joycerey.com

Armand Marciano's house.

You could say it's the house that Anna Nicole Smith built. The 30,000-square foot Mediterranean villa in Benedict Canyon has a 90210 zip code, seven bedrooms, 18 bathrooms, a chef-worth kitchen, a 17-car garage, a wine cellar and an elevator.

And, apparently, it was just built. Is Guess clothing co-founder and the property's owner, Armand Marciano, trying to flip this house?

Maybe. It comes with nearly 20 acres of prime, Golden Triangle land (a nearly unheard of amount), but the price is more Galliano than Guess:

More »

MLS / Redfin

Casa Estevez.

If you're looking for a home with history, notoriety and layers of patina (genetic patina), look no further than the infamous casa Sheen, which has been put on the market for $7.2 million, according to Redfin (via Curbed LA).

Just don't buy it for mama. She'd be washing those walls for days. Not a nice gift.

So is Sheen hurting for cash so soon after his $1.8 million per-show run on CBS' Two and a Half Men was shut down by what appears to everyone in the thirty mile zone as a cocaine-fueled, hooker-aided meltdown?

More »

Captain Fromage: Christian Audigier.

It would be fitting that the purveyor of the cheesiest fashion to hit the world since Hammer pants would be putting his Hancock Park home back on the market at a discount.

After all, Christian Audigier's Von Dutch, Ed Hardy and eponymous labels are widely available, often at more than half-off their original prices, at your local discount clothier (Marshall's, Ross, TJ Maxx).

That's why we were a little disappointed the French master of tattoo script, glued-on rhinestones and thorny-rose imagery didn't cut deeper into his price and just mark his casa with a "clearance" tag.

More »

BanBillboardBlight.org

Measure A: the Trojan Horse of tall wall billboards for WeHo

Originally posted 3/2/11: See update at the end of the post: Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Congressman Henry Waxman both oppose Measure A.
Measure A is expected to bring several hundred new voters out to the polls in West Hollywood on March 8.

If adopted, Measure A will allow tall wall billboards throughout the city, where they are currently prohibited.

The disturbing thing: the campaign for Measure A is quite misleading. Glossy mailers harp that this is the time to stick it to billboard co.'s -- and tax those billboards.

REALITY CHECK: Measure A is being fully funded by one supergraphic tall wall billboard company, SKY TAG.

One word to describe the feel of SKY TAG's vision? Vegas.

More »

TMZ

The Gabor house.

Prince Frederic von Anhalt has been laying the groundwork for the possible sale of his and wife Zsa Zsa Gabor's Bel Air mansion with tours for the press and, some might say, some pretty lofty Hollywood namedropping. Among his claims: Elvis once lived there. And Gabor bought the home from Howard Hughes, who allegedly built it.

Both tidbits aren't true, says Barbara Yobs, an area mortgage banker who tells the Weekly her grandparents built the place and sold it directly to Gabor in 1973. "Having him say all of these things, it just got me," she said.

In fact, the 47-year-old says, even the early '70s price being touted is wrong. It wasn't $600,000; it was $250,000. Yobs sent us the grant deed from grandma and gramps to Gabor:

More »

Beverly Hills City Manager Jeff Kolin

Beverly Hills City Manager Jeff Kolin must feel as if he's won the lottery -- on Thursday, nearly all of his bosses on the Beverly Hills City Council decided to give him a $1.6 million housing loan at an interest rate that hovers around 3 percent, reports Beverly Hills Patch.

Ca-ching!!!

Beverly Hills Councilwoman Nancy Krasne said wishfully about the sweet deal, according to BH Patch, "It's up to $1.6 million. I'm sure (Kolin) would not spend that much if he could. We said that was the upper limit." Good luck with that, Nancy.

More »

​Ken Roberts, founder of KROQ and the guy who brought modern rock to L.A., has been ordered by a judge to pay a greasy Connecticut hedge fund $27.5 million. Because he can't pay, he's losing his 112-acre Brentwood estate, aka The Robert Taylor Ranch, Forbes blogger Teri Buhl reports.

It seems sometimes the rich are like us. This hedge fund got its claws into Roberts with a high-interest loan, something like our own arrangements with, say, Capital One.

More »

Dave Fratello, the un-anonymous blogger behind MB Confidential

​For the last three years, real estate agents in Manhattan Beach have been vexed by an anonymous blogger.

MB Confidential has become a must-read for prospective homebuyers by ridiculing overpriced listings and exposing deceptive real estate industry practices. Among the city's agents, the blogger's identity has been a subject of intense speculation.

The guessing ends today. Political consultant Dave Fratello has outed himself as the writer behind MB Confidential.

More »

Harry Warner's former estate located at 501 South Rossmore Ave.

The late Harry Warner's Hancock Park manor was recently sold for $2.9 million by a bank, the real estate firm that handled the transaction announced this week.

The structure was built in 1923 by Warner, the movie mogul who cofounded the Warner Bros. studio. The 5,555 square foot Georgian colonial estate boasts seven bedrooms and five and a half baths as well as a tennis court, pool, and marble staircase. Located at 501 S. Rossmore Ave, the estate was originally priced at $4.75 million.

More »

The 'Bu.

It's amazing what backyard sand, water and storm-vulnerability can do for home values. PropertyShark (via Curbed LA) crunched some numbers and discovered that beachfront property in Malibu is worth an average 122 percent more than that on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway.

We always thought the billionaires (like Patron tequila's John Paul DeJoria) lived on the bigger lots in them there hills above the coast but, yeah, a lot of folks (David Geffen) love the smell of Nautilus in the morning. Beachside residences even do an average 51 percent better than properties also on the coastal side of PCH but without Pacific frontage.

More »