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Your Mama Hears...

...that just a few short months after hunky Hollywood hot shot Ryan Reynolds dropped $2,350,000 on a 1.75-ish acre country spread in the drop dead gorgeous rolling hills and dales of Bedford, NY, he and his stylish missus, in-demand actress Blake Lively, have had a real estate change of heart and surreptitiously shelled out $5,700,000 for a bigger country spread just over four miles away on a meandering rural road in posh and scenically bucolic Pound Ridge, NY.

Property records show the estate in question was actually purchased about five months ago, in November 2012, by a opaquely named trust that happens to link back to the very same swanky Beverly Hills attorney's office to which property records for Mister Reynold's Bedford (NY) and Los Angeles (CA) homes point. While that—ahem—evidence of acquisition by Mister Reynolds and/or Missus Lively-Reynolds may be circumstantial, at best, Your Mama recently received an unexpected covert communique from a local source—let's call him Les B. Aneyewitness—who tattled that he has many times seen the couple's cars entering and exiting the property and that moving trucks recently hauled belongings from their Bedford house to the Pound Ridge house in question. Good ol' Les went on to snitch that the Pound Ridge residence in question has been subject to an extensive renovation the last few months.

Not for lack of trying, Your Mama was unable to unearth even a single, proper digital listing for the property so we surmise the whole deal probably went down off market. The Westchester County Tax Man and other online resources do show, however, that the original section of the 21-room Colonial-style residence was built in 1860 and sits on nearly 12 fenced and gated acres. Tucked privately behind a thick wall of dense foliage and mature trees, the quintessentially pastoral property offers up vast tree-dotted lawns, a swimming pool fenced and set well away and across the curving drive from the house, and an inky private pond.

The 8,892 square foot house, again according to various online resources, encompasses seven bedrooms and six or maybe seven bathrooms. There appears to be additional living space with another few bedrooms and bathrooms in the detached-barn like-structure at the head of the swooping driveway.


Make of Mister Aneyewitness's eye witness account(s) of the Lively-Reynolds real estate matter what you will, children, but until you read about his in one of the more respectable property gossip columns in a major newspaper this is all just a morsel of otherwise unconfirmed celebrity real estate rumor and gossip.


As far as we can tell from our entirely unscientific research, Mister Reynolds continues to own the Hollywood Hills house he bought in October 2007 for $1.715 million and has attempted to sell a couple of times in the last few years including in September 2011 when it was listed (at a loss) for $1,599,000. Neither Your Mama nor Les B. Aneyewitness located an active online listing for the couple's country spread in Bedford and—natch—we don't have any idea what their plans for the place may or may not be.

Aerial Image: Bing

Pink Lemonade

Whenever it's warm in Jersey, I take total advantage.  Can you tell I am anticipating summer?!  I can't believe it's almost May!  I wanted to wear something really colorful and vibrant, so I think this did the trick.

Skirt: C/O Furor Moda/ Tank: Target: Shoes: Forever21/ Bag: C/O olivia + joy

 Necklace: C/O Happy Wrist/ Sunnies: H&M 

I fell in love with this colorful high waisted skirt from Furor Moda.  I knew immediately that I needed to add it to my Spring/Summer wardrobe.  It's fun, flirty and super cute.  I think I styled this in 3 or 4 different ways until I was happy with the outcome.  Since there's a great mix of colors in the print, there's so many things that you could pair with it depending on the colors you want to play with.  Since I decided on the pink and yellow, I went with a simple white tank and just accessorized with this beautiful teardrop rhinestone necklace from Happy Wrist.

I wanted to bring out the hot pink that is lined around the waist, so I went with these ankle strap wedges. And to bring out the yellow in the print, I paired my beautiful new Swanky-Lemon handbag
 from oliva + joy with this outfit.  I've always loved the pink & yellow combo, so I decided to do a little color blocking with my shoes and bag. It reminds me of pink lemonade!  Coincidentally, my nails actually matched the skirt too.  I'm wearing Mint Apple from Sinful Colors.  Sometimes I stay clear of mixing too much because I don't want my outfit to seem "too busy", but I think the key is making sure to incorporate at least one neutral item to keep it toned down.

Have a great day!
<3


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Zsa Zsa's Bel Air Mansion Falls Out of Escrow

SELLER: Zsa Zsa Gabor and Prince Frédéric von Anhalt
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $14,900,000
SIZE: 8,878 square feet, 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: After a couple of unsuccessful years on and off the market, ailing nonagenarian Show Business Super-diva Zsa Zsa Gabor's ninth husband—the sassy and wacky faux-prince Frédéric von Anhalt*—re-listed their legendary, timeworn but (mostly) still elegant Old School Hollywood Regency-style villa in Bel Air on the open market in May 2012 with an asking price of $14,900,000.

The property languished for nearly a year until late February (2013) when an unidentified buyer stepped up and put the house into escrow, or in contract or under offer or whatever the syntax is in whatever part of the real estate world you may be in. Our well-informed informant Yolanda Yakketyak snitched to Your Mama that she heard word it was a wealthy Indonesian who wanted to buy the well located estate but we can't vouch for the accuracy of that particular scuttlebutt.

Anyways, the couple have well-publicized money problems, partly due to Miz Gabor's exorbitant and mounting medical bills and partly due—so says Mister von Anhalt—to losing a $10 million bundle down the multi billion dollar sink hole created by financial services scoundrel Bernie Madoff a few years ago. Last fall, as the property faced foreclosure due to unpaid payments on a $700,000 mortgage, Mister von Anhalt launched a Facebook campaign that successfully if temporarily saved the property from imminent foreclosure. But—so the story goes—he has until the end of this year to pay off the $1.5 million dollar personal loan he managed to secure via his last ditch social media effort.

In early April an L.A. judge decreed that the outspoken and notoriously erratic German-born bon vivant, acting on his wife's behalf, can sell the quixotic and quickly aging couple's long time crib in what is known as a deferred transaction. The details of the deferred transaction, such as they've been reported, would allow Miz Gabor and her (in)famously eccentric faux-prince to remain in residence for up to three years or until 96 year old Miz Gabor passes over to the other side, whichever comes first. Additionally, the terms of the deferred transaction compel a buyer to pay Miz Gabor and her husband $325,000 per year for the length of their tenancy up to three years. Your Mama have no idea as to whether the 325 grand a year is to maintain the already down on her heels house or if it's simply a kind of house-sitting salary that would be used for the luxe-living couple's day-to-day living expenses but either way it's a ballsy demand by Mister van Anhalt and Miz Gabor.

The potentially cumbersome, time consuming and expensive terms of a continued tenancy by Miz Gabor and the faux prince may or may not have had something to do with the property falling out of escrow earlier this week and being quietly re-listed with a by-now-familiar $14,900,000 asking price.

Current online listings make hay of the fact it's the long time residence of "glamour icon, actress, and philanthropist, Zsa Zsa Gabor and husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt." Marketing materials go on to show the gated, two story house sits on a private knoll of just over an acre with "270-degree, jetliner views from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and beyond," was built in 1955 and encompasses "over 8,878 square feet per owner."

Listing details are less clear on the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. One listing shows there are six bedrooms and five bathrooms, another states there are 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms and, back when Your Mama first discussed the estate in mid-2011, listing information called it out as 6,393 square feet with four bedrooms and five bathrooms.

Whatever the case, listing details further reveal the house has sensationally circular foyer freshly painted a creamy beige from its previous lipstick red. Several more elegantly sized formal entertaining rooms include a large living room with fireplace, a reception room with built-in wet bar hidden behind limed wood cabinetry and a formal dining room that have all "entertained guests such as Queen Elizabeth, US Presidents, CEO's, dignitaries and celebrities."

A large and less formal entertainment space on the second floor includes a lounge with built-in bar, a family room area and a pool table because can't everyone picture ol' Zsa Zsa working a pool stick? Sliding glass doors connect the big but very ordinary party room space to a spacious and far more satisfying city view terrace for mid-party star gazing and cigarette smoking, although we imagine Miz Gabor does little of either of those things anymore. A wide exterior stairway for convenient access to the lower level outdoor areas. There's also, as per listing details, a "master-sized guest bed & bath" on the second floor.

Several of the lower level public rooms open to various outdoor living spaces that include an awning shaded, mirror-lined lanai with black and white checkerboard marble floor and glittery night time view over the city lights. A swimming  pool guarded by a pair of life-like cheetah figurines and various other less fearsome statuary sits and a cock-eyed angle to the house in an expansive red brick terrace.

The house sits amongst some of the hoitiest of the toitiest estates in upper Bel Air including the sprawling compound of Quincy Jones next door. Many reports say the home was once owned and/or occupied by both Elvis Presley and Howard Hughes—at different time, natch—but we don't really know and the fine gentlemen at The Movieland Directory only show Mister Hughes as a resident in the 1950s.

Stay tuned, children, because where Zsa Zsa and her faux prince are involved it's always a tangled and fascinating ride.

listing photos: Carothers Photo for Rodeo Realty

Buckle Your Real Estate Safety Belts...

...The Times of London reveals (via Curbed) an unfathomably rich but unnamed member of an unidentified Arab royal family is fixin' to fling his titanic central London mansion on the market in a blaze of international real estate shock, awe and publicity with a intergalactic £250,000,000 price tag. That totals, according to Your Mama's trusty currency conversion contraption, a belly ache making $381,493,000 for all us Americanos.

The elegant, 1830-ish Georgian semi-detached terrace house—is that a proper description?—stands four floors above ground with another two subterranean levels that total a downright civic 50,000 (or so) square feet. It's less than half as big as a basic Wal-Mart and it's positively miniature compared to the gargantuan royal palaces some Arab royal families maintain but it is almost as large as the White House that weighs in at around 56,000 square feet.

A Greek temple-like porte cochere on the front facade stands out like a sore thumb against the rhythmic but featureless office block that dominates and absolutely oppresses the otherwise usually coveted tail end of the swanky cul-de-sac. Worse, perhaps, is the even more disagreeable office tower that looms forbiddingly directly across the narrow lane. Ugly and menacing office buildings aside, The Times goes on to reveal that India's multi billionaire Hinduja brothers also maintain one or more lavish residences on the terrace that's just a hop, skip, and a jump down The Mall from Buckingham Palace.

 Who's to say the Arab royal will get anywhere near his sky high asking price that The Times notes is "almost double the record for a residential property in the UK."Unidentified sources told the property gossips at The Times that the owner recently refurbished the redonkulously baronial residence that will likely appeal to a sovereign wealth fund for use as and embassy or ambassadorial residence.

If Your Mama was the betting type—and we're not—we'd throw down our pennies on someone more   like an obscure multi-billionaire commodities tycoon nobody who reads Vanity Fair has ever heard of from some place most Americans—including Your Mama—could probably neither pronounce nor pick out on a map will come along and snatch that thing up so his pampered youngest daughter and her retinue of handlers and keepers will have a decent place to live while she "attends" Central St. Martins.

What do the children think? What's the profile for a  buyer of this house at a quarter billion dollars?

photo: Google

Nick Nolte Lists Quirky Malibu Compound

SELLER: Nick Nolte
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $8,250,000
SIZE: 6,006 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Accomplished but occasionally erratic acting three-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte has listed a portion of his expansive, multi-acre Malibu, CA, compound with an asking price of $8,250,000.

Although Mister Nolte, now in his early 70s, remains a vital, steadily working actor with a half a dozen projects in post- or pre-production plus a 2011 Oscar nod for Warrior, the three-time Academy Award-nominee arguably reached his professional pinnacle in the 1990s with seminal roles in Affliction, The Prince of Tides, The Thin Red Line, Lorenzo's Oil, and Cape Fear. Sadly, the once hunky and devastatingly manly actor has become almost as well known in his sunset years for his sometimes eye-popping, Gary Bussey-like public appearances and occasional public tangles with heavy duty mood altering substances, such as in 2002 when Mister Nolte, then in his early sixties, was arrested for driving under the influence of what turned out to be GHB.

Property records show Mister Nolte purchased the just-over-two-acre estate in 1991 for an unknown amount of dough. An earlier discussion of the listing reveals the property was previously owned and/or occupied by Tommy Chong of bong-ed up Cheech & Chong fame, Don Felder of The Eagles and music producer David Foster whose fourth wife, Dutch model turned housewife Yolanda Foster, joined the cast for the most recent season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But we digress...

Listing information shows the main house—a two-story number of unrecognizable architectural vernacular originally built in the mid 1960s—measures 6,006 square feet and includes four bedrooms, four bathrooms, half a dozen carved wood and stone fireplaces and garage parking for up to six cars.

An olive tree flanked electronic gate slides open to a long black top drive that shoots across the lawn to a squat, flat-roofed porte cochere that sticks off the front of the house in a manner one might too easily associate with a low-cost hotel/motel for Your Mama's particular taste in porte cocheres.

Inside the mahogany front doors one is immediately—and aggressively confronted—with a cacophonous visual avalanche of various finish work a vast collection of East Asian furnishings that define the interior spaces and result in a sometimes semi-ceremonial decorative drama of Mexican telenovela proportions.

A giant pair of identical, angry-looking carved stone Chinese dogs stand sentinel at the muscular mahogany archway that separates the the onyx-floored foyer from the ballroom-scaled living room that has a soaring 19-foot ceiling pierced by six or eight skylights over head and the marble floors criss-crosses with wood inlay under foot. A fireplace nearly tall enough to stand in anchors the room lined on two walls with wide, mahogany-trimmed arched windows filled with garden vistas.

A sturdy, thickly spindled staircase climbs to a book shelf-lined landing and master suite (above) that is nothing if not extensive: big bedroom with vaulted mahogany beamed ceiling; separate adjoining sitting room with mahogany-manteled fireplace and same vaulted mahogany beamed ceiling; private office/study with built-in work desk, second and massive mahogany fireplace and more of the vaulted mahogany beamed ceiling; and, of course, a lavish private en suite situation.

In addition to the main house Mister Nolte's compound property includes a detached structure once used as a recording studio by at least one of the property's music oriented previous owner/occupants. The building was, at some point, converted to a capacious guest house with living room—the room with corner fireplace and guitars strewn all over the place in listing photos—two bedrooms, three bathrooms, at least one kitchenette and a built-in bar next to which Mister Nolte proudly parked a vintage motorcycle that—no doubt—has a meaningful story to tell.

The expansive but haphazardly landscaped and unfussily maintained grounds stretch out to just over two flat acres that include broad swathes of lawn sprinkled with mature corral, pine and sycamore trees. There's a lagoon-style freshwater swimming pool and spa surrounded by a slate stone terrace and a lighted tennis court tightly girdled by a wind-screen equipped chain link fence.

Mister Nolte also owns the adjacent property, a fenced, gated and bougainvillea-hedged 2.1+ acre mini-compound that encompasses a dense copse, terraced terraces, extensive cutting and kitchen gardens and at least two modestly-sized structures that appear to Your Mama to be residential in nature. It's not entirely clear from property records we peeped but it appears Mister Nolte acquired this particular part of his multi-parcel compound in August 1982 for $575,000 but, honestly puppies, we're not entirely sure that's accurate. The property is not currently on the market and, so the story goes, Mister Nolte will downsize into this property when he vacates the one one currently for sale next door.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

Radiant With Aveeno

I mentioned that I was going to be adding a new addition to my weekly posts, so today it's a review on:
 AVEENO's Positively Radiant Intensive Night Cream.
I received this product from Influenster and it also came with an eye mask that I used with the product.

As I have gotten older, I've really learned to take better of my skin.  So many decisions that we make when we are younger truly do affect us later on.  I really regret not wearing SPF all of the time especially with all of the tanning that I used to do.  It's given me somewhat of an uneven skin tone that I have been trying to fix.  A few other problem areas that I have faced with my skin are blotchiness from time to time and a few dark spots.  I've tried many things like the typical cleansers, toners and moisturizers as well as exfoliators, serums and even eye cream.  Nothing really made that much of a difference for me, until now. 

WHAT IT IS

Aveeno Positively Radiant Intensive Night Cream is an oil free, hydrating formula that penetrates deep within the skin's surface while you sleep to reveal an even, more radiant complex.


WHAT IT CONTAINS

Active Naturals: Total Soy Complex boosted with tone-evening vitamin B3 to help keep you looking luminous and fresh.


WHAT IT DOES

It gives your skin an extra boost on all 5 FACTORS OF RADIANCE:

MY REVIEW 

I've been using this product for 7 days now.  All you have to do is smooth the cream all over your (clean) face and neck before bed.  The first few times I used it, I felt a little burning sensation.  After reading a couple of other reviews, I found that this was a common occurrence with many people so I didn't think much of it.  One of the things I love about the cream itself is that it's not too heavy on my skin and it absorbs pretty quickly.  I also love it's light scent. Every morning after waking up I noticed that my face looked a little brighter and not as dull as it used to.  My skin was also silky smooth and really felt moisturized.

In just a week's time I have noticed improvements with my skin tone and it appears to look more even than before.  I think that the more I continue to use this, the more of a difference I will see.  I also noticed that I don't have any more blotchiness and the dark spots are fading.  My skin feels and looks better. I really think that this is a great product to incorporate into your every day skin care routines.  It's actually my first time using a night cream and I really don't have any complaints! My skin type is normal to dry and this has definitely helped with the dryness. I've used other Aveeno products before and have always been a fan.  I truly recommend this cream. You can buy this product for $16.99.

MY SKINCARE TIPS 

Use SPF every day

Drink lots of water daily

Always take your makeup off before bed

Cleanse & Moisturize your face each day

If any of you have used this product or decide to use it, I would love to hear your feedback on how it has worked for you! If I have time later today or tomorrow I will make a video review for this product on my youtube!

*I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes and this post reflects my honest opinions*

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AND THE WINNER OF THE GIVEAWAY IS....

JENNIFER ARRINGTON

Congrats! I will be sending you an email! 
Thanks to everyone who entered.. more giveaways soon :)


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