Real Estate Pornography V, San Francisco Style

SELLER: Gladyne Kenderine Mitchell
LOCATION: 2901 Broadway, San Francisco
PRICE: Unknown
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 2 staff bedrooms, 7 full and 1 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: No description provided by listing agents.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: First of all, Your Mama wants the children to know the furniture shown in these photos does NOT belong to the homeowner. Babies, don't go knocking Ms. Mitchell over the choices of couches and cupboards or for that disturbing and ostentatious Louis Vuitton headboard in the master bedroom. See, prior to coming to market, this house had some severe cosmetic challenges and was done up by some of San Francisco's best design divas to make it look good for a charity benefit last September.

The Italianate palazzo covers an astounding half a city block in blue blood Pacific Heights. This centrally located section of the City is positively crawling with San Francisco plutocrats including Hales, Haases and Gettys, as well as the Steel/Traina clan. Children, if you don't already know, San Francisco high society is every bit as exclusive, patrician, and filthy rich as those found in New York and Palm Beach. And don't you forget it hunny.

Of course, all these fancy folks need someplace nice to live. Fortunately, untold numbers of behemoth and ornate mansions cling to the hills and valleys of this small city. But few compare to the Mitchell manse. Built in 1925, it was purchased in 1944 by drugstore tycoon Mitchel L. Mitchell for...hold on to your wigs babies...$93,000. (The current owner is the daughter of Mr. Mitchell.) Rumors abound in real estate and upper crust circles across the Bay Area the list price for this fixer-upper hovers around $75,000,000, but no one, least of all the listing agents, will confirm that number.

Last fall, SFLuxe, a blog about all things blue-blooded in the City, had an anonymous tipster who has been in the house write in with some interesting tidbits about the condition of the property. Apparently Ms. Mitchell has not kept the house up-to-date over the years and prior to it's $1,000-a-ticket charity ball makeover, the interior of the house was wreckage--and some areas still are. This tipster claims the reason there are no photos of the bathrooms or kitchens is they are worn out relics of the past with "linoleum! cracked tiles!" and, "orange counter tops!" Although orange is our favorite color, this is certainly not what Your Mama, or any buyer paying upwards of $50,000,000 for a home, might expect.

Reports say the house is around 10,000 square feet, but much of that square footage, according to the tipster, is taken up by a warren of rooms behind and on the two floors above the garage level. These rooms are dark, unpleasant storage and staff areas mostly but also include a few public rooms such as a library.

Another drawback to this urban palace is the stairs. The house is equipped with an elevator from garage level to bedroom level, which is great for the staff bringing up the groceries, but the guests are going to be having a heart attack climbing up to the front door. If dinner is at eight, you better start up these steps at about seven fifteen. And if you're wearing heels, bring some sneakers you can stash in the bushes once you arrive at the top.

For all it's quirks and conditions, Your Mama thinks the house is really quite impressive and has loads of positives too. All the white collar spor-teef children out there will swoon with desire when discovering the most significant feature of this property...a regulation sized tennis court for a backyard. Yes babies, this unusual feature is quite possibly the only private tennis court in all of San Francisco.

The interior may need updating and some smoothing out of the rough edges, but babies, look at the bones to this house. Imagine sweeping down that staircase and floating across that marble floor. It's a bit difficult to see in these photos, but the view from the upper floors is the sort of view only San Francisco can provide...Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz, the bay, and the rooftops of all the less fortunate in the quicksand flats of the Marina District.

New York may be the hard driving financial capital of the U-nited States. And Los Angeles may be the mild weathered home of celebrities (and celebretards). But puppies, there's just something about all those quirky, shabbily genteel houses in San Francisco that make Your Mama's heart go pitter patter.

For as long as it's left up, more photos and floor plans can be found at the website set up by the listing agents, so git on over there while you can.

Sources: sfluxe, Marin Independent Journal, and San Francisco Business Times

Whitney Saves Her House

Babies, we're sorry to have to bust into our lovely San Francisco postings, but Your Mama wants to get all the children informed on some breaking news about recovering superstar Whitney Houston. Oh Lawhd children, we all know the troubles this woman has had over the last 10 years so we're just not going to go into all that stuff.

What Your Mama would like to discuss here is the much reported foreclosure on Whitney's New Jersey estate (pictured above from the air). The first thing all the children should know is Miss Whitney owed $1,235,961 and 71 cents in back taxes and mortgage payments on property in New Jersey. This amount can be verified by viewing the sales pages on the Morris County Sheriff's website.

However, according to a November 15th report, the property that was to be auctioned off to remedy this tax problem was not the actual estate, but rather an adjacent property. The adjacent property was scheduled to go to auction on the 4th of January, 2007. But is seems Miss Whitney (or perhaps a benefactor like Clive Davis?) settled the account with the tax man and the property will not be sold at auction. This can also be verified by having a look-see at the Morris County Sheriff's website where it is marked "Cancelled - Settlement."

It remains to be seen whether Miss Whitney will keep this mammoth, modern estate now that she's a single momma and spending most of her time getting her act together in Los Angeles. However, Your Mama predicts we will indeed see this property come to the market in the next 6 or 8 months. It costs a small king's ransom to maintain a property like this and no doubt Miss Whitney will want to put all that Bobby Brown business behind here by selling on this house of reality television horrors.

Anyone who knows Your Mama knows we never personally cared for Miss Whitney's brand of caterwauling, but that does not mean we ever took any glee in the possibility she was going to be tossed out on her keister. Even crazy singer ladies with issues need a place to call home. So congratulations Miss Whitney and Your Mama hopes you find some peace in 2007.

Larry Ellison's Japanese Freak Out

SELLER: Larry Ellison
LOCATION: 96 Isabella Avenue, Atherton, CA
PRICE: $16,000,000
SIZE: approx. 1.75 acres, 8,000 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: (shortened from listing agent's website) An exquisite expression of the guiding principle of Japanese aesthetics...Abundant windows and sliding glass doors with pocket shoji screens open to the exquisitely landscaped grounds...The elegant and flowing floor plan...is arranged over two levels, highlighted by a sumptuous master suite with a fireplace and two full bathrooms. The outstanding grounds include an authentic Japanese tea house, exquisite Japanese strolling gardens with decks, ponds, waterfalls, koi pond, an in-ground spa and a dark-bottom swimming pool rimmed with boulders that melds into the landscape.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Lahwd children, Your Mama's mind is boggled and bewildered at the amount of swanky real estate this man has acquired, improved and renovated all over the state of California in the last few years. Of course, when you are number four on the Forbes 400 with a net worth in excess of 19 billion dollars, you have a little money to toss around on the real estate.

This property, sitting smack in middle of one of the most expensive zip codes in all of the U-nited States, was first put up for sale in March 0f 2005 for a jaw dropping $25,000,000. In a 2005 article on cnn.com, the listing agent, a Ms. Mary Gullixson of Alain Pinel Realty, claims there was a flurry of interested and "very, very well-qualified" buyers who came a-running to see the place right away. But children, we all know how buyers can be. As qualified as they may have been, they were also fickle and probably just plain nosy. So without a buyer, the price has been lowered to a more reasonable $16,000,000 over the last 18 months.

The house, originally built in the 1960s, was purchased by the flamboyant CEO in 1987 for around $6,000,000. And as you can see babies, he proceeded to turn what was once a somewhat modest ranch home into a full-on Japanese freak out, dumping a truckload of money in the process.

In addition to twisting the house up into a serene and contemporary version of a traditional Japanese dwelling, Ellison had the gardens ripped out and replaced with oodles of Japanese specimen trees and foliage. By all accounts and photos, the gardens are beyond compare. Your Mama does not even want to think about the grounds keeping bill. Just about every room has views of or opens to the mammoth koi pond. The property is gated, of course, and the house includes an attached 2-car garage, music room, office, and two traditional tatami rooms. There is the requisite heated pool and a clay tennis court to complete the property.

Now babies, we don't want to appear to be a hater or a bitter-betty because we don't have a Japanese tea house of our own, but Your Mama is not sure we approve of the furniture choices Mr. Ellison's decorator has made here. Those high-backed dining room chairs make our backs ache just to look at them, and those couches, while comfortable looking, are just so beige. We can only hope they're covered in some sweet and soft velvet to make up for their aggressive ordinariness.

Now kids, this software magnate, co-founder and top man at Oracle, does not live in this house anymore, so there is no need to be driving up and down the streets of Atherton hoping to catch a glimpse of the bearded billionaire. See, not only did he Japanify this property, he has spent the last six or seven years building an even more lavish Japanese-style spread up the road in Woodside. These new digs, his current home, spread over 23 meticulously and obsessively landscaped acres. It is said to be one of the most expensive (and valuable) private residences in the country. Your Mama will continue to spread the common rumor this billionaire has spent close to $200,000,000 building and landscaping the property. But that sounds like a crazy number to us and we imagine is just has to be closer to $100,000,000.

Mr. Ellison has not limited his real estate rampage in the Bay Area. Oh no. He has been snapping up properties left and right in Malibu, California. Children, hold on to your wigs now, because Your Mama is about to blow your minds. It is reported this man has purchased at least 12 properties in Malibu worth more than $180,000,000. This includes a staggering $65,000,000 he spent in one fell swoop on five contiguous ocean front properties on Carbon Beach...the most expensive and exclusive section of ocean frontage in Malibu.

And if all that was not enough extravagance to make your head spin right off your body, Mr. Ellison currently owns the longest privately owned boat in the world. At 454 feet long, and christened the Rising Sun, building this boat cost Mr. Ellison more than the Gross National Product of many-a small countries: a shocking $194,000,000 according to leaked papers from his accountant. People, this boat is significantly longer than a football field, looks more like a Carnival Cruises ship than a private boat and likely costs upwards of $20,000,000 per year to maintain. There are heaps of credible reports that Mr. Ellison is selling or has already sold this boat for an astounding $200,000,000, which of course would just barely cover his construction costs. Your Mama can only point to children towards speculation as to why someone would go through the trouble and expense to build a monster boat like this only to sell it on just one year later.

Boat or no boat, Mr. Ellison has some serious money for all you children to ponder and work to get your minds around as you hop into your hoopty vehicles and head on down to the Wal-Mart.