Sandy Gallin's 40th Flip Out in Beverly Hills

SELLER: Sandy Galllin
LOCATION: Summit Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: around $20,000,000
SIZE: 7,500 square feet, 4 bedroom, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A few weeks ago Your Mama told the children about a big ol' house on Summit Drive that music tycoon Sandy Gallin bought, renovated, and flipped even before it ever hit the market. Today, Miz Ruth Ryan, the doyenne of celebrity real estate who writes the Hot Properties column for the LA Times, also discussed this property, telling us it was the 40th renovation project of Mister Gallin.

Since the house never really hit the open market, we don't have any specifics on the renovation other than what our little tipster told us a few weeks ago, so we have to go with what Miz Ryan tells us in terms of square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Mister Gallin is known for working his flip properties into frothy confections of contemporary traditional design...you know, libraries covered in pickled paneling, huge Aubusson rugs that cost a small fortune, wing-backed chairs, glittery chandeliers, and some serious artwork on the walls. And let's not forget the photos of his diva lady friends who require only one name like Cher, Dolly and Whoopie.

Your Mama would like to tell you that we got some covert photos of the renovated house he just sold on Summit Drive, but we don't. Instead, thanks to our fairy godmother, we managed to get our greedy little fingers on some photos and information about the house PRE-renovation.

According to the listing information, the house was purchased in November of 2005 for $5,350,000 after being listed initially at $6,495,000 and later reduced to $5,750,000. Prior to Mister Gallin getting his hands on the property, the house was listed as having 5,969 square feet with 6 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms. Miz Ryan reports the house at 7,500 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. Your Mama presumes Mister Gallin expanded the size of the house while reducing the the number of bedrooms.

Children, please note, the photos above are of the house PRE-renovation. You got that? PRE-renovation. We can only hope that Mister Gallin did some fine tuning of the exterior of this place, because if anyone were to ask Your Mama, and of course no one did, that was one butt-ugly house. Extremely well located and wonderfully sited on a uber private flag lot, but ridiculously ugly. Your Mama does however adore that oval swimming pool which harkens back to the glory days of Hollywood when starlets married closeted gay actors and everyone, and we mean everyone, had butlers to serve them pool side martinis.

Now please, Mister Gallin, send us some photos of the renovated property. The children are hungry for photos and Your Mama is very curious what you've done to the place.

Mariah O'Brien in Los Feliz

SELLER: Mariah O'Brien and Trae Carlson
LOCATION: N. Vermont, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $3,750,000
SIZE: 5,218 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Gated Mediterranean Compound with Lush Tropical Landscape and large grassy lawn. Rotunda entry with Vintage Tile and Stenciling, Large Beamed Living Room with Hardwood Floors and Fireplace, Separate Family/Media Room, Formal Dining Room, New Vintage Kitchen, Breakfast room and Powder. Upstairs Huge Master with Sitting Room & Walk-ins, plus three family bedrooms. Outside Huge Moroccan Covered Patio overlooks salt water pool & spa. Huge Guest House with Guestroom/gym/media and upstairs office

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We're dumping this one in today because Mariah O'Brien just happens to be the actress ex-wife and baby momma of Giovanni Ribisi, who we discussed briefly this morning. Ribisi and O'Brien, a couple of Scientologists, were dee-vorced in 2001, but not before they had a daughter they named after an ill-fated heroine in a Donizetti opera. Which is so cultured and arty we can hardly stand it.

Anyhoo, after getting un-hitched from Ribisi, O'Brien went and found herself a new man in Trae Carlson. Now there's no reason you'd know Mister Carlson's name, but he is a film and music producer who was once married to Carol Burnett's daughter Erin Hamilton.

According to property records, the couple purchased this house on a gorgeous, tree lined section of N. Vermont in December of 2005 for $2,700,000. The Mediterranean style house includes a rotunda entry featuring a sweeping stair case worthy of a Norma Desmond moment. Note the humongous Helmut Newton book SUMO propped up in the entrance hall on the Phillip Starck designed display rack. Impressive if you're into these things since only 10,000 were printed. Each was signed and numbered by Newton himself and sold for a whopping $6,500. It's filled with portraits of people in various stages of nekkidness. So, not really a book for the kiddies to be flipping through with their sticky peanut butter and jelly fingers.

While not to our particular taste, the house appears to be very tastefully, elegantly, and thoughtfully decorated. However, if you don't look closely at some of the artwork on the walls, you would be forgiven for thinking this house looks like it is owned by much older people. We are beside ourselves with delight seeing all the books in book shelves and picture books stacked on tables throughout the house. If we've said it once, we've said it twice, books help to make a house a home. And they make it look like someone with brains lives up in the crib.

We're not feeling that blood red dining room. We're uncomfortable with that glass fronted, country-looking cabinet, and we feel mixed on the expensive silk Fortuny chandelier--we've always been a wee unsure of them. But the gold leafed ceiling is pee your pants delicious.

We swoon over the covered space on the back of the house overlooking the pool, which has been kitted out as an outdoor room complete with ceiling fan to stir up the air. Could there be a better vantage point from which to sip a mai-tai and watch shirtless Pablo the pool boy skim the leaves?

And the guest house, well, it does look like something in Key West, but we do so love a guest house. Nothing better than having a separate structure for housing the less favored guests and family members.

We have no idea where the couple will be moving, or if they're even still a couple (anyone?), but given the purchase price in 2005, they are looking to make more than a million smacks in less than two years. Not bad.

Sources: Taschen, Internet Movie Data Base

Your Mama Hears...

...That sad eyed actor Giovanni Ribisi is buying a condominium in Silver Lake. The 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom unit is part of a new complex of townhouse like condominiums right on Silver Lake Boulevard and was listed at $675,000. The photos below are not the actual unit, but another in the same complex.

Your Mama is not able to confirm this purchase through property records so we're going on the good word of Lucy Spillerguts, one of our more prolific and always correct tipsters.

Your Mama can't imagine why the Scientologist and brother-in-law of Beck would want to buy a condo instead of a house, but then again, we're not even sure this condo is being purchased for his own use. Could be just another landing pad for the Scientologist faithful? An interim place while he renovates a house? Or maybe he's just a modest living actor, which is a notion that, strangely, we almost never consider when talking about celebs.

In 2005, Ribisi, along with a lot of the other big name Scientologists like Leah Rimini, Jenna Elfman, the Presley women, and of course, the king of Scientology, Tom Cruise, participated in the opening of the controversial "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum" in Hollywood.

Some of the unsubstantiated allegations about psychiatry this museum puts forth include that psychiatrists are responsible for creating suicide bombers and master minded the 9/11 attacks. (Can you hear Your Mama gasping?). This museum also claims that psychiatry is responsible for the Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. (More gasping.) And finally, the museum claims that between 10 and 25 percent of psychiatrists sexually abuse their patients. (gasping and staggering now).

Now children, Your Mama doesn't really have a lot of beefs with Scientology...we find its beliefs and creation stories are no more frighteningly surreal and unbelievable than any of the other major religions. But we do get our hackles up about the psychiatry issue. If a Scientologist chooses not to go the route of therapy or psychiatry, well so be it. But spouting off unsupported nonsense like this only makes them look, well, a little off their nut.

Besides, who among us thinks Mister Tom Crooz would not benefit from some time in the chair? Pleeze. He may be richer than the Pope and sit at the top of the Scientology heap, but he seems a little half-crocked to us lately. Humble as our opinion may be, Your Mama thinks this man is headed down the same road that Michael Jackson traveled and is slowly turning himself into a parody of who he once was, a legend in his own mind.

Anyhoo, as usual, we digress. Despite Ribisi's rather alarming stance on psychiatry, Your Mama wishes him a smooth closing on this condo, and a happy home, wherever that may be.