys at the DoJ are requesting “all rights, title, profits, related to” the film. Perhaps they will take the original copy and lock it up in some underground government vault. Or perhaps the FBI will carefully review the tape for 1MDB clues. Perhaps the part when Margot Robbie shows Leo DiCaprio her hoo-ha? We joke! Sorry.

Yolanda has neither the time nor the inclination to run through all the lottery-winner-style spending outlined in the lawsuit on here, but we do want to briefly draw your attention to the four uber-pricey LA residential properties that the feds have their eyes on: three in Beverly Hills, one in the Bird Streets.

Together, if we go by the original purchase prices, more than $100,000,000 in stolen cash was used to acquire just these four pieces of land alone. Let’s have a quick look-see, shall we?

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In September 2010, according to the lawsuit, Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak’s stepson Riza Aziz paid $17,500,000 (with assistance from his buddy Jho Low) for the oddball “Pyramid House” in super-prime lower Trousdale Estates. The house was designed/built by infamous spec-mansion builder Mohamed Hadid. As per property records, the site was purchased through an entity calling itself “912 North Hillcrest Road (BH) LLC”.

Sited on .73 acres, the property is actually made up of three separate parcels. Two are in Beverly Hills while the third tiny sliver of a parcel is actually in the city of Los Angeles (right next door). At the time of the sale, the house had 11,573 square feet of garish living space with 5 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a 120-foot pool, a smallish garden, and a large (holy?) pyramid underneath a skylight.

Though he’s owned the place for six years now, Mr. Aziz has not had much time to enjoy it. It’s our understanding that the property has been under major construction for (at least) the past four years. Keep in mind, kids, that the house was basically all-new when Mr. Aziz bought it from Mr. Hadid. At present, Yolanda happens to know the property is still nowhere near completion — the house is an empty shell and the driveway and grounds are still all ripped up. We also happen to be of the opinion that the DoJ may have a tough time getting another $17.5 million for a property in this condition, well-located as it may be.

For the last few years, Mr. Aziz has been staying in a penthouse suite at the ultra-swank L’Ermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills (owned by Jho Low, natch) or one of those other pricey hotel/condo developments — Yolanda can’t recall which one off the top of her overworked head.

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In November 2012, our boy Jho Low himself forked out a stunning $38,980,000 in stolen loot — through “Oriole Drive LA LLC” for  the “Montalban House” in the Bird Streets. Or what remains of the Montalban House, at least. As you can see, the property underwent a major facelift and expansion a few years ago. The renovation was drawn up by McClean Design and funded by Irish developer Dean McKillen and local guy Nile Niami.

Not only was this fully double the previous record price paid for a house in the Hollywood Hills, it was also the biggest sale in 2012 for all of LA County.

While there aren’t too many details of the property publicly available, we do know it may have as much as 18,000 square feet of living space under roof. There are two pools — one in the “front yard” and one out back over the massive teak (?) deck. There’s also a glass-walled garage, a guard house and a guest house. For more info on the property, reference Yolanda’s original post here.

The house is one of just three residences perched on what is known as the “Crown of the Bird Streets” a name given to a pie-shaped promontory that provides extraordinary views in every direction and is widely believed to be the best slice of real estate in the hills. It’s a trophy property for sure, although Yolanda thinks it looks like a giant wart on the hillside. Just our blunt opinion, kiddies.

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Built over a period of 5+ years by a local developer named Richard Papalian and designed by Palumbo Design Group, this project attracted some controversy and a lawsuit for the techniques employed by Mr. Papalion when constructing the place, including demolishing 90% of the original structure on the site when he was only allowed up to 50% and building 23 feet high instead of the allowed 14 feet.

Sited on a .83-acre lot, the 11,000-square-foot glass-walled extravaganza has low, wide views across the LA basin and to the ocean beyond. The property is entered through tall driveway gates that actually pass under the house and lead to a motor court and a multi-car glass-walled garage beyond. The main residence itself sports 6 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms, in addition to guest quarters.

Outside, there’s a large marble-paved terrace with a barbecue area, an infinity pool and infinity spa, and — oddly — a thin, moat-like channel that surrounds nearly the entirety the house. Holy crap. What a nightmare that must be to clean, though it’s certainly an impressive statement. Bet Mr. Al-Qubaisi’s pool boy gets a good workout, at least.

Khadem Al-Qubaisi paid $31,000,000 for the property in February 2014 using “Laurel Beverly Holdings LLC”, an entity managed by Hakkasan’s former CEO (and professional front guy, apparently) Neil Moffitt.

Not only did Yolanda hear that Mr. Al-Qubaisi never moved into this house, but we’re told he “tore apart and remodeled the residence” after purchasing. Again, we can’t fathom why a brand-new ultra-chic never-lived-in mega-mansion would need a major remodel, but that’s what happened. These guys know how to piss away the money.

In October 2015, when the 1MDB shit was ready to hit the fan, Mr. Al-Qubaisi flipped the house back onto the market with an ask of $42,000,000. Oddly, the property is listed with many of the exact same photos that were used to market the place back when it originally sold in 2014.

Anyway, he price tumbled to $38,000,000 a few months later and as of May (2016) the house has — according to the MLS — been in escrow with an unknown buyer at an unknown price. We’re not sure if the seizure of assets will cause the sale to be cancelled or if the DoJ will just snatch the money once the transaction closes. Guess we’ll have to wait and see, hmm?

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In March 2014, just one month after purchasing his mansion on Laurel Way, Mr. Al-Qubaisi dropped $15,000,000 more of 1MDB cash — through “1169 Hillcrest LLC” — on a vacant 1-acre parcel in a very posh pocket near the top of Beverly Hills’ Trousdale Estates neighborhood. He had some fancy renderings done up by Palumbo Design — the same outfit who designed his Bev Hills mansion — and then flipped the still-vacant spread onto the market in January (2016) with a billionaires-only $35,000,000 pricetag. The ask unexpectedly and briefly ballooned to $39,900,000 in May, only to drop back down to its current $33,900,000.

While it may seem audacious for Mr. Al-Qubaisi to think he can more than double his original (stolen) cash investment without doing a damn thing to the land, keep in mind that the parcel is one of only 10 properties in the highly-desirably “upper cul-de-sac” area of Hillcrest Road. Directly next door, hedge fund mogul David Kabiller recently dropped more than $50,000,000 for a vacant two-parcel compound. Then there’s Nile Niami who is building a spec-mansion nearby that he will list for a whopping $90,000,000. Next door to that is the mega-mansion that Bruce Makowsky unloaded to Swedish video game billionaire Markus Persson for a record-breaking $70,000,000 back in 2014. At the end of the cul-de-sac is a massive mansion owned by Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury that is currently on the market for $135,000,000. As a teardown. Has Trousdale Estates gone bat-poop crazy, or what?!

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Altogether, for these four properties alone, our merry band of billionaire bandits dropped a stupefying $102,480,000. And trust Yolanda when she says this barely scratches the surface on the amount of cash spent by these fools.

Though most of the (allegedly) guilty properties refused to comment on the DoJ’s allegations, Red Granite (the film studio that produced “Wolf of Wall Street” and is headed by Riza Aziz) released a statement affirming they are “confident that when the facts come out, it will be clear that Riza Aziz and Red Granite did nothing wrong.”

Uh-huh. Suuuuure. Plz, hunny.

Earlier this week, in a press conference delivered with the asset-seizure lawsuit, Leslie R. Caldwell of the Department of Justice specifically attacked the use of shell companies (like the ones used to purchase all four of these aforementioned properties). “This case is a perfect example of how shell companies can be used by criminals and kleptocrats and other people to steal money, hide money, launder money and make it very difficult for law enforcement to find out who controls that money,”

Yolanda does not disagree with Ms. Caldwell about her shell company description. But we do pray that the DoJ doesn’t come down too hard on their use. Most expensive houses in LA are purchased through shell companies — if those go away and all we’re left with is boring ol’ names, what’s your gurl gonna discuss up in here? Snooze.

These transactions we are about to discuss all occurred about two years ago. But as far as Yolanda knows, nobody else on the interwebs has discussed them yet. These deals were kept hush-hush. And judging by the spike in “hits” our blog receives whenever we write about bonafide real estate ballers, Yolanda knew she just couldn’t pass up writing about this.

William H. “Bill” Gross, for those who don’t know, is a very famous American financier who co-founded asset management giant PIMCO way back in 1971. For decades, he very successfully led and grew the company as Chief Investment Officer. He’s known as the “Bond King” in American finance and the Old Grey Lady herself even referred to him as “the nation’s most prominent bond investor“. Blah blah blah. In short, he’s a very big deal. No pun intended.

However, Mr. Gross no longer works with PIMCO. He left in a blaze of glory, publicity, and schadenfreude back in 2014 and is currently suing the company he co-founded for wrongful termination (PIMCO says he left voluntarily, though Gross says otherwise). Gross is now with a much-smaller firm: Janus Capital.

Mr. Gross — who has been married to his second wife, Sue Frank, for over 30 years and has three grown children, FYI — is also a major philanthropist and one of the world’s top stamp collectors. He’s also, duh, a major lover of luxury real estate. But you knew that already, right? We wouldn’t be featuring him if he had a Warren Buffett-style real estate situation.

While Mr. Gross owns a heavy handful of ludicrously-expensive residences all over the place, his  main residence for decades has been in Laguna Beach, behind the Orange Curtain. Specifically, he resides in “Irvine Cove,” perhaps Orange County’s most exclusive and expensive guard-gated community.

As far as we can tell, Mr. Gross purchased his Irvine Cove property way, way back in March 1988. Not for lack of trying, but we were unable to locate a purchase price. Yolanda is also not sure if there was a house on the lot when he acquired it or if it was just vacant land. But if there was a house there, it was demolished faster than y’all can snap your fingers twice. Records show Mr. Gross’s new mansion — which appears to be contemporary in style — was completed sometime in 1989. As best as we can tell by aerial images, the house underwent a renovation a few years ago.

Mr. Gross’s blufftop house is one of the largest mansions in the pricey community, weighing in at a decidedly-portly 13,819 square feet with 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. But apparently that’s not space for this certified Real Estate Baller™.

On June 3, 2014, the large, multi-winged house directly across the street from Mr. Gross’s house unexpectedly sold for a very serious $19,800,000. The house was never on the market, so there aren’t any listing photos or many facts/figures publicly available, but according to tax records the current, rather ho-hum structure was built in 1969 and spans 5,437 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 6 baths. The lot is a large (for the area) .53-acre of land.

Then, exactly one week later — on June 10th — a two=story mock-med house next door to Mr. Gross’s place sold for $16,000,000. Again, the home was never on the market and there are no pics, but property records indicate it was built in 1979 and has 4 beds and 4.5 baths in 4,561 square feet of living space on a .27-acre lot.

Now get this, kiddies. Both houses were acquired by the very same buyer — a mysterious entity calling itself the “White Tiger Trust”. That’s $35,800,000 that this mysterious trust threw down in the span of a week — all cash.

Yolanda, of course, opened her own “investigation” and it only took a couple minutes of research before we discovered (and as you probably already guessed) that this “White Tiger Trust” is very easily connected to the man himself — William H. Gross, aka Bill Gross.

Unfortunately, we don’t know Mr. Gross or any of his family members so we can’t shed even a flicker of light on what his plans may be for his three-house compound, which spans a total of 1.24 acres and has nearly 24,000 square feet of interior space between the three structures. But we took a look at recent (2016) aerial imagery and it does not appear that Mr. Gross has done much with the large spread across the street in the past two years. However, the two-story structure next door appears to be under construction/renovation. Maybe he’s converting it into a guest/staff residence.

One of Mr. Gross’s closest neighbors in Laguna Beach is Oculus VR founder Brendan Iribe, who paid more than $30,000,000 for an Irvine Cove residence that’s literally a stone’s throw away from Mr. Gross’s compound.

As we mentioned earlier, Mr. Gross is well-known for his very, very healthy appetite for luxury real estate. In addition to his $40+ million compound in Laguna Beach, he also owns another super-luxe modern compound in the Palm Desert resort town of Indian Wells, CA — it’s pretty much the Beverly Hills of Riverside County.

Mr. Gross acquired the golf-green-fronting lot — located within the guard-gated Vintage Club neighborhood — in 1995 for $2,500,000 and tax records show the current, contemporary mansion was completed in 2002 and has 11,316 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 6.5 baths. There’s an infinity pool and direct golf-green-fronting views.

Other nearby Indian Wells neighbors include a multitude of billionaires: world’s richest man Bill Gates, industrialist Charles Koch, Montana’s richest man Dennis Washington, Texas ranch/oil heiress Anne Windfohr Marion, and Mercedes-Benz heiress Ingrid Flick.

As everyone and their auntie’s therapist knows — and as was first revealed by the incomparable Your Mama over at Variety — Mr. Gross currently owns Ohana, the large and luxe spread he bought from Jennifer Aniston in 2011 for an unprecedented $35,000,000. That transaction made all the real estate headlines and disclocated jaws from Los Feliz to Malibu. Nobody thought Ms. Aniston would ever get anywhere near $30 million for that house. Then Mr. Gross came and shut the haters down. Must be nice to have that kind of spending power, huh?

Privately and ideally sited in the lower area of Beverly Hills’ Trousdale Estates neighborhood, Ohana sits on a gated flag lot of nearly an acre. The Balinese-inspired property was photographed for Architectural Digest in 2010 under Ms. Aniston’s ownership. The house has 10,000 square feet of interior space with 5 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms, a gym, two kitchens, and an infinity pool with baller-style views out to the Pacific.

Most unusually, the property shares its driveway with another house. Have you ever heard of a $35 million house that has to share its driveway (and gate) with the next door neighbors? Well, now you have.

Mr. Gross’s nearest neighbors in Beverly Hills include nutritional supplement heir Ryan Drexler, Ringo Starr, Roger Birnbaum (he paid $20,000,000 for Ellen DeGeneres’s house), and Riza Aziz, the severely-legally-embattled stepson of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Back in 2002, Mr. & Mrs. Gross paid an even-steven $20,000,000 for a spectacular mansion on famed 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach (CA). The house is in perhaps the poshest part of the entire road and backs up to, as per our Mama, the best fairway on what is perhaps one of the world’s most famous golf courses.

The Grosses spent years attempting to unload their place at a variety of asking prices before it finally sold in May 2014 for “just” $16,500,000 to venture capitalist Hank Plain and his wife Lisa. That’s a $3.5 million loss for Mr. Gross, not counting taxes, carrying costs, real estate fees, etc.

Also on 17 Mile Drive and just a few doors away is a house that was sold for a county-record-smashing $31,250,000 in late 2014 to Arkansas-based billionaire Warren Stephens and his wife Harriet. Then there’s Apple CFO Luca Maestri who paid $9,000,000 for his forest-like 17 Mile Drive property, and Palos Verdes-based philanthropists Richard & Melanie Lundquist, who just this April (2016) slammed down $28,000,000 for a major 17 Mile Drive estate — and they already own a smaller home on the very same road!

Back to Orange County. In July 2009, near the height of the recession, Mr. & Mrs. Gross somewhat unexpectedly slammed down $23,000,000 for a double-lot mansion on Harbor Island in Newport Beach (CA). Much to the shock, awe, and/or delight of onlookers, they immediately razed the existing structure and were all prepared to construct a new OC home base. But, as is common with really rich folks, the Grosses had a change of heart and instead flipped the vacant lot on the market with a ballsy asking price of $26,900,000 in 2011.

Unfortunately for the Grosses’ pocketbooks, the vacant land did not sell until April 2014, when Blake Quinn paid $20,800,000 — through an LLC — for the prime parcel. Who is Blake Quinn? A little web research reveals he is CEO of the Quinn Group, a massive Fresno, CA-based lessor of Caterpillar tractors and related equipment. Yes, kiddies, a tractor landlord can afford a $20 million vacant lot in one of the OC’s most exclusive enclaves. No kidding.

Anyway, Mr. & Mrs. Gross took a $2.2 million loss on this one, not counting demolition fees and all those other costs involved with buying and selling a property of this magnitude.

Some of the other richie-rich residents on ultra-exclusive (and gated) Harbor Island include billionaire Donald Bren and billionaire George Argyros. And then there’s furniture & real estate power couple Alan & Twila True, who in 2010 paid $27,000,000 through their “Telluride Trust” for the massive mansion at the end of the island. The previous owner of that house, sadly enough, hanged herself inside the massive mansion only a year before the sale.

On a brighter note, Yolanda is on her way to Death Valley for the weekend to escape LA’s heat. How about y’all?

Yolanda keeps a wee little list — a cheat sheet, if you will — of juicy upcoming stories we plan to write about. Just to make sure nothing falls through the cracks, you see. As we were looking at our jumbled handful of blurbs, trying to decide which ones to discuss this week, we noticed that about half of our items centered around properties in the ever-popular “Bird Streets” neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills. How about we discuss all of those in one big block, hmm?

So, this week is going to be nothing but Birds and Birds and more Birds. Provided no other unforseen “urgent” stories spill out or we get bored, of course.

Oft-maligned yet enormously successful mega-minded architect Richard Landry has a new project on his hands, a sleek modern located on a very prime lot in the Bird Streets. (Thanks to our snitch Don Won aka Don Juan for filling us in.) We don’t know why a client would pick someone like Mr. Landry to design an ultra-chic contemporary hilltop residence versus, say, an architect who actually specializes in that sort of thing. After all, Mr. Landry is much better known as a Faux-French-Palace specialist than a contemporary master.

But who are we to reason why; who are we but to do and die? Apparently a certain client wanted Landry and Landry alone to do up his house, and Mr. Landry happily obliged. That client is our boy Ted Waitt.

The earthy-toned modern appears deceptively modest from the street, with some native grasses and olive trees adorning the drive up to a compact motor court. The graceful covered parking area is a cheerful throwback a bygone era. So far so good. Yolanda also appreciates that the view from the front door extends directly through the house and to the LA basin below. The pizza delivery man bringing a late-night snack will certainly be impressed with carpet of big buildings beneath his feet.

But what we don’t get are those black marble slabs and the concrete ones off to the right. Yes, we get that Mr. Waitt wants his privacy and probably doesn’t care for random fools driving down the street and watching him eat his organic tomato soup at the dining room table. But all those materials — the marble, the concrete, the glass, the wood roof — seem a bit disjointed somehow.

Is Yolanda being overly nit-picky? Are we beating up on a nice design just because Landry makes such a perfect punching-bag? Feel free to psychoanalyze your gurl.

The house drops down mullet-style to two floors out back. We’ll get the proverbial elephant out of the way and address that pool before we venture any further. Yes, the infinity edge running the entire length of the residence is certainly dramatic and yes, it makes a nice patio cover for the lower level’s outdoor seating area. But damn, we sure wouldn’t want to be holding a party on that lower patio when The Big One finally hits, right?

From what we can tell of the interiors, the upper level is for event entertaining and the lower is mostly the private quarters and for low-key family events and such. Ceiling heights appear to be 5x beyond normal human scale, which is to be expected of Landry, a guy who apparently has never met an awkward proportion he didn’t fall truly, madly, deeply in love with.

We don’t know, y’all, but is Yolanda the only one bothered by the pool’s position? Kind of an eyesore, right?

Now that we’ve finished taking our cheap shots at Landry, let’s dwell more on Mr. Waitt, an Iowa native who co-founded the Gateway computer brand on his father’s cattle ranch back in the 1980s. And yes, he’s the guy most people credit with the rather iconic “Holstein cow design” packaging.

Waitt sold much of his Gateway stock during the dot-com boom of the early 2000s for more than a billion bucks — probably a wise move, considering Gateway (the entire company) was sold off in 2005 for $710 million. Forbes had Mr. Waitt on their billionaires list until 2009, when a bigtime divorce settlement dropped his net worth down from a high of $1.7 billion to “only” about $900 million or so. It’s always cheaper to keep her, Mr. Waitt.

After his divorce, Mr. Waitt moved to LA and is now married to his second wife, model/TV presenter Michele Merkin. (Yes, that’s really her last name).

Despite his aforementioned drop in fortune, Mr. Waitt is clearly not hurting for cash. Not only can he afford Landry’s hefty architecture fees, he also can afford to spend more than $20 million for a patch of dirt. That’s right, Mr. Waitt paid $20,500,000 for his Bird Streets lot back in August 2013. At that time, the property was already equipped with a mansion of 6,500-square-feet (or so).

Known as the “Esquire House 2010” the 1-acre property was once the neighborhood hotspot for booze-friendly ragers, sex parties, and all sorts of friendly glitzy debauchery for LA’s social climbers back in 2010. In early 2011, it was purchased by Oracle heiress Megan Ellison for $13,750,000. She lived in the house for only a couple years before flipping it at a major profit to Mr. Waitt, who opted to reduce it to the giant bed of soil it currently is.

Anywho, Mr. Waitt is hardly an LA real estate virgin. Back in August 2011, he popped his cherry by paying $11,525,000 for a 5,000+ square foot contemporary house located on a different but no less legendary Bird Streets street. Some of his neighbors included RuPaul, Dan Bilzerian, Whitney Kroenke, Avicii, Lori Milgard, Joan Dangerfield, and Matthew Perry.

He sold the property at what appears to be a major profit this April (2016) for $15,500,000 to Latvian bazillionaires/philanthropists Boris & Inara Teterev.

In July 2012, Mr. Waitt paid $14,000,000 for a nearly 9,000-square-foot mock-Med compound in a prime lower Bel Air neighborhood that was exuberantly described in marketing materials as “ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT VIEW PROMONTORIES IN LOWER BEL-AIR.”

We don’t know if he just he got bored with the house, found the neighborhood too stodgy, or simply saw an opportunity to make a buck, but records reveal he owned the estate for only 10 months before flipping it for $16,000,000 to Alex Khadavi, an LA-based dermatologist.

As an aside, Dr. Khadavi — whose hobby appears to be performing plastic surgery on himself — was recently served with a restraining order by “Million Dollar Listing” stars Josh & Matt Altman. According to Matt, Mr. Khadavi made several anti-Semitic and homophobic comments to him and has otherwise been viciously harassing and even threatening to kill the brothers for years. (Or perhaps permanently maim them with really crappy plastic surgery? We joke!)

Well, we never! Please settle down, ladies. We wouldn’t want any of y’all to ruin a perfectly good manicure.

But we digress. By July 2015, Mr. Waitt (who seems to get a new house every dang year) paid $10,300,000 for a rather matronly if classy Beverly Hills house located on a quiet cul-de-sac just off Coldwater Canyon. We assume without any direct evidence that this place is a “crash pad” he and Ms. Merkin will use until his new Landry dream is complete.

Designed by accomplished architect Gerard Colcord, the elegant single-story sprawler has 6 beds and 7 baths in 6,700 square feet of living space.

BTW, Yolanda thinks she’s finally put her finger on what we don’t like about that Landry place. The views are fantastic, the glassy walls are nice, but it’s all just so damn ordinary now. All these houses going up in the Bird Streets, Trousdale Estates, Bel Air, etc, etc. They all look like this! Expensive materials, views galore, panty-dropping everything, and just plain tragic in totality.

We don’t doubt it will be a fun house for a party, but to actually live in day-to-day? Jury’s still out.

Think we’re lying? Wait ’til you see some of the other places we discuss this week. Trust us, this particular horse is already dead and repeatedly posthumously beaten.

Here’s a great chance to live like a celeb without having to worry about long-term maintenance, property taxes, all that nonsense. Not only is this one of the largest homes in the Bird Streets on one of the largest lots (house approximately 14,000 square feet, lot 1.56 acres), it’s also one of the area’s most private properties. All you need is $150,000… per month.

Whereas most homes in the Birds — even the priciest ones — sit hard up on the roadway, this place is as private as they come. The property is accessed off a barely-there dead-end side lane from the main road, then passes a couple other homes before it ends at the Zangrillo’s property’s massive driveway gates. Follow the curving driveway for its full 400 feet, and you’re finally at the big ass hidden mansion, with its front-row view of the city. Any A-lister would be proud to call this place home!

The current owner, however, is not a Hollywood heavyweight or even in the entertainment industry at all. But he is very accomplished in his own way. Oh, and he’s got more money than most celebs, too. It’s venture capitalist Robert “Bob” Zangrillo, who currently lives here part-time with his longtime girlfriend/fiancée Keir Alexa (Wohlman), a model and avid social media user who currently has more than 27,000 Instagram followers.

Property records indicate Mr. Zangrillo paid an unnecessarily-complicated $19,999,000 (otherwise known as $20 million) for the house back in August of 2013 and used the rather boringly-named “The Bird Streets Real Estate Development Trust” to acquire title. He bought the house from film producer Larry Kuppin, a guy best known for producing cult classic films like the darkly sublime black comedy Heathers and the Hellraiser series.

The recently renovated property includes a main house originally built in 1922. Yeah… clearly, the beast has been dramatically overhauled several times in the last 90+ years. The current iteration appears to be — in Yolanda’s worthless opinion — a rather clumsy and disjointed take on International style. There are 6 bedrooms and a total of 8.75 washrooms that include a 2,500-ish square foot master suite with ebonized wood flooring, exposed (faux) ceiling beams and all white furniture. Views take in the entirety of the LA basin, stretching from just beyond Downtown LA to the Pacific on a clear day.

The yard isn’t as big as you might expect for a 1.56 acre lot. Blame it on the giant house, the two large patios, the extra-long driveway, and the commodious 15-car motorcourt. But there is a large rectangular swimming pool and attached raised spa with plenty of deck space for sunbathing.

The estate also includes a “gourmet commercial kitchen”, a two-story living room, formal dining room, screening room, and a very large movie theater. This is perfect if you’re the kind of person who loves to entertain, which Mr. Zangrillo & Ms. Wohlman do. 

It’s not a party until Mohamed Hadid and his hair show up and start actin’ a fool, right? Right!

Anywho, debauchery aside, Yolanda suspects the reason that Mr. Zangrillo and Ms. Wohlman might be open to renting out their house is not because the couple are hurting for cash, but rather that they spend most of their time traveling, as documented on Ms. Wohlman’s Instagram. That and the fact that the Bird Streets house will not be the couple’s main residence once their oceanfront mansion in Miami is completed.

Yes, the couple own also own a soon-to-be-finished party palace on Miami’s Dilido Island. That’s Dilido as in Di Lido, not the other thing y’all were thinking. (Come on now, admit it.) Mr. Zangrillo paid $7,000,000 for the property in 2012 and quickly tore the site’s old clunker of a house down.

Below are a couple photos of the waterfront house in a couple different stages of construction.

If you’d like more info on their Miami mansion, we suggest you visit Miss Wohlman’s blog post on the subject. Yes, kiddies, Ms. Wohlman is a blogger just like Yolanda! Her post gives the interesting backstory on the residence and includes some mouth-watering renderings of the project, which was designed by a Cape Town, South Africa-based architecture firm called SAOTA.

Have a look-see. It’s definitely quite the baller-tastic pad — or quite the “Mac Daddy crib”, in Ms. Wolman’s own words.

Much to Yolanda’s surprise, a quick peek at property records shows that this is not the only property on Di Lido island that Mr. Zangrillo has owned. Back in 2013, just a couple months before he bought his $20 million Bird Streets pad, he slammed down $4,600,000 on an oceanfront fixer-upper that just two doors away from the residence he is currently building.

Mr. Zangrillo made some cosmetic improvements to the home before flipping it in 2014 for a big-time $7,000,000 to Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer, who has since demolished the residence and is building his own South Beach dream mansion.

Once upon a time, Mr. Zangrillo custom-built a hulking, 13,877-square-foot mansion on 44 acres in Aspen that’s known as West Buttermilk Ranch. Following the end of his first marriage, Mr. Zangrillo listen the property for sale at a very optimistic $60,000,000. It finally sold for $31,500,000 in late 2010 to multi-billionaire Chicago-based beer distributing magnate Chris Reyes, still becoming the biggest sale in all of Aspen for that particular year. For photos of ol’ Buttermilk in all her faux-old-timey splendor, go here.

But we digress. Let’s fly back to the Birds for one final thought.

Yolanda has no idea who besides a Saudi Prince or Dan Bilzerian would spend $150,000 per month to rent a house in the Bird Streets. Actually, we doubt very much if even Mr. Bilzerian and his parents’ money could afford a rental like this. But if you’re reading this right now and you happen to be drowning in cash and like what you see, give Mr. Zangrillo’s realtor a ring.

And if you feel like inviting Mohamed Hadid and all the other fabulous and allegedly “fabulous” LA residents over for a raunchy housewarming party, well, Yolanda definitely wouldn’t RSVP “no”.

We know we’re a bit late to the party on this one, but we’ve still got a bit of fresh tea to spill nonetheless.

Astute nosey Neds may recall that it was the Wall Street Journal lady who first hissed that blockbuster film director James Wan (Saw, Insidious, Furious 7) recently and quietly sold his recently-acquired house on a very prime Bird Streets street in an off-market deal. Records reveal that escrow closed for $13,125,000 — substantially more than the $9,726,500 Mr. Wan paid for the unchanged place only two years before. Good on you, Mr. Wan.

The remodeled 1960s house itself is a rather confusing medley of Mediterranean-meets-Traditional-meets-Contemporary. And although the .63-acre lot is almost completely flat — a rarity in this steeply-sloped neighborhood — the structure itself is angled strangely on the lot, where a wing on the house blocks most of the westward views from the kidney-shaped pool.

But the property does have lots of luxury amenities to distract from the oddball architecture and decor. These include: a guest house, a gym, a wine cellar, a screening room, an upgraded kitchen with top-fleet appliances, and a massive outdoor entertaining area complete with a bar, grill, fireplace and pizza oven.

The total living space square footage (guest house included) comes to a hefty 7,500 with 6 bedrooms and 6.5 baths. And unlike must other buyers on this plummy particular Bird Street (Ted Waitt, Ashley Tabor) we have heard the buyers do not plan to tear the ol’ beotch down, at least not right away.

According to just about everyone, Mr. Wan never actually spent a night in this house. Instead, the investment property was put up for sale in early 2015 but was eventually leased to European tech entrepreneur Alfred Vericel and his wife.

Mr. Wan has long resided in a much-more-modest house in the same Doheny Estates area of the Birds. It’s basically just around the corner from the house he just sold to a couple of good Wisches.

This July, as noted by our friends at the LA Times, Mr. Wan paid $18,500,000 for a gorgeous Bel Air estate once owned by formerly-popular actress Meg Ryan. We have no intel on whether Mr. Wan plans to relocate to Bel Air or if this is another investment.

Anyway, records reveal the buyer of Mr. Wan’s just-sold Bird Streets abode is carefully cloaked behind something called “Nightingale View Partners LLC”. Well, Yolanda did a little poking around and a little asking around and eventually we confirmed that the buyers are a New York City-based couple named Steve & Debi Wisch — he a Goldman Sachs alum and she a jewelry designer.

At this point y’all might be thinking “Cool. But why should we care about these folks?” Well, hold yer horses. Yolanda has discovered that Mr. & Mrs. Wisch have quite the intriguing real estate history.

Way back in 2002, the couple shoveled out $10,000,000 to buy their current main residence, a full-floor spread at 1125 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side. For what it’s worth, this is the same building in which songstress Bette Midler owns the full-floor penthouse with its forest-like rooftop garden.

Here’s the interesting part. The 10th-floor residence was sold to the Wisches by Generosa Ammon, the widow of hotshot financier Ted Ammon. The late Mr. Ammon made tabloids worldwide in 2001 when he was brutally bludgeoned to death in the couple’s Hamptons mansion. And murder, especially a particularly brutal murder, is a very rare thing in the Hamptons.

Several sordid details emerged in the months following his death: the Ammons were in the midst of a messy divorce, Mrs. Ammon had an electrician boyfriend named Daniel Pelosi with a rap sheet as long as Rachel Dolezal’s weave, Mr. Ammon may have secretly been soliciting gay sex romps. Perhaps most shocking of all, Mrs. Ammon set NYC society jaws agape when she wed her electrician boytoy less than three months after Mr. Ammon’s untimely passing.

But it wasn’t until three years later that police finally arrested Mr. Pelosi for the murder.

Was Mrs. Ammon complicit in the act, as many folks speculate? We will never know for certain. You see, Mrs. Ammon died of cancer just two years after Mr. Ammon’s death, just two years after getting all that cash (Mr. Ammon was worth some $100 million).

Sometimes God has a dark sense of humor, huh?

Oh dear, we majorly digress. But speaking of the Hamptons! Like all good upper-crust NYers, Mr. & Mrs. Wisch own a swanky vacation home there. Their property is located in hoity-toity East Hampton. Property records show the Wisches plunked down $8,850,000 for the house in March of 2005. One of their nearest neighbors is the man himself — Steven Spielberg.

Supremely sited on the shore of stupidly scenic Georgica Pond, the 1980s contemporary was originally built for the late B.H. Friedman, a real estate businessman who gave up his career and became an influential writer and art critic. In 2006, the Wisches engaged high-priced designer Lee Mindel to renovate the entire estate.

The Wisches briefly had the property up for sale earlier this year (2016) with an ask of $17,980,000. The house has since been taken off the market, though a change in ownership does not appear to have taken place.

Yolanda certainly understands why folks may not like the look this place. Most ’80s moderns are difficult to love. The somewhat Lego-like exterior certainly isn’t pretty. But maybe is just drunk on that mid-morning sherry, because we feel like we could get down with this beotch. Don’t judge.

Though the Wisches are born-and-bred New Yorkers, their acquisition of an expensive West Coast outpost is really no big surprise. You see, the couple have three teenage children and we have been told that all three plan to attend college in California. In fact, Yolanda has been told that their oldest child just finished his freshman year at a Southern California university — the very same university that happens to be Yolanda’s alma mater. For what it’s worth.

Congrats, young Mr. Wisch! Now study hard and maybe one day you can make your parents’ wisches come true just like Yolanda did for Mr. & Mrs. Yakketyyak. You know, you can blog about other folks’ houses all day. Tee-hee! We joke.

Earlier this year, a striking modern on the “view side” of a street that’s long been considered one of the best in the Birds sold for an A-list-style $16,335,000. The new owner took title under a mysteriously-named trust, so Yolanda initially figured it was a celeb. But, as is occasionally the case, we weren’t able to tell just who it was.

That is, until just last week, when we casually mentioned the house to someone we’ll call Ally Oxenfree, who quickly whispered in our big ol’ ear that the new owner was not a big-name Hollywood celebrity at all but rather a medical doctor originally from Toronto, Canada.

Well, we didn’t believe that at first. But after some snooping around, we now know that Ms. Oxenfree was not fibbing. A Canadian physician named Greg Bailey really did spend more than $16 million for this place.

Dr. Bailey seems to keep deets of his personal life on the down low, so Yolanda is unsure if he’s married or not. But we did manage to snag his resume, which is about as eclectic as they come. We’ll give you the condensed version: Dr. Bailey was practicing emergency physician for 10 years. He became involved in real estate investing, then switched to high finance / investment banking. He co-founded several companies — some based in Canada, some based in the US, some in London — and he has served on the board of directors at 16 different public firms.

Dr. Bailey’s longtime partner in business has been billionaire investor Jim Mellon, who is often referred to as the “British Warren Buffett“. Mr. Mellon and Dr. Bailey co-founded and currently Mediqventures, a “biotech merchant bank and investment firm” that apparently finances new tech in the life sciences sector of the healthcare industry.

Interesting, eh? But we digress. We’re here to discuss the real estate.

The house was spec-built in 2010 by real estate investor Mauricio Oberfeld of the Dugally Oberfeld firm and designed by noted architect Zoltan Pali. If the name sounds familiar, it may be because he also designed the larger home next door — Mr. Oberfeld’s main residence and the house we just discussed last week.

Mr. Pali is responsible for many other residential structures and commercial buildings around LA, including the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, a revitalization of area surrounding the old, historic post office building.

See the family resemblance?

Mr. Oberfeld first put the newly-completed slab-sided structure on the market in November 2010. Unfortunately, it took years and several significant price chops before he finally managed to unload it in April 2013 for $12,450,000. The buyer was a private equity guru (and Tom Gores associate) named Alex Soltani and his wife Sandra.

For whatever reason, the Soltanis didn’t stay in their Zoltan Pali house very long. Less than two years later, in January 2015, the couple shelled out a brazen $32,000,000 for a much-larger house in the Bird Streets that was sold by none other than Dr. Dre.

Although reports at the time stated that the Soltanis planned to raze Dr. Dre’s old party house, they must have put their plans on hold (or something) because Yolanda happens to know they are currently living in that particular casa.

Back to Dr. Bailey’s new pad. The  extra-broad and flat-faced house, with its nearly windowless front facade, will for sure make an impression on the guy delivering your Mr. Chow takeout. A gated front courtyard sports a moat-like water feature and a front door that opens directly into the home’s upper level, which sports rift oak floors and ebonized wood cabinetry.

The master suite has commanding views out to the Pacific ocean, although the bathroom has some tall outdoor shrubbery partially blocking the scenery. If this were Yolanda’s house, we’d chop all that hooey right down. Come on now. If you’ve got it, you’d damn well better flaunt it.

Watch The Shining at midnight with the twinkling carpet of LA as a backdrop. What could be better?

The pool is raised but not infinity-edged. There’s a dog-run-sized grass patch and enough terrace space for smallish parties. Nice sunset, too.

As we’ve previously highlighted, Dr. Bailey’s new abode is located on one of the priciest Bird Street streets. Just two doors away is the oddball house that James Wan just sold to Steve & Debi Wisch for a sum in excess of $13 million. Then there’s the Oberfeld residence right next door, which is probably worth well over $20 million. Just around the bend is the old Megan Ellison compound, one piece of which was sold for $20.5 million to Ted Waitt (as a teardown). The other two slices went to Ashley Tabor for $26.25 million (also as teardowns).

Mr. Bailey also maintains a compact three-floor townhome in the high-priced Chelsea neighborhood of London. We assume he also keeps crash pads in Toronto and New York City, but sorry, we have no further details on those.

Oh my. Even Yolanda’s getting a bit exhausted with Birds Week. If you’re not feeling it, sit your butt down and quit complaining. We’ll have a couple more stories from the neighborhood and then it’s back to our regularly-scheduled programming on Monday. Capiche? Good.

One of the longest celebrity resident stalwarts in the Birds was super-talented actress Jodie Foster, who first bought in the neighborhood way back in the mid-1990s and resided in the same Spanish-style home for nearly 20 years.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. In summer 2012, Ms. Foster quietly upgraded her residential circumstances with the $11,750,000 purchase of a Traditional-style house up in the Coldwater Canyon area of Beverly Hills (proper).

And in April 2013, after months of rumors, she finally put her longtime Birdy house on the market for a rather unrealistic $6,399,000. Unfortunately for Ms. Foster, it took a change of real estate agents, several price chops, and 1.5 years before the house finally sold for just $4,995,000 in late 2014.

The buyer, according to property records, was a lady named Tamara Arnold. Our Ms. Arnold — who goes by Tammie — hails from that crazy place way down south. We’re talking about Newport Beach, CA. For more than 20 years, she was a bigshot managing director at PIMCO, a giant money management firm long helmed by billionaire baller Bill Gross. To give you an idea of PIMCO’s scale — it’s got more than $1.5 trillion in assets under management.

Her success in the corporate world has brought Ms. Arnold leadership opportunities at public events. She has been a featured speaker at the annual Milken Institute Conference, and until recently she was a board member of the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts.

Ms. Arnold retired from PIMCO in early 2013. But like most go-getters, she seems to be cursed with a endless work drive. Only a year after her “retirement”, it was announced that she had been brought in as a Partner at Generation Investment Management, another big money management firm co-founded and currently chaired by none other than Al Gore.

As part of her new Partner role — which we’d bet entailed a generous salary bump over her no-doubt already enormous PIMCO paychecks — it was announced that Ms. Arnold would be making the move from Orange County to her new home base of New York City.

Though she’s now an NY gurl, Ms. Arnold apparently wanted an LA compound for unknown reasons. And so she made Ms. Foster very happy when she came along and plunked down the aforementioned $4,995,000 in October 2014.

Ms. Foster, as everyone knows, is a very private lady. Unsurprisingly, the house she recently sold to Ms. Arnold is practically invisible from the street. Behind the tall hedges and the locked front gate is a small and forest-like courtyard that leads to the front door’s wide landing.

The front hall leads to a step-down formal living room with glossy wood floors, a wooden-beamed ceiling, and a stone fireplace. Also on the main level is the dining room, which features an outdoor dining terrace behind french doors.

The lower level, accessed off the living room, contains a large screening room with suede-covered walls. There’s also a separate bathroom and bedroom down there.

Back upstairs there are two more guest bedrooms plus a large and very brown/beige master suite that opens directly into the rear of the two-car garage. There’s also a very petite 1-bed, 1-bath guest house.

Although 6,000 square feet for under $5 million may seem like a very good deal for the Bird Streets, let us remind y’all that the house is sited on what is one of the lowest Bird Street street. Any view from within the residence is blocked by the tall hedges and the homes across the street — it appears one must clamber onto the roof if you’d like to get a look at Downtown.

Another downside is the parking situation. The house shares a very tight (and discrete) rear driveway with the next door neighbors’, and there is zilch off-street parking out front. Want to host a small private party at this place, but too cheap to hire a valet service? Y’all’s guests will have to hunt on the crowded street for a parking space and then carefully make their way up the courtyard steps to the front door. And take it from a booze hound like Yolanda — that there is a recipe for disaster.

Speaking of the house next door, records show it was long owned by celebrity attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan, who ran into legal problems of his own a couple years ago when he was very publicly popped for DUI on the Sunset Strip.

Poor Mr. Kaplan faced foreclosure several times on his Bird Streets property.He’s also had the property on the market several times over the past year, at prices ranging from $3,299,000 to $4,650,000.

Just when it looked like it was finally going to auction, Ms. Arnold raced in to save the day. Public records say she paid him $3,605,571 for the house this June (2016). That’s about $8,600,000 that she’s spent on these two homes, nevermind the costs involved in turning them into one cohesive compound (if such is her intention).

The two-story 1930s Traditional has 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms in 3,812 square feet of living space. There’s a wide and tree-shaded lawn next to a concrete terrace and below a brick-floored balcony. Ebony wood floors run throughout the main living spaces, there’s an upgraded kitchen with high-end stainless appliances, and the marble master bathrooms sports a rather fetching stone soaking tub.

Anywho, Ms. Arnold now owns .62 flat acres of Bird Streets land with a total of 9,872 square feet of living space. Who knows why an unmarried New York-based lady needs a nearly 10,000-square-foot compound in one of LA’s priciest neighborhoods, but whatevs. When you’re really rich, y’all can do crazy things like this.

A thorough search of property records reveals that these are not the only multi-million-dollar residences Ms. Arnold owns. Though she has not been based in Orange County for the past few years, she still owns a pale blue residence that’s literally right in the epicenter of downtown. Records show she forked out $2,226,000 for the house back in 2010.

Yolanda doesn’t get down to Laguna often, but we do happen to know that Ms. Arnold’s house there is located, literally, right in the heart of downtown and is perfect for anyone who desires a walkable neighborhood in the once-quaint-now-chi-chi beach town. It’s less than 5 minutes from Whole Foods and literally right around the corner from one of our favorite dinner-and-drinks spot in the OC, 230 Forest Avenue. If you haven’t tried it, you must. Fun place and not as exorbitantly overpriced as some of the Newport spots. But we digress.

We also assume Ms. Arnold has a home in New York City (that’s where she’s based, after all) but not for lack of looking, we weren’t able to dig up any evidence of her owning a place there. That does not mean she does not have one, it just means that Yolanda was not smart enough to ferret it out. Anyone know where Ms. Arnold lays her head in NY? Anyone? Anyone?! Bueller, baby…?

Before we close the book on Bird Street Week, we wanted to give y’all a quick and dainty treat. Thanks to our real estate insider Don Won, we’ve got a right delight for everyone.

You see, Mr. Won dug up renderings of the uber-modern mega-compound that will be replacing two of Oracle heiress/film producer Megan Ellison’s three old houses on Nightingale. All three have been razed by their respective new owners, and we already showed you Ted Waitt’s Landry plans for the third lot.

The other two, smaller lots were sold in separate but concurrent transactions to the same buyer: billionaire British heir (and new daddy) Ashley Tabor. Want more details? See Yolanda’s previous post on the subject. Suffice to say that Mr. Tabor has 1 acre of dirt up there (not all of which is usable). And for that, he paid more than $26,000,000. Yes. You read right. That’s $26 million of dirt, kiddies.

While his neighbor Mr. Waitt sought out ubiquitous mega-mansion architect Richard Landry to design his new modern coke palace, Mr. Tabor went a slightly less (in)famous route with the firm XTEN Architecture, also based in LA.

What XTEN hath wrought is a swoopy, louche-y, and dare-we-say slutty extravaganza of disappearing glass walls, hard angular corners, and infinity edges for days.

Because the two adjacent parcels are not level with each other, the new giant mansion is actually two separate structures (one two levels tall and the other, three) linked by a giant and completely glass-walled living room. This living room is so huge, kids, you could probably dock your Gulfstream G650 in there in just a pinch.

Blah, blah, blah. We know you don’t want to hear us blab on. So without further ado, here are the pics.

Oh, just one more thing. In a couple years, we just know this house will be the talk of Boystown. So if any of you WeHo boys out there score an invite, which you will ’cause Mr. Tabor loves the fellas — be a dear and send your gurl Yolanda your pics, your stories, your group shower home videos. Anything, really. We don’t mean to sound desperate, but please, oh please!

Oh yeah, the renderings…

It’s not often that we get to discuss real, bonafide royalty on this blog (apart from all those random Saudi princes). And it’s even less often that we write about a house on the Palos Verdes peninsula. So this is a double-whammy event that we don’t see happening again anytime soon. Savor it while it’s still fresh!

Her Highness Tatiana von Furstenburg has quite the interesting lineage. The only daughter of renowned fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg (herself the only child of a Jewish concentration camp survivor) and Prince Egon von Furstenberg (his father blue-blooded German nobility, his mother a member of the bazillionaire Agnelli family of Italy), she was raised in the quintessential lap of European luxury. Ms. von Furstenberg was educated in boarding schools in three different countries, speaks four languages, still frequents the family castles in Germany and Italy.

Nowadays, however, Her Worshipfulness (and the rest of her immediate family) calls Los Angeles her primary residence. Since 2002, the same year as her long-lasting marriage to an American composer named Russell Steinberg, Ph.D, Ms. von Furstenberg has owned a lovely yet relatively unassuming 3,278-square-foot residence on a particularly celeb-popular Los Feliz street.

Property records show that Ms. von Furstenburg originally paid $1,200,000 for the 4-bed, 3-bath property, which includes a detached two-car garage with guest/staff quarters above on its quarter-acre of hillside land.

A couple of the other famous folks who own homes on the same street include comedians John Mulaney and George Lopez. And directly above Her Highness’s house is a much-larger mansion belonging to No Doubt drummer Tony Kanal.

But we digress. We must chat a bit more about our Lady’s family before we get to the meat of this real estate delicacy.

Diane von Furstenburg long ago divorced Tatiana’s father, Prince Egon (may he RIP). In 2001, she wed longtime BFF and media tycoon Barry Diller, a guy widely believed by just about everyone to be a homosexual. Not that it’s really any of our business, but it’s relevant to the real estate matter at hand, as you shall see.

Mr. Diller — now in his 70s — has a net worth of 2.5 billion bucks (or so). And no children of his own. So what’s he gonna do with all that cash when he kicks the golden bucket? Give it all away? Nope. While we’re sure he’ll leave something for his favorite charities, it’s widely believed Mr. Diller has made arrangements to leave the bulk of his estate to Tatiana von Furstenburg and her brother, Alexander von Furstenburg. Mr. Diller and DVF’s marriage was part of that legacy arrangement, you see. Mr. Diller apparently loves his BFF’s kids as if they were his own. Which is kinda touching, we suppose.

So you see what the deal is. Once Mr. Diller is gone, Ms. von Furstenburg and her brother have plush seats on the Forbes billionaire list waiting just for them. Kinda make you a bit salty, don’t it? No?

Yolanda has long expected Ms. von Furstenberg to upgrade her residential circumstances. Unlike her more flamboyant brother, however, Our Lady apparently does not covet a giant house in tacky Beverly Park or even desire to fly planes with anti-adultery signs over Malibu. Smart gurl. Ms. von Furstenberg has taste, y’all.

Anyway, Ms. von Furstenberg — now in her mid-40s, FYI — recently spent the big bucks at the beach. Unlike most other sick-rich LA-based heirs and heiresses, however, she eschewed the typical rich-kid playgrounds of Malibu and Newport Beach for the less-lauded but still punishingly pricey Palos Verdes area.

Palos Verdes Estates is the one wealthy area of LA that Yolanda does not really pay much attention to. That sounds harsh, but it’s just due to the fact that we are mostly unfamiliar with the neighborhood, marooned as it is way down south between Torrance and Long Beach. It’s a very rich community, no doubt about that. But it’s not really the sexiest locale in LA. Trust us, it’s a long drive up that 405 or any one of a number of other freeways to get to… well, anywhere you wanna go, essentially.

But this house is definitely very cool. We congratulate Ms. von Furstenberg on her choice. Originally built for a renowned landscaper, the house known as “Casa Felicia” first came to market in May (2016), asking $12,500,000. The house sold in a month for $11,950,000. Mind you, the structure is only 3,620 square feet, which mans Ms. von Furstenberg paid more than $3k per square foot. Worth ever penny? We think yes.

Built in 1925 by acclaimed architect Myron Hunt, the smallish (in size) yet somehow imposing residence was owned by the same family for more than 50 years. This is one of those rare cases where that too-oft-repeated “Once in a lifetime opportunity!” line of real estate agent mumbo-jumbo actually seems appropriate, no?

The house is located on a relatively secluded cul-de-sac shared with just three other homes. The 1.51 acre property has 270 feet of blufftop ocean “frontage”. As for the house itself, it’s tucked all the way back near the edge of the cliff for maximum views and privacy. A long gated driveway leads through a dense forest of eucalyptus trees to the brick courtyard.

A set of brick walkways lead through the truly charming courtyard. Check out that original detailing! And Yolanda is not sure if she’s ever seen a hanging mirror in an outdoor setting before, but somehow it works.

Grounds are tidy and well-maintained but not obsessively so. Just the way we like it. But Yolanda does hope those lawn chairs are in the dumpster by now. Egads.

Indoors, thedecor is original, perfectly suited to the architecture, and far too — ahem — exuberant for your gurl’s taste. But it’s just perfect for an old-fashioned Princess. Clean up the few too-grandmotherly pieces, and Ms. von Furstenberg should be good to go.

The kitchen, with its burnt-orange tile floors, dirty blonde cabinetry and forest green tile splash, is so decadently original that we couldn’t bear to repaint or replace anything. Just get rid of that microwave and dishwasher. Oh, and the faintly moorish (?) domed ceiling with the brass chandelier is anther awesome touch.

And perhaps the best room in the house is the dining room. Need we say more?

Casa Felicia features floor-to-ceiling windows for taking in the views of the sea.

Unfortunately, there are no pics of any of the bathrooms and only a single photo of hardwood-floored bedroom, which we don’t believe is the master suite.

An interesting feature is the stone firepit with built-in blue-tiled seating. It’s cleverly crafted to buffet the flames (and people) from those occasionally sharp and chilly nighttime ocean breezes.

Sorry, there’s no pool or spa on the property. Not an inch of infinity edge anywhere. Will anyone miss them? If they do, they should have their heads examined! Come on now.

More angles of the spectacular views.

Yolanda confesses she really has no idea whether Ms. VF, her husband, and their preteen daughter will relocate to Palos Verdes full-time or stay in the Los Feliz house and use this place as a weekend retreat. Your Highness, if you’re reading this, be a dear and deign to let our nosy selves know.

Before we go, let’s take a quick look at the other von Furstenberg family homes in LA.

In February 2011, Prince Alex von Furstenberg (Tatiana’s brother) paid $13,000,000 for a Mediterranean-style Beverly Park mansion. The house was sold by Michael Solomon (former Warner Bros prez) and his aged Italian bombshell wife Luciana Paluzzi (former Bond girl). It appears that His Highness has made significant alterations to the property, including the installation of a new swimming pool and new landscaping.

Duty Free heiress Alexandra von Furstenberg (Alex’s ex-wife and the mother of his two older kids) recently completed construction on a symmetrically multi-winged “Modern Traditional” style mega-mansion on what is perhaps LA’s most expensive street: Mapleton Drive.

As for Mr. Diller (and Diane von Furstenberg), they spend a great deal of time in New York City (in two separate apartments), but in LA they reside in a relatively modest 2.5-acre, two-structure compound in the Coldwater Canyon area of Beverly Hills.

But we digress. Enjoy your new beach house and your new Palos Verdes neighborhood, Your Royal Highness. Just watch out for those pesky peacocks. Oh, and those territorial old surf dudes.

Yolanda would like to apologize for being AWOL for the past couple days. No, we weren’t held hostage at gunpoint or trapped in a never-ending Liza Minnelli / Larry King interview video loop. We were just busy with some boring personal issues! Got it?

Now, as we’ve told you before, Malibu is far more than just another pretty face. She’s not just about her beach, her surf, her sunkissed shores, and the bleached blondes and the over-tanned tragedies who populate the sands. The majority of Malibu is actually rolling hills, craggy cliffs, verdant canyons.

Naturally, the beach town’s oceanfront property gets the most press and commands the highest prices. But that’s not to say that those other, less-celebrated parts of the city can’t get the fat checks, too.

A massive chunk of remote, essentially undeveloped hillside Malibu land sold last month for somewhere between $14 and $15 million, among the biggest sales in the scenic community this year. Although we didn’t have any advance intel about who the buyer was, Yolanda was naturally curious.

Well, kids, we can’t lie. We were downright shocked — nay, flabbergasted — when we took a wee gander at property records and realized that the mysterious “Omni Assets” entity that purchased the property is the exact same one which only two years ago paid a ridiculous $74,000,000 (in cash) for the long-ago-demolished former “Disney estate” in Holmby Hills.

And as Yolanda first (publicly) revealed — and as most everyone now knows — Omni Assets is a front for Chinese heiress Zhang Jiale and her family.

For those who may be unaware, Miss Zhang is one of four outrageously spoiled children of billionaire Mainland China insurance tycoon Zhang Jun. Her (in)famously flashy lifestyle has been frequently plastered all over social media, blogs, and the press. She’s often seen receiving Aston Martins as birthday gifts, cavorting with her many gal-pals on superyachts, and popping bottles all over the globe.

The thing that rather surprised us about this purchase is that Mr. Zhang’s primary source of income — his enormous “Sino Life” firm that is one of China’s largest life insurance policy holders — is currently under investigation by the Chinese government. This follows Mr. Zhang’s recent detention by government authorities “to assist with a bribery probe related to a government official”. Hmm.

Forbes estimated Mr. Zhang has a net worth of $1.1 billion, but given that he and his close associated own more than 90% of the Sino Life company — with assets in excess of $60 billion USD — and has other business ventures in China, including real estate and electronics manufacturing, we wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that net worth estimation is actually quite conservative.

We have absolutely no idea why Miss Zhang — who is known as “King” by those close to her  — and/or her family would want a whopping 312 (or so) acres of remote Malibu land. But as of this July, that’s what she’s got.

The property is actually three giant contiguous parcels tucked way up in the northwestern corner of Malibu. And when we say remote, Yolanda means remote. This is about as off-the-grid as Malibu comes, beotches. It’s even more out-of-the way than the rustic ranch Daryl Hannah recently sold to her boytoy Neil Young. More remote than Caitlyn Jenner’s paid, too.

Two of the three parcels were acquired together from the same sellers — a doctor and his wife — for a total of $14,000,000. This property, which totals 234 acres, has just two structures on the land: one 3-bedroom ranch-style house and a 3-bed guest house. There’s a walled and gated dirt driveway off a canyon road.

Much of the land is rolling hills and steep ravines, but there appear to be multiple (relatively) flat promontaries on the land, each of which could potentially accommodate at least one sizable mansion.

Anyway, at first we thought Miss Zhang (and/or her family) owned just those two pieces of land. 234 acres is plenty, right?

But no. While browsing through the neighboring properties, Yolanda discovered that back in May (2016) the Zhang family quietly acquired a nearly-80-acre undeveloped tract of land immediately adjacent to the other two parcels they just purchased. According to our math whiz nephew’s tabulations, the Zhangs now hold title to 312 acres of unspoiled hills, some of it with gorgeous views of the famously picturesque California coastline.

Yolanda confesses she has absolutely no idea what plans Miss Zhang and her family have for the enormous swath of all-but-vacant property. Maybe it’s just a good place to stash some cash. Maybe they’s develop a new luxury gated community. Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll use the property to construct an enormous, high-style, and totally outrageous mega-compound anchored by a 50,000 square foot main mansion.

As far as we know, the Zhang parents reside primarily in China, while three of their four children (including Miss King Zhang) currently occupy the massive Carolwood estate — more details to follow. The fourth and eldest Zhang child — Annie Zhang — is married and, so we’ve been told, lives in the relatively-unsung northern  Orange County community of Yorba Linda, CA.

Records reveal Annie Zhang forked over $4,150,000 for her Yorba Linda house back in June 2014. The transaction was all-cash. Naturally. At the time, it was reported to be the biggest sale in Yorba Linda — and in all of north Orange County — in four years.

Miss Zhang’s primary residence is a 35,000-square-foot mega-mansion in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles, originally the site of Walt Disney’s longtime home. That house was demolished in the 1990s by billionaire Gabriel Brener. It was Mr. Brener who sold the house to the Zhang family for the $74,000,000 in cash.

One of Miss Zhang’s nearest neighbors in Holmby Hills is billionaire Michael Milken, who coincidentally owns a huge chunk of Malibu hillside as well, up near Pepperdine University. It’s there where he operates a small private winery and bottles wine under his cheeky “Malibu Milk” label.

Now kids, you know a high-falutin’ gal like Yolanda Y. rarely deigns to discuss residential real estate transactions below the $10 million barrier. It’s just entirely foreign territory to your gurl. Us writing about those “normal” folks’ houses would sorta be like seeing one of those the rapidly-and-alarmingly-reproducing Kardashian freakazoids piloting a base-model BMW 5-series. Or like Angela Lansbury wearin’ nothin’ but her bloomers while ridin’ ol’ Nessie herself down Fifth Avenue. It could happen but it probably shouldn’t happen, you know? The universe might explode.

But Yolanda’s got bills to pay and plus we need a better mix of stories on this mess of a blog. So normal folks’ houses it is. Uh, if a $4 million house is what you consider normal, of course.

When we first saw this listing pop up last year, we had no idea it was celebrity-owned. Then we found out it was owned by actress Ali Larter. Who the hell is Actress Ali Larter, you wonder? Yes, well. We wondered that too.

Turns out Ms. Larter has been working hard and consistently in Tinseltown for nearly 20 years.  Perhaps her best-known role (at least to us) is when she starred as the exercise mogul-turned-murder-suspect in the classic cinematic masterpiece Legally Blonde. She’s also had supporting roles in other films we ain’t never seen that include Varsity Blues, Final Destination, and Resident Evil. And then there’s her starring turn in the TV show Heroes.

Anyway, Ms. Larter and her husband Hayes MacArthur purchased the three-story Hollywood Hills house for $2,925,000 in 2009. A comparison to old listing photos shows they performed some much-needed alterations to the place, including installing an in-ground swimming pool and a much-needed decor overhaul.

The Nichols Canyon-area crib occupies a mostly-flat .52-acre lot — unusually generous for this area of the Hills. The current structure on the property was built in 2007 by self-proclaimed “bad boy” architect Brian Murphy. While the house is relatively large — three stories and 5,500-square-feet (or so) of interior space — the property is completely private and all-but-invisible from the road thanks to a towering wall of high hedges.

Although the house’s style comes off as a bit too cold and clinical for Yolanda’s persnickety taste, but we do appreciate the airiness of the very open floor plan. The whole house has white oak flooring, which adds to the bright and open effect despite the smallish windows.

The all-white kitchen, with its sleek cabinets, high-end appliances and marble countertops, is certainly dramatic but probably a nightmare for Consuela the Cleaning Lady.

On the second level, just opposite the kitchen, is a long dining table with views over the backyard and to the hills beyond. Trendy mismatched sit-down dinner seating includes a couple Egg Chairs, a tufted black leather couch, and three more traditional armchairs. To the right is a moody half-bath  on the main level (the .5 of the 5.5 bathrooms in the home, we assume).

Just opposite the dining room and kitchen is the living room space, which centers around a beige-surrounded fireplace and flatscreen television. There’s also bookshelves and what appears to be a itsy-bitsy dry bar with mini-fridge.

The master suite lies on the uppermost level of the house and sports an smallish balcony for sunset-watching, a king size bed, leather recliner, all-white bathroom, and a surprisingly large master closet that sports shelving in a rather dismal but probably natural shade of orangish-grey.

The gym does not adjoin the master suite but is rather located on the ground floor of the property.

Two more of the estate’s four bedrooms — two of which are on the third floor and one (not pictured) on the ground level.

It was Ms. Larter who installed the classy rectangular-shaped pool you see here (her 2009 purchase came without a cement pond). The rest of the commodious backyard is simple but elegantly swatched with a particularly luminous shade of green grass.

Anyway, the house eventually sold for $4,150,000 this May (2016). Although the new owner’s identity is well-screened behind an LLC, Yolanda happens to know that the proud new man of the house is a 30-year-old music industry hotshot named Henry Walter, professionally known as Cirkut.

Mr. Cirkut has penned or co-penned all sorts of hit bubblegum pop ditties for the industry’s biggest-big-name singers and “singers” including Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Ke$ha, Miley Cyrus, and Nicki Minaj. Jeez. That’s just about every successful poptart in the game, ain’t it?

We know little else about Mr. Walter AKA Mr. Cirkut other than just prior to the purchase, he had been leasing a modern extravaganza (pics below) just above the Sunset Strip and just below that exuberantly-expensive Bird Streets neighborhood.

By the way, Mr. Cirkut is the longtime producing partner and “right hand man” of legally-embattled songwriter mogul Dr. Luke. As you may have heard, the good (or allegedly bad) Doctor is currently caught up in a melodramatic lawsuit filed by glitter girl Ke$ha. Our Ms. Ke$ha claims that the Doctor used his position as a medical authority to take sexual advantage of her when she was his patient! Or something like that. We’re not really sure about all that details, sorry.

But anyway — Dr. Luke, as most folks know, paid $18,000,000 a couple years back for Courteney Cox’s former pad up in the hot-hot-hot Trousdale Estates neighborhood of Beverly Hills. (That house was sold by LA douche David Arquette, who was awarded the sexy A. Quincy Jones abode in the divorce.) And the Doc also owns Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne’s former oceanfront house in Malibu.

So obviously Dr. Luke has a lot more money than not-a-doc Mr. Cirkut, or at least he chooses to spend a lot more. But as far as we know, Mr. Cirkut ain’t being called a rapist. So there’s that.

EDIT (8/9/16): So maybe we were a bit too harsh on Trumpy boy in this post. The LA Times clued us in that he actually owns the house next door, something we probably knew about at one point but plum forgot. Maybe he’s not pretending to own this place after all. Sorry, Trumpsters! Don’t come for us.

In this giant vortex of weird and wild information that is the internet, there are a lot of really mind-blowing, unbelievable rumors out there. But Donald Trump putting a Beverly Hills mansion up for sale at $30 million is not one of them. Mind-blowing, we mean.

Actually, this particular rumor makes perfect sense. The house looks like something the Trumpster would love. It’s huge, it’s gaudy, it’s got enough gold leaf to make Auric himself smile. And it’s located on a very famous street right across the way from a very iconic hotel. In short, it’s not for someone who is shy about letting the world know how much moolah they have. And Donald Trump may be many things, kiddies, but shy is not (and never will be) one of them.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that Donald Trump did most definitely once own this house. And though he long ago sold the property, he has stayed here in recent years and certainly has not done much to refute assumptions that he continues to retain ownership. And now the house is for sale, and the listing description waxes poetically: “…boasts all-new construction with no expense spared – a labor of love created by a world-renowned developer for his own family.” Who else could that be but Don Don, right?

But wait, kids. We hate to burst The Trump’s big bubble, but fact is that he absolutely does not own this house. Nor was he responsible for the recent overhaul, despite the listing’s obvious attempt to cash in on his fame. And Yolanda can prove it.

Before we go any further on this silly crusade, let’s get the orange elephant in the room out of the way. We know there are all sorts of folks who may read this, folks who love the Donald and those that hate his guts and everyone in between. For those of you who may write hate mail to Yolanda for poking fun at him, get one thing straight.

We love Trump. No, really! We do. Although we certainly do not agree with everything that emanates from his mouth and we may or may not vote for him, we absolutely love his unfiltered speaking and how he effortlessly dispenses with all that politically correct nonsense. He leaves all the media outlets to whine and sob after him in his wake. We love it. So just because we’re going to make fun of him today doesn’t mean we’re on one side or the other. If Hillary’s wrinkly old butt once owned this house with her Clinton Ca$h, we’d make fun of her too. Trust.

Now then. Let’s have a wee history lesson.

Although the house appears to be a relic of 1930s Hollywood, the original structure was — shockingly enough — built in 1981. There are some reports that insist that the man himself, Richard Landry, was behind the architecture, but the place was built 35 years ago! Mr. Landry would’ve been a teenager at most, right? Hmmm. Must’ve been one of his earliest projects!

The property was purchased in 1979 for $878,000 by Omar Bongo, the late President of the African state of Gabon. We’re not sure if the property had a house on it at that time, but if it did, Mr. Bongo quickly tore it down and put the neoclassical thing you see here up.

It appears the second Mrs. Bongo — singer Patience Dabany — may have been awarded the estate following the couple’s 1986 divorce. Whatever the case, the Bongo family held onto the property for nearly 30 years, but in 2007 he/she/they dumped it for $10,500,000 to prominent LA real estate developers Selma and Len Fisch. For unknown reasons, the Fisch couple had a real estate change of heart and flipped the house just one year later at a slight loss. The sale price was $10,350,000. The buyer? “806 Acquisition LLC”. And if you didn’t know already, we bet you can guess who is behind that LLC.

Yes, kids. Way back in July 2008, Donald J. Trump paid $10,350,000 for this center hall colonial fixer at 806 N. Rodeo Drive in prime Beverly Hills flats. That much is true. But like the previous owners, Mr. Trump — for unknown reasons — also quickly experienced a real estate change of heart.

Exactly one year later, as per our Mama at Variety, he flipped the house back onto the market for a tough $12,000,000. Less than a month later — in August 2009 — the house was sold to a mysterious offshore corporation with a Zurich, Switzerland address. Here’s a copy of the grant deed, which Mr. Trump signed and had notarized himself.

So you see, kiddies, Yolanda is absolutely, positively, 100% certain that Mr. Trump has not owned this property since 2009.

And guess what the sale price in ’09 was? Just $9,500,000! Yes, you read right. Mr. Trump lost $850,000 (not counting taxes, real estate fees, closing costs, maintenance, any renovation work) on this property in just one year. Ouch! Not great for a guy who has frequently proclaimed himself to be “the greatest real estate developer the world has ever known” or some other such nonsense.

But who could the mysterious current owner be? And why did Mr. Trump entertain a Hollywood Reporter reporter at this very house earlier this year? The reporter was clearly under the impression that Mr. Trump was the homeowner, and Mr. Trump certainly never did anything but reinforce that assumption.

Like we’ve shown, y’all, the house is owned by a very enigmatic offshore corporation calling itself “Tecleo Investment Corp”. And Tecleo is headquartered in a notorious tax haven. But Yolanda just happens to know — for a fact — who the current owner is. It’s a young lady from Indonesia named Margaretha Widjaja.

Ms. Widjaja, now only 33 years old, seems to be a relatively low-profile young lady. But she’s richer than Donald Trump. Or at least her family is richer.

According to Forbes, Ms. Widjaja’s granddad, 92-year-old palm oil mogul Eka Tjipta Widjaja, has a net worth of $5.3 billion. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump makes do with a net worth of “just” $4.5 billion. That may seem a small difference but it ain’t to real estate’s biggest braggart, we can assure you.

Anyway. After purchasing the property back in 2009, Ms. Widjaja quickly embarked on a major remodel/renovation/expansion of the classy but tired estate. The project took years and was only completed relatively recently.

But why would Ms. Widjaja let Mr. Trump stay in her brand-new house? Well, kids, for one thing we don’t believe Ms. Widjaja intended to live here. This house was purely meant as an investment. She also has other homes in Beverly Hills (we’ll get to those in a minute).

The massive 14,991-square-foot manor is nearly invisible from the street thanks to a giant barrier of high hedges and a pair of supersized driveway gates.

The gracious front facade breeds shock for what lies within the front door: a cavernous foyer with white marble slathered over every inch of the floor and up the staircase. We think Donald Trump definitely approved of this.

Well, the house has not one but two adjoining kitchens, one of them a “wet” kitchen, whatever that means. And certainly they look pricey, with their leviathon marble center islands and luxury appliances. But somehow Yolanda still feels it’s just not Trumpy enough. Needs more gold leaf on the ceiling or something. The formal dining and breakfast nook (if you can call that ballroom-sized space a nook) are finished in similar color schemes.

A relatively cozy library without a single book present is an appropriate touch. Then there’s an all-neutral colored sitting room perfect for doubling as a war room for political public relations crises meetings.

Upstairs, two of the estate’s 11 bedrooms have rich and lustrous hardwood floors.

The master bedroom has enough space for even the most bombastic ego. And we’re Mr. & Mrs. Trump appreciate the mansion’s 12 marble-filled bathrooms with their gold leaf faucets, mirror frames, and bathtub legs. The sauna looks like it could easily be converted into a classy spray tanning room.

The .71-acre property is fairly large for the Flats and manages to pack in a saltwater swimming pool that runs nearly the full length of the residence. Carrara marble expensively covers the ground in the back patio area, and then there’s a full-sized, properly-positioned north-south tennis court slash basketball court.

In her cursory search through property record databases, Yolanda stumbled across something unexpected. We discovered this house is not the only one in the Beverly Hills flats owned by young Ms. Widjaja.

Our gurl actually owns at least two other large homes in the always-trendy Beverly Hills flats. The side-by-side homes, located just a couple blocks away from the much-larger house she is trying to sell, were purchased in 2004 (the one on the right) and 2009 (the one on the left) for a total of $7,680,000. One of the homes is owned in Ms. Widjaja’s own name, the other is behind another mysterious offshore corporation called “Jewelflower Finance LTD”.

So you see how it is, y’all. Trumpy does not own that big ass mansion, but he clearly has some sort of rental agreement in place with the current owner. Either that or Ms. Widjaja is just takin’ a wild ride on the Trump Train and is letting our boy pose in it fo’ free. Have mercy.

Now Mr. Trump, baby, have a seat and listen to some truth. We all know you’re rich as hell already so quit frontin’ like you own this place. And Ms. Widjaja, gurl, shame on you for perpetuating this fraud. Yes, that’s right. Yolanda said fraud. We take our real estate very seriously, y’all, and we don’t take kindly to people lying about what they own or do not own in that arena. And there are many liars out there. That’s a fact. You know who you are.

One more thing, Ms. Widjaja. We hope the rental contract (or whatever) prohibits the Trumpster from letting his skin touch any of the hideously expensive surfaces inside that house. Orange peel can be so, so aggravating. Can we get an amen?

Though she’s rattled around Hollywood for more than 15 years, starring in hit movies such as Baby Boy, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Hustle & Flow, it was only last year (2015) that actress Taraji P. Henson really got her big break by landing her now-famous starring role as Cookie Lyons on the primetime musical soap opera Empire. The show, if you somehow hadn’t heard, is pretty much one of the biggest smallscreen success stories in recent years. Now quickly approaching its third season, the melodrama appears poised to continue its status as an awards and ratings  juggernaut.

Along with all the fame, the A-list status, and the awards, Empire also brought boatloads of cash to Ms. Henson’s bank account. And so, for the last year, Yolanda and most other folks we know have expected our gurl to open her fat designer purse and splash the suds out on a celeb-worthy residence. Although she already owns a large house in Beachwood Canyon and an income property in Glendale (CA), neither of those are fit for a real big star. Come on now!

Well, it’s finally happened.

Back in May (2016) an exceptionally private and celeb-pedigreed house tucked away high in the Hollywood Hills quietly transferred for $6,450,000. The sale was totally off-market, so no current photos are available, and the property was acquired via a generic blind trust, so good luck finding Ms. Henson’s name in any public records. It ain’t there. But Yolanda just happens to know that yes, Cookie now commands her new castle.

The house, invisible from the street and set way far behind an electronically-gated and heavily secured driveway shared with three other properties, was last sold back in 2009 for just $2,175,000 by actor/director/screenwriter Vondie Curtis Hall and his longtime wifey Kasi Lemmons to a non-celeb physician.

Now listen, kiddies. It certainly seems as if Ms. Henson overpaid for this house, don’t it? Almost $6.5 million is a hell of a lot more than $2 million and change for just seven years of ownership, yes? How could our gurl overpay that much?!

Well, settle down while we tell you a couple details that might help it all make sense. First of all, please remember 2009 was an utterly crap year for real estate. Secondly, although the structure appears mostly unchanged, it’s quite possible the previous owner made substantial decor improvements or investments. And finally, Ms. Henson knows Mr. Curtis-Hall and Ms. Lemmons — and she worked with them during a period when they owned this house. We think it’s entirely plausible that our gurl entered this house as a visitor in past years. Perhaps she fell in love.

So is it possible that Ms. Henson just really wanted this particular house, and didn’t care if she overpaid by a million or two to get it? Of course it is. Ms. Henson is now a very rich lady, and she gets what she wants. Just like Cookie. Call it ruthlessness, call it boss-ness. Whatever.

Anyway, while Yolanda believes the property may have had interior decor alterations in the past seven years, it’s still essentially the same house, so we’ll share a few of the old 2009 listing pics here for reference.

Yes, y’all, we know these pics aren’t the greatest or most current, but we’ve got what we’ve got and that’s all we’ve got.

The 1965 structure has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bedrooms in a comfortable but not oppressively-huge 3,188 square feet of living space. Perfect for a single gal like Ms. Henson. There’s also a one-bedroom/ one-bath guest house  for her assistant or for her grown son when he comes to visit.

Thanks to its rather remote location way, way up in the hills, the property is blessed with spectacular views to the skyscrapers of downtown LA and well beyond. However, the pool is privately situated in a courtyard rather than on the edge of a cliff, as is more typical of these hillside residences. Now that may compromise your view while bathing, but it also makes for a much more intimate and wind-insulated cement pond. Skinny-dipping, anyone?

As previously mentioned, Ms. Henson still owns her starter house, a Mediterranean-influenced bungalow sort of thing over in Glendale. According to records, she picked the house up for $431,000 in 2002 and has had it available for lease in the past few years. She also owns a large but rather — ahem — homely home in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills that she bought in 2010 for $1,695,000 and currently has available for sale at with a reduced $2,745,000 ask.

See, homegurl’s got her own real estate mini-Empire going on. Get it? Get it?!

Back in 2007, then-thriving but now soon-to-be-shuttered-and-or-sold gossip site Gawker published what Yolanda can only describe as an in-depth analysis of the recent nuptials of a young couple named Elizabeth Goldhirsh and Eric Yellin, as was originally announced in the New York Times.

Among many other details, the story noted that the couple had met on JDate (think of it as Match.com that’s been filtered on Jewish singles) and the fact that Ms. Goldhirsh specifically mentioned in the announcement that she had refused to tell her future hubby her last name for several weeks. She had to test him, see? She had to make sure he was in love with her mind and body and not just her overstuffed purse-popping pocketbook!

(And it’s true. Ms. Goldhirsh’s father was a very rich magazine maverick named Bernard Goldhirsh. And at the time she began dating Mr. Yellin, she was a wildly wealthy orphan in her mid-20s.)

To be fair, kiddies, although we don’t condone public shaming, the marriage announcement was the sort of thing that would make an ignorant LA lass like Yolanda titter. Really, now. “[Goldhirsh] did not join [JDate] because invitations were lacking; she joined to meet people who did not know her.” (Oh. Okay.) “Their first conversation was an in-depth analysis of the European Union’s expansion into Eastern Europe.” (Gurl puhhh-leeze!)

But who knows. Maybe that’s just how those young Jewish couples in NYC roll. Would our very own Rabbi Hedda care to fill us in?

We digress. Many of the reader comments on the Gawker and Jezebel websites were decidedly unkind to the newly-wedded couple. “She is annoying and very condescending.” “This is not going to last.” “Looks like he belongs in Ice Capades.” “Investing would’ve gotten her better returns than Mr. Potato Head.”

Oooh. Ouch! We felt that burn. Their words, y’all, not Yolanda’s.

But Ms. Goldhirsh and Mr. Yellin — both Harvard grads, incidentally — shook the haters off with aplomb. Nearly a decade later, they’re still happily married and they recently decided to celebrate their upcoming anniversary by plunking down $10 million together on a mini-estate in celeb-filled Mandeville Canyon. Or more like Ms. Goldhirsh paid the $10 million and they will live there together, right?

Anyway, the Traditional-style house was built in 2011 by the sellers and sits away from the canyon’s main road, up a quiet side lane.

The house is referred to in listing materials as a “luxe farmhouse”. Normally, describing a $10 million, newly-built, 7,368-square-foot Brentwood mansion as a farmhouse (even a luxe one), would seem a bit disingenous to Yolanda and we’d give the listing copy our trademark eyeroll. However, we must admit that this house looks a lot more farmhouse-y than most of these many other places we’ve seen described as such. Surprisingly, yes, listing agents are going hog-wild over imaginary farmhouses. It’s the new mid-century modern, apparently.

The front door sits next to the front-facing two-car garage and opens into a proper entrance hall with a staircase on the left and a sitting room on the right. A long corridor ends at an unexpectedly enormous living room with soaring, double-height ceilings and a fireplace that looks as if it could swallow an intact Toyota Yaris. The light-brown wood floors paired with the muted, mostly pastel furnishings and paint give the place a light and modern feel.

The living room opens directly to separate patio areas via floor-to-ceiling bi-fold doors on one end and a row on french doors to the other. The french doors lead to a lovely outdoor dining/lounging area with a bubbling stone fountain, a fireplace, a full outdoor grilling station with a refrigerator, and a large wooden picnic table with a heat lamp. The bi-fold doors lead to a covered and columned stone patio and a large, flat grassy area beyond. Landscaping is relatively dense to ensure privacy and that special bucolic feeling that Mandeville Canyon provides. Can you tell that Yolanda likes this house (and this area?)

Back inside and upstairs there are four bedrooms (one in the master suite, three in the guest/kids wing), each with their own in-suite bathroom. A light-filled landing connects with views down to the living room below connects the two major areas upstairs.

The master suite is decidedly more “luxe” than “farmhouse”. There’s a spare bedroom over-the-treetops views down to the flats of Brentwood, and the master bath has a trendy glass-walled shower with marble flooring. And check out that enormous closet with its own mini-closet and mini-kitchenette!

Back downstairs, there’s a light and bright kitchen with bar-style seating on the island and a glass-fronted sub-zero fridge. The dining room — part of the same open space — adjoins the entrance hall and looks out over the grassy backyard. There’s also a family room that was used by the previous owner as a playroom for the kids.

There’s also a petite guest house with a unusual cobalt blue ceiling with slatted wooden support beams and a skylight. The kitchen area opens directly and dramatically to a rectangular swimming pool with inset spa. There’s also plenty of terrace space for sunbathing, not just here by the pool but all over the generous .75-acre lot.

For all these features, it appears Ms. Goldhirsh — the smart gal — may have gotten a discount. Records reveal the house was first hoisted on the MLS in January 2016 with a fat ask of $11,995,000. The pricetag dropped significantly to $10,350,000 in March before along came our gurl, who snapped it up in May through something called “Moreno Residence LLC” for a too-complicated final price of $9,735,750.

As it turns out, Yolanda discovered that this is not the first house in LA or even the first house in Brentwood purchased by Ms. Goldhirsh (and Mr. Yellin). Back in May 2014, she paid $4,800,000 for a Spanish-style teardown on a much-smaller .3-acre lot that’s so close to the Brentwood Country Mart she could probably ride her tricycle (if she has one!) there in about three minutes flat.

Side note: if any of y’all have never been to the wonderful Brentwood Country Mart, we suggest you skedaddle your behinds up on outta here and over there. It’s one of Yolanda’s favorite haunts and we particularly love the tasty — if a bit pricey — Farmshop.

But we digress. Ms. Goldhirsh drew up plans for a new 7,500-square-foot Traditional house to build on that lot we were just discussing. But for whatever reason, she obviously had a change of heart because in November 2015, the still-not-torn-down teardown was back on the market asking $4,995,000.

Interestingly enough, the house sold in just two weeks for $5,100,000, or $105,000 over the last asking price, indicating that the winning bidder faced some stiff competition for the place. And who was the winning bidder?

None other than mega-mansion specialist Richard Landry. Yes indeed. We have no idea what his plans are for that lot, but Yolanda trusts that the existing house has already been razed to make way for a big-ass something of Mr. Landry’s own design.

Oh goody. Yolanda can’t wait to see what our boy will dream up for this lot. Tee-hee.

Just one more thing. Ms. Goldhirsh has a younger brother, Ben Goldhirsh. Unlike the mostly-East-Coast-based Ms. Goldhirsh, Mr. Goldhirsh has resided here in LA for more than a decade. And to his credit he’s not just another one of them all-too-common LA trust fund brats who ran around in the clubs with Paris Hilton and Blohan back in the day.  Since 2006, Mr. Goldhirsh has owned and published Good magazine. Following in dadd’s footsteps, apparently.

Mr. Goldhirsh has also, since 2004, owned an (allegedly) celebrity-pedigreed compound up in the Beverly Hills Post Office area. The completely secluded 5-acre estate — which features a three-bedroom main house, a guest house, and a pool house — was briefly available on the open rental market in 2014 at a rate of $14,950 per month. To be honest, Yolanda is not sure if Mr. Goldhirsh found himself a tenant or not.

Supposedly the house’s claim to fame is that it was once Clark Gable‘s hunting lodge. Listen, y’all, we don’t doubt the listing, we just haven’t been able to find any corroborating evidence of this supposed claim to fame online. But it certainly looks the part, don’t it?

The moral of this story is as follows: do say luxe farmhouse, do not say neoclassic traditional, do make sure you’re fancy enough to be featured in the Old Grey Lady if you plan to find and marry your future spouse via one of those online dating websites so you can explain that you really aren’t unpopular in real life. And do marry Mr. Potato Head.

Since way back in September 2000, the gold medal for priciest house ever sold in LA (or all of Southern CA, for that matter) has been held by a gigantic estate that sits practically right on top of the hoity-toitiest golf course in all of LA: the Bel Air Country Club. Casa Encantada, as it is known, was sold that year by Dole foods magnate David Murdock to Gary Winnick, a former billionaire courtesy of the dot-com boom. Though the transaction was actually a non-standard sale involving at least $70 million in cash and not one but two parcels of vacant Bel Air land, the agreed-upon total sale value was widely known to be $94,000,000.

It’s not like others haven’t trained and strained to capture the podium’s top spot in the sixteen years since. Back in 2011, everyone’s favorite lady-around-town Candy Spelling came pretty close with her $85,000,000 cash sale to Petra Ecclestone. The silver medal was locked up.

Then, in 2014, everyone lost their minds when Suzanne Saperstein sold her Fleur de Lys palace to a mysterious LLC for an amount initially reported to be $102,000,000.

Turns out, as records eventually revealed, the all-cash deal for the Holmby Hills house actually went down for “just” $88,300,000. Folks involved in the deal attempted to explain that discrepancy by saying the extra cash was for furnishings. But Ms. Saperstein had held an $8.2 million auction of most of the estate’s contents just two years prior to the sale. So what the hell was worth $14 million?! Let Yolanda go on the record and say she believes that $102 million was entirely hogwash, a tragic, silly, and rather desperate marketing tool predictably gone awry. Fleur de Lys: Disqualified!

See, kiddies? That’s what happens when you start using performance-enhancing drugs. Yolanda shows no mercy. There will be no cheatin’ up in this bitch.

Oh — the buyer of FDL? Well, for a long time we (and most others) assumed it was billionaire Michael Milken because his family foundation office handles the property tax payments for the estate. Lately, however, we have heard from an always-correct powerhouse source that Mr. Milken is, in fact, not the actual owner — he’s just frontin’ for someone else even richer than he. And that person’s name is…

Wait a minute! We surely digress. So sorry, kids. That’s a story for another day.

Anyway, in addition to those two huge-but-not-huge-enough transactions, several other stillborn sales since then have attempted to take the record. There was David Geffen’s cancelled escrow to sell his Carbon Beach compound to an unnamed out-of-state couple for $85 million (or maybe even more, we’ll never know). And then there was the tragic late-term abortion of the Playboy Mansion sale, which had been in the works for somewhere around $110 or even $120 million. RIP! But there’s always next season’s tryouts.

But lo! From yonder hills, hope springs anew! Dry your tears, for now cometh the dark horse. Yes, kiddies. There’s yet another sale in the works that we predict will cut extremely close to that ancient $94 million transaction that predates 9/11. And we firmly believe this sale is actually going to close. All hope is not lost! Olympia, woman, gird your loins!

As was first reported by the legend herself, the equally legendary “Owlwood Estate” in Holmby Hills is currently in escrow for an amount widely rumored to be somewhere between $90,000,000 and $100,000,000.

The (rumored) buyer is, you may be surprised to learn, not some big-name Forbes 400 stalwart but rather a firm called Woodbridge Structured Funding. We’ve also seen the somewhat-mysterious outfit referred too as “Woodbridge Investments”, “Woodbrige Mortgage”, “Woodbridge Realty”, and “Woodbridge Luxury Homes“.

Who exactly is Woodbridge, and where do they get more than $90 million for a 10-acre estate in Holmby Hills? Well, here’s what we know. Woodbridge is headquartered in Sherman Oaks (CA) and headed by a guy named Robert (Bob) Shapiro. Here’s the somewhat-odd company website. As far as we can tell they buy regular folks’ structured settlements and take investor’s money to buy up real estate and then fund commercial real estate loans backed by those high end properties as collateral.

Or something like that. Listen, y’all, we have never worked with Woodbridge, so this is nothing more than our cynical mind talking, but their website sounds like a bit fishy to your gurl. We have no proof of that, we’re just sayin’.

(But there is proof that Woodbridge has been sanctioned by regulators in both Massachusetts and Texas.)

Although the company may seem strange, fairly sketchy, and perhaps slightly suspicious, one thing is absolutely certain. There is absolutely no denying they have cash up the wazoo. Since early 2015, in fact, the company has imbibed well over $100 million worth of luxury real estate in the best areas of Los Angeles. It would take far too much time to show you photos of all the homes they currently own, so we’ve summarized their holdings below, along with the total price they paid.

Four teardowns in Trousdale Estates: $29,100,000

Three teardowns in the Bird Streets: $31,100,000

Three teardowns in Bel Air : $30,699,000

One teardown in Beverly Hills: $5,925,000

One large house just above the Sunset Strip: $13,500,000

One small house on a tiny lot in Holmby Hills: $4,500,000

The total amount Woodbridge paid for these 13 properties in and around the Platinum Triangle, all of which were acquired in the past two years? A downright dumbfounding $114,824,000. And we’re sure we’ve forgotten at least one or two other houses.

And it appears to Yolanda that Woodbridge has paid over market price for most (if not all) of these properties. Their modus operandi appears to be buying a house, hiring a well-known contemporary spec-mansion builder to design a set of plans and renderings, then flipping the unchanged property back onto the market (with the plans included) at a price that is often several million bucks more than they originally paid. Unsurprisingly, they have not been successful at flipping most of the residences. If indeed that is there true objective, of course.

But when you already have spent $114 million on scattered homes, what’s another $90 or $95 million for one of the most prime (and largest) estates in the Platinum Triangle, right?

Now, although the estate’s vibrantly colorful history has already been covered here, here, and here, let’s have a quick refresher.

Located at 141 S. Carolwood Drive (it’s the only house on Carolwood south of Sunset, actually), the current 12,000-square-foot mansion on the property was constructed in 1932 and designed by noted architect Robert Farquhar for Florence Quinn, the ex-wife of mall tycoon Arthur Letts Sr.

Interestingly enough, Ms. Quinn’s son, Arthur Letts Jr., had only recently built a large Gothic Tudor manor just around the corner. It’s now known as — you guessed it — the Playboy Mansion.

And if the design of Owlwood looks a wee bit familiar, it’s essentially a scaled-down version of the former “Georges Marciano Estate” in nearby Beverly Hills — also done up by Farquhar and now owned by Jerry Bruckheimer. We’ve briefly discussed that house a couple times on this blog.

But we digress yet again! Ms. Quinn eventually sold the house to Joseph Drown (founder of the Hotel Bel Air), who flipped it to movie mogul Joseph Schenck. While living on the estate, Mr. Schenck took up with a fledgling actress calling herself Marilyn Monroe, a gal nearly 50 years his junior. Ms. Monroe would spend at least a couple years dwelling in the estate’s guest house.

Then, in 1956, Schenck sold the house to oilman William Keck, who installed an indoor swimming pool and gold bathroom fixtures shaped like oil derricks. Naturally. Following Keck’s death, the estate was acquired in 1966 by Tony Curtis, who entertained the likes of Sonny Bono and Cher while in residence, the former of whom reportedly fell passionately in love with the house and instantly began dreaming of owning it.

Finally, in 1972, Cher got her chance. After a heated negotiation process with Curtis (during which she reportedly shouted “I want that fucking house!”) our gurl got her wish and the deal was sealed for $750,000.

The ill-fated couple moved on in. By 1975, they were divorced and their enormously popular television show was kaput. And Cher had since begun dating His Highness David Geffen (yes, kiddies, David Geffen once dated women). Supposedly Mr. Geffen had grand renovation plans for his girlfriend’s house which (perhaps thankfully) never came to fruition. You see, perennially itchy-footed Cher sold the house in 1976 for $950,000 to carpet mogul Ralph Miskin and his Emmy-winning Broadway producer wife Chase.

It was the Mishkins who christened the estate Owlwood (supposedly because the grounds were home to numerous of the fine-feathered fowls). But like the previous owners before them, the couple didn’t stay there long. After a total renovation, they flipped the property for $4,200,000 to a flamboyant and alleged arms dealer from Monaco named Ghazi Aita.

The 1978 sale was reportedly the most ever paid for a house in California up to that point. But too much is never enough and in 1982, Mr. Aita dropped another $4,000,000 for the house next door at 10600 Sunset Blvd, where he would occasionally entertain some of his lady friends (hookers), much to the annoyance of his longtime estate manager (who resided there full-time).

Mr. Aita would become the longest resident in Owlwood history to date. But finally, in 1999, he was ready to sell. He put the house ont he market for $58 million — perhaps in part because of the crazy prices the dotcom boom was engendering.

So the reports go, Michael Jackson was interested in the place and indeed came to have a look-see. But even MJ, a notorious spendthrift himself, thought that $58 million was way too much for the compound. The two-parcel property eventually sold in 2002 for about $33,000,000 to Roland Arnall, founder of subprime mortgage lender Ameriquest, which went belly-up in 2007. Just months later, Mr. Arnall died of cancer at the age of 68.

In addition to the two parcels at 10600 Sunset and 141 S. Carolwood, the Arnalls also purchased 10100 Sunset Boulevard, once home to Jayne Mansfield and known as “The Pink Palace” after the color she painted the structure. Mr. & Mrs. Arnall quickly demolished not only the house at 10600 Sunset but also the kitschy yet iconic Pink Palace at 10100, the latter allegedly without permits.

Today, the 10-acre estate sports only the large, historic main residence and a small separate guest/pool house. Where once stood the Mansfield home remains little more than a black-topped parking lot.

Like both The Manor and Fleur de Lys, the Owlwood Estate is being sold by a woman who got rich thanks to her fortunate marriage. Unlike Candy Spelling and Suzanne Saperstein, however, Dawn Arnall is not exactly what we’d call a socialite. She’s pretty damn lowkey for as much moolah as she has and reportedly spends most of her time not in LA but rather on her lavish, 650-acre Aspen retreat.

Although we don’t believe it’s ever been officially on the MLS, Owlwood has not-so-quietly been available as a pocket listing for the past few years, first at an astronomical ask of $150 million, then at a more reasonable but still sky-high $100,000,000.

Now that it is allegedly (nearly) sold, what will become of it? Given Woodbridge’s history, we can only imagine the land will be subdivided into four or five mini-estate-sized lots and flipped back onto the market with development plans. But that speculation is not really what this story is about, is it?

This is about our potential future champion. From the lowest places, kids, hope springs eternal. On this Sunday, let us pause and give thanks that we continue to dream real big real estate dreams. Let that banner yet wave and rise above, children. Bless you all.

Yolanda’s on the run today so let’s be unusually concise here. Last month, our friends over at The Real Deal noted that a businessman in the education industry named Yife Tien had paid $23,460,000 (in cash, apparently) for a large home in Coral Gables, Florida.

Although Mr. Tien has primarily spent his life in Florida and offshore in the Caribbean, he and his family — his wife, Dr. Lucy Chua and his son Christopher — now split their time evenly between Coral Gables and Los Angeles. And big real estate moves on both coasts are keeping him quite busy, so it would seem.

You see, Mr. Tien has just flipped a house he only recently acquired from music superstar Reba McEntire back on the market at a substantially higher price than he paid little more than a year ago.

Last June (2015), Mr. Tien forked over $22,250,000 (through an LLC) for the investment property, located in the ultra-exclusive gated community of Beverly Park. This was right around the time Ms. McEntire and her longtime hubby Narvel Blackstock were getting the big D — divorce. Although divorce is always sad and selling a marital home is usually tough, Ms. McEntire can smile because she made a bundle on the sale — she originally picked the house up in 2003 for just $9,000,000.

The current listing — asking $29,995,000 — says the place has been “revamped and reimagined”, although if you ask Yolanda whoever reimagined it must not have had much of an imagination because it is straight up B-O-R-I-N-G. Sorry, we just had to say it.

The mock-med mansion was built in 1993 and looks it. At 11,598 square feet, it’s actually one of the community’s smallest homes, believe it or not. Still, it’s got 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a large guest house, a pool, tennis court, all on 1.8 acres. What more do you need?

Oh, yeah. You’ve also got the requisite pimpmobiles parked out front. For reference, we’re guessing.

The front door opens to an beige-toned entrance hall that leads directly to a (mostly) beige living room with a gaping, walk-in bronze fireplace. Over in a corner of the living room is a semi-circular wet bar with a somewhat unusually dropped-down ceiling for greater intimacy.

The kitchen has white cabinetry and a Ford Excursion-sized center island with one of the thickest marble slab countertops we’ve ever laid eyes on. Intricate ceiling (mis)treatments continue into the dining room, which overlooks the backyard. There’s also a large wine cellar or rather a “wine shelf”.

The master bedroom has a raised ceiling with even more baby-poo colored furnishings and the master bath has more of the same. Listen, everyone, we know this is how many rich folks like to decorate their homes. But all the beige just confounds Yolanda to know end. It’s just so banal. So…. beige. Outdated, you know?

The backyard is maybe not quite as big as you might anticipate, but it does sport a Grecian-style swimming pool and an adjacent reflection pond. Next to the pool is an open-air guest pavilion featuring a large kitchen, a patio dining area, a living room space, and a pool table with beige trim (naturally).

The grounds also sport what appears to be a small storage shed of some sort, a full-size and properly aligned north/south tennis court, and a front-facing four car garage. Oh, and there’s also some oblique views through the trees to bustling city below the mountains.

The Tien family’s main residence in LA, in case you’re curious, happens to be in the very same gated community. Actually, it’s directly across the never-used Beverly Park park.

The 13,000+ square foot house, one of Beverly Park’s rare contemporaries (and much more interesting than Reba’s old granny pad), was acquired by Mr. Tien in early 2012 for $21,750,000.

Scarcely two months later, the Tien family shocked everyone again when they dropped another $21,000,000 on an uber-modern Malibu mansion.

The 5,000+ square foot glassy glamourpuss of a house, which clings dramatically to the cliffs of Malibu’s celebrity-infested Point Dume neighborhood, was built by Equinox founder Danny Errico and was once leased to David & Victoria Beckham for the summer, probably at an absolutely ludicrous monthly rate.

And then, of course, there’s that Palladian-style mansion on Tahiti Beach Island in Coral Gables, picked up just a month or so ago. The $23,460,000 sale of the three-story waterfront home marks a four-year record for Coral Gables and was, according to the listing agents, the second-biggest sale in all of Miami-Dade County so far this year.

So where, you might be wondering, does all that money come from? Mr. Tien currently owns (at least) four luxury properties that have cost him a total of right around $90,000,000.

Well, Mr. Tien’s elderly father Paul founded a for-profit medical school called American University of the Caribbean back in 1978. The school is currently based on the island of Sint Maarten. In August 2011, the univerisity — by that point reportedly generating nearly $50 million in revenue per year — was sold to DeVry in an all-cash, $235 million transaction.

In addition to all that cash, Mr. Tien also has other income streams. In 2006, he and his wife Dr. Chua founded Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine (RVUCOM) in Parker, Colorado. The school is (in)famous for being the very first (and for a long time, the only) for-profit medical school in the entire United States.

You see kids, despite his background in in the medical world, Mr. Tien is not a physician. He’s a businessman, and he’s unabashed about the fact that he’s in the medical school industry (or whatever) to make a buck. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

As for his real estate ventures, Yolanda wished Mr. Tien luck in selling his former-ginger-owned house in Beverly Park for nearly $30 million. We suspect he may need it. Beverly Park is a bit off trend these days. All the cool cats are down in Trousdale Estate and the Bird Streets. As far as we can tell, there are at least five other homes in Beverly Park that were recently on the market, four of which were priced within a couple million or so of this house. Not one of them has yet sold (to our knowledge).

As far as we can tell, there hasn’t been a single sale in Beverly Park since Mr. Tien acquired this house more than a year ago.

One more thing. As we also mentioned previously, the lavish-living Mr. Tien has a very indulged son named Christopher Tien. And our boy has an Instagram account that you really should check out. Particularly if you like cars. And watches. And food!

We heard whispers of this more than a week ago from a birdie we’ll call call Brentwood Beotch but rather stupidly sat on the story. Anywho, we’re here now and yes, as was first noted by our pals at the LA Times, gossip-plagued and formerly NYC-based Today Show anchor Natalie Morales (soon to be the LA-based host of Access Hollywood) has paid $6,800,000 for a newly-built family-friendly spec mansion in Brentwood.

Mr. Beotch told us Ms. Morales and her long-suffering hubby What’s-His-Name have already moved into the house, which seems kind of odd to Yolanda because Ms. Morales, along with most of the NBC crew, has been down in Rio for awhile now. But whatever.

The tri-level “East Coast Traditional” residence sports 6 bedrooms and a total of 5.25 baths in its 7,020 square feet of living space. (But bizarrely enough, the same listing also says there are 5 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms. Huh?!) The property sits just a block or two south of Sunset, right in the proverbial heart of almost shockingly-expensive but rather lovely Brentwood neighborhood.

Yolanda applauds the developer for choosing a rather unusual two-tone color scheme for the house. While the white-on-grey theme might not suit everyone’s taste, we appreciate the effort to differentiate the home from all those other very similar-looking all-white homes nearby.

A grey stone driveway leads to a chocolate-colored front-facing two car garage. The front door opens directly into the living room, with its pleasant arched ceilings and what appears to be a black marble-surrounded fireplace and dramatic 9-foot French dooes that open to the outdoor patios. Directly next to that is a contemporary-style formal dining room that easily seats 10 and has a backlit wine cellar/rack thingy for easily grabbing a good bottle of Shiraz to go with your sirloin.

Wide-plank white oak floors continue in the open kitchen. Per the listing, the appliances are all state-of-the-are and the enormous center island features a white Caesar stone counter top.

Back near the entryway, a staircase leads up to the home’s five (or six?) bedrooms, including the master suite, which features a sitting room, dual bathrooms, and a fashion designer-suited walk-in closet with glass cabinets and tons of space for all Ms. Morales’s Louboutins and Birkins (or whatever).

The house, two stories at the front, drops down mullet-style to three out back and sports a rather melodramatic staircase running from the second level to the ground space and bisecting

Despite the somewhat-paltry .28-acre lot, the outdoor spaces are maximized with a rectangular pool and inset spa, dog-run-sized patch of very green grass, and several outdoor dining and lounging areas, including one with a full-size fireplace.

Although both parties have vehemently denied it, there has been oft-repeated speculation that Ms. Morales’s move to the West Coast may have been prompted by an affair gone awry with her former Today co-star Matt Lauer. Whatever the case, Ms. Morales will now co-helm Access Hollywood and she seems ready to leave NYC behind for good, as she and Mr. What’s-His-Name have put their Hoboken crib on the market.

Mazel Tov, Ms. Morales (and hubby). Now if The Bald One comes a-knockin’, do like Whitney should’ve done and just say no. Remember how he played our gurl Annie?

Malibu real estate seems a bit sluggish for this time of year, don’t it? Are folks just too busy to get out to the beach nowadays? We keep thinking it’s going to pick up, but here we are in August already. Ah, well…

Well, at least one family is having some fun. Powerhouse TV (and film) writer/producer Peter Lenkov and his second wife, all-but-retired bit-part actress Audie England, have tossed out $6,575,000 on a petite (but obviously expensive) oceanfront crib.

Mr. Lenkov has a long list of credits to his name, but he may be best-known for developing and producing the Hawaii Five-0 reboot, a highly-rated CBS show now entering its 7th season. He’s also produced a whole bunch of episodes for hit shows such as 24 and CSI: NY and will produce the upcoming “eagerly anticipated” MacGyver show reboot.

Listing information says the La Costa Beach home “takes modern minimalism to a new level”. Well, some of that modern minimalism must’ve rubbed off on the listing description, which clocks in at a miserly three lines long on Redfin. Well, we never!

The online marketing materials also do not call out the home’s square footage, but tax records say it weighs in at 1,704 so we’ll go with that. The house was originally a fairly standard 3 bed, 2.5 bath abode, but the most recent owner — a hedge funder named Jim Curtis — remodeled the place to take it down to just 2 beds. We imagine that Mr. & Mrs. Lenkov, parents to four rugrats, might be inclined to restore the place to its original configuration. But who knows!

We’ve got to say, we’re liking this place. This is Yolanda’s idea of what a great beach house should be: not too large. Open. Simple — something that doesn’t distract from the scenery outdoors. A radiant teak hardwood deck on the lower level has a short, private ladder to the beach — fortunately the sandiest stretch of La Costa.

Indoors, the first floor is essentially one large room that combines the living and dining areas and a minimalist kitchen with dark wood cabinetry, high-end appliances, bar seating on the center island, and what appears to be grey linoleum (or possibly granite) countertops.

Upstairs, there’s an ultra-narrow balcony, another disappearing wall of glass that blends the indoors with the out, and one of the most spare master suites Yolanda has ever laid her gorgeous eyes on. Gotta say, it seems like the perfect place to use for a couple nights in a quick pinch.

Out front on PCH, there’s a two-car detached garage.

The Lenkov family are longtime residents of the celebrity guard-gated enclave of Hidden Hills (CA), deep in the San Fernando Valley. Back in August 2012, they paid $5,250,000 for a 3.8-acre property with a 8,836-square-foot, 7 bed / 8.5 bath mansion that’s essentially right next door to a $10.5 million, two-house compound recently purchased by bizarrely rich 19-year-old Kardashian Klan member Kylie Jenner.

Also in August 2012, the couple sold their old Hidden Hills pad for $2,133,000 to actor Scott Foley. The modest ranch-style number is — oddly enough — all but directly across the street from a massive spec-mega-mansion that was sold for a record-breaking $19,750,000 to behemoth-booted bovine Kim Kardashian and her unstable hubby Kanye Kardashian West.

Stay tuned because starting Thursday and continuing through next week we’ll have a whole bunch of juicy stories for y’all. Sit back and enjoy.

Has your gurl Yolanda ever told all you wee little pumpernickels that Trousdale Estates real estate is hot as hell?

We have. We know we have. Either way, you should know. Because it’s been hot for as long as we can remember. And Yolanda is an old hag with a long memory, so that’s really saying somethin’. But yes, Trousdale simply amazes us with how prices continue to skyrocket with reckless abandon. They already stormed through the recession. And now, in 2016, this year of economic uncertainty and political discontent — they’re still out-climbing even the most adroit marsupials.

The hills of Beverly could burn to the ground and then be hit with a radioactive nuclear missile strike while Hillary and The Donald conduct wild outdoor lovemaking from Carla Ridge to Hillcrest Road and still people would be spending absolutely insane amounts of money for a piece of the pie. This we wholeheartedly believe.

Take a look at this property. Located in a very notoriously pricey section of lower Trousdale, the home was the longtime residence of professional funny man Morey Amsterdam.

His heirs eventually sold the Hawaiian-ish single-story sprawler in April 2012 for $4,900,000 to a group of three Beverly Hills-based Israeli investors. After letting the home sit for a hot minute, the group bulldozed the ol’ beotch and constructed a contemporary single-story sprawler in its place.

After only two months on the market, the spec-mansion just sold last month (July 2016) for a gob-smacking $22,500,000.

Let’s contemplate that for a minute, kiddies. Even if the investors sunk $10 million of their own funds into building this place (and we doubt it cost that much), that’s still a $7.5 million profit. Not bad work if you can get it, right?

The spendy buyer’s identity is oh-so-carefully cloaked behind a Florida-based entity calling itself “Drew’s Adventure LLC”. So Yolanda had to do what she does best, and that’s a little bit of slappin’ and a little bit of spankin’. Now we can tell y’all — for a fact — that the new owner is Stein Mart owner Jay Stein and his wifey Deanie Stein.

Stein Mart, for those of you kiddies outside the USA or dwelling under a rock inside the USA, is a massive department store chain with locations in the southern of the United States. It’s kinda like a bigger-box version of Marshall’s or Mervyn’s (may it RIP).

We’re embarrassed to mention it, but our own mama Mrs. Yakketyyak had (and still has) a rather unhealthy obsession with this store. We still fail to understand why this particular chain. Unfortunately for Yolanda’s lovely legs, they have several locations in the greater LA area. We distinctly remember getting dragged along on several of Mrs. Yakketyyak’s shopping sprees in our younger days and with that an errant car would just mow us down in the parking lot. We joke. Sorta But in a way, we should feel honored because we’re a little part of the reason why Mr. Stein can afford a $22 million house in what is perhaps the priciest neighborhood of LA.

But it’s no time to digress! Let’s check out the house discounted women’s pantaloons (and other stuff) hath bought.

Despite the property’s generous (and essentially flat) .77-acre lot, the house sits fairly hard up on the street. However, we do like the rather ingenious way the developers kept the front motor court private. Not with foliage, but rather with a windowed wall. Okay, it might not be to everyone’s taste, but Yolanda approves.

The front drive also features a pair of pimpmobiles that we’re guessing were not included with the sale (although at this price point it’s our opinion they ought to have been). In the background you’ve got a black Khloe Kardashian-approved Rolls-Royce Wraith (base price: $304,350) and then in the foreground is a red McLaren 650S (base price: $265,500).

The house is referred to in marketing materials as “Museum Modern”, whatever the heck that is. But there is a ton of cool art shit on the walls. Walls of glass, many skylights, and white terrazzo everywhere give the home a stark and vaguely precious feel.

Listing info does not indicate square footage, but based on the enormity of the many rooms with their 14-foot ceilings, we’d guess the new structure is a minimum of 6,000 square feet. The super-luxe mansion features not one but two kitchens, one a “full catering kitchen” completely done up in white, and the other an outrageously expensive Bulthaup-designed masterpiece in a moodier dark grey.

The lounge/informal eating area sports a massive glassy Lucite wine cellar that takes up an entire wall. Around the corner, there’s a wow-inducing step-down formal dining room that appears to double as an art gallery.

The wows continue with the indoor/outdoor living room. Per the digital marketing materials, the area converts to a state-of-the-art screening room, probably at the touch of a button, all Bruce Wayne-like. There’s also a half indoor/outdoor zero-edge swimming pool at one end and a large reflecting pond with the city view at the other.

The reflecting pond.

The master suite has over-the-treetops views to downtown Beverly Hills and his-and-hers-closets that the listing rather grandiosely proclaims “rival the finest stores on Rodeo Drive”. But they are exceptionally swank!

Oh, and there’s also a master bath dressed almost entirely in book-matched Calacutta marble slabs.

In addition to the master, there are four first-class guest/family suites, each with walls of glass opening to various parts of the smallish yard. The house also sports an attached staff quarter area with a bedroom and a three-quarter bath.

The view says “Every day is a lovely day when you’re this rich.”

Did we mention? Yolanda did not note any financing recorded with this sale. So although we aren’t absolutely certain, we suspect that Mr. & Mrs. Stein paid cold, hard cash for the home.

Mr. Stein, who as CEO grew the company his grandfather founded back in 1908 to nearly $1.3 billion in revenue last year, stepped out of the chief executive role in 2002 after 25 years at the helm. He returned, briefly, from 2013 to early 2016, but now serves solely as Executive Chairman. He remains the largest shareholder of the firm. Back in 2013, Forbes estimated his 15% stake alone was worth about $167 million. So rest assured Mr. Stein can well afford to maintain a property of this magnitude.

Mr. & Mrs. Stein have long resided in Jacksonville, Florida’s largest city by population. The couple lay claim to an 11,625-square-foot Colonial-style mansion that was built in 1948 per tax records and sits on 2.78 waterfront acres. The average home price in the immediate neighborhood, for what it’s worth, seems to hover around $300,000. Yolanda thinks $300k in LA might cover the down payment on a nice refurbished double-wide in a trendy corner of Pacoima. Not sure. They’ve been jackin’ up the prices on them thangs, dammit.

At least at their home in Trousdale, Mr. & Mrs. Stein can take comfort in the fact that most of their neighbors are as ridonkulously rich as they. A few doors down is mega-producer Roger Birnbaum, who paid $20,000,000 for Ellen DeGeneres’s home a couple years ago. Just 100 yards away as the crow flies is the A. Quincy Jones-designed pad that David Arquette recently sold to producer Dr. Luke for $18,000,000. Practically next door to the new Stein mansion is another large home that Jennifer Aniston sold back in 2011 for a shocking $35,000,000 to billionaire real estate baller Bill Gross. And way up the street is the huge new mega-mansion for which billionaire Markus Persson paid a sanity-defying (and record-breaking) $70,000,000 back in 2014.

Before we close, we just wanted to point out that the similarity of Stein Mart and Walmart’s brand names ain’t no coincidence. Until the late 1950s, what is now Stein Mart was known simply as Stein’s. Then Mr. Stein’s uncle mentioned to his father that he had a friend named Sam Walton in Arkansas who was also building a chain known as Wal-Mart. And the rest is, well, history.

Speaking of Walmart….

The world’s largest retailer AKA Walmart reported its quarterly earnings yesterday. Amid a time when most other retailers are faltering (a shaky economy and the upcoming doomsday of a Presidential election may be partially to blame) the massive corporation confuddled analysts and naysayers by posting remarkable earnings growth of 8.6% from the same quarter last fiscal year.

That’s certainly good news for what is perhaps the world’s richest family. You know who.

The Waltons, who were reportedly worth in excess of a combined $130 billion earlier this year and continue to be majority shareholders in the family business, are almost assuredly now worth even more than that unfathomable total thanks to a spike in Walmart’s share price on the heels of the good news.

What’s all this got to do with LA real estate? Well, it’s no big secret that there’s a whole Kimmy K-sized buttload of Walmart money up in these hills. Yolanda supposes she just wanted to give you an idea of how little a $15 million house is to folks as rich as this. It’s not even pocket change. It’s seat cushion change. (If seat cushion change is less than pocket change. Is it?)

Still sorta-young sports team President Josh Kroenke, now 36 years old and clearly positioned to eventually take the business reins from his famous and famously wealthy parents, is a member of the Walton’s third generation, about whom there is still relatively little information online.

Mr. Kroenke’s mama is Ann Walton Kroenke, the elder daughter of Bud Walton (Sam’s little brother and biz partner). Her personal fortune allegedly hovers right around $5 billion. And Mr. Kroenke’s papa is sports mega-mogul “Silent Stan” Kroenke, who’s got a net worth of somewhere close to $8 billion.

Mr. and/or Mrs. Walton Kroenke own so many professional sports teams, it’s a bit hard to keep them all straight. But Yolanda will give it a go anyways. The couple currently own more than 67% of the UK-based Arsenal Football Club. Then they outright own the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, the MLS’s Colorado Rapids, and the National Lacrosse League’s Colorado Mammoth. And finally, let’s not forget the Los Angeles Rams, with their highly-publicized, recently-announced move back to LA from St. Louis. Josh Kroenke (himself a former college basketball player) manages several of these teams.

Now, let’s discuss our boy’s big new house just above the fabled Sunset Strip and just below the equally-fabled Bird Streets.

Like so many of the new homes in the area, Mr. Kroenke’s new kasa is a glassy modern extravaganza. The 7,500-square-foot spec house (originally marketed as a “playboy’s contemporary“) was completed in early 2015 and almost immediately hoisted onto the open market with a 2014-esque asking price of $23,950,000. Unfortunately for the developer, the house languished for a full year and suffered multiple price chops before along came our boy Josh Kroenke who picked it up this June (2016) for “just” $15,400,000 through an unimaginatively-named LLC (Saint Ives Place LLC).

$8.5 million discount or not, $15 million is still a lot of money for a house in the Sunset Strip area that’s not in the Bird Streets. So let’s see what all is included with that fat figure.

Oh come on, Mr. Developer! You initially slap a $24 million pricetag on this beotch, but you won’t pony up the cash for the big bull? Instead of a proper Lamborghini Aventador (MSRP: $399,500), we’re stuck with its baby bro, the Huracan (MSRP: $199,800). There’s also a black Bentley Continental GTC (MSRP: $221,125) and a couple scary-looking bikes, one of which Yolanda is guessing is a Harley. The other might be a Ducati.

The long and narrow house, unlike many in the Sunset Strip is very privately positioned at the end of a very long driveway off the end of a narrow, dead-end street. Naturally, the .58-acre property is walled and gated and has a full security system with cameras up the wazoo, lasers and probably a force field, too.

The centerpiece of the house, so claims the listing, is the double-height great room with all-but-unobstructed views out to Century City and beyond, to the Pacific and Catalina. Yolanda’s immature self gets a right giggle of how the iconic Sierra Towers apartment building looks like WeHo is giving short, chubby, permanent middle finger to the owner of this home.

The ultra-chic kitchen features luscious slats of burled oak for a warm feeling that successfully balances out the coolness of the enormous white marble center island. We shouldn’t have to tell you that all the appliances probably cost more than those cars out in the garage.

The step-down formal dining room is just around the corner and includes one of the home’s seven (7!) fire features.

We’re not sure if Mr. Kroenke is fond of imbibing, but if so he’s selected the correct residence. Not only does the structure sport a very serious wet bar adjacent to an intimate family room, it’s also got a bonkers walk-through wine cellar just off the kitchen.

Save your stenciled and embossed paper, Mr. Kroenke. You don’t even have to send us an invitation to your housewarming party. We’ve just got two questions for ya: when and when? Yes and yes.

The master suite isn’t oppressively huge and features the same westward views as the rest of the home. The bathroom, all wood and non-smoky mirrors, has a Honda Civic-sized marble slab countertop. Through double doors is the closet, which isn’t as big as one might expect but does have myriad cubbyholes for organized storage.

The infinity-edge pool is cantilevered outrageously close to a very steep ravine. Must’ve taken a ton of engineering expense to get that thing wedged up there. Anyway, there’s just enough terrace space to make a thin sunbathing/lounging shelf.

Although many families with extreme wealth seem to be torn apart, we have heard from folks acquainted with this or that member that the extended Walton clan remains very tight-knit. So it’s really not surprising that Mr. Kroenke would choose this location for his LA residence, as several of his family members are within a 5-minute drive.

Mr. Kroeke’s little sister Whitney owns what appears to be a smaller version of his new house near the top of the Bird Streets.

For what it’s worth, the house happens to be directly below a house owned by Friends star Matthew Perry. It’s also literally just a quick skip up the street from a house owned by the Kroenke kids’ first cousin: the cheatin’ and divorcin’ gal herself: Paige Laurie.

Ms. Laurie bought the house from actor Tobey Maguire back in 2007 and extensively renovated it. Her house is also quite literally right around the corner from yet another Walmart heiress mansion (actually, two mansions). The compound you see below was purchased by Sybil Robson Orr in two separate transactions for a brain-shredding $36,500,000.

Now, Mrs. Robson Orr is not actually related to the Mr. Kroenke by blood (she is the daughter of Helen Robson Walton’s brother, and her aunt married Sam Walton and became Mr. Kroenke’s grandfather Bud Walton’s sister-in-law. We think!) But we have been told by someone who knows her that she and her husband, British financier Matthew Orr, are very close to the entire Kroenke fam.

We’ve also heard repeatedly over the years that Mrs. Robson Orr wants to demolish both her houses up there in the Birds to build a mega-compound, but as of yet no construction has commenced and she remains living in the big Tuscan manor house you see up there on the left.

The house on the right is used to house her private chef and driver. No, seriously! We kid you not. But we digress.

When in LA, Mr. Kroenke’s parents reside on a 2.5-acre blufftop compound in the Paradise Cove area of Malibu, which they acquired way back in 1998 for $8,600,000 from the estate of Dodi Fayed, the Egyptian billionaire boyfriend of the late, great Princess Diana (he was killed with her in that tragic Paris collision). Another former owner of the estate was her highness Julie Andrews.

So there you have it. That “People of Walmart” meme really takes on a whole different meaning now, don’t it? Or does it?