Robert Erickson Door knocking Historic Homes of Hancock park

Actor Esai Morales Lists Hollywood Hills House

SELLER: Esai Morales
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,097,000
SIZE: 2,480 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We received an unexpected and brief communique yesterday from Birdie Chirper who kindly and thoughtfully let Your Mama know that Brooklyn-born and bred Puerto Rican actor Esai Morales pushed his modest (if not exactly cheap) long-time residence in Los Angeles, CA on the market with a $1,097,000 asking price.

Mister Morales's big Showbiz break—if it can be called that—came in 1987 when he was cast in the Richie Valens biopic La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips. He went on to appear in dozens of films and television shows (i.e. Naked Tango, Rapa Nui, L.A. Doctors, American Virgin), most of which Your Mama has never heard of before. Since the turn of the century Mister Morales has made a living and a name for himself primarily (but not solely) on boob-toob police procedurals and sci-fi thrillers like NYPD Blue, Vanished, 24: Day Six-Debrief, Jericho andCaprica. Most recently he was seen on the easily digestible cable program Fairly Legal and appears to have a shy handful of movies coming down the pike.

Property records reveal Mister Morales bought his house house in the Hollywood Hills near the top of Nichols Canyon way back in May 2000 for $749,000. Current listing information shows the single story residence—an architecturally unholy hybrid between a classic, William Mellenthin-esque California ranch and a gawddam barn—was built in 1957, measures 2,480 square feet and includes a total of four bedrooms and three reasonably well maintained but woefully outdated-looking bathrooms.

We really can't say why after a dozen year Mister Morales has decided to sell his house in the Hollywood Hills but people often sell (and/or buy) homes due to death, divorce and diapers, otherwise (unofficially) known by most professional property purveyors as The Three Ds of Real Estate. As it turns out, salt and pepper-haired Mister Morales and his lady-friend Elvimar Silvamade a baby together in late 2010 so, according to the accepted (but entirely unofficial) rules of celebrity real estate, that may (or may not) have something to do with it.

Anyhoo, once a person gets past the mousy front yard and the proto suburban-style front door, things get a teensy bit better in the living and dining rooms, divided by a massive, room-defining double-sided stone fireplace. Both have a vaulted and sky-lit wood beamed ceiling and wide banks of multi-paned sliding glass doors that link to the backyard and swimming pool.

The day-core, if it can be called that, consists of little more than a geometrically arranged capiz shell chandelier, a couple of this and thats hanging on the walls, and slim collection of sad, mostly beige and brown furnishings. Maybe Mister Morales isn't much for day-core or maybe Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota has been up in there removing any furnishings, artwork and/or other personal items that might actually give the house a little personality but, right now, this is not a house that looks to Your Mama like it would make a very interesting dinner companion. You know what we're saying? It's not offensive, it's just so plain, quotidian.

There are unassuming medium-brown wood floors in the living room that switch to polished paver tiles in the dining room that extend right on into the galley-style eat-in kitchen outfitted with faux-rustic pine paneling on the ceiling, lackluster wood cabinetry, and ecru-grouted cornflower blue tiles on the counter tops. Some of the upper cabinets have glass fronts for dish- and glassware display and the appliances are, at best, a ho-hum, medium-grade mix of black and stainless steel. Again, it's not an entirely offensive situation, it's just, well, there. Quite frankly, a little paint and elbow grease would do this kitchen a real damn decorative and design solid without having to go to the extreme expense of gutting it, which is what most of the children will undoubtedly think needs to be done to salvage the situation. We do appreciate the adjacent laundry room but think there's an awful lot of doors in there for such a small space.

A long, dim and narrow Y-shaped corridor connects the main living areas to the bedroom wing where the master bedroom has a vaulted wood-beamed ceiling, pillow-lined bay window seat with view of the Chinese slate and red brick surrounded swimming pool, and sliding glass doors that lead to a more private part of the yard with a spa. Listing photos indicate—but we can't confirm—a dressing area/closet-lined hallway joins the master bedroom to a dated and perfectly ordinary master bathroom.

Mister Morales's house may be hard up on one of the more heavily trafficked streets in the (admittedly not very heavily trafficked) 'hood but it's also surrounded by some prime Tinseltown real estate. Some of the nearby homes and estates are owned by beau-hunk actor Jake Gyllenhaal, quintessentially L.A. artist David Hockney, former sitcom star Justine Bateman, bandleader Ricky Minor (who bought his house last year from sitcom star Katey Sagal), and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino who had big ol' beef last year about obtrusive bird noise that emanates from next door neighbor screenwriter Alan Ball's aviary.

Distressed Sale: Soap Star Jackie Zeman

SELLER: Jackie Zeman
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $2,699,000
SIZE: 2,945 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a heads up from a fella we'll call Malibu Ken, Your Mama has learned soap story veteran Jackie Zeman, in a valiant effort to stave off foreclosure, has hoisted her Malibu, CA residence on the market with an asking price of $2,699,000.

Miz Zeman—who bless her heart, certainly appears, as Kathy Griffin would say, to see "the dentist" on a regular basis—was let go in 2010 after 30-plus years as Nurse Bobbi Spencer on General Hospital. Since then she's worked some—mostly on a web series called The Bay— but has none-the less found herself between a financial rock and a hard place. In mid-July (2012) the tabs and celebrity gossip blogs reported she'd fallen behind on the mortgage payments for her ocean view residence to the tune of $320,505. Oh dear.

Property records, unfortunately for the detail oriented children, aren't entirely clear on when exactly she bought the property or how much she paid. Blockshopper shows she transferred the property into a trust in August 2007 and Redfin shows the last time the property changed hands was in May 2005 for $3,250,000. Y'all can be the judge and jury on that one; We're just relaying our unscientific findings. All we can really say for sure is our research shows there's foreclosure activity on the Miz Zeman's spread and it's up for grabs on the open market at $2,699,000.

Current listing information shows the two-story, 1979 mock-Med mini-manse measures 2,925 square feet with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, 3 fireplaces and rights to the La Costa Beach and Tennis Club. Presumably access to the beach and tennis club requires a for-fee membership on top of the rights to pay such a membership, but we're not really sure. Can anyone in Malibu edumuhcate the children on that?

Anyhoo, a steep drive curves tightly up to a front-facing two car garage. A narrow flagstone path curls around the garage, hugs tightly to the façade as it extends along the narrow strip of land between the house and the steep slope that falls nerve-wrackingly away just a few feet from the house.

Inside, the combination living/dining room has hardwood floors, walls of windows with almost unobstructed ocean views, and a carved stone (gas) fireplace flanked by a pair of flower sprays that look to Your Mama—no disrespect, JZ—like they was bought discount from a funeral home yard sale. Seriously.

The hardwood floors and ocean views continue into the updated (if sorta out-dated) and decidedly countrified eat-in kitchen complete with center island snack counter; faux-distressed, bone-colored cabinetry, some with glass doors; bull-nosed granite counter tops; high-grade built-in appliances; a breakfast nook in a five-sided bay window; and a perplexing tile-like ceiling treatment that may or may not actually be tile, we can't tell. A nearby den with (gas) fireplace has a convenient, built-in wet bar for commercial-time booze and beverage refreshments.

Each of the three, spacious upstairs bedrooms have ship-like sea and sunset views through large (but not entirely pleasingly arranged) windows. At least one bedroom connects directly a private bathroom and at least two open to covered balconies ringed by wrought iron railings.

Besides the front door, a single sliding glass door in the kitchen is the sole egress to the backyard entertainment areas that include a long, flagstone-paved dining and sun bathing terrace night lit by a couple of (too-charming) Old-Timey street lamps and a slender, in-ground swimming pool and spa.

 Good luck Miz Zeman. Your Mama hopes you save your house and get a job soon.

Actor Marcus Giamatti Lists Hollywood Manor House

SELLER: Marcus Giamatti
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $999,000
SIZE: 2,310 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial (and a listing that brazenly announces the home is "celebrity owned"), Your Mama learned that actor/musician/writerMarcus Giamatti—older brother of Oscar-winning actor Paul Giamatti (Sideways, John Adams, Saving Private Ryan) and the son of a former president of Yale who later became the Commissioner of Baseball who banned naughty-naughty Pete Rose from baseball—listed his house in the Hollywood Hills last week with an asking price of $1,049,000, already reduced to $999,000.

Mister Giamatti, not as famous and lesser lauded than his younger brother, has none-the-less been toodling reasonably successfully around Tinseltown since the mid-1980s and claims a long list of television credits that include a couple of stints on daytime soap stories (The Young and the Restless, Another World, Guiding Light). Over the years he also shook his Yale-trained money maker in scads and scores of boob-toob programs that include (but are far from limited to) Medium, The Mentalist, Monk and, recently, Revenge. He is perhaps best known as Peter Gray on Judging Amy, canceled back in 2005, and is a well-regarded stage actor with numerous credits both on- and off-Broadway (Young Man From Atlanta, Measure for Measure).

He maintains a side-gig as an accomplished bass guitarist and session musician. He swam varsity at tiny, artsy Bowdoin College, has a degree in African Ethnomusicology—his thesis was on Ashanti Tribal Funeral Music—and currently writes an occasional feature article for some baseball publication we've never heard of (MLB Insider's Club Magazine).

Clearly he's an interesting guy with deep and thoughtful interests and that's reflected in his and his missus's chosen day-core and furnishings that strike an admirably eclectic if—hmm, well, uh—nerve-wracking hodgepodge hot mess where English Country floral prints mix like oil and water with a dollop of Victoriana, a dose of Arts and Crafts, a smattering of 1980s contemporary (glass block), a soupçon of French bistro and a little bit of a whole lotta other things. This may be any number of people's ideal of decorative perfection but, in all honesty, for Your Mama it's a difficult-to-digest stew. Our opinion on the matter is of little consequence and, certainly, much of the frippery will exit the scene with the Giamatti family when they decamp to their next place of residence, wherever that may be.

Property records show Mister Giamatti and his not-famous second wife purchased the property in the Hollywood Manor neighborhood January 2008 for $827,000. Current listing information shows the updated and upgraded two-story house of unknown architectural style—listing information calls in a "Mid Century," which, technically if not stylistically, it is since it was built in 1940—spans 2,310 square feet and contains a total of 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.

A sharply curved front façade and roof line hint at the rather peculiar shape of some of the interior spaces including the curved, multi-sided living room with hardwood floors, fireplace and screened French doors to the spacious back deck. The adjoining formal dining room also has a curved wall and wood floors that run in a different direction than those in the living room.

A wide opening joins the dining room to the fully-renovated if florid center island kitchen complete with snack bar; custom, Colonial blue raised panel cabinetry, some with leaded glass doors; granite and riveted copper counter tops; medium-grade stainless steel appliances; and a chunky, two-tub copper farmhouse sink.

For some most perplexing and deeply distressing reason the honey-colored hardwoods in the living and dining rooms ends abruptly at the kitchen where the floors are darker and redder, like cherry or mahogany. We get that the kitchen designer was trying to—ahem—set a mood in the kitchen but to install two different colors of wood floors in the same house where they butt right up against each other is, in our humble and utterly meaningless opinion, a decorative crime of punishable proportions. Now, children, if the kitchen designer how opted for an appropriately chosen tile or stone floor material, that may very well have made some damn sense. But two radically different hardwoods like that? Hunny, no. It gives Your Mama a body-wide case of the hives. 

Anyhoo, two of the four bedrooms and one of the three bathrooms are located, as per listing information on the main (upper) level. A third guest/family bedroom (with private bathroom) and the master suite (with attached bathroom, private deck and two walk-in closets) are well situated for maximum privacy on the lower level.

The back of the house opens through numerous screened French doors to a huge deck with over-the-tree-tops canyon views. A step-down portion of the deck is shaded by a slatted ramada for tempering the hot glare of the scorching (and somewhat relentless) southern California sunshine and a long and sorta-grand stairway (fashioned with oh-so-humble railroad ties) connects the various nooks and crannies of the landscaped and terraced grounds that include flat grass pads and—as per listing information—a handful of plum and lemon trees.

The hardly fancy Hollywood Manor 'hood is home to a number of (fairly low wattage) Showbiz types who include Morgan Fairchild (who has lived there for years), Brigitte Nielsen (who recently paid $600,000 for a fixer), and Paul DiMeo (whose house is also currently on the market for $1.1 million. Not a lesbian in real life L WordActress Erin Daniels just sold her house in the Hollywood Manor (for a bit more than asking) and moved a mile or so down the hill to a contemporary crib in Toluca Lake.

Extra fun fact: Mister and Missus Giamatti's real estate agent is a fella named Alastair Duncan who happens to be a part-time actor (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Batman) and who's marital wagon is hitched to Emmy-nominated actress Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad, The Practice Deadwood).

Warren Beatty Decides to Sell

SELLERS: Annette Bening and Warren Beatty
LOCATION: Beverly Hills (Post Office), CA
PRICE: $6,995,000
SIZE: 10,594 square feet, 9 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Late last year (2011) agéd Tinseltown heart throb (and Oscar winner) Warren Beatty and 4-time Oscar-nominated wife Annette Bening put a huge home they own (and long occupied) in the Beverly Hills Post Office area up for lease with amonthly rent of $27,500.

A little over a month later the Hollywood superstars dropped the price to $25,000 per month and then chopped it again to its current rental asking price $19,995 per month. With no takers for the property as rental, the Beatty-Benings decided to go another route this week and put the Mulholland Drive estate up for sale with an initial asking price of $6,995,000.

Current listing information shows the gated and secluded estate encompasses 1.1 acres with a 10,594 square foot mock-Med mansion built in 1992 with 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms plus a staff suite and separate guest house that brings the total count to 9 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.

A long, gated drive way curves up to a good-sized motor court with three car garage at the front of the two-story mansion that opens through a French doors along the back to a wide and flat, tree-shaded lawn and in-ground swimming pool and spa with through-the-tree-top-views over the San Fernando Valley.

As far as we know, which ain't nuthin', the Beatty-Benings have moved (back) to their sprawling 6.7-plus acre compound less than two miles down Mulholland Drive where the massive main house was recently built after the old one was severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

Glee Creator Ryan Murphy Flips Out in the Bu

SELLER: Ryan Murphy
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $6,995,000
SIZE: 2,095 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Two years ago screenwriter and producer Ryan Murphy (Glee, Nip/Tuck, Eat Pray Love) signed a four-year deal with 20th Century Fox TV potentially worth up to $10,000,000 per year. As do many who find their bank accounts flooded with boo-coo bucks Mister Murphy soon went on a real estate spending spree.

In September 2010 he dropped ten million clams on a hacienda-style mansion in Beverly Hills, CA originally designed and built in the 1920s by architect Ralph Flewelling and restored by Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton, one of Hollywood's most famous flippers of historically-minded residences.

The following summer Mister Murphy laid out another multi-million dollar bundle to buy another pricey property owned by another Oscar-winning actress, this time new single-mommy Charlize Theron. Property records and previous reports show the openly homosexual Hollywood hotshot paid Miz Theron $6,562,500 for her ocean-front getaway on Malibu's sandy La Costa Beach.

Just over a year after he signed on the deed's dotted line and acquired Miz Theron's real estate seconds Mister Murphy appears to have caught a case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and this week flipped his beach front digs back on the (open) market with an asking price of $6,995,000.

Current listing information shows the two-story house sits—as most of them on the beach in the Bu do—cheek-to-jowl with the neighboring houses and sandwiched on a compact, .15-acre lot between the pounding surf and the typically traffic-choked Pacific Coast Highway. The well-maintained but modestly-scaled and somewhat non-descript house was originally built in 1930 and spans just 2,095 square foot with a total of with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. One of the bedrooms and bathrooms can be accessed via an exterior staircase in the walled, gated and heavily secured front courtyard and as such makes for a perfect guest bedroom, staff suite or in-law quarters.r

Listing photographs reveal Mister Murphy made few (if any) significant alterations to the architecture of the dwelling but did have a nice-gay or lady decorator work the place over with a strong and very expensive looking semi-nautical streak meant, we imagine, to look and feel "masculine" in the way that professionally decorated rooms are sometimes designed to give off a nice-gay or lady decorators version of butch and manly.

Anyhoo, Mister Murphy did opt to cover the wood floors in the living room and adjoining lanai with a rope-y sort of sisal but did retain the bay window seat and shallow inglenook fitted with built-in benches and a flagstone-faced fireplace surround in the living room. In the lanai it appears he (and his decorating team) opted to keep Miz Theron's blue and white striped upholstery on the built-in bench seating that rings the ocean-side, window-wrapped room. 

The sisal turns to grey slate tile—or some similar material—in the u-shaped kitchen where the custom, poured concrete counter tops and cabinetry still hold top-grade, commercial-style stainless steel appliances and the lower cabinets are fitted with wood doors painted jet black.

The (gay) ship's captain day-core downstairs continues up in the master bedroom—note the ship model on the mantel, the ship painting above the fireplace and the distressed, tufted leather wing back chair —finished with pale wood floors, a vaulted ceiling, wood-burning fireplace with contemporary concrete surround, built-in dressers tucked in to the eaves and direct ocean view. The attached master pooper has double sinks; a glass-enclosed shower lined with tiny, pale sea foam-colored tile; an over-sized soaking tub set into a bay with direct ocean view; and a second, tufted leather wing back chair where Mister Murphy can sit and clip his toe nails, lotion up his sun-baked legs or whatever.

In addition to the walled, street-side courtyard with its koi pond and blazing bougainvillea bush there's a sizable beach-side deck accessible through a wood-framed sliding glass door in the lanai. A glass rail along the deck's edge ensure unobstructed ocean views from the deck that's equipped with a built-in benches and dining cabana (with oh-so-nautical blue and white striped cushions), built-in fire pit, spa and outdoor shower. Private steps lead down to the beach.

The children may recall that last July Mister Murphy listed his two-residence compound high in the hills above Laguna Beach, CA withan asking price of $8,500,000. The hillside, ocean-view compound—with a main house worked over by sassy Million Dollar DecoratorMary McDonald—was de- an re-listed a couple of times before it was taken off the market in early December 2011. 

End of Week Pick Up: Georges Marciano

SELLER: Georges Marciano
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $24,500,000
SIZE: 19,590 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This one's for all the children out there who relish in a tetch of schadenfreude with their high-cost real estate scuttlebutt.

All the international property gossips' tongues have been waggingthis week over the Beverly Hills (CA) estate of legally and financially embattled businessman Georges Marciano popping up on the open market as part of a bankruptcy sale with an asking price of $24,500,000.

Mister Marciano made the bulk of fortune as one of the co-founding brothers of the wildly successful Guess clothing company. He's the man most often credited with creating the company's iconic—and still-relevant if not fully fresh—boobs-and-bombshell-meets-noir-film advertising aesthetic that successfully branded the company in the 1980s with glamazon supermodels like Claudia Schiffer and Anna Nicole Smith.

He cashed out his nearly quarter-billion dollar stake in the company in 1993 and invested in various (commercial) real estate enterprises including the Bank of America tower in downtown Beverly Hills, sold in 2005 for about $135,000,000. He lived large and spent big. He shelled out more than sixteen million bucks on a 84-plus carat diamond (now called The Chloe Diamond after his daughter) and amassed a vast collection of contemporary art. The ubiquitous, roofless tour vans that put-put around the Platinum Triangle on every day of the week would frequently pause out front of the gates so gawkers could catch a glimpse through the gates of the fleet of Ferraris maintained by Mister Marciano and frequently lined up in an orderly row in the driveway in the front of his big ol' beast of a house in Beverly Hills he bought in October 1988 for an unknown (but no doubt substantial) amount of moolah.

Alas, the mighty sometimes fall. Sometimes they cut the noses off their own faces and sometimes, depending on one's point of view, they have their proverbial legs chopped off at the knees.

Several years ago, in the aftermath of a bitter 2004 divorce, an increasingly erratic Mister Marciano filed suit against a group of former employees whom he accused of looting money, wines and artwork. The suit back fired big time. Not only did forensic accounting not show any financial misconduct on the part of the former employees, the accused group counter sued for libel and won a staggering $425,000,000 judgement against Mister Marciano who shockingly and inexplicably made a silly run for the California governorship while all this was going down. 

Mister Marciano, legally on the hook for nearly half a billion dollars, went on the lamb for a little bit. In a 2009 article in the L.A. TimesMister Marciano's spokeswoman claimed she herself did not know where he was living. He eventually popped up in Montreal where he opened a LHotel, a boutique hotel in Old Montreal filled to the rafters with the blue chip artwork that used to fill his Beverly Hills mansion.

Even before his ruinously costly legal imbroglio, Mister Marciano wanted to sell his grand, Italian-style pile in Beverly Hills. It was listed for six months in 2005 and again in January 2007 when it appeared on the open market with an asking price of $28,000,000.

In the early days of 2012 Your Mama heard through the Platinum Triangle real estate gossip grapevine the estate was being shopped off-market with a $32,000,000 price tag. With no takers at that sky-high price the property was officially put on the open market last week with a much lower price tag of $24,500,000. Listing information and previous reports on the matter reveal the property is being sold on behalf of Mister Marciano as part of involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings related to the aforementioned, nearly half billion dollar judgement.

Designed and built in 1927 by Robert D. Farquhar, the palatial palazzo has been home to a number of Hollywood hot shots including Showbiz pioneer Harry Cohn, the famously tyrannical co-founder of Columbia Pictures. Mister Cohn reportedly sold the estate to powerful Tinseltown talent agent Johnny Hyde who, while in his mid-70s, took a Svengali-like personal and professional interest in Marilyn Monroe.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, we were recently told by a Britnni Britannica, a gal pal with an encyclopedic knowledge of historical homes in Los Angeles, the grand mansion was owned by 1960s and 70s ears talk show host Mike Douglas who allowed the house to be photographed for Architectural Digest. Miss Britannica and another historically-minded gal pal Helen A. Hightower told also us the house itself—not the finishes and day-core but the architecture and layout—are almost identical to that of Owlwood, the legendary Holmby Hills mansion formerly owned by Tony Curtis and Cher and now owned by the widow of mortgage industry billionaire and diplomat Roland Arnall.

Current listing information shows Mister Marciano's estate spans 2.05 high-profile acres in an especially desirable pocket of Beverly Hills where, should one choose, it's just a short one (long) block walk to Your Mama's favorite (if hideously expensive) luncheon spot in Los Angeles, The Beverly Hills Hotel.