UPDATE: Isaiah Washington

Mister Big Time recently reported that big ego Bionic Woman ack-tor Isaiah Washington sold his Hancock Park adjacent condominium for $1,500,000. The condo, located in the dee-luxe French Provincial style Faubourg St. Denis on N. Sycamore Avenue, had been listed at $1,695,000. Your Mama discussed the dark floored and white walled 4 bedroom condo way back in July of 2007 when it first arrived on the market in the after math of Mister Washington's infamous dust up and smack down at hospital drama juggernaut Grey's Anatomy. Remember that gossip glossy and tabloid T.V. extravaganza? Jeezis H. Christ, Your Mama is so glad that one is over and done with because that real life brouhaha had us sucking on a bottle of gin morning, noon and night.

Anyhoo, the $64,000 real estate question now is where will Mister and Missus Washington live now that they've shed their Hancock Park crib? Well, as Mister Big Time noted and property records confirm, the Washingtons do own a 4,653 square foot house in Houston, TX and perhaps they'll be shacked up there at least some of the time. However, Your Mama hears from our wickedly well informed wunderkind Lucy Spillerguts that the couple will not be giving up a residential stake in Los Angles and are moving into a freshly built digs overlooking the Sherman Canal in Venice. It's unclear to Your Mama if Mister Washington is buying or renting.

Which means, of course, that in the wacky world of Los Angeles architecture, Mister Washington and the fam are moving from faux France to imitation Italy.

Ken Paves Heads For the Hills of Beverly

BUYER: Ken Paves
LOCATION: Mulholland Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $1,965,000
SIZE: 2,762 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Perched on top of a ridge along prestigious Mulholland Drive sits this elegant Cape Cod Contemporary designed by Robert Byrd. Flooded w/ natural light & surrounded by breathtaking views, this home has been renovated w/ the finest attention to detail. The large split-level LR is perfect for entertaining w/ vaulted ceilings, wet bar & FR doors that open to an expansive deck. Other features: 3 en-suite BRs, 4 fireplaces, brand new kitchen & baths & parking for 11 cars.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week while Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter whittled away the hours on sunbeds reading Vanity Fair–the one by William Makepeace Thackeray, thank you very much–and staring out at the azure waters of the Atlantic Ocean, outgoing celebrity real estate high priestess Ruth Ryon penned the last of her 1,300+ Hot Properties columns for the Los Angeles Times. The third and most interesting item in the column, tucked down at the bottom, was a bit of bizness about celebrity hair honcho Ken Paves purchasing Robert Byrd designed digs perched high on a ridge in the Hills of Beverly.

Most of you children will know Mister Ken Paves (pronounced PAY-ves) as Jessica Simpson's hair dresser and constant companion, always at the ready with a ratting comb and a battery operated set of hot rollers. But don't be fooled by what you see in the gossip glossies, because working Miss Simpson's weaves is hardly all that Miss Paves does to earn his coin. The man has also curled, colored, cut and twisted the tresses of leading ladees such as Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Alicia Silverstone, Avril "The Spitter" Lavigne, Lucy Liu, Mila Jovovich, Eva Longoria, Ashlee Simpson (natch), Kiki Dunst and many more. In addition to his eponymous salons in Bev Hills and his hometown of Clinton Township, MI, he and his gal pal Miss Simpson also hawk a line of clip in hair extensions which give all the thin haired bee-hawtchas in places like Indiana and Mississippi the opportunity to cheaply get hair as shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen and waxen as all the haired-up hotties in Hollywood with a famous (and expensive) hairdresser in their entourage.

Anyhoo, after reading Miz Ryon's report, Your Mama went a searching on the internets and with the help of Madam Beezneez discovered that He of the Heavily Processed Hair forked over $1,965,000 for a cute little Cape Cod style house that sits up a private road above Mulholland Drive. Property records and listing information reveal the somewhat rustic feeling residence measures a deliciously modest 2,762 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. Each of the bedrooms features its own private pooper which Your Mama is certain all Miss PAY-ves' hair hopping gurlfriends will appreciate after a long and exhausting evening of braiding each others' hair and clowning around clipping in kooky hair extensions.

Other notable amenities include off street parking for 11 spit shined and fiercely detailed automobiles (11!) including a three car garage, four wood burning fireplaces, a gigantic split level living room for entertaining the well coiffured troops, a dining room, den, vaulted ceilings everywhere including some of the bathrooms, and long stunning views out both the front of the house (towards Bev Hills) and the back (over the San Fernando Valley).

But it's really the outdoor spaces that for Your Mama make this house something delightful and desirable. There are porches and wrap around decks, patios and lush lawns, terraces and trellised sitting areas. There is not, however, a swimming pool. Your Mama hopes with all our might and muster that Mister PAY-ves will have a wee one installed even if he'd seldom run the risk of turning his faux blond locks green from the chlorine. We're also kinda hoping Mister PAY-ves will get rid of that statue problem at the front of the house. That might have been charming in the 1940s but not so much in the 2000s.

Your Mama isn't quite sure where Mister PAY-ves has been livin' lately, but records do show that in December of 2003 he sold a 1,760 square foot house on Beldon Drive for $875,000. Looks like Mister Paves has upped his real estate game since then.

LATER SAME DAY: Turns out there isn't any kind of an accent on Mister Paves name, so we've removed it because the least we can do is spell these people's names correctly, right?

UPDATE: Sidney Kimmel

By now all the children should all be well acquainted with the tremendous Thierry Despont designed digs in posh Palm Beach that mid-priced ladees apparel titan and movie producer Sidney Kimmel (The Kite Runner) foisted on to the market in April of 2008 with a spine tingling $81,500,000 asking price.

Well, kids, in less than one month, the 32,316 square foot limestone pile has been sold...for full price. Yes children you read that correctly. Sold. For. Full. Price. That ought to scare the livin' daylights out of all the folks fretting and fussing about the widening gap between the merely rich and the ridiculously rich.

Your Mama hears–and reports say–there were several financially qualified and interested parties who made offers on the sprawling 5.9 acre ocean front property which was reportedly scooped up by a fifty-something year old dude named John L. Thornton. Unless you follow the shocking shenanigans on Wall Street or consider yourself a bit of a policy wonk you'd be forgiven for not knowing who Mister Thornton is or why he's got so much damn money to spend on a place in Palm Beach that is unlikely to be his full time residence.

Once upon a time Mister Thornton was the president of glitzy Goldman Sachs, and all the children know that no matter what the economy is doing, the moolah is mountainous at the upper echelons of big name investment banks like Goldman Sachs. Mister Thornton now serves as the chairman of the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan and very powerful public policy think tank in Washington D.C. which has a reputation for being a little more lefty than righty. According to the Palm Beach Post Mister Thornton also serves as a director of Intel Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, an impressive resume to be sure. That is if you're impressed by these sorts of associations.

This is not the first time Mister Thornton has dabbled in the high priced real estate game. In 2001, Mister Thornton reportedly paid more than $18,000,000 for a 118 acre estate in Bedminster, New Jersey (property records indicate a purchase price of $19,366,779), and it appears that he and his wifey also own a house on Chester Square in London's swank Belgravia district, which happens to the same nabe where former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher makes a home as well as Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich...although Mister Abramovich owns so many homes it's difficult to know if he actually lives in Belgravia or simply puts furniture in a house there. Anyhoo, Your Mama presumes that Mister and Missus Thornton also own cribs in New York City and Washington D.C., however we could find no records to confirm that so don't anyone repeat that like it's some sort of truth.

In other high priced Palm Beach real estate news, the Palm Beach Daily News and the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Venezuelan banker Victor Vargas has entered a contract to fork over "about $70,000,000" for a 30,206 square foot Peter Marino designed Polynesian-style paradise owned by billionaire art collectors George and Frayda Lindemann. The 3.7 acre Lindemann property happens to sit right next door to the $81,500,000 Kimmel/Thornton estate. Mister and Missus Lindemann's house was not on the market, but apparently Señor Vargas' people presented an offer To the Lindemann's people they could not refuse. Who can blame them? Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would not refuse "about $70,000,000" for our little beach hut either.

The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that the musty looking Addison Mizner designed Palm Beach estate owned by the estate of Cheng Ching Wang, dress designer Vera Wang's deceased daddy, has went to contract soon after the asking price was reduced from $23,000,000 to $19,000,000. This is all, of course, on the heels of real estate tycoon Lloyd Goldman picking up the spectacular Howard Gittis estate for $22,450,000 just six weeks after it hit the market with a $23,500,000 asking price.

So while the market tumbles in most parts of the good ol' U-nited States of America, it remains white hot in the highest price points of Palm Beach. Food for thought.