Your Mama Hears...

...from Anita Tellyousomething—one of our better connected celebrity real estate canaries deep inside the Platinum Triangle real estate game—that Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and her hot shot talent agent husband Jim Toth have been on a serious hunt for huge, secluded and blended family-friendly new house in Los Angeles.

This isn't such a surprise to celebrity real estate watchers given that the in-demand and exceedingly well compensated movie star recently put her gorgeous ranchette in Ojai, CA on the open market with an asking price of $10,000,000 and quietly made a 2.5-plus acre vacant parcel in L.A.'s rustic and affluent Mandeville Canyon area available off-market with an asking price of $7,995,000.

The children will recall that when Miz Witherspoon purchased the Mandeville Canyon spread in August 2010 for $6,900,000 from eccentric action-flick actor Steven Seagal there was a substantial residence and additional equestrian facilities that she's since razed, presumably to make way for a custom-built compound that—we presume—she and her mister decided against building, after all.

Anyhoo, when we queried our dear tattletale Anita further about the Witherspoon-Toth's near-future real estate plans might be she told us they're looking for something significant and secluded in the $15-20,000,000 range. We mentioned that we'd recently heard through the celebrity gossip grapevine they might already be in escrow on a property ol' Anita snitched that the escrow was cancelled.

Anita went on to reveal that the posh pad they almost but didn't purchase is a very privately situated multi-acre estate tucked into a very swank but bucolic pocket of Pacific Palisades with a "big white traditional" mansion and is owned by Susan Harbert, the the ex-wife of Showbiz bigwig Ted Harbert, the current chairman of NBC Broadcasting. According to Anita, ex-Missus Harbert allows one of L.A.'s more successful real estate brokers to quietly shop the 9,000+ square foot mansion to qualified buyers with an asking price in the neighborhood of $20,000,000.

So, their search continues. Your Mama wonders if the long-time West Siders have considered a move to the east side of town where we heard from another extremely well-connected real estate insider that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie might be willing to part with their extensively and expensively renovated multi-parcel compound in the celebrity-stocked Los Feliz area.

All just some juicy celebrity real estate rumor and gossip, kids, rumor and gossip.