She’s back at it again. Nobody, and we mean nobody, gets more real estate-related tabloid ink devoted to them than perennially on-the-move comedian Ellen DeGeneres. The voracious home buyer and seller — with an eye for architecturally pedigreed properties — has bought and sold well over a dozen residences (all of which she has lived in, however briefly) in about as many years. Oh, and her TV actress wifey Portia de Rossi comes along for the ride, too.

Well our gurl has done it again, according to Your Mama over at Variety. Despite screams of anguish from her exhausted furniture and assorted knick-knacks, she’s gone and dumped a particularly slinky sapphic structure over in the Hollywood Hills for $10 million (actually, the exact amount recorded was $9,900,000 but we like nice round numbers so 10 million big ones it is).

This particular house has a fairly interesting backstory. We believe it’s the only home that Ms. DeGeneres has owned on two separate occasions. Back in 2003, you see, commercial director David Ramser paid $1,900,000 for a large single-story sprawler in the hills above Nichols Canyon. He quickly engaged the services of high-priced and much-lauded architectural firm Marmol Radziner to renovate and redesign the somewhat rough-and-tumble ol’ gurl into a glossy-magazine-worthy stunner.

In November 2005, Mr. Ramser flipped the house to our sapphic sisters for an amount widely reported to be somewhere around $6,500,000. According to tax records, the house packs in 3,994 square feet with 5 bedrooms but just 3 baths.

Above are some photos showing how the house appeared at that time. The property is accessed via a steep, narrow driveway and a very tall (and surveillance camera-equipped) security gate. The drive gradually ascends to a spacious motor court with a three-car detached garage off to one side and the home’s main entrance to the other. Broad swaths of lawns out front is something practically non-existent in this tightly-packed neck of the Hills.

The home blends indoor/outdoor living with sliding glass doors that open to a stone terrace complete with a trapezoidal swimming pool and a built-in lounge with in-ground firepit.

But not satisfied with just this big house, the following March (2006) Ms. DeGeneres acquired the smaller house next door. We’re not sure how much she paid for that one, but based on tax records we’re going to guess it was somewhere around $1,900,000. That’s a total outlay of right about $8,400,000 for both spreads. (According to our cute third-grader math-whiz nephew, at least).

In September 2007, our koo-koo Ms. DeGeneres sold both houses in an off-market deal for exactly $10,000,000. Though the big house was never on the market, the smaller pad had been listed for $2,300,000, so we’re just going to assume the buyer paid about $2 million for the smaller house and  $8 million for the big one.

The purchaser’s identity was shielded behind an LLC, but every real estate gossip monger in town knows it was a lady named Alison Milgard, a very wealthy heiress to a Washington State-based window-manufacturing fortune. If her surname sounds familiar, you may recall that we also wrote about her first cousin Lori Milgard’s real estate story a few months ago.

Ms. Milgard, another sapphic sista, was in a long-term relationship with a lady named Alexandra Hedison, who also formerly lived with Ms. DeGeneres and would go on to marry Jodie Foster. Damn! That’s a lot of superrich lesbians, ain’t it? Good on you, Ms. Hedison.

In June 2014, Ms. Milgard unloaded the smaller house for $3,161,000 to comedian Stephen Merchant. That same November (2014) she dumped the big property for $8,750,000 in another off-market deal… right back to Ellen DeGeneres. Yes, kiddies, she apparently was feeling nostalgic and just had to have the house back. The couple almost immediately moved back in.

But to no one’s surprise, Ms. DeGeneres just couldn’t stay contained long enough and for whatever reason blah blah blah was quickly on the move again. She bought a new $16,000,000 house in Beverly Hills last November (2015).

Thus, despite that it was less than two years ago that Ms. DeGeneres commenced a valiant quest to return her betrothed, m’Lady has anointed another successor to rule her Ho-wood kingdom (or at least the halls of this house). Earlier this month, she sold the Marmol Radziner residence for $9,900,000 in yet another off-market deal. That’s a $1.15 million profit, not counting real estate fees, taxes and etc.

The buyer’s identity is shielded behind a blind trust, but Your Mama already revealed that the secretive new owner is none other than Barry K. Schwartz, Calvin Klein’s longtime business partner. Looks as if the home’s lesbian history is coming to a (temporary?) close.

Mr. Schwartz and his longtime wife Sheryl are noted equestrians who have owned a massive 750-acre horse ranch in upstate New York (“Stonewall Farm”) since 1979. This property is also their main residence.

In late 2014, the couple forked out $12,500,000 for a modest bungalow on an (obviously!) very prime strip of sand in low-key Carpinteria (CA), just south of the Santa Barbara and Montecito areas. The Schwartzes have since razed the original structure and are in the process of building a larger new home in its place.

For what it’s worth, their Carpinteria house happens to be two doors away from one bought by Modern Family producer Christopher Lloyd and his actress wife Arleen Sorkin and it’s also directly next door to a large mansion that was sold last year for $19,000,000 by comedian Dennis Miller to uber-rich internet entrepreneur Lynda Weinman.

Despite this sale, Ms. DeGeneres’s real estate load is still extremely heavy — by our reckoning she’s got nearly $60 million tied up in various other properties. There’s the aforementioned $16 million house in Beverly Hills (her main residence), two condos in a luxury Wilshire Corridor building that were acquired for a total of about $16 million, and a photogenic spread up in Montecito (CA) that she picked up in 2013 for $26,500,000.

It was a warm night in August 1969. A night just like any other summer night in LA — at least until the evening twilight had long dissipated and complete darkness set in. You see, it wasn’t until well after midnight that the infamous Manson “family” descended on an innocent household in Benedict Canyon, slashing their way into history and leaving behind them a bloodbath up there on Cielo Drive…

We won’t dive any further into the gruesome details or pause to ruminate on the motives that caused  several outwardly normal folks to commit such a brutal crime. And in any case, it’s not like we could bring any new info to the table. But we did feel the need to mention it as the property we are going to discuss today will always be in the shadow of the gruesome murders. Quite literally. This house sits directly below and adjacent to the Tate Murders property.

Aside from the fact that it is merely next door, this estate is also forever bound to the Tate house in another regard. In fact, it was once known as the “Twin House”, due to the fact that both properties were built at simultaneously by the same developer and featured nearly identical floorplans.

Both homes have long since been demolished or remodeled to the point of being utterly unrecognizable, of course. The Tate family home was demolished in 1994 by “Full House” creator Jeff Franklin, who built and now resides a hulking Richard Landry-designed beast in its place. He also had the numeric address changed to ward off bad juju or perhaps in an effort to confuddle the ghosts, should they attempt to use Google Maps to come haunt his place.

The “Twin House”, however, still stands. But the ol’ gurl has been remodeled and expanded so many times since the murder days that we really couldn’t possibly say it was the same house and still keep a poker face.

Not quite two years ago, in October 2014, the house was sold for $5,500,000 to a couple named Richard & Christina Makowsky. If their surname sounds vaguely familiar, yes, they are indeed related to real estate mega-baller Bruce Makowsky, whom both Yolanda and Your Mama has discussed on multiple occasions. They are his brother and sister-in-law, respectively.

Though the house had been completely transformed by architect Gus Duffy for the previous owner, the Makowskys gave the place a another very quick refresh and renovation. Just six months after receiving the deed to the estate, they flipped it back on the market with a woefully ridiculous $24,000,000 ask. The massively overpriced compound suffered several Hulk-sized pricechops and at least one failed escrow before it finally sold more than a year later (July 2016) for $13,100,000.

Listing info proudly touts the home’s unique style: “Cielo Retreat: Where St. Barths Meets Beverly Hills,” it reads. Guffaw if you dare, but we think it may have been that description that attracted our big-bucks buyer. Though the spendy purchaser is shielded in property records behind something called “Tin-Rez Corporation” that lists a Florida address, Yolanda just happens to know that the new owner is a fellow named David Haring and his wife Celeste, both citizens of the Bahamas.

Just who are Mr. & Mrs. Haring, and just how did they get so rich? Well, apart from a few scattered news reports we pulled out of Google, there’s really not much we can tell y’all. The couple seem to keep themselves to themselves, at least as much as those with wealth at this level are able. We don’t even have a picture of the pair. Yep. Even Yolanda isn’t as omnipotent as you might think!

But here’s what little we do know. Mr. & Mrs. Haring reside primarily in the Bahamas. (Probably in a mansion in or near Nassau, but we’re just guessing.) Mr. Haring is the 100% owner of an offshore entity known as Pine Trading Limited, which in turn is (or was) the largest shareholder of a publicly-traded Florida-based company formerly called Imperial Holdings. Imperial’s main line of business, apparently, is making lump-sum payments on legal settlements and life insurance policies.

Back in September 2011, Imperial generated a substantial kerfuffle when its offices were raided by the FBI. Almost immediately thereafter, the firm became the target of numerous shareholder class action securities fraud lawsuits targeting their life insurance business. And Mr. Haring — through his Pine Trading entity — quickly sold the entirety of his shares in the firm. Oddly enough, however, Mr. Haring and Imperial’s Chairman and CEO Antony Mitchell still appear to be partners in various other businesses and projects.

Out Mr. Haring was among many prominent folks worldwide named in the gamechanging Panama Papers leak scandal. Though perhaps that’s not too surprising, given that he actually resides offshore. Or at least, he did.

But we digress. That’s about all we know about Mr. Haring, so let’s take a look at the house Mr. & Mrs. Makowsky just sold to him.

A pleasantly unassuming driveway gate flanked by mature trees and assorted foliage offers little hint of the extravagant resort-style compound 500 feet within. In addition to the main house, which now spans about 7,500-square-feet with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, there’s a detached four car garage and a guest house with 2 more bedrooms and baths.

Now, kiddies, we admit Yolanda’s real estate tastes are relatively uncivilized. All we do is look at something and our brain tells us if we like or loathe it. So although the listing clearly says that “the newly completed compound marries European sophistication & Californian style”, we’re going to have to be uncouth and say that all we see is a rather too-glammed-up Mod-Mediterranean sort of confection with faaaaaar too much terrazzo flooring and far too many of those ridiculous wood beam decorations. It’s just personal taste, remember that. “Mod-Med” happens to be one of Yolanda’s least favorite architectural styles.

But obviously there’s an arse for every saddle. Right?

The master suite encompasses the entire second floor of the main house and includes a maze of wood ceiling beams, more terrazzo flooring, and numerous French doors that take in the over-the-treetops views of Century City and downtown Beverly Hills. The bathroom is not separated from the bedroom, which kinda seems sexy until you realize that you’ll probably have to watch or listen to your partner brushing their teeth or using the toilet. Yikes!

There’s also a gigantic dressing room with his-and-hers closets and three brightly-colored Hermes handbags that were hopefully included in the purchase price.

There’s also a large, completely mirror-walled gym and an office in the main house. Check out that serious weaponry — Mansons beware!

Two of the other bedrooms in the house. We’re not quite sure why one is “blessed” with a spider-like sculpture of those wooden ceiling beams and one is not. Maybe they ran out?

Numerous resort-like outdoor recreation amenities and areas dot the 1-acre estate, among them a bocce ball court, a lagoon-style swimming pool, a ping pong table under an eleborate tent. And best of all: a full outdoor wet bar.

Yolanda nearly plum forgot, but there’s one other thing we know about our enigmatic Mr. Haring. It’s that he’s fairly recently become involved in film production. Perhaps this is what precipitated the move to Hollywood, or perhaps not.

Mr. Haring’s Nassau-based film production company TinRes Entertainment and an LA production house known as Red Granite Pictures co-produced a 2014 Nicholas Cage-starrer called “The Dying of the Light.”

Red Granite, if you somehow weren’t aware, is the scandal-embroiled startup production firm founded by Riza Aziz — stepson of Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak — and (allegedly!) funded by hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from Malaysia’s 1MDB fund, and originally intended to benefit the Malaysian public. Red Granite’s largest production to date is the Leo DiCaprio-starrer The Wolf of Wall Street.

Poor rich Mr. DiCaprio (and his oddball private foundation) has recently found himself increasingly scrutinized for his close relationship to the alleged culprits of the theft of funds: Mr. Aziz and our boy Jho Low. In fact, though he was long scheduled to host a fundraiser for Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at his home in the Bird Streets, the venue was abruptly changed last week to the home of Justin Timberlake. Reps from both Clinton and DiCaprio’s camp denied the change was related to Mr. DiCaprio’s involvement in the 1MDB scandal, but many media outlets remarked on the timing of the change, which was announced just days after an explosive report was published in the Hollywood Reporter, detailing Leo’s 1MDB ties and the legal but possibly corrupt nature of his private foundation.

As we mentioned, Mr. DiCaprio’s people insist the cancellation is purely due to “scheduling conflicts”. Our boy Leo can’t make it, you see, because he’s busy with a documentary in NYC. No, he’s not starring in it. He’s just producing it and he just can’t find the time to hop on his eco-friendly private jet and honor his dinner commitment.

All Yolanda’s got to say to that is a big fat “Bitch, puh-leeze.”

Mr. DiCaprio, baby. Let’s get real real here. We know damn well some little documentary you’re producing or whatever would never hold you up in New York so much that you’d be unable to make it back for the evening to host a fundraiser dinner for Ms. Clinton, potentially the USA’s first female President. Have a seat!

Normally Yolanda wouldn’t discuss the home of a professional soccer star (football star to you crazy international folks). No, it’s not that we’re denying these players are celebs or think that this house isn’t big and gaudy enough to qualify for this high-falutin’ hot mess of a blog. It’s just, well, although Yolanda played AYSO soccer as a tot and pretends to watch the World Cup in a rather desperate attempt to make herself seem more hip, cultured, and Euro-chic, we really don’t have a clue about anything in that game. (Apart from our pretty-boy-fave Cristiano Ronaldo, of course!)

But Yolanda has a little online helper we’ve referred to as Tip Ster in the past. Mr. Ster is begging us to write about this particular house, and we feel an obligation to give the people what they want.

You see? Careful what you ask for.

Anyway, our boy Giovani dos Santos currently plays for the Mexico national team as a forward, and he can switch up his position to either be an attacking midfielder, winger, or secondary striker, whatever all those mean. Mr. dos Santos is also an Olympian, having won a gold medal as part of Mexico’s team back in the 2012 games. Since 2015, when he was signed to a reported $7 million deal, he has also dribbled for the LA Galaxy soccer team of the MLS.

Now, let’s dive right in. Or dribble in, right?

Like so many other homes in the WeHo/Beverly Grove area, Mr. dos Santos’s newly-built home is an uber-modern two-story crib shoehorned onto a very petite .14-acre lot. Remember when we told y’all about Lindsey Vonn’s new house in WeHo? Yeah, this place reminds us of that one, except on this one the outdoor space seems even more cramped.

Any perceived or real drawbacks did not deter Mr. dos Santos or other potential buyers, for that matter. Records show our boy paid $3,495,000 for the house — the full asking price.

The downstairs features an open-concept floor plan with glossy terrazzo flooring and a dining, living and family area centered around the kitchen.

The kitchen features two center islands — one of which appears to be too small for anything more than a couple bowls or some cups. Appliances are professional grade, natch. There’s also a rather fabulously minimalist half-bathroom downstairs that features floor-to-ceiling windows (and the ceiling is 23 feet high!) Yolanda actually believes that bathroom might be her favorite room in the whole house.

Upstairs is a sculptural chandelier and a glass-enclosed pod of a family room (?) or office (?) that reminds your gurl of a study room at one of those fancy modern public libraries.

The oversized master suite features a bedroom with balcony access and fireplace, a walk-in hardwood-slathered closet, and a bathroom with glass-enclosed shower and rectangular soaking tub.

There are 3 more guest bedrooms upstairs, each with their own private en-suite bathroom.

The backyard is almost comically cramped for a $3.5 million house in LA. Even Pookie the pooch doesn’t have enough room to run around back here. But the developer did manage to squeeze in a wading pool and a very petite raised spa. And the a huge wall of disappearing glass attempts to broaden the space back there.

There you have it, Mr. Ster. Even Yolanda’s got to admit that really wasn’t so bad. We’re feeling generous today, so we’ll say that all this place needs is a couple splashed of color to even out the rather stark grey monotone. See, Mr. dos Santos? The house ain’t bad, so quit your whinin’ about how the “media” ain’t never happy.

Think back for a moment. Random question, but can any of y’all guess who the world’s top-earning author of 2013 was? Could it have been Danielle Steel? Perhaps James Patterson? J.K. Rowling?

Nope. According to Forbes, it was a British housewife named Erika Mitchell, aka Erika Leonard, aka E.L. James.

But not only did Ms. James out-earn each and every other author on the planet that year, she absolutely annihilated nearly all of her competition by raking in a retina-shredding $95 million in pre-tax income that year alone.  Although her “masterpiece” Fifty Shades of Grey might not be today the phenomenon it was a couple years ago, she still managed to bank another $12 million last year. Her critically-panned but outrageously successful work of literary erotica has sold more than 125 million copies around the globe.

Clearly, Ms. James is a very rich woman.

Perhaps even more interesting than her mega-riches is that Ms. James initially had no agent, no publicist, no marketing campaign to attract attention to her written porno.  Her future bestseller began humbly as a Twilight fan-fiction called “Master of the Universe” that was posted in an online messageboard read by other folks with an interest in such things. The BDSM-influenced work became so popular via word-of-mouth that she eventually signed with a small publishing house. From there, Fifty Shades quickly rocketed to the top of every bestseller list around the globe. And the rest is history, to borrow a cliché.

Speaking of clichés, Ms. James’s work has been repeatedly thrashed by the critics for being riddled with them. Her books also contain — per the reviewers — an annoying amount of purple prose. Were Miss Marple here today — God rest her soul — we’d imagine she’d call these books a “right proper pieces of trash”. But times they are a-changin’ and Ms. James has capitalized on that better than anyone else in the literary world. Though Yolanda has never read any of Ms. James’s books (and likely never will) we can’t fault the lady for her hustle.

Just a couple weeks ago, a mysterious and rather unimaginatively-named blind trust with a London, UK address shelled out $7,325,000 for a brand-new spec house way, way up at the top of the hills overlooking West Hollywood. And yes, kiddies. Yolanda just happens to know that our gurl has finally went and gone Hollywood at the tender age of 53.

It should be noted that we find no evidence of a mortgage on this property. That is not absolute proof there was not a bank loan, just that it would appear there is not one. But would anyone be surprised in the least if Ms. James paid cold, hard cash for the house? Yolanda certainly would not. Homegurl is a real, real rich bitch.

Now then. We’re going to play a little game. For each set of pictures of Ms. James’s new house, we’re going to include a prime example of purple prose (or just a funny line) from either the real estate listing or Ms. James’s book. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to guess whether the flowery language came from Fifty Shades or the listing for this home. Real estate agents are masters of purple prose, after all. Happily, the fellow that sold this home did not let Yolanda down.

If you guess all them correctly, you’ll get a prize! What sort of prize, you ask? Shut up. Shut up! Stop asking questions. Maybe you’ll be blessed enough to have Ms. Yolanda Yakketyyak come sit on your lap. Just play along, dammit.

Oh, and no cheatin’ or you’ll get a big spanking. And we’ll make damn sure you don’t enjoy this one.

“…[the house] feels like it has belonged to the heavens all along…“

While we’re not sure if this 5,616-square-foot uber-modern medley is actually heaven-sent, it is very Grey™. The nearly windowless (but for a few small dungeon-like openings) presents a rather ominous two-story facade to the street, then drops down mullet-style to three stories out back.

Sorta like Christian Grey™. Professional and personable in public but with a kinky side behind closed doors. We’re just saying.

“..dream of dark places, bleak white cold floors, and gray eyes.”

Upon entering the front door, you are greeted with a living room sporting  panty-droppin’ and booty-slappin’ jetliner views that stretch all the way to Century City, the Pacific, and on a clear day — Catalina. Even Yolanda, a jaded ol’ beotch if ever there was one, has to admit that view is straight up badass.

A state-of-the-art kitchen boasts shockingly-expensive Miele appliances and lacquered wood cabinetry probably chopped in some forest in Tibet or some such nonsense. A massive center island with a marble eat-in countertop rounds out the space. The cozy dining room is currently equipped with funky modern art and another knock-’em-dead view.

“…a colossal glass-and-stone edifice…“

Indeed, and an edifice with at least a couple different Shades of Grey™. There’s also a swimming pool that cleaves dangerously to the edge of the cliff. Though the lot is a generous .44-acre, the extra-steep slope ensures yard space is practically non-existent.

“[Your] inner goddess is doing a triple axel dismount off the uneven bars…“

Um, okay.

Now kiddies, Yolanda’s got to get something off her bounteous chest (there we go with our own purple prose again). Yolanda loves luxury vehicles, and we’ve noticed that many of these new mansions include these expensive cars in them. For reference, we’re guessing. Trust us, we ain’t opposed to that.

However! Why does this brand-new $7.3 million house feature only a lowly Maserati Ghibli (starting price $67k or so) and last season’s Bentley Continental GT?! Come on now, Mr. Poser! (But we do like the color scheme on the Maserati — an A+ application of gunmetal Grey™.)

“…every room surveys staggering views, while comforting its guests with amenities…“

Staggering views of what?! It does not appear that every room has views, though Yolanda may be mistaken. But let your gurl reassure y’all — there are indeed amenities galore. These include a chilled “Wine Room”, a wet bar, some sorta mirrored massage/exercise room, and an elevator that services all three floors.

“Don’t you like the butt drawer?”

We probably would, but there don’t appear to be any photos of it here. Still, the master bedroom is light-flooded and includes a remarkably spacious outdoor terrace accessed through the disappearing all-glass wall. Despite the critical lack of butt drawers, we approve of this space.

We can’t imagine Ms. James and her screenwriter hubby Niall Leonard re-enacting many of the raunchy scenes from the blockbuster Fifty Shades movie in such an open space. Then again, we don’t really want to imagine that. Do we?

“Why hasn’t he given me back my panties? I steal into the bathroom, bewildered by my lack of underwear.“

Okay, maybe this line is too obvious, but we just couldn’t resist. And really, were anyone ever to be bewildered by their lack of underwear, what better bathroom to “steal into”? It’s got a lovely view to distract from the chafing between thighs.

There’s also a sweet and chic office with a desk for Ms. James to write more old lady porn stuff.

“Mornings … are a celestial awakening – above it all!“

Calm it down, gurl. You may be on top of the world when you wake up in the morning, but how about when you must go fetch a watered-down Starbucks coffee or when the Whole Foods / Gelson’s craving comes a-knowkin’? You’re gonna have to spend 15 minutes navigating those steep street curves just to get down to Sunset. That sucks! Stick that in your celestial awakening piehole. (Of course, you could always hire assistants to handle those menial tasks, but still. You’ve got to leave the house sometime!)

Alright, everyone, Yolanda is about to skedaddle. We’ve had enough of this story already. Enough! But since we were yappin’ about purple prose, how about some purple rain to close us out? We haven’t played this one in far too long…

(Yolanda’s challenge answers, in order: Listing, book, book, book, listing, book, book, listing.)

While trendy neighborhoods such as Trousdale Estates and the Bird Streets may hog the majority of the LA real estate headlines, there’s another, lesser-known neighborhood just to the west of those sexy areas where prices can climb nearly as high.

The “Crest Streets”, as they have been labelled by real estate agents, are a collection of several narrow, twisting roadways in the lower Beverly Hills Post Office area, sandwiched between heavily-trafficked Coldwater Canyon Road and Trousdale Estates. They are also treasured by a certain set of folks for the privacy the neighborhood affords while still offering easy access to all the local hotspots. Some of these people include Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Molly Sims (who just sold her Crest Streets house recently to Pacific Palisades). Then there’s P. Diddy (who leased a house belonging to Paris Latsis for five years before buying his new Nile Niami mansion in Holmby Hills) and China-based advertising mogul Dan Mintz, who spent $18,000,000 for a Nile Niami-built modern extravaganza at the top of the Crest Streets back in 2012.

It’s also here where, since 2003, NFL Network 24/7 talking head Rich Eisen and his fellow talking head (and Emmy Award-winning) wifey Suzy Shuster have resided with their two sons in a fully-updated-but-relatively-modest-by-celeb-standards 3,162-square-foot pad they bought way back when for $1,940,000.

Now, kids, Mr. Eisen & Ms. Shuster are rich as hell. So it was really no shock when late last year (2015), as noted by our friends over at the LA Times, the couple hoisted their longtime home up on the market with an asking price of $3,255,000. Yolanda felt certain the pair were ready to upgrade to a mogul-worthy mansion.

Sure enough, kiddies, it’s happened. But what surprised Yolanda is how much love Mr. Eisen and Ms. Shuster have for their longtime neighbors. Not only is their big new mansion also in the Crest Streets, it’s essentially right around the corner from their former home. They could literally carry all their junk over to their new crib! (Okay, maybe it’s not quite that close. But trust us, it’s pretty damn close.)

The couple’s new I’ve-made-it-real-big mansion was never on the (open) market, so unfortunately Yolanda don’t have any pictures to share with y’all. However, we do know that the vaguely-Tudor-style house was originally built way back in 1937, sits on a big (for the area) .78-acre lot, and sprawls out over 4,658-square-feet of living space with 4 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.

So maybe it’s not exactly a “mansion”, but it’s definitely a big upgrade. And the $7,750,000 that records reveal Mr. Eisen & Ms. Shuster paid for the property through their “Juice Bar Trust” would put most mansions in LA to shame. How you like them apples?

The seller, also per property records, was Golden Globe-winning film producer Mike Lobell. He and his wife Aase acquired the residence for just $2,403,500 back in 1998. So everyone should be happy in this deal! The Shuster-Eisens got their big house, and the Lobells walked with a huge profit.

According to the fine folks at The Movieland Directory, this house was also once owned by Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. It would appear to Yolanda — from a cursory glance through records — that Ms. McVie acquired the house way back in 1978 and was the one who sold it to Mr. & Mrs. Lobell twenty years later.

The completely walled-and-gated property encompasses a spacious front motorcourt with a two-car garage off to one side. Satellite imagery also reveals there’s a classic, Golden Age of Hollywood-style oval swimming pool to the south of the structure. It would appear that the property has enough space for the new owners to add a full-size tennis court, but we really have no idea if they will undertake the installation of such.

And as for their polished and art-filled prior house (above), records show Mr. Eisen & Ms. Shuster finally sold it this July (2016) for $3,255,000 or just $40k under their initial asking price. The buyer was a lady named Veronica Dashev. And our Mrs. Dashev — who goes by Ronnie — is also a big name in the entertainment industry, wouldn’t ya know! Mrs. Dashev once partnered with her Madge-sty Madonna to launch an entertainment company known as Maverick, whose first releases were Madonna’s uber-controversial coffee table book Sex and her studio album Erotica. (Both Ms. Dashev and Madonna are no longer part of Maverick as it exists today).

You know Yolanda’s having a good day when she can work Madonna’s name into a story about an NFL anchor buying a new house. May our next post be so fortunate. Until then — toodles, betches.

Although it is Martin Luther King, Jr. to whom the phrase “I have a dream” is usually credited, we’re guessing just about everyone has big dreams, big plans for themselves. But it’s those with entertainment industry aspirations — particularly in the actor/singer/model categories — who perhaps possess the most irrational, wildest-eyed optimism. Despite the fact that 99.9% of these hopefuls dismally fail in their quest to become the Next Big Star or even to earn a living, year after year these transplants arrive in LA by the busload from all manner of strange places like Wichita, Kansas and Pepper Pike, Ohio and Fumblebum, Tennessee. (We may have made that last one up.)

And then there are those rare few transplants whose showbiz dreams actually come true.

Back in the mid-1990s, a young college grad from Detroit moved to Los Angeles. Like so many others who came before and after him, this guy named Geoff Johns was pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. Idealism in his head and stars in his eyes; big talent and bigger dreams. Something like that.

Just like Yolanda, for instance. And now look at her. She’s 76 years old. We are that old. Really! We were born in Hollywood and from the time we were a tot everyone instinctively knew we were the next Bette Davis. And then, dozens of ruined casting couches and countless bottles of two buck Chuck happened. Now here we are. Divorced, alone, with a no-good husband who left us for his not-cute but ample-chested secretary. But you know what? We got it. We got the jewels, the clothes, the Caddy, and the big house. And we don’t dream any longer, y’all. Life may have passed us by but we still made the best of the precious few bones we were thrown.

Yes, babies, it’s a damn cold-blooded Ho-wood world out there. But somehow, it wasn’t that way for Mr. Johns.

Call it good fortune or call it skill, but in less than 20 years Mr. Johns has ascended from his status as an out-of-work screenwriter to perhaps the biggest name in comics today who is not named Stan Lee. And so the story goes, it all started with a simple cold call to a local production office. While the lackeys at the office were figuring out which one of them would get to destroy Mr. Johns’ dreams via the telephone, the call was mistakenly transferred to the big producer boss himself. Mr. Big Producer Boss liked what he heard and offered Mr. Johns the lucky internship that kick-started his journey to success and the accompanying fame and fortune.

Fast forward to 2016. Mr. Johns is now an acclaimed “comic book and television writer, film producer, and television producer”. And just this July (2016) it was announced that he has been promoted to President of DC Comics/DC Entertainment. He remains in his longtime role as Chief Creative Officer (CCO). He has produced the best-forgotten Green Lantern film and the more-recently-released and (also best-forgotten) Ben Affleck-starrer Batman v. Superman.

A big new job usually comes with a commensurate big new paycheck. And thus, it was this year Mr. Johns and his wife Sonia Choi went on the hunt for a big new house to celebrate.

Now, you all know that Studio City is one of the hottest up-and-coming luxury markets in LA. It seems the long-standing stigma about “living in the Valley” that petrifies Beverly Hills beotches is finally dissipating. The neighborhood is hot, hot, hot and celebs are flocking there in droves. Okay, maybe “in droves” is exaggerating it a bit, but the migration is happening. You’ll recall it was Yolanda who first told y’all about both Bruno Mars and Chloe Moretz secretly moving to the neighborhood within the past year or two.

Meanwhile, prices are creeping ever-higher. For example, the record for biggest sale ever in Studio City has been broken not once but twice already this year (most recently with a $7,600,000 purchase made by Gavin Rossdale, aka ex-Mr. Gwen Stefani).

A couple months ago, a mysterious and well-shielded entity calling itself “The Crunch Time Trust” very quietly paid an even-steven $6,000,000 for a big house in the hills near the western end of the neighborhood. The house in question was never on the open market, so unfortunately Yolanda has no interior pics to share with y’all. But we do just happen to know that our boy Mr. Johns (and Ms. Choi) were the buyers.

What else can we tell you? Well, the two-story Traditional was built in 1948, sits on a .78-acre lot and has a mansion-sized 6,063-square-feet of interior space with 6 bedrooms and 7 water closets. There appear to be several large very-green patches of grass and a free-form swimming pool with a concrete deck surround. There are panoramic views over pancake-flat San Fernando Valley out back. Naturally, the property is walled and gated and has tall, mature and gorgeous liquid amber trees out front for maximum privacy and beauty.

Oh, and the house also has a faint celeb pedigree. From 1989 to 1993, it was owned by actor Patrick Swayze, may he rest in piece.

As it turns out, Mr. Johns and Ms. Choi are not new to the Studio City neighborhood — they’ve lived there for at least the past five years. In fact, their current home — while much more modest than their big new house — is so close to their newly-purchased one that they could haul all their junk over on foot by cutting through a neighbor’s yard. What is it with all these folks majorly upgrading their residential circumstances while staying on the same block? Found your comfort zone?

While his new house may have just a wee bit of celebrity pedigree, it turns out that Mr. Johns’ more modest current home has it in spades. Mr. Johns bought it way back in April 2011 from How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris. Records show Mr. Johns (and Ms. Choi) paid $1,570,000 for the single-story, 2,408-square-foot ranch sprawler, privately situated up a long, steep driveway.

Mr. Johns has not yet sold his little celeb-pedigreed Studio City rancher and as of today, the house is not on the (open) market. But if you’re reading this and you happen to be shopping nice little house in Studio City and you’ve got somewhere between $2 and $3 million bucks to spend, don’t be shy. Go on and cold-call Mr. Johns and see if you can work something out.

We’ve got a good feeling you might get lucky. Just as Mr. Johns did all those years ago.

We normally use this blog to joke around about anything and everything, but for once we’re going to get seriously serious. We promise this will be the only time!

Yolanda’s grandparents (one set of them) lived in the same house in La Cañada Flintridge for more than 40 years. During some summers, we would spend nigh every Saturday at their house, horsing around on their old-school (but very fun) diving board, pretending to drive our grandpa’s Cadillac, and gazing in awe at grandma’s massive, light-flooded living room that was eclectically yet tastefully decorated with artifacts from her extensive travels around the globe. Our granny (may she RIP) had quite the flair for decorating and design. We think all those days we spent in her house are a big part of why we are so interested in real estate (and etc) today.

Good times. Fond memories. Maybe that’s why, despite the fact she’s never lived there, Yolanda still keeps a close and interested eye trained on the super-sleepy La Canada neighborhood. So when we get a rare opportunity to write about one of the residents, we take it! See?

The richest family (or definitely one of the richest) in the city, as all the locals have long known, is Vince Dundee III and his wife Judy. The couple are very involved in the community and have hosted many philanthropic events, fundraisers, banquets at their mansion, which they purchased way back in 2006 for an A-list $9,900,000. A full decade later, that sale still holds the record for most ever paid for a house in the city. But wait! We’re getting ahead of ourselves here.

How did the Dundees get so rich? Well, first let’s give you a bit of family background. Vince Dundee III’s granddad — Vince Sr. — was an Italian immigrant to the US who became, for a short period, the Middleweight boxing champ of the world. He eventually settled in the Glendale (CA) area. And though he died young after being stricken with multiple sclerosis in his mid-30s, his family has remained rooted in the neighborhood.

After his father’s death, Vince Jr. became a successful restaurateur in the La Canada area. Unfortunately, his most famous local eatery rather bizarrely burned down in 1980. The blaze was quickly labeled arson, but the culprit was never captured. Though the Dundees stated they would rebuild the restaurant, 35+ years later the property remains vacant.

Now then, boxing and old burned-down restaurants obviously aren’t the main source of these folks’ wealth. Mr. Vince Dundee III was the longtime owner of a Glendale-based company known as Video Equipment Rentals (VER). As you might expect, VER rents out their massive supply of film and video production equipment (lighting, cameras, audio, LED) to a variety of entertainment industry and corporate clients. The firm also has distribution centers all over the world.

The business was lucrative enough to afford Mr. Dundee and his wife their aforementioned $10 million main residence in La Canada. We say “was” because although Yolanda cannot find a single online article to support this, it’s known that Mr. Dundee sold the company last year.

Like so many others before him, Mr. Dundee took his huge chunk of change and went a-huntin’ for some prime real estate. He settled on two side-by-side vacation homes on fabled Malibu Road, one substatially larger than the other and purchased in two separate transactions. A $23 million oceanfront compound, as it were.

The smaller house was acquired this June (2016) for $5,600,000 by Mr. Dundee’s LLC. Sparse listing information says the house was “sold before processing”. What we know is that the petite pad is a miserly 1,184-square-feet with 2 beds and 1 bath.

Nearly $5,000 per square foot may seem like a ludicrous amount to pay even for a beach house, but keep in mind this property is located on one of the best stretches of sand in the city.

What was really crazy about this sale, however, is that the seller — a guy named Ken Adelberg– had only purchased the house six months before, back in December 2015. Guess how much he paid? Just $4,250,000! That’s a wow-inspiring 30% (or so) value increase in just six months and for what we’re guessing was simply a minor cosmetic refresh.

But wait! That’s not all. If you think that seller pocketed a ton of change, wait ’til you see how much dough his neighbor made. The property next door was sold for $3,600,000 in 2013 to some developers and quickly bulldozed. The new spec-mansion that arose stood two stories tall.

Like its neighbor, the house was again “sold before processing” to Mr. & Mrs. Dundee. But check out how much they paid! A fat $17,650,000! Yowza. Even if the developer had invested $10 million into the construction of a new residence — and Yolanda highly doubts the actual tab was anywhere near that amount — they still would’ve walked with millions.

The modern new two-story house of unknown size has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 baths. Unfortunately, those two renderings above is all Yolanda’s got to show y’all what the place looks like today.

There you have it. In total, that’s $23,250,000 for the Dundee’s two-parcel oceanfront compound.

Now, let’s quickly discuss the family’s main residence back in good ol’ La Canada. As we mentioned, they paid a record-breaking $9,900,000 for the 10,000-square-foot, vaguely Dutch Colonial beast back in 2006. There are 5 beds/7 baths and a rectangular pool and spa. The heavily-wooded 1.33-acre lot ensures total privacy for the homeowners. And the seller, for what it’s worth, was former pro baseball star Darren Dreifort and his now-ex-wife Ann.

La Canada may seem boring as hell to folks used to the hectic life in Downtown LA or Sunset Strip areas, but the quiet Crescenta Valley community is an easy trek to the big studios and refreshingly paparazzi-free. Thus, in recent years it has become popular with a healthy handful of showbiz peeps. Current and former residents include Miley Cyrus, Vince Vaughn, Adam Carolla, Diane Farr, Angela Bassett and Gore Verbinski.

Call Yolanda a jaded beotch, but we’ve long ago ceased being confounded by the way some folks earn their millions here in Los Angeles. Actually, we think that’s actually one of the primary reasons we continue to be fascinated by real estate in this particular city. It’s not just because we’re familiar with the area, it’s that the wealthy folks here derive their moolah from so many wildly different sources. Even NYC, as culturally diverse as it is, seems comparatively more homogeneous in this regard.

Our BFF Your Mama over at Variety already broke the story about YouTube star Jordan Maron’s $4.5 million house in the Hollywood Hills. Now here we have a guy calling himself HuskyStarcraft (real name: Mike Lamond) who has nearly 1 million subscribers on the YouTube, a perfect procrastination tool for most kids and a money-minting gold mine for a select few others.

Anyway, these subscriber folks willingly devoted several minutes — if not several hours — of their life to watching Mr. Lamond play that Starcraft game and talk in a rather annoying voice. Well, alrighty then.

For that Mr. Lamond makes a lot of money, probably hundreds of thousands per year. Now call Yolanda a bitter old hag if you must, but we find that downright shocking. But we must get used to it. If Forbes’ “Highest-Paid YouTube Stars” is anything to go by, we’re going to see a lot more of this money here in the immediate future.

Though Mr. Lamond is a successful individual in his own right, we don’t believe he’s the big breadwinner here. That honor goes to his girlfriend Rosanna Pansino (real name: Rosanna Reardon) who runs an oddball yet massively successful cooking show on YouTube called “Nerdy Nummies” that has somehow racked up a flabbergasting seven million subscribers. She’s also got more than 2 million followers on Instagram, and more than 250k peeps on Twitter. Forbes says she hauled in $2.5 million last year — even before her new cookbook was released.

Interestingly enough, Ms. Pansino did not start a YouTube channel with the idea of becoming a multi-millionaire. Like so many before her, she came to Hollywood wanting to be a star. As she later recounted, Ms. Pansino hired an agent and got a union job as a cheerleader on the blessedly bygone Glee TV program. But with her Ho-wood career dead-ending, our gurl decided to invest her life savings ($20,000) into producing a YouTube channel. Obviously, the investment paid for itself — many, many times over.

Their success  has afforded Mr. Lamond and Ms. Pansino the ability to buy luxury real estate. Earlier this month (August 2016), the couple forked out $3,825,000 on recently-built two-story house in the luxurious San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Tarzana. It would appear that the couple had some competition for the property, as the final sale price was actually $30,000 more than the initial listing price.

For what it’s worth, the property was once the site of a smaller house owned by former NBA star Loy Vaught. Our Mr. Vaught bought the property way back in 2004 for $1,375,000 and sold it in 2013 to a non-celeb couple for just $850,000, a brutal $525,000 loss not counting taxes fees, and etc.

The buyers of Mr. Vaught’s home promptly demolished it and constructed the thing you see here in listing photos today, which they just sold to the YouTube couple for nearly $4 million.

Aggressively described in marketing materials as a “custom Cape Cod Hamptons estate”, the clapboard-sided abode has a very generous 5,826-square-feet of living space and sits fairly privately  on a .46-acre parcel at the end of a leafy and affluent cul-de-sac south of Ventura Boulevard.

Mature sycamore trees frame the entry walkway and the gurgling fountain. In addition to the three-car garage, there’s enough off-street parking for 4+ more cars courtesy of the wide driveway.

The listing says the house has “magnificent craftsmanship by highly respected & sought after local developers”, though we’re not exactly sure who those developers are. Whatever the case, the front door opens to a hallway situation with medium-brown hardwood floors. Just past the staircase on the left is the residence’s neutral-toned living room with bookcases and a fireplace.

The living room, in classic Southern California fashion, blends the indoors and out via a set of sliding doors. The rectangular pool has an inset spa and a dark grey stone patio surround.

And wait! Lookie here — is that what Yolanda thinks it is? A real diving board?! Please, oh please, tell us those are back in style and we’ll force our folks to add them to their pools straightaway! We love it.

A sport court is another thoughtful recreational amenity. There’s also a firepit, a barbecue, fireplace, and a rather charming outdoor dining room with twin electric fans for those hot Valley summers.

The kitchen is YouTube ready, no renovations required — it comes equipped with every high-end appliance, natch, and both islands are topped with Calacutta marble. The formal dining room sits right off the front door and has coffered ceilings, earth-toned walls, and drapes that look like they belong in a shower somewhere. We’re just sayin’.

Speaking of showers, the house’s fireplace-equipped master bath also features a glass-enclosed one with dual rainfall showerheads for extra cleanliness and perhaps a little romance. And maybe it’s just the angle of the photo, but the soaking tub seems a bit too small for an average-sized adult human. Good thing Ms. Pansino is a very petite 4’10”. Pity for the 6’2″ Mr. Lamond.

The master suite is done up in a rather feminine shade of blue-grey with cathedral ceilings and a crystal chandelier that — though we’re sure it cost a small fortune — rather reminds Yolanda of a big-ass wart growing our from the side of the wall.

In addition to the master suite, the house also features 4 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. Then there are several “fun rooms” as Yolanda will term them. Upstairs is a glass-doored family room/lounge that looks as if it could easily be turned into a kids playroom. There’s also a gym/exercise room currently devoid of any exercise equipment. But it does have some shiny big balls.

The listing also makes a point of calling attention to the property’s state-of-the-art smart home system, which has surveillance cameras and LED lighting controlled by phone or computer. In other words, if any of you kiddies think it might be cute to roll out to Tarzana and attempt to steal Ms. Pansino’s secret recipes or Mr. Lamond’s Starcraft login, beware!

In the immortal words of the iconic Brenda from Scary Movie, “You on candid camera now.”

And if you thought the fact that a YouTube couple can afford a $4 million house of this caliber is shocking, just wait. Yolanda’s research reveals that this is not the only seven-figure home the couple possess. Back in November 2013, they paid $1,540,000 for a 3,386-square-foot, two-story house near the Westchester area of LA (that’s just north of LAX for all you geographically-challenged peeps). The property is basically right around the corner from Loyola Marymount.

 As of today, the Westchester house is not currently on the market and Mr. Lamond & Ms. Pansino remain the owners of record.

So for all you struggling Hollywood dreamers, hauling yourself from audition to audition, remember this: there’s potential out there in arenas you may not be considering. We’re not saying everyone has the ability to be a Ms. Pansino and own $5 million+ in luxury real estate. Success comes in many sizes. And hell, if you’re really desperate, you could always start a blog to compete with Yolanda’s old ass. You might earn a few shekels! So roll up your sleeves and get cookin’.

Yolanda knows this guy who we’ve previously referred to on the blog as “Tip Ster”. Our Mr. Ster resides in the West Hollywood area, and seems he knows everyone’s beeswax in his neck of the woods. A couple times already he has either pointed Yolanda to homes that were purchased by this or that celeb or given us some juicy neighborhood gossip.

Well, over the weekend Mr. Ster wrote in and asked Yolanda if we were ever planning to write about A$AP Rocky‘s new house. So Yolanda did what anyone else would do and cornily shouted “what the hell is A$AP Rocky?!?! Sounds like the newest flavor down at the Dairy Queen!!!”

Poor Mr. Ster shook his head at Yolanda’s loudly proclaimed ignorance and assured us that Mr. Rocky is in fact a very real person with very real money. Mr. Rocky was born Rakim Meyers in Harlem, New York back in 1988. By 22, Mr. Rocky had released his first rap mixtape called Live. Love. A$AP. The success of that led to Mr. Rocky’s first #1 album Long. Live. A$AP. which then led to his second #1 album At. Long. Last. A$AP.

Holy moly! That’s a lot of periods. And a lot of capital L’s.

Now don’t think for a moment that Yolanda is some sort of salty hater or whatever fun buzzwords you kids like to use nowadays. We’re not dissin’ Mr. Rocky by saying we don’t know him. It’s just that Yolanda is an old hag and many of these young new entertainment industry folks — particularly those in the music industry — are completely unknown to us. It’s our own fault with not keeping up with the tunes. We’re not implying they are not talented, rich, famous and/or successful, okay? Okay.

Anywho, Mr. Rocky’s success in music has brought him perks in other arenas of life. He has his own clothing line, and he’s also a record producer, which Yolanda happens to know can be a very profitable line of work. Oh, and Mr. Rocky is also popular with the ladies. From 2011 to 2012, he dated fellow rapper and thank-God-she’s-already-a-hasbeen Iggy Azalea. From 2013 to 2014, he was coupled with top model Chanel Iman. Since 2015, Mr. Rocky has been repeatedly linked to one of those krazy Kardashians. We can’t be bothered to figure out which K-Klan member it is and we also have no clue whether they are currently coupled or not. Maybe one of y’all insiders can fill us in, should you be reading this. Be a dear?

As busy as Mr. Rocky is, he somehow dug up time to buy a multi-million dollar LA starter house. At least according to Mr. Ster, who pointed us to a newly-constructed, boxy confection akin to so many other new homes in the WeHo/Beverly Grove area. Yolanda did a little digging into property records and we discovered that the residence in question was last sold way back in April 2015 for $3,050,000 to something called “Ricky Trust”. It only took Yolanda a bit of further research before we were able to conclusively link Mr. Rocky to both the house and the trust. We have heard that Mr. Rocky lets his older brother Ricky (fancy that!) and his younger sister Erika Black stay at this home whenever they are in town, which is pretty gosh-darn swell of him.

(Now that we think about it, Mr. Rocky must be dating the tall Kardashian gurl, the pretty one with the dishwater personality. The other one has the troublemaker boyfriend who would probably bounce food stamps if he were able, right? No way could that guy afford a $3 million house!)

Like many new houses in this area, the modern casa has an open floor plan — the entire ground floor is one giant room. The massive wood front door swings inward to reveal what may or may not be white oak flooring and endless rows of recessed lights. Good grief. One current design trend that Yolanda wishes would fade away are these lighting scheme. In our opinion it’s not attractive at all — just makes the ceiling full of open sores look-a-likes. Ah, well.

In addition to the living/family area with fireplace, there’s a sunken “conversation area” next to the staircase that somehow reminds Yolanda of the legendary Cone of Silence. The formal dining table appears positively puny.

The minimalist “Italian kitchen” has designer appliances and an olive-green-and-blonde-wood paint scheme that we somehow love. Going batty in our old age, perhaps?

All of the 4,321-square-foot house’s 5 bedrooms are located upstairs. Upon reaching the top landing, those fortunate enough to be granted VIP access are greeted by an unusual open-sky patio lounge with fireplace and some hanging plants.

As expected, the grey-and-cream master suite is spare but does have plenty of space for art. Out that glass sliding door in the bedroom is a balcony that overlooks the snug backyard and (unfortunately) some nearby power lines.

Speaking of the backyard, it’s definitely petite — some rude folks may even dare to label it cramped — but the developer did manage to squeeze a zero-edge plunge pool and spa. Plus there’s a grass patch just big enough for Fido to take care of his business.

The centrally-located house (it sits in a prime area between Melrose Ave and Beverly Blvd) is walking distance to all sorts of fabulous restaurants and shops that include Jar and Angelina Osteria. And of course, the world-famous Sunset Strip is an easy 10-minute jaunt by car.

Not that’s it’s really any of our business, but if you ask us the Kardashians should try to keep Mr. Rocky around. Seems like all of their other men have major issues. Drugs, brothels, evictions, mental illness *coughKanyecough*, and all-around douchebaggery, At least this guy has his own money and his own place and is relatively normal (or so it would seem)!

But then, that’s probably the reason they’ll drop him right quick, ain’t it? A freakshow can’t function without its merry band of freaks, and a a Kardashian show without freaks is no show at all.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Yolanda made a promise to herself and to you, our fair and faithful readers. We swore that no matter what befell this blog, whether it reduced Yolanda to poverty or brought us innumerable riches, whether it grew large or unraveled faster than a cheap sweater, whether it became a classy hot mess or just a hotter hot mess, we would never do one thing. We would never, ever write about the Kardashian brood.

It’s not that they aren’t rich. It’s not that they aren’t celebrities. It’s not that they don’t spend outrageous amounts of cash on luxury homes. They are and do all those things. It’s simply that this family has reached the pinnacle of fame and fortune by hogging attention. Getting folks to talk about them. It’s their lifeline, their secret weapon, the hammer to their Thor.

That’s a major turn-off to Yolanda. We don’t like to write about folks who are desperately seeking attention. And really, what’s the point of us writing about them when every minute detail of their real estate purchases (and the rest of their lives) are splashed out in every gossip rag before the ink is dry on the contract?

But as noble as our “NoKardashiansEver” resolution may have seemed, at the end of the day money talks. Yolanda is a slave to the almighty dinero just like every other beotch anywhere. And when you have a 19-year-old buying a $10.5 million luxury compound in an exclusive gated community, could Yolanda — in good conscience — ignore that? Of course she could never ever.

So we acquiesce. You win, you krazy Kardashians. You got Yolanda to write about you. Proceed with your world takeover.

It was our Kardashian-attuned friends over at TMZ who first broke the story about young Miss Jenner (then only 18 Y.O.) throwing down $6 million on a brand-new spec-mansion in the guard-gated and celebrity-packed community of Hidden Hills, way out there deep in the San Fernando Valley where the K-Klan has long been based. Before anyone really had time to digest the info, Ms. Thang went out and plunked down another $4.5 million on the smaller house next door.

Property records viewed by Yolanda very clearly confirm that Miss Jenner purchased both houses through her “Candice Joe Trust”. The big one went for $6,025,000 in May (2016), and the smaller one sold for $4,500,000 in June. That’s a total outlay of $10,525,000 for all you math-challenged peeps like Yolanda.

Perhaps the most mind-boggling thing about this sale is that it appears that the barely-legal Miss Jenner may have ponied up nearly the entire sale price in cold, hard cash. The mortgage on the big house is a paltry $1.1 million bucks, and Yolanda finds no evidence of any financing on the smaller structure. That doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but it does indicate that Miss Jenner may have slammed down well over $9 million in greenbacks from her bank account. Bam! How you like them apples?! Our gurl must be selling truckloads of makeup to the tweenies.

The larger house sits on a 3.15-acre parcel at the end of one of the longest private driveways that Yolanda has ever laid eyes on. Seriously, it must take Miss Jenner about 5 minutes just to drive down to the mailbox. The luxury residence — rather refreshingly free of staging in listing photos — has a double-height entryway with a wine cellar prominently tucked under the huge staircase. Hardwood floors run through most of the home’s 7,040-square-feet. The catering-sized kitchen comes equipped with two massive and marble topped center islands and every high-end appliance imaginable.

Other creature comforts and high-end features include a four-car garage with epoxy floors, an outdoor loggia with a built-in barbecue, pool, spa, lots of green lawn space, and a total of 6 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms.

The single-story house on 3.3 acres next door isn’t quite as luxurious as the larger one, but it’s also brand-new and comes with all the luxury features any teenage millionaire might expect — save perhaps for a sports court. But the vineyard makes up for that, right?

If you’re thinking these two homes look oddly similar, it’s because both structures were spec-built by the same guy, a Hidden Hills resident named Mike Ashley. Our Mr. Ashley has constructed a whole bunch of these rather vanilla structures in the area over the last couple decades or so, and in fact Yolanda believes one of the streets in the community is named after him.

So the story goes, Miss Jenner plans to live in the larger home — the $6 million one — and the smaller house will be used as offices for her burgeoning cosmetics business. We imagine it will also do double-duty as a dog house for Tigger or Tiger or whatever the heck her ne’er-do-well rapper boyfriend calls himself, whenever he misbehaves.

Now here’s what doesn’t make sense to Yolanda. Miss Jenner, why would you spend more than 10.5 million bucks on these two fairly ho-hum houses when for the same price (or just a bit more) you could’ve had Jennifer Lopez’s 17,000+ square foot Hidden Hills white elephant of a monster mansion? It’s been on the market since the dawn of time and it’s essentially two separate mansions joined together. Plus it looks better inside and out (in Yolanda’s opinion). And it’s been on the market for centuries! All she wants is a mere $12,500,000 and discounts are likely!

“OMGZ Kylie bought J.Lo’s house!!!” Think of how much extra publicity that headline would’ve brought you.

But ours not to reason why. Miss Jenner already has her compound locked down and we hear she’s committed to her new property. At least until the new year, then it’s on to the next.

We nearly forgot to mention that all Miss Jenner’s new garage space is an absolute necessity for a vehicle-hoovering young lady like herself. After all, her current “whips” include (but may not be limited to): 2016 Range Rover SVAutobiography (MSRP: $199,495), 2016 Mercedes-Maybach S600 ($191,300), 2016 Rolls Royce Wraith ($304,350), 2015 Rolls Royce Ghost ($295,850), and a 2015 Ferrari 458 Spider ($263,553). According to TMZ, homegurl opted to sell her 2015 Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG (MSRP: $139,900) recently because Miss Jenner having a vehicle worth less than $200k even after options would simply never do. What would the neighbors think?!

Are we ashamed of ourselves for knowing all that? Yes, yes we are.

Now Miss Jenner — Yolanda has a few last words just for you. We hate to get so philosophical on y’all this early in the week, we really do. But dear Miss Jenner, your life has us puzzled. You’re still a teen and you’ve already got the mansions, the cars, the clothes, the jewels, the business empire, the jetset lifestyle, the fame, the (allegedly) purchased hot body. Now what?

You’ve conquered every aspect of this material life. What else is left for you out there? For the remainder of your many decades of life, Miss Jenner?

Maybe when you’re 60, when you’ve just purchased your latest $100 million mansion, maybe you’ll momentarily pause. You’ll close your eyes and recall a different time forty years ago… the ancient days. Back in 2016! You’ll remember. There was still time back then. You could’ve fixed it all. Think back! You can see the crowd, your 73 million followers on that long-forgotten Instagram app. In your reflection, you’re still there now! You can change it, you can save them all, save yourself. You can warn them all about the horrid, cynical future. Just lock down this place, this time, hold on and make it last forever. Step out into the light, Miss Jenner. You’re young and free and about to burst…

For some odd reason, Yolanda always seems to wind up with the exclusives about those One Direction boys. At least when it comes to their real estate purchases. Not that we’re normally one to toot our own horn (okay, we kinda are) but we were the first to tell you kiddies about Niall Horan’s house in the Hollywood Hills, Louis Tomlinson’s Calabasas compound (yes, kiddies, we said Louis Tomlinson because that’s his house), and Harry Styles secretly selling his LA starter house up in the Beverly Hills Post Office area. Now we have something extra-special for y’all One Direction fans. They’ve always been our favorite fanbase, as we’ve stated before.

Ever since we first discovered that Mr. Styles unloaded his house at a whopping $830,000 loss, something has been nagging at your gurl. We couldn’t help but feel we were missing an important piece of the puzzle. But just what we were missing eluded us, at least at first. We just knew something was off.

Think about it. Why would Mr. Styles dump his LA house at a major loss? For that matter, why would he sell his LA house at all? It’s not as if he needs the cash. And it’s not as if he’s leaving LA — he’s well-known to spend a great deal of time living here. Indeed, according to the Harry Styles Updates Twitter feed, he’s been out here for the past several weeks.

Selling the house at a substantial loss off-market seemed to indicate one of two things to Yolanda. Either he was desperate to unload it, or he wanted to sell it very quietly and didn’t care if his wallet took a wallop in the process.

But why did he want to sell it uber-quietly and off-market when he probably could’ve gotten more had he officially listed it? Although we couldn’t comprehend it at first, at Yolanda is now certain we know the answer. You see, Mr. Styles had very stealthily already purchased a new home in Los Angeles. And he didn’t want anyone to know he was switching residences.

When we first caught wind Mr. Styles’ uber-stealthy home purchase and discovered it had happened nearly seven months ago, we almost didn’t believe it. Yolanda has been monitoring the LA real estate game for many moons, after all. We’ve never seen a celebrity — particularly a big-name celeb like Mr. Styles — get away with buying a new house for that long. It’s just unheard-of, particularly in the gossip-driven world that is Southern California. Nothing remains secret like that for such a lengthy period of time.

But it’s true. Somehow, Mr. Styles’ new purchase went undetected for the better part of a year. And but for a little bit of craftiness and a whole lot of luck, even your gurl Yolanda Yakketyyak might never have detected it. Yep, our baby boy almost got away with it.

How did he do it? Well, find a comfortable armchair and pour yourself a tall Old Fashioned because we’re gonna tell you.

Mr. Styles’ new, uber-modern house is located in an area that’s technically the Hollywood Hills but is usually referred to as “above the Sunset Strip” because it’s literally a two minute drive from the restaurant-and-nightclub hotspot-laden drag. Property records show the house last sold for $6,870,000 in an off-market transaction way back in January (2016). The home had never officially been on the market, but just a few months prior to the sale it had been offered as a luxury lease.

Now comes the interesting part. Mr. Styles’ old house in the B.H.P.O. was owned through his “Bubble Gum Trust”. His new house was bought by something completely different — a mysterious entity calling itself “HXSIP LLC”. Yolanda is fairly positive that the “SIP” portion of that phrase stands for “Saint Ives Place”. So that leaves “HX”. Hmmm. What could the “H” stand for? We wonder.

It should also be noted that the stated mailing address for this new house’s tax documents is the exact same LA law office to which his old property was also registered. But even more damning then that is the fact the seller of this house was a guy named Drew Fenton. Our Mr. Fenton, bless his heart, happens to be employed as a real estate agent with a boutique firm called Hilton & Hyland. And Mr. Styles’ longtime real estate agent is a guy named Branden Williams who also just happens to be employed at the very same estate agency.

Are you getting a clear picture of how all this bullshiz went down? If not, let Yolanda reenact it for y’all.

HS: “Hey Agent #1, I want a new house but I don’t want anyone to know.”
Agent #1: “Let’s do it. I know this guy who has a super private house in a prime area.”
Agent #2: “Hello?”
Agent #1: “Hey Agent #2, this is Agent #1. Would you consider selling your investment place to Harry for a fat profit?”
Agent #2: “Yeah!”
Agent #1: “Well, Harry, here she blows.”
HS: “I love it! I’ll take it!”

And that, kids, is how easily the deal was done. At least in Yolanda’s messed-up mind.

In case you’re wondering, Mr. Fenton does appear to have made a lot of money on this sale. Records say he paid $4,850,000 for the house back in October 2014 before flipping it to our Mr. Styles just a little over a year later, at a $2 million markup.

By the way, all these “facts” we’ve presented to you are little more than circumstantial evidence. None of it proves that Mr. Styles actually purchased this house. But let Yolanda tell you that not only does she know that Mr. Styles bought this place, we also happen to know that he is currently living in his new house. And we also happen to know for a fact that he paid cold, hard cash. We’re not just merely “sure” that Mr. Styles bought this house. We’d stake our bedazzled life on it.

But we digress far too long! Let’s have a look at the pictures.

The house is one of the most private in all of the Sunset Strip. It sits up a winding driveway shared with three other houses. And it’s the only one of the four that also has its own private driveway gate to its decadently-long secondary driveway. Thanks to mature hedges and a large metal gate, the house is completely invisible even to its next door neighbors.

The three-story house sits on a .25-acre lot with a palm tree-lined motorcourt and two-car garage at the rear and the pool and three levels of entertainment decks around front.

While the tall hedges do block any views from the lagoon-style swimming pool, their function is absolutely necessary for a private guy like Mr. Styles.

Resort-style living out by the pool! There’s also a spacious balcony directly above, up on the second floor.

The second floor of the three-level residence features a large indoor/outdoor living room with silver travertine floors and staged-looking white furniture. The property has views stretching from the skyline of Downtown LA to the Pacific Ocean.

We can’t really tell, but the “gourmet kitchen” appears to have an unusual stone backsplash. This room has more silver traverting floors, granite countertops, and a spacious center work island. There ain’t really no formal dining room, but this house is clearly a bachelor pad so that’s okay.

No good bachelor pad is complete without a cozy home theater! And is that leopard-print carpet, or did Yolanda just imbibe too much too early today? (Hint: it’s the latter).

Not bad, eh? Nice rooftop deck off the master bedroom. That big building sticking up like a pudgy middle finger in the right photo is the legendary Sierra Towers condo complex.

The master bedroom is located on the third floor and has oak floors and a disappearing wall of glass that leads to the aforementioned deck with spectacular westward views.

Like the master bedroom, the master bath isn’t particularly big by conventional mansion standards but it is light-filled and has all the creature comforts one would expect: dual vanities, glass shower w/ rainfall showerhead, separate powder/makeup sitting area, and a soaking tub with a bit of a view.

This house also has one of the more unusual features we’ve ever seen in a Sunset Strip residence. Directly off the master suite, on a rear balcony, there’s a two-hole putting green. Yes, a putting green on the third floor. It sounds bizarrely pointless to your gurl but then we should probably applaud whoever installed this for their creativity.

In addition to the master suite, there are two other luxurious bedrooms for friends, staff, family, etc. While the master is located privately on the third floor, these two appear to be on the second. Somewhere in the 4,100-square-foot structure there’s also a private gym — we think it’s located on the third floor off the master — but we weren’t able to dig up any photos of that particular room.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles, y’all. We regret to inform you that Mr. Styles is not living with Mr. Tomlinson or anyone else at the moment — at least so it would seem.

By the way, should any of you crazy kiddies think it might be cute to roll over to the Sunset Strip and knock on Mr. Styles’ door in the hopes of proclaiming your everlasting love and boundless devotion, please get some sense. Not only is that a real damn stupid thing to do, you ain’t gonna be able to see Mr. Styles’ house at all. You’ll be greeted with towering hedges and a big ass gate and we’re sure there’s also a Fort Knox-level security system. Probably a force field too. It’ll zap your booty cheeks!

Just come over to Yolanda’s place and we’ll gladly slap you for free. Awww! What a great deal. Ain’t we a sweetie?

The skyrocketing popularity of the once-unfashionable Studio City area means that prices have gone up, up, up. That increase in both trendiness and wealth has brought a massive wave of not just regular rich folks but also ballin’ celebrities to the mostly-hilly neighborhood. In just the past couple years, buyers in the area have included Bruno Mars, Clayton Kershaw, Chloe Moretz, Joel McHale, and Gavin Rossdale. And just this year, the $7 million sale price barrier was broken not once but twice, a feat that had never before been accomplished.

If you aren’t getting a clear picture, let’s just say that homes in this area continue to fly off the proverbial shelves. So quickly are they going that Yolanda nearly missed yet another celebrity stealthily buying in the neighborhood.

A wee birdy contacted Yolanda late last week and snitched that they believed a big spread high in the Studio City hills near Mulholland Drive had been purchased by an anonymous celebrity. Records show the two adjacent parcels were both sold in June (2016) by two different non-celebrity sellers in two separate transactions to the same buyer: a mysterious entity called “Mulholland Estates LLC”.

At first, Yolanda thought the buyer may be some sort of foreign potentate or business mogul. Typically, celebrities tend to favor blind trusts and shun LLCs. But on closer inspection, Yolanda noticed that this particular LLC happens to link to a New Jersey-based business management firm well-known for handling the finances of many successful folks in the music industry. Their clients include Sia and Moby, just to name a couple.

It should be noted that despite the coincidental LLC name, these properties are not located in or even near the guard-gated-yet-crime-plagued “Mulholland Estates” community much further to the west. Some of the homeowners out there include Charlie Sheen, Paris Hilton, Sydney Holland, Vanna White, Slash, and Christina Aguilera. But we digress because this story really has nothing to do with those folks, does it?

Well, kiddies. After a spat of exhaustive research, Yolanda can tell y’all that the secretive new owner of this celeb-style compound happens to be a lady named Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, better known the world over as Lana del Rey.

Grammy-nominated Ms. del Rey grey up in New York and is a graduate of the prestigious (and expensive) Kent School in Connecticut. For what it’s worth. In case you didn’t know, she has released three full-length studio albums since 2012, all of which have debuted within the top two positions on the U.S. Bilboard album chart. Her first CD — Born To Die — has to date sold over 8.5 million copies worldwide and was the fifth best-selling album in all of 2012.

Ms. del Rey is also very popular on the touring circuit, where many of her live performances sell out instantly. And if somehow you recall the alleged shitshow that was Kimye’s wedding, you may know that it was Ms. del Rey who was the official wedding singer. Despite numerous reports that she was paid $2.8 million for her performance, she has adamantly maintained that she performed for free, as a favor to the attention-hogging newlyweds. That tale sounds a little unlikely to Yolanda, but who knows. Maybe Ms. del Rey just has a very charitable spirit.

The smaller property — it contains a small house and a smaller guest house — sits on a 1.9-acre lot accessed from a long and narrow lane off legendary Mulholland Drive. The modest structures, which total 2,829-square-feet and were built in 1936, sport a total of 3 bedrooms and just 2 water closets.

It should be noted that the listing states the property is actually located in the Beverly Hills Post Office area, and technically the house does indeed have a coveted 90210 zip code. But being that it’s on the north side of Mulholland, well, that’s essentially Studio City so that’s what we’re calling it.

A spacious but unattractive black-topped motorcourt provides parking for up to seven seven vehicles, and there’s also a two-car detached garage. The most striking feature of the mini-estate is perhaps the surprisingly-large free-form swimming pool with flagstone terrace surround and a wooden bridge leading to a silly “island” in the middle of the water. Numerous almond, fig, guava, lemon, lime, orange and tangerine trees also dot the property. A hammock swings between two huge eucalyptus trees. Views from the very private mini-compound take in the surrounding mountains.

Inside the single-story main house, there’s a decidedly dated kitchen with an ancient range that looks rather cool to Yolanda. There’s also a spacious living room with fireplace, office/library crammed with real (!!!) books, master bedroom with window seat, and one spare bedroom. Off the master bedroom there’s a partially-covered wood deck.

The two-story guest/staff house has an additional bedroom, a study, and a kitchen with low-grade appliances.

Anyway, Ms. del Rey paid $2,100,000 for the house through her LLC back in early June. Just eleven days later, she baller-style forked out another $3,770,000 for the larger and much more impressive house next door.

Once featured as the Wall Street Journal‘s “Home of the Month“, the two-story, flat-roofed structure was also originally built in 1936 but extensively renovated and updated by the previous owner.

It should be noted that this 2-acre property is not accessed from Mulholland Drive like the other but rather just before a hairpin turn on a very busy canyon road. Thus, this house is saddled not with a 90210 zip code but rather Studio City’s much less famous (but still pricey!) 91604 number. Yolanda wonders if part of the reason Ms. del Rey purchased both properties is not just for the complete privacy it affords her, but also because she now has the ability to extend the driveway from Mulholland all the way to the big property at the rear. Will she close off the access point from the busy canyon road? We would not be the least bit surprised.

Thankfully for Ms. del Rey’s ears, the house is impressively sited on a prominent 2-acre knoll, high above the noisy (and often traffic-choked) road below. A butt-busting flight of stairs leads to the front door, which in turn opens to a wow-inspiring double-height open living area. There’s the kitchen on one end, the family space in another, dining set, and a loft space opening to a double staircase. The kitchen has granite countertops, high-end appliances, and a backsplash rather unusually made out of stainless steel tiling.

Measuring approximately 5,500 square feet, the rectangular structure contains 6 bedrooms and the same number of bathrooms. Broad, flat, well-watered lawns surround the structure. There’s also a four-car garage along with a huge amount of off-street parking — Yolanda would guess the estate can accommodate at least a dozen vehicles. The height of the home gives occupants within a big, wide view of a large chunk of the San Fernando Valley. And let’s not forget the infinity-edged swimming pool.

By our tabulations, 31-year-old Ms. del Rey now possesses well over $11 million in residential real estate. In addition to her recently-purchased 3.9-acre Studio City compound — which cost her a total of $5,870,000 for you math-challenged folks — she also has a $2,500,000 red-brick house in LA’s historic Hancock Park neighborhood that she acquired back in August 2013.

The 4,762-square-foot thing was built way back in 1925 and sits on a .39-acre parcel. It was here where, back in 2015, some looney-tune decided to become Lana’s unofficial housekeeper and actually moved into the house for a few days while Ms. del Rey was elsewhere. After becoming bored in her “borrowed” house, the kooky Kelly then decided to take not one but two of Ms. del Rey’s unattended Jaguars out for a joyride and managed to get them both impounded. Ms. Thang was, naturally, slapped with a couple felony charges and hopefully deposited in the nearest psyche ward.

Then there’s Ms. del Rey $3,000,000 oceanfront home on Malibu’s Pacific Coast Highway, which she purchased in March 2015.

It was at the Malibu house — also in late 2015 — where a different but obviously also cray-cray fan decided it would be a wise idea to move into Ms. del Rey’s garage. Luckily, Ms. del Rey was again not present at the home when all this went down. Anyway, this poor fool may be even dumber than the last one, because all he (allegedly) managed to nab from the house was a book. Not a car?! Hmmm. Not that Yolanda is espousing these fanatics, but as we always say: if you’re gonna go bad, you better go big too.

So before we close this chapter, let’s all hope and pray that Ms. del Rey invests in some private security or — at the very least — a working alarm system for her Studio City places. Good grief, lassie!

Way back in April (2016), Yolanda received an unexpected email tip from our friend over at the CelebrityAddressAerial website. Vlad The Revealer, as he prefers to be called, pointed us to a glowering house in the Hollywood Hills that had just sold for $2,490,000 to an oblique corporate cloak calling itself “Angry White Swan LLC”.

Just who, our colleague wondered, was this Angry White Swan?

Well, kiddies, Yolanda prides herself on ferreting out the answer to these mysteries. But uncovering  truth is not always an easy task. Nor is it always a quick one. Sometimes the solution presents itself  almost immediately; some take months of coaxing. This was one of the latter.

No matter whom we asked or how hard we researched, we simply couldn’t figure it out. Months passed. Then just last week, when Yolanda had nearly forgotten about the place, we stumbled across the truth. Behind the boisterous swan were heavy metal musical legend Rob Zombie — director/writer/producer of the Halloween reboot, founding member of White Zombie — and his wife Sheri Moon Zombie. (Yes, those really are their legal names).

First of all, Yolanda would like to applaud Mr. & Mrs. Zombie for their choice of home. We’re a big believer in folks buying residences that suit their outward persona, and this weirdo place does that much better than their old, rather vanilla house down in Hancock Park, we think.

The “Thorgusen Residence“, as it has been christened, was built in 1953 by architect Robert Thorgusen and is tucked away deep in a fairly remote part of the celeb-filled Laurel Canyon area.

While most homes in this tightly-packed area sit hard up on the street — often without a driveway — this residence sits on an unusually large (for the neighborhood) lot spanning a third of an acre and is mostly invisible from the roadway above thanks to a forest of eucalyptus trees and other plantings by pioneering landscape architect Garrett Eckbo.

A long and narrow black-topped driveway descends from the street and curves around to the single-car covered parking area. There is no traditional garage and little room for additional off-street parking, as the driveway is shared with one other home further beyond.

Clearly, Mr. Thorgusen was an adventurous guy, as you can probably tell by his personal residence, and at least when it comes to architecture.  And yep, he actually lived in his futuristic creation for years.

To be perfectly honest, Yolanda is not sure how the home looked in its original 1950s state. What we do know is that over the decades, the funky place has been owned and altered by a long line of non-celebrity folks. Below is how the house looked in 2006, when it sold for $1,550,000 to a not-famous gent.

Yolanda finds that cream-colored metal gate out front irrevocably hideous, but we do rather fancy the two-tone contrast provided by the white folded-plate roof and the blacked-out exterior rear wall. The big pools of water are nice, too. But it’s just too bad about the banal-with-a-capital-B interior.

Anyway, within two years Mr. Not-Famous Gent had lost the house the unforgiving Lady Foreclosure herself. The bank (AKA Ms. Foreclosure) put the house up for sale in 2009, and the poorly-maintained structure quickly sold for $1,189,000 to a lady named Stephanie Phillips, according to public records.

Our Ms. Phillips quickly gave the place a complete restoration and makeover. She slapped the entire exterior (including the roof) in a sinister jet-black paint, and she gutted and replaced the interior.

So just who is Ms. Phillips, and why did she want to live in a house like this?

Well, Yolanda can’t answer the second part of that question, but after a wee bit of asking around, we discovered that Ms. Phillips originally hails from New Jersey. Turns out she’s a daughter of Richie Phillips, the now-deceased longtime director of the Major League Umpires Association.

In addition to his prominent role in professional sports as the umpires union head honcho, Mr. Phillips was also a successful lawyer. But it appears that it wasn’t until he bought and expanded a freight forwarding company called Pilot Freight that he really started to make big money. Years after his death, Pilot remains a family-owned business and Ms. Phillips is currently its Chief Marketing Officer. The reason she owned a house in LA, so Yolanda was told, is because homegurl also dabbles as a producer or director of some sort.

But we digress.

A charcoal-colored gate leads to a black stone walkway and a half-dozen black stone steps. That dark, cave-like area in the photo on the left is how you access the front door. Ghoulish, right? Or is that just Yolanda’s overactive imagination?

That background image in the first pic — the raised wooden patio deck that you see behind the gate — is actually part of the neighbor’s house. Just in case any of y’all were confused.

The Halloween theme continues indoors with the over-stuffed pumpkin chairs in the double-height living room.

A renovated kitchen has ultra-chic Miele and Gagganau appliances and a center island with bar seating.

The dungeon-like master bedroom has 14-foot ceilings and windows too high for any normal-sized human to gaze out of without the benefit of a stepladder or jet pack. Thankfully, it’s no ordinary jail cell — there’s a television set and a fireplace. The master bath is somewhat brighter (but still rather frigid in appearance) and includes a soaking tub.

Other interesting rooms and knickknacks in the house include a cramped second bedroom with a florescent pink couch, a home office equipped with two florescent pink leather lounge chairs that look rather like overstuffed bean bags on metal legs, and a big ass pug who plainly ain’t no Lassie.

Ms. Phillips removed one of the home’s two pools to create a simple, rectangular shape. The wooden deck above remains. There’s also a rather unhealthy-looking water feature in the front filled with rather unhealthy-looking murky liquid. Or maybe it just appears that way from the photographers.

Beyond the deck and pool is a spacious flagstone terrace with plenty of outdoor furniture.

We’re not sure whether Mr. & Mrs. Zombie plan to reside here full or part-time, but we do know that the couple also own 5,000-square-foot large house in the smallish and historic New England town of Woodbury, Connecticut. And as we already mentioned, the couple also owned a large Tudor-style red brick mansion in Hancock Park that they purchased in 1999 for $1,799,000 and sold almost exactly two years ago (September 2014) for $3,555,000.

Super different, right? But take our advice as an expert “real estate consultant”, Mr. & Mrs. Swan. This new place is so much better. That macabre personality! Perfect for you. And perfect for any pissed-off peafowl (or whatever the heck a swan is), for that matter.

Since we’ve been on a bit of a random musician kick with our most recent posts, we figured why the heck not? It’s not a new story, but let Yolanda throw her useless opinion about Nicki Minaj‘s huge LA rental mansion into the ring.

It was the boys and girls over at TMZ who first noted that Ms. Minaj was leasing a bonafide mansion way up high in the mountains overlooking Beverly Hills, in an area that’s often referred to as Beverly Hills Post Office or Beverly Crest because although the houses are technically located within the city of Los Angeles, they still have the coveted 90210 zip code.

According to TMZ, Ms. Minaj had been looking to buy a house but instead ultimately opted to rent after her rapper boyfriend Meek Mill was placed under house arrest. Yolanda is not quite sure what Mr. Mill’s house arrest status has to do with Ms. Minaj leasing a big ol’ honker of a house versus buying one, but alrighty then.

Now, just to clarify, Ms. Minaj is a very rich lady.  Her first two albums went to #1 in the US. Her biggest hit — the infamous “Anaconda” — went to #2 on the Hot 100. She’s sold millions of her own albums and singles and has been featured on countless hits from other artists. As anyone familiar with the music industry knows, songwriting is where the real money is — and Ms. Minaj writes or co-writes all her shit. So although we don’t have access to our gurl’s bank account, Yolanda is quite certain that Ms. Minaj is a millionaire many times over and could easily afford to buy her own Beverly Hills mansion.

Ms. Minaj’s rental pad — for which she reportedly forks out a mouth-drying $30,000 per month — lies in a small gated community called “Bowmont Estates”. As best as Yolanda can tell, there are only eight homes inside the gates — most of them large, imposing mansions. One of her new neighbors is billionaire Forever 21 founder Do Won Chang and his family. The house next door is owned by Beverly Hills wristwatch mogul John Simonian and the house on the other side of Ms. Minaj’s lair was owned by former “actress” Mischa Barton, who acquired it in 2005 (at the height of her fame) for $6,400,000.

Not that we like to kick a beotch while she’s down, but Ms. Barton faced foreclosure on her home several times in recent years. After many moons of attempting to sell the place, she finally unloaded it for $7,050,000 earlier this year to an investor.

But we digress. Property records show Ms. Minaj’s manor was last sold way back in September 2011 for $8,250,000 to something called “Bowmont Investments LLC”. Yolanda has heard many times over the years that the house is owned by Saudi royalty. But since the owners reportedly never moved in, we confess we aren’t entirely sure which Saudi royal in question holds the deed. So many of them have very similar names and all, you know.

However, records do show that the house is registered in the name of a Pasadena (CA) based CPA who for many years has been known as the go-to accountant for Al Saud royal family members looking to park their oil money in pricey U.S. real estate.

Now then, folks seemed to enjoy our tongue-in-cheek post about author E.L. James’s new Hollywood Hills mansion, so Yolanda will try the same thing but with lyrics from Ms. Minaj’s award-winning music. It’s Labor Day, y’all!

“This one is for my bitches with a fat ass in the fuckin’ club…”

Depending on where you look, the house either has 10,337 or 11,500 or “over 12,000” square feet of living space. We figure 10,337 is probably what it started out with and that it’s just grown a bit over the years. Kinda like Ms. Minaj’s (allegedly) expanding caboose, right?

Anyway, there’s lots of space for lots of bitches.

One thing all sides seem to agree about is that there are 9 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms and the mock-Med MacMansion was built on spec in 2008. Unfortunately for the developer, the house was completed just as the market was crashing and thus it took three years and numerous price chops before along came Mr. and/or Ms. Saudi Royal who took it off his hands for barely half of the original $15 million ask.

“Tell security to meet me round back, in the alleyway by the Maybach.”

The gated community has two entrances: one at the top of a narrow, winding lane off of Coldwater Canyon, and a second ’round back and located on legendary Mulholland Drive.

The house itself has yet another metal gate across the long driveway, and listing information makes a point to call out the Creston system that allows a resident to monitor the home’s “full security system” and “closed circuit camera equipment” all at the touch of a button.

Anyway, once through all the gates, a long drive slopes upward to a rather ungainly front entrance that’s pushed up right next to the five car garages. The double-door entryway is perfect for accommodating wide loads, be they real or synthetic.

“…Prada colored beige, it’s obvi we the ish and I’m rollin’ wit my Brits…”

Although we don’t know these mysterious British folk that Ms. Minaj rolls with, were they to visit her at home they’d find there’s quite a surplus of “Prada colored beige”. Acres and acres of it, in fact.

Once y’all have recovered from being blinded by the beige banality, take a gander outta those French doors in the living room and you’ll find that the mountain views of Franklin Canyon and the surrounding areas are actually quite picturesque.

Our mama Mrs. Yakketyyak told us never to say nothin’ if we don’t have nothin’ nice to say, so for once we’ll follow her advice. We’re not gonna even go there with that double-height foyer and staircase. But we will say that Ms. Minaj is surely familiar with Dolly Parton’s classic phrase “it costs a lotta money to look this cheap.” And we are quite certain it did.

“He toss my salad like his name Romaine…”

Yolanda applauds Ms. Minaj’s penchant for healthy living and there is certainly lots of counter space for all the salad-tossing her heart desires up in here. The Euro-influenced kitchen has sleek (if a bit industrial-looking) Arclinea cabinets and all the high-end appliances money can buy.

We realize the look may not be to everyone’s taste, but the kitchen is probably the most interesting part of this rather uninspired abode, truth be told.

“Man I just shitted on ’em, Shitted on ’em, Put yo’ number two’s in the air if you did it on ’em…”

Our stars! Yolanda has enlisted her very own Rabbi Hedda to pray that Ms. Minaj will not feel the need to take a poopoo on anyone in this house, although we rather doubt the rental contract explicitly prohibits this. Still, it sounds rather unsanitary! And waving excrement around in the air sounds doubly so.

While the house is big, there are no fewer than 8 bathrooms (as previously mentioned). We’re sure Ms. Minaj can find one in time. As for the master bath, it is startlingly-spare with a soaking tub and what appears to be a party-sized shower.

The floors switch to hardwood in the fireplace-equipped master bedroom. A gigantic walk-in closet  looks nice but could use some sort of chilled wig storage for Ms. Minaj’s hairpieces.

We’re not sure if it’s just the staging or what, but Yolanda feels like this house is attempting to go for some kind of minimalist look. And that does not, and will never work on a mock-Med mansion, we think. But like we said, the view outside is pretty nice.

“Jump in my hoopty hoopty hoop, I own that. And I ain’t paying my rent this month, I owe that.”

We certainly hope that Ms. Minaj has already told Mr. and/or Mrs. Saudi Prince(ss) that she occasionally may not feel inclined to send her monthly lease payment. But surely they can come to some sort of agreement on a small late fee for any tardy checks, right?

The back of the house reminds us of a sweet Holiday Inn in Tucson, Arizona. (No offense to any Tucson-ers on here!) A broad, well-watered lawn leads to a big stone terrace with pool and spa.

Now please don’t take all this to mean Yolanda is some sort of Nicki Minaj hater or whatever you kids like to term it. Believe it or not, but we actually own Pink Friday, Ms. Minaj’s first album. Yes, kiddies. Little old Yolanda walked into the store and bought that shit. We find Ms. Minaj’s public persona to be quite entertaining.

What we don’t understand is how Ms. Minaj was able to lease from Saudi royals. Come on now — Saudis?! Ain’t these folks from the country that stones gays to death? The country where women can’t wear makeup or interact with men?! We’re a bit surprised they’d be down with someone like Ms. Minaj living in one of their homes!

But we suppose this is here, that is there, and money is always the ultimate arbitrator.

Just a couple weeks ago, fashion/lifestyle designer (and bonafide real estate baller) James Perse — he of the $100 white T-shirt — sold one of his three Malibu mega-bucks pads for a startling $12,995,000. That’s the full damn asking price, every little penny. Every grain of sand.

We say “startling” because Mr. Perse acquired the landlocked celeb-pedigreed perch only three years ago for just $6,690,000 as an investment and appears to have done little more to it than having painted its “Euro farmhouse-inspired” facade a trendy charcoal grey and tossing a bunch of his furniture stuff into it. Somehow he thought all that made the spread worth double what he originally paid, and obviously at least one other individual agreed with him.

For the record, documents show the house actually transferred for $12,500,000 but the MLS says $12,995,000. We’d hazard a guess that the half-million bucks difference might be attributed to the value of all the furniture in the place.

Naturally, Yolanda was curious about who the big bucks buyer was. Well, kiddies, property records show that the Point Dume house was acquired by a mysteriously-named LLC that Yolanda just happens to know is a front for a very wealthy heiress named Aileen Getty. And yes, we’re talking those Gettys — the Getty Museum, Getty Villa, oil, all of that. She is a granddaughter of industrialist J. Paul Getty, who was named in the 1966 Guinness Book of World Records as the planet’s richest private citizen.

Ms. Getty herself — reared in Italy, educated in the U.K. and California — has been HIV+ for more than 30 years. As some of you may know, once upon a time she was married and had a couple kids with Liz Taylor’s son Christopher Wilding. It was Ms. Taylor who encouraged Ms. Getty to get tested and supported her in the aftermath of her diagnosis.

For her part, Ms. Getty now speaks often and openly about her very personal fight against AIDS and her years as a junkie who overdosed more than once. Today, Ms. Getty has reportedly been sober for more than a decade and runs a couple of LA-based charities — Gettlove and the Aileen Getty Foundation.

The house is accessed via electronic gates that swing open to a broad, flat driveway and commodious motorcourt. Looks like the material underfoot might be pea gravel. Is there any better sound than a new Range Rover or Benz rolling slowly over some crunchy pea gravel? We really can’t think of a single one.

A step-down living room steps up into the formal dining room. The fairly minimalist design incorporates white walls, unvarnished wooden floors, and mostly casual (but definitely expensive) decor. Although the house sadly lacks an ocean view, we think the interior succeeds in giving the place a calm, cool, California beach house feel.

There’s yet another pricey James Perse surfboard in the corner of the light-filled family room. The open air kitchen has a massive glass-fronted fridge that probably costs as much as an off-lease Range Rover, and there is a wooden (portable?) center island with bar stool seating. A second dining room table completes the open area.

Although property records say the house has 5,255 square feet of living space, marketing materials put it at a substantially-larger 7,400. Whatever the case, it’s plenty spacious with 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. Oh, and it’s also got a wee bit of celebrity pedigree. In late 2012, Maura Kaplan (actor Leslie Nielsen’s daughter) sold the house to Stefan Lessard of The Dave Matthews Band fame. It was Mr. Lessard who flipped the home just six months later to Mr. Perse.

Point Dume is, of course, the most celebrity-filled pocket of Malibu and some of Ms. Getty’s nearest new neighbors include Kid Rock, Chris Martin, Julia Roberts, Linda Hamilton, Chad Smith, and Don Rickles.

Out back there’s a large and picturesque pergola-covered terrace with a full set of lounge chairs, dining room table, etc. Just send the assistant to Nobu for takeout and you’re good to go.

Listing information makes a point of calling out that the house comes with a coveted key to all-but-private Little Dume Beach. We say “all-but-private” because by law, all California beaches are actually public. But Little Dume is about as private as beaches come in CA.

We don’t mind a charcoal-colored house at all — actually we find it a rather fetching color when used correctly — but for some reason, it just ain’t working here for Yolanda. Looks a bit dour or something, no?

Anyway, avid real estate watchers know that folks in the Getty family — particularly the two sisters, Aileen and Ariadne — have a penchant for buying and selling luxury LA residences at breakneck speed. Ariadne recently paid $6,000,000 for the Toluca Lake mansion of Miley Cyrus (it is occupied by her son, up-and-coming fashion designer August Getty). And back in 2013, Aileen sold a compound on legendary Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills to pop music superstar Katy Perry for $11 million.

Although the property is mostly quite private, it does border the always-packed Runyon Canyon hiking trail… and the always-overflowing parking lot. Hmmm.

As for Mr. Perse and his wife Brandi Briskman (her mama was once mayor of Beverly Hills), the couple’s primary residence is a blufftop minimalist spread also on Point Dume that they bought from The X-Files creator Chris Carter. They paid a brutal $16,000,000 for the house in 2010, according to public records.

But that’s not all. The couple also own yet another house on Point Dume — this one landlocked — that they picked up for $12,500,000 just last year. And let’s not forget their massive horse ranch up in Thousand Oaks, which they acquired back in 2013 for $10,850,000 from her royal real estate highness herself — Ellen DeGeneres.

Just for kicks and giggles, here’s a video of the DeGeneres-cum-Perse ranch in all its rustic, scenic glory.

Yolanda’s long-suffering email inbox, bless her heart, didn’t get much of a vacation over the long holiday weekend. In fact, poor lass took a real beatin’, flooded as she was with a deluge of messages from some slightly perturbed-sounding folks. Who knew that real estate could inspire mental meltdowns among so many peeps?

Ah, well. We can’t help it that we’re popular.

Buried under all that unrequited love was a message from a young lady who lives way out in the boondocks. You know where. The Valley! Zombieland itself. The edge of the world. Hidden Hills, CA.

No, really! We checked and she really does live there. No?! Yes! We were shocked, too. Apparently there are still a handful of Hidden Hills residents who don’t possess the “Jenner” or “Kardashian” surnames. We could’ve sworn that species was extinct. Seems they’re only critically endangered.

Anyway, Hidden Hills Henrietta — that’s what we choose to call the lovely young lady although we think she’s more of a Monica or Sabrina — somehow stumbled across our silly post discussing young Miss Kylie Jenner buying a $10 million compound in her neighborhood. Our gurl Ms. Henrietta said she enjoyed the story (thanks, Ms. H!) but also informed us that Miss Jenner is not the only compound-building starlet out there in those Hills of Hiding.

You see, Ms. Henrietta swears on a high heap of Hidden Hills horse hay that uni-monikered rapper Drake (real name: Aubrey Graham) also bought his neighbor’s house some time ago.

At first, Yolanda was a bit skeptical because we didn’t remember seeing any news stories about such a transaction. But a quick check of property records confirms Miss Henrietta’s story. The relatively modest house directly across the street from Drake’s infamous “YOLO estate” was sold way back in June of last year (2015) for $2,850,000 to a bizarrely-named LLC whose official agent just happens to be Drake’s longtime business manager. Coincidence? Oh no.

A semi-circular driveway passes a very green front lawn in its journey to the front door of the mid-century ranch sprawler (property records say it was constructed in 1955). Listing information says the home is “fully renovated” with hardwood floors stained a trendy dark brown. The 4-bed, 5-bath structure also possesses “multiple fireplaces”, a “top of the line gourmet kitchen”, and “high ceilings”.

It appears to Yolanda that the non-celebrity sellers ripped out all of the home’s former wall-to-wall beige carpeting with the exception of a couple patches, like the one in the master’s walk-in closet. Wise choice, that tearing out.

Speaking of the master, it’s got a whitewashed pitched ceiling and direct access to the smallish master bath with its basic basin for washing, glassy shower, dark tile floors, and a private crapper in a wee corner behind the door.

Elsewhere there’s one of the uglier dining room sets we’ve encountered, a beige carpeted spare bedroom currently being used as an office, an eye-pleasingly oval-shaped pool, a pool house and an 800-square-foot guest house out back. Perfect for those (alleged!) sexytime romps with RiRi. Although we feel like these two are more the type to do it out in the open. Out by the pool, right? But then again, what do we know about anything — not a damn thing, that’s what.

The remaining amount of the property’s 1.6 acres of land is devoted to two fenced-off pastures, and according to the listing the place has plenty of space for horses. But honestly, Yolanda thinks the pastures would be better used for making some of those crazy chicks at his wild house parties sleep it off. Toss them out there and make them stay until they’ve rethought their life choices. Seriously!

We asked Hidden Hills Henrietta if she had any idea why Mr. Drake purchased this little place, and she told us that Mr. Drake was actually dwelling there temporarily while some sort of renovation work was performed on his big compound. Yolanda finds it difficult to believe that Mr. Drake would bunk up in a house this modest even for a month, but that’s what she says and who are we to question another lady’s integrity, eh?

By now, y’all should be familiar with the wonderfully tacky YOLO estate, which has been the setting of dozens of wild parties, hundreds of SnapChat snaps, and countless Instagram pic winners. Blah blah blah. Mr. Drake slammed down $7,700,000 for the 2.92-acre complex back in 2012. Some of the many, many extravagant features include a pool with an 80-foot slide and grotto, standalone 25-seat movie theater, tennis court, sand volleyball court, stables and a (horse) riding ring.

The rapper is also widely rumored to be building a massive mansion up in his native Canada. Back in September 2015, just months after buying his second Hidden Hills property, he laid out another $6,700,000 for a teardown on Park Lane Circle in the wealthy “Bridle Path” neighborhood of Toronto.

Mr. Drake (well, his people) submitted plans to the city requesting approval of a 21,000-square-foot faux-French behemoth with an indoor basketball court, indoor pool, indoor “jersey museum”, and a “security suite”.

You know, just the necessities.

Anyway, we are fantastically excited that Ms. Henrietta reached out because Yolanda doesn’t know many folks out there at the edge of the world. You know, Calabasas area. We’ve got a few questions about a few properties out there and while we’ve got her, well, we’re gonna pump Ms. Henrietta for all the info she’s got!

Oh dear. We hope Ms. Henrietta knows we’re joking with this whole story. About everything except the house, of course. (She does!).

Just one more thing — if you’re a hardcore Drake (or simply a hip-hop) fan, you may recall that he was featured on a rap hit called “Where Ya At“. One of his lines on the smash was “I’ll buy the neighbors’ house if they complain about the noise.” And yes, the song was released in July 2015, just a month after Drake closed on the little ranch place we just showed you.

Obviously it was no idle boast…

Like many of LA’s toniest neighborhoods, historic and historically WASP-y Hancock Park has seen a significant price surge over the past few years. But Yolanda believes the appreciation here — particularly at the highest-end — has been even more dramatic than most other areas.  And if you want a great illustration of that, just have a peek at the real estate history of a very rich yet still young(ish) couple named Eric Eisner & Stacey Bendet.

Chances are, if you orbit high-nosed LA snob society (is there such a thing?) or have any interest in fashion whatsoever, you probably already know who these two are. But for all you hermits and/or ruffians out there, Ms. Bendet is a bonafide social media star with nearly 600,000 followers on her Instagram account. More importantly (at least to her, hopefully), she’s also a mother of three tots and a powerful and successful businesswoman. As the CEO of Alice + Olivia, which she founded with a college friend in 2002, Ms. Bendet has built a veritable fashion empire, a billion-dollar brand that today encompasses 32 retail stores spread across three continents, 400 employees, and more than $200 million in annual revenue.

Oh, and lest we forget: Ms. Bendet is also a member of Vanity Fair‘s International Best-Dressed List Hall of Fame.

As for Mr. Eisner, he’s a part-time film producer who has a lot of money. For those of you slow on the uptake, yes, we’re talking Eisner as in that Eisner. Eric is the middle son of billionaire Tinseltown stalwart Michael Eisner, the once all-powerful and long-reigning (but finally ousted) former CEO of Disney.

Back in 2012, Mr. Eisner & Ms. Bendet shoveled out a bit less than eight figures ($8,865,000 through a blind trust) for the historic Rindge estate, an 11,336-square-foot Mediterranean behemoth on a solid acre of land in the proverbial (and literal) heart of the neighborhood.

At the time, it was not the most ever paid for a house in Hancock Park, but it was up there. We think it was definitely in the top three biggest sales ever. The property was sold by Friends star David Schwimmer, who has since relocated to NYC (for what it’s worth).

Only two years later, the extraordinarily wealthy couple unexpectedly sold their recently-acquired house for $11,000,000. And this time the sale price was, in fact, the most ever paid for a house in Hancock Park. The buyer? Not a celebrity at all but rather a clearly very wealthy banker from San Diego named Lenny Feder.

We’re not sure why Mr. Eisner & Ms. Bendet opted to sell their home only about two years after moving in. Maybe they just saw an opportunity to make a quick buck, or maybe they found the giant place a bit too large for their young family. But you wouldn’t think folks at their level of wealth would care about petty things like that, right? Hmmm.

Whatever the case, the couple’s fondness for the centrally-located neighborhood (it’s a super-easy commute to Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, or Downtown LA) obviously has not waned. Yolanda happens to know that the pair just dropped $10,350,000 through a blind trust on another home there that’s just a short stroll away from their old pad.

The deal happened totally off-market, so unfortunately Yolanda has no pictures to provide or many details. However, public records say the red brick Tudor-style ol’ gurl was built in 1927 and includes 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms in a mansion-sized 8,377-square-feet of living space. The corner lot spans a generous .77-acre.

Just think for a moment about that, kiddies. Mr. Eisner & Ms. Bendet paid well over 10 million smackers for a house that’s smaller and (in Yolanda’s worthless opinion) not as attractive as their old house, on a lot that’s smaller and less private than their old lot. Yet it cost them $1.5 million more. That’s a lot of dough!

The sale price is also more than double what their new house last sold for back in 2005 — a mere $5,100,000.

Here’s what we can tell you. The estate encompasses a long and rambling two story main house, a pitched-roof single-story guest house/pool house, and a three car detached garage with a gated driveway. Well-maintained landscaping and leafy foliage shield much of the house from the public street, and out back there are extravagant formal gardens with a large centerpiece fountain, and a concrete terrace-surrounded dark-bottomed swimming pool with an old-school diving board.

An interesting tidbit is that the sellers, a pair named Luke & Elizabeth Thornton (they own LA-based Believe Media), appear to have removed most or all of the original Tudor-style timber siding from the structure during their ownership. Perhaps it was termite-ridden or something. Either way, it’s not a huge deal since the landscaping shields most of the home from public view, blah blah blah.

It is Yolanda’s understanding from folks acquainted with them that Mr. Eisner & Ms. Bendet also retain their own full-time private security team. Thus, the estate’s sizable guest/pool house will probably be put to use as sleeping quarters for their bodyguards or perhaps just as a “security hub” with computers to monitor the estate’s many cameras and alarm systems. You know, just your typical billionaire family stuff.

Before settling in Hancock Park, Mr. & Mrs. Eisner for several years lived just above the Sunset Strip and West Hollywood in a high-priced area of the Hollywood Hills that’s known as the “Bird Streets”. The couple sold their wildly-decorated single-story “starter house” (actually it was originally Mr. Eisner’s bachelor pad before he married Ms. Bendet) in 2013 for $3,414,000 to a well-off but not famous person.

The home’s modest exterior belies the funkiness within. Take a look at the home’s official website to see what we mean.

Get it now?

Listen, we know the somewhat psychedelic interior decor is not to everyone’s taste, but we applaud real estate risk takers and the quirkiness works for Yolanda. Other folks might find it nauseating. That’s okay too. We just wonder if Ms. Bendet will attempt the same dizzying aesthetic in her historic Tudor house in Hancock Park. Now that would be somethin’, but not necessarily a good somethin’. Eh?

Oh, and speaking of Hancock Park, some of Mr. Eisner and Ms. Bendet’s new and nearest neighbors include Matt Bomer, George Takei, and Dodgers pitcher Adrian Gonzalez (who lives directly across the street). And just down the block is the two-parcel estate compound that Melanie Griffin and Antonio Banderas sold for a record-smashing $15,900,000 last year to Netflix exec Ted Sarandos and his Beverly Hills-bred wife Nicole Avant, the former US ambassador to the Bahamas.

It was our trusty colleague Vlad the Revealer from Celebrity Address Aerial who first queried Yolanda about the owner of a rather striking and sickeningly well-preserved mid-century modern gem high in the Hollywood Hills.

Although the buyer of the recently-sold property is listed in records only as an anonymously-named blind trust, Yolanda just happens to know that the new man of the house is none other than Northern Irish model-turned-actor Jamie Dornan.

Over the past decade or so, Mr. Dornan — reportedly once the highest-paid male model in the world — has gradually made the difficult transition from picture poser to picture starrer. His first acting job was a bit-park role in 2006’s Marie Antoinette, and he had a 2011 role on the primetime TV program Once Upon a Time.

But without a doubt, Mr. Dornan’s true breakout role didn’t come until 2015, with the S&M-themed Twilight fan-fiction-turned-mega-franchise Fifty Shades of Grey film adaption. Though roundly thrashed by the critics (those fusty old coots!) the public lapped up the sexiful chemistry (and those cute butt-whippings!) between the dominant Mr. Dornan and his submissive ingénue counterpart (portrayed by Dakota Johnson) to the tune of a downright shocking $571 million at the worldwide box office. Ka-ching, beotches!

Now then. It’s not often that Yolanda discusses a house on this blog that she really loves — she’s got persnickety tastes, after all — but we adore a good mid-century time capsule and this place is as delectable as any. And Mr. Dornan snagged it for just $2,843,000! We feel like this same house would be at least $8 million if it were a few miles southwest, over in Beverly Hills’ Trousdale Estates.

First, let’s get the big negative out of the way: there’s no city lights view. But really, who needs such overkill when you’ve got a truly stunning open central atrium that features a sort of shallow wishing well water feature thingy?

The house also has no garage, but it does sport a graceful covered parking area. Nice cinder block wall out front. Groovy, baby.

An open living room runs the entire length of the left side of the house and is divided into two sections separated by a lovely (and massive) see-through stone fireplace. Public records say the place has a modest (by celeb standards) 2,510-square-feet of living space, but the mostly wall-free floor plan and open-air targa roof somehow make it appear much larger. At least in the pics.

Certain folks may disagree with Yolanda, but we think the prior owner — Narnia producer Vincent Sieber — did a fabulous job creating a very up-to-date kitchen that blends perfectly with the rest of the home. Can y’all imagine waking up and cooking breakfast on a rainy Saturday morning while watching the sprinkles pitter-patter off the smooth stone steps in the open atrium. The only thing better for you ladies (and some gentlemen!) is if Mr. Dornan were there assisting you, right?

Just kidding! About the rain in LA. Natch.

The period-correct dining room set is located behind the atrium. Floor to ceiling sliders open to the notably-large pool. But hold up, we’re not quite ready to head back out there yet.

The house’s 4 bedrooms and total of 3.25 baths are all tucked away on the left side of the home, behind the carport. The master has a wall of glass that looks out over the pool area. A frosted glass door leads to an all-white bathroom with soaking tub, dual vanities, and a commodious shower with rainfall showerhead.

One of the three guest/family bedrooms. Check out that bananas red tile bathroom that looks like something out of a Stephen King novel or Jack Nicholson film. Redrum…

A lot size of .19-acre ain’t exactly what Yolanda would term “huge”, but there is ample space for entertaining out back thanks to minimal (but well-positioned) landscaping. A raised deck with wooden slats extends from the master bedroom to the outdoor dining set that peek-a-boo style overlooks the pool through two olive trees.

Mr. Dornan may not be as rich as the billionaire Christian Grey he portrays in the “Fifty Shades” or like Grey’s creator E.L. James — who just dropped $7.3 million on her own Hollywood Hills pad — but he’s clearly no slouch in the money department, either. In addition to his nearly-three-million-dollar new house in the Hollywood Hills, he’s also reportedly got a 5-bedroom, 3-bedroom house in the Cotswolds area of south central England.

Mr. Dornan and his wife Amelia Warner, with whom he has two tots, splashed out 1.75 million British pounds on the somewhat-remotely-located tennis court estate last year (2015). That amount equates to $2,322,005 at today’s rates, FYI.

Anyway, back stateside it’s no secret that the Nichols Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills has long been a favored haven for celebrities of all ages, shapes, and sizes. Some of Mr. Dornan’s nearest famous neighbors include George Eads, Drew Carey, and Dwight Yoakam. Directly behind Mr. Dornan’s new old MCM is a massive Mulholland Drive estate compound owned by Sacha Baron Cohen.

Anyway, Yolanda had a busy weekend so that’s all we’ve got for this one. We’ll be back in top form later this week, we promise. For now, enjoy the pics of this swingin’ pad. And Mrs. Peel… we’re needed.

America’s everlasting existential crisis, as everyone knows, has to do with Los Angeles real estate. Wait, you didn’t know? Wake up, Wanda! Because it’s true. The debate has raged across generations and broken through ethnic/gender/class/whatever other barriers faster than a drunken ‘Bama mom goes airborne at the season opener. It all boils down to this: what is the most expensive residential street in LA? If we can’t determine that, how can we possibly cope with the dark, gloomy, midnight blue twilight of our future?

Bitterly, there’s really no clear-cut answer. (Shocker!) And we’re sure many people from nearly every neighborhood in the county could give you specific and convincing and embarrassingly smug-sounding reasons as to why their street is the very, very best. Even so, there a few names that might come up more frequently than others. Carolwood Drive, Beverly Park, or even Oriole Drive up in the Bird Streets — all havens for obscenely expensive mega-mansions.

But in Yolanda’s humble and entirely meaningless opinion, there’s one street to rule them all: South Mapleton Drive. We shall call it LA’s Most Expensive Street According to Yolanda™.

Located in the blood-red heart of the powerfully pricey Holmby Hills neighborhood and anchored at the southernmost end by the — ahem — “iconic” Spelling Manor, the street has about 30 houses and runs all the way up to Sunset. It’s bounded on the east by the hoity-toity Los Angeles Country Club. Way out west is the Westwood/UCLA area.

Current South Mapleton Drive residents include (but are hardly limited to): billionaire beer/Twinkie heir Daren Metropoulos, Formula 1 heiress Petra Ecclestone Stunt, Duty Free heiress Alexandra von Furstenberg, construction heiress Kristin Tutor Eberts, Obama’s White House decorator Michael S. Smith, Google gigolo Eric Schmidt, Facebook trillionaire Sean Parker, Beats baller Jimmy Iovine, iconic restaurateur Michael Chow (that’s Mr. Chow to us peons), acclaimed director Sir Ridley Scott, private equity pasha Justin Chang and his wife Amanda Brown (she wrote Legally Blonde, dontcha know?), Jordanian billionaire Hasan Ismaik, vodka and music mogul P. Diddy (or Duffy Puffy or whatever Sean Combs calls himself today), former Paramount Pictures CEO Frank Mancuso Sr., big businessman Marc Nathanson, and hedge fund honcho David Kaplan.

Whew. Oh, and one of the smallest and least-well-located houses along the street — it’s smashed up rather rudely right next to Sunset Boulevard — sold just last year for $15,072,000 to Chinese retail magnate Alfred Chan and his Italian fashion designer wife Fiona Cibani.

Imagine that, kiddies. The cheapest house on the very long block is worth $15 million. And no fewer than three of the other homes (or four if you count the Playboy Mansion, which does not technically have a Mapleton address but does have a secondary entrance on the street) have sold for more than $40 million in recent years. How many of those other LA streets can lay claim to those stats? Yolanda will give y’all a wee hint… nary a one.

Many weeks ago, our real estate insider friend Don Won aka Don Juan aka Don Wan sent us a tattletale tidbit regarding the street’s latest construction site. You see, there is yet another new hotel-cum-mansion rising there, just three houses away from Mrs. Ecclestone Stunt’s Manor and in between Ms. von Furstenberg’s and Mr. Metropoulos’s palatial estates.

Yolanda knew something big was being built on that lot, but we really didn’t have an inkling as to what until our Mr. Won/Juan hissed that the new mansion was the brainchild of everyone’s favorite massive-minded architect himself: Richard Landry. That really wasn’t a shock — Mr. Landry has behemoths all over LA — but even ol’ jaded Yolanda’s mouth was left agape after we viewed the renderings on his website.

Yeah, okay, we know we should be used to these sorts of things by now. Yet the whole plutocrat-style spread left us without words. Actually, it was our gal-pal Your Mama over at Variety who said it better than your gurl ever could. We showed her these renderings and she exclaimed “That house looks like a fucking museum!” And Yolanda concurs.

Yolanda went through the permits on file with LA county and while we’re still not certain of the total square footage, the 1.29-acre property’s two-story mega-mansion will come with a full basement (with an indoor pool and spa down there) and a 5-car garage.  The outdoor pool/spa will also have a detached pool house with its own basement.

Naturally, upon seeing the renderings we also became much more interested in the owner of the property. It only took a few minutes of research to discover that the old teardown crib was last sold for $14,400,000 back in 2011, when the world was still barely emerging from the recession. The seller was Jon Feltheimer, the CEO of Lions Gate Entertainment, who had purchased the house just two years prior for a paltry $9.8 million.

Anyway, the current owner is listed simply as WRH LLC (Westside Residential Holdings LLC), but that entity is very easily connected to two brothers named Gurgen & Artyom Khachatryan.

Just who are the two Khachatryan boys? As odd as it may sound, they happen to be the sons of one Gagik Khachatryan, who just happens to be the Finance Minister of Armenia.

But wait — the story doesn’t end there. It turns out this is not the only property on LA’s Most Expensive Street According to Yolanda™ owned by the big-spending brothers. Back in 2010, just a year before they acquired their $14.4 million teardown, the brothers also purchased a 1939 estate at 355 S. Mapleton, just a short stroll away from the site of their future mega-mansion.

It appears the Khachatryan bros got a good deal on this second property, “stealing” the 1.66-acre ol’ gurl for “just” $11,000,000 during the height of the economic recession. And Yolanda does not doubt that the spread has appreciated since then. Even so, the brazen $35,000,000 pricetag the brothers recently slapped on this house (in June 2016) was pretty damn ballsy, no? Especially for an unchanged structure. For those of you bean counters — yes, they wanted more than triple the amount they  paid just six years ago.

Although Yolanda suspects the eye-watering ask price on Khachatryan House #2 was originally intended to solicit attention from potential big-money buyers, the strategy backfired bigtime. Not only did the house fail to sell, it provoked a whole lot of eyerolls across the Platinum Triangle and beyond. But even worse, news of the pricetag went viral in an unkind way when the Armenian media caught wind of the home and plastered it across the internet.

In July 2016, posts from Armenian news sources began to pop up with aerial photos of the two properties. Folks quickly began questioning where all the money came from. “How on earth can the Finance Minister’s sons afford to invest more than $25 million in luxury LA real estate?” they wondered.

Mr. Finance Minister Khachatryan, to his credit, did not attempt to deny that his sons purchased the homes and eventually even addressed the controversy by issuing a written response. Can any of y’all guess what it said? No? It said “None of your goddamn business.”

Well, he didn’t exactly say it like that. He had a much nicer and more diplomatic way of putting it. But that’s what the statement boiled down to. There you have it. So sorry, everyone, show’s over. The Khachatryan family don’t care and they ain’t wanna play ball with y’all.

So it would seem. But just a couple weeks after that, the pricetag on the house tumbled all the way down to $26,500,000. No, your eyes do not deceive you. That’s an $8.5 million pricechop in one fell swoop.

Desperation? You decide.

The house itself is a dated but well-maintained Colonial-style mansion with a rather fabulous staircase, a massive kitchen (with an ugly beige stone backsplash), rolling lawns, pool w/ pool house, and a tennis court. With some correct architectural vision, Yolanda feels like this house could be made truly grand. But knowing how times are now, it would seem that the wrecking ball is inevitable. Que sera, sera.

Here’s what Yolanda is wondering. Construction on the Landry place is still in the early stages and work continues, as far as we know. But an $8.5 million price reduction on their other house indicates to Yolanda that the Khachatryans really want someone to show them the moolah. What happens if that doesn’t happen? What if the Armenian press turns up the heat on papa? What if the pesky U.S. Department of Justice becomes interested in the family’s sources of wealth?

Now you see why we title this story in such a way, eh? In the heart of Holmby Hills, uncertainty looms. It’s a sign of the times. We have in a big, super-scary world, a world where billionaires fall as quickly as they rise. Even LA’s Most Expensive Street According to Yolanda™, for all its hedges and gates and Fort Knox-level security systems, can’t escape such things.

You know how the song goes — sooner or later, they all will be gone. It’s true. We are noise and a jolt of electricity and, if we’re lucky, a brief glimmer of light, and then we are gone.

Seven long months ago, near the dewy dawn of 2016, a newly-built mansion in a very prime neighborhood of Santa Monica sold for $7,150,000.

Now, a $7 million spec-mansion in Santa Monica isn’t really much of anything to get laid out over. It’s fairly commonplace, actually. But what interested Yolanda is that the house was yanked off the MLS just weeks prior to closing and the seller took title under cover of a blind trust. A blind trust, for all you newbies up in here, is a sort of thing often used by Hollywood celebrities or other notables when buying a house. It keeps the owner’s true identity out of public records and shielded from prying eyes. It also appears the buyer may have paid cash, as Yolanda finds no evidence of any financing on the home.

So imagine Yolanda’s surprise when we found out from not one but two separate little birdies who responded to our queries and chirped back that the new resident is not a big-name celebrity at all but rather an enigmatic woman named Tina Trahan.

We say “enigmatic” because apart from a couple Deadspin articles — more on those in a moment — Ms. Trahan is essentially ungoogleable. No Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter, no obvious signs of employment, nothing in property records. There are a small handful of pictures of her posing up a storm at social events. Other than that, nada.

Goodness gracious! We’ve got to hand it to Ms. Trahan. Yolanda has been in this “business” a very long time and most of these folks who believe they are ungoogleable aren’t really ungoogleable. You just have to know what you’re googling for. But Ms. Trahan really is ungoogleable. Well, almost.

You see, the only insight we really possess into Ms. Trahan’s earthly existence comes from a 2009 Deadspin article detailing her close connections to Tiger Woods and a number of other professional athletes and assorted moguls. The post also described her as a member of Mr. Woods’ inner circle, a “bungling bunch of wannabe illiminati”. Ooh. Ouchies!

Apparently Ms. Trahan was a member of Mr. Woods’ private plane posse (ooh la la!) and also the lady responsible for introducing Mr. Woods to a few of his “mistresses” as some might call them. Others might call them “trashy little hussified trollops”. But not Yolanda! She thinks the blame rests solely with Mr. Woods. He was the married one, after all.

But we digress — where were we? Oh yes, Ms. Trahan. Don’t call the lady a madam. She just knows a lot of people who know a lot of people. Got it?

We queried one of our birdies — a man we’ll call Deep Throat who knows everything about everyone — and he told us that Ms. Trahan has a child (whose name and gender are not relevant to this story) that just started the 6th grade at the uber-elite Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, where tuition can easily exceed $40,000 per year. Yep, you read right. More than $40k a year for middle school.

But enough about our gurl. Let’s take a look at her big new house.

The house is located in a lovely and leafy section of east Santa Monica, just a block or two from one of Yolanda’s favorite LA hangouts: the Brentwood Country Mart.

The East Coast Traditional has three levels: 5,190-square-feet on the two above-ground floors and an additional 2,566 in the finished full basement for a total of 7,756 square feet of neutral-toned luxury living space packed onto a property measuring just .2-acre. According to the listing, there are 7 bedrooms and a total of either 6, 7, or 7.5 bathrooms (depending on where you look).

A front-facing two car garage sets off the entryway. The front door opens to wide-plank dark wood floors and a whole lot of neutral tones and very staged-looking furniture. Yolanda likes the sensuous curve of the staircase.

The kitchen is certainly well-equipped with top-of-the-line Miele and Wolf appliances and a Toyota Yaris-sized center island slathered in white Carrara marble. At least we think that’s what it is. The listing says “Carrera marble”. No, babies — CarrEra is the Porsche. CarrAra is the all-too-common look-at-me-I’m-real-damn-rich-with-my-expensive-countertops material. Okay? Okay.

Let’s head on upstairs. The double-doors dramatically swing (oh dear!) open to reveal the huge master suite. Argh, what’s with all those itty bitty fluorescent lights?! The ceiling’s got the damn chicken pox.

There’s a slim outdoor terrace and a fireplace, too.

Carrara marble litters the party-sized master bath of Tiger’s dreams. The master closet can accomodate a designer wardrobe but looks rather silly with those handful of random shopping bags on the shelves. Seriously, what on earth is that supposed to be?

Here’s two more of the six additional bedrooms and bathrooms. Both suites have their own terrace.

The basement level is ready to party with a enormous carved pool table that looks like it weighs more than an unconscious Hillary Clinton wearing a leaden pantsuit. (No, really — how the heck did they get that thing downstairs?) Elsewhere the basement has a sauna, a wine cellar, and a movie theater.

Other luxury features on the premises include security cameras, NEST thermostat, and a Sanos music system. There’s also a full outdoor kitchen with a BBQ. The compact backyard also sports stone terrace work and an odd sort of woodchip field that’s probably good for water conservation but looks a bit silly with a $7 million house. Who knows, but we don’t see Ms. Trahan as the type of gal who would be all concerned about pouring water on a patch of grass. But we could be wrong.

Just one more wee little thing. SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS and no pool?!?!?!!!111

Apparently so. Apparently that is a-okay in Santa Monica.  Look, it’s a drought and all, we get it, blah blah blah. But still. $7,150,000. Take a long, hard look at that number. Then shift your focus to the photo of that backyard. Still breathing?

Annnnnyyyyyyyway. What a hot mess!

But we digress yet again. We want to know all about Ms. Trahan. How does she do it? How does she afford that $7 million pool-less spec-mansion?  The $100k+ Tesla in her driveway? The pricey private school for her kid? Is she blackmailing Tiger or some other baller with dirty little secrets? Well, that’s what Yolanda thought at first.

But nope. She could be, of course, but we don’t think that’s the real explanation here. You see, in the Deadspin article it was mentioned that Ms. Trahan had a fling with (and was even engaged to) Chris Albrecht in the early 2000s. Mr. Albrecht is the CEO of Starz Media and a very rich fellow.

For whatever reason, the two eventually went their separate ways. Ms. Trahan reportedly lived with a Goldman Sachs guy in New York, Mr. Albrecht lived out here in LA and married a 25-year-old lass named Montana Coady. But then, hallelujah — both relationships went kaput! And Mr. Albrecht and Ms. Trahan found themselves back in each other’s arms. Or at least that’s what our pal Mr. Deep Throat tells us. And they do indeed look rather loved-up in that pic above, don’t they.

Could it be that Ms. Trahan’s $7 million house and Tesla motorcar come courtesy of Mr. Albrecht? It could! After all, our friends over at The Real Deal reported that Mr. Albrecht recently put his Brentwood mansion on the market. Perhaps he’s joining his lady friend in a large Santa Monica house just a quick jaunt away? Let it be so. After more than a decade apart here they are. Back again! Private plane posse and bungling wannabe illuminati crew be damned.

Ain’t love grand?

Selling agent: Charles Pence, Pence Halthorn Silver
Ms. Trahan and/or Mr. Albrecht’s agent: Cindy Ambuehl, The Agency