In Case You Missed It: Adriana Lima

According to the celebrity gossip peeps at Celebuzz, Brazilian bra and pantie supermodel Adriana Lima listed her Midtown Manhattan condo crib for $5.5 million. Property records show the smoldering brunette picked up the 2,200 square foot apartment at the full service Metropolitan Tower in late 2003 for $1,995,000.

Listing details show the 42nd floor spread has two bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms plus floor to ceiling windows that provide a through-the-buildings northern view of Central Park. The well-equipped condo, which has month common charges and taxes that rack up to $5,404, also has a handy-dandy home automation system that conveniently controls the lighting, audio visual equipment, temperature settings, and electronic window shades at the mere touch of a button.

Miz Lima and her Serbian professional basketball player husband, Marko Jarić, and their two young children live primarily in Miami, FL where in January 2010 they shelled out exactly $9,000,000 for a nearly 7,500 square foot fixer-upper bay front mansion on the gated and heavily guarded Indian Creek Island enclave. Some of their high profile neighbors on Indian Creek Island include multi-billionaire businessman Carl Icahn, Latin crooner Julio Inglesias, steel magnate Leroy Schecter, hedge fund honcho Eddie Lampert, and Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula.

listing photos and floor plan: The Modlin Group

Ross Mathews Unloads L.A. Starter House

SELLER: Ross Mathews
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $676,500
SIZE: 1,034 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a friendly missive from little birdie we'll call Ron Aroundsue Your Mama learned that hilariously high camp television personality Ross Mathews and his long time man-friend, stylist Salvador Camarena, along with their pooches Louise and Mijo, have moved to a glassy, canyon view house in Los Angeles, CA, a notable event both men have recently blogged and/or Tweeted about.

Since Your Mama's invitation to the house warming party must have gotten lost in the damn mail—uhm...yes, Hello, Ross—we can't reveal any details about the out and proud couple's new digs except that it appears in video to be substantially more spacious and much more contemporary than the itty-bitty 1940s bungalow in L.A.'s Atwater Village 'hood that Mister Ross sold in early May (2013) for $676,500.

Mister Mathews, an inveterate and intensely focused pop culture maven of the highest magnitude, started up his ladder of Showbiz fame and fortune in the early Aughts as a lowly intern on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. His effervescent personality, girlishly high-pitched voice, and brutally self-deprecating sense of humor got Mister Ross noticed by the powers that be who, after a fun-filled last minute fill-in guest spot on the show, hired him on as "Ross The Intern." As "Ross The Intern" Mister Ross honed his schtick as a fun-loving and infectiously fruity correspondent who giddily covered movie premieres, awards shows and other such important Tinseltown trivialities.*

Since his intern days Mister Ross, now in his early 30s, has become a bit of a cable television staple. He lost 40 pounds on Celebrity Fit Club in 2007, was a correspondent for the celebrity gossip program The Insider, and hosted the GSN game show Big Saturday Night. He occasionally appears on the long-running Days of Our Lives soap story, he frequently fawns over celebrities on red carpet events for E!, and he pops up just about every week on sassy pants comedian and entertainment industry mogul Chelsea Handler's eponymous late night pop culture gab fest.

Mister Ross recently published what Your Mama imagines will be the first of several memoir driven tomes, Man Up! Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence. This fall Mister Mathews will host Hello Ross, his very own interactive late night television chat show that aims to laud and applaud celebrity-driven pop culture rather than tear it down with snarky remarks about failed fashion choices, arrogant douche-baggery and—ahem—poor day-core.

Property records show Mister Mathews picked up his petite pad in Atwater Village—an increasingly hip and hipster inhabited area sandwiched between Los Feliz and Glendale—in January 2010 for $530,000. A few quick calculations on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us that Mister Mathews turned a $146,500 profit, not counting almost 3.5 years of carrying costs, updates and upgrades, real estate fees and—as per listing information—professional decorating by liptastic nice-gay decorator/persnickety house flipping Bravolebrity Jeff Lewis.

The wee, single-story bungalow has two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms in just 1,034 square feet, according to online marketing materials we managed to ferret up out of the interweb. A tiny front porch with a tomato red front door opens to a small foyer—a minuscule vestibule, really—that sits between a reasonably roomy living room and an eat-in kitchen.

There are hardwood floors in the living room (and the bedrooms) and red clay tiles with decorotive insets in the kitchen that set off the white Shaker style cabinets and cream colored tile counter tops with Fiestaware-ish back splash. Upgraded stainless steel appliances include a commercial-style four-burner range and a side-by-side fridge/freezer flanked by a small built-in housekeeping desk and an open laundry/pantry that connects through to the outdoor living spaces. We loathe how the cabinets stop just shy of the ceiling but at least Misters Ross and Camarena had the good sense not to stuff that slim space with wicker baskets and faux-greenery.

The compact master bedroom has one small closet and two access points to the backyard through what appear to be original 1940s wood and glass doors. We can live with a ceiling fan. They have a southern California practicality that we understand. But we really wish the Misters Ross and Camarena replaced it with something less dainty. Is that fan really Jeff Lewis approved? Anyhoo, the door to the smaller second bedroom appears to have been used by the misters of the house as an office/creative space and indeed has a glass panel on which appears the words "ART STUDIO" have been stenciled.

A detached two car garage at the rear of the property was transformed a year or two ago by Jeff Lewis on his eponymous spin off reality show Interior Therapy with Jeff Lewis into a fully finished den/guest room with a concrete floors, crown molding, a moody palette of grays of browns, and a pair of mirror doored storage closets. Two sets of French doors open to the driveway cum dining terrace. Gray horizontal strip fencing and high hedges ring a verdant and separate but adjoining area of the backyard where there's a thick carpet of well-watered grass and an above-ground spa just outside the master bedroom beneath a vine-laden trellis.

Property records reveal Mister Mathews still owns a 1,130 square foot condominium in Pasadena (CA) that he scooped up in May 2006 for $430,000 and last July (2012) Mister Mathews paid $223,000 for a 1,233 square foot house with two bedrooms, one bathroom and a kidney-shaped swimming pool on a tight corner lot on a fairly busy street in Palm Springs (CA).

NOTE (Later same day): Thanks to the always in the know Lucy Spillerguts Your Mama learned that Mister Mathews and Mister Camanero decamped Atwater Village to the rugged hills of Glendale (CA) where they moved into a 1970s contemporary perched privately on a steep slope at the tail end of a long, serpentine, and semi-private driveway. Listing details Your Mama dug up show the renovated residence sits on more than three quarters of an acre with three bedrooms and three bathrooms in nearly 3,800 square feet spread over three floors. Other amenities include: an open concept main living/dining/kitchen that opens to a wrap around deck that cantilevers over the hill side with long canyon views; an attached two car garage with direct entry; a penthouse level master suite with adjacent office; and a lower level game room with built-in bar and wine cellar. The property was last listed at just under $1.1 million.

*Mister Ross also, among numerous other tasks assigned while in the employ of Mister Leno, trained for an worked on a NASCAR pit crew, sent in reports from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, toured the Burbank fire station, and attended at least one Spring Break celebration on Texas's South Padre Island.

listing photos: Keller Williams

Neighborly Opinions

"Your yard is looking… different," our 86 year-old neighbor, Harold, said surveying our property. 

"...Thanks?" I said. "But without the grass you can't really call it a yard."

"Then what is it?"

"A garden."

"Oh, okay."

After months of killing grass, choosing plants then replanting it, Mr. Wonderful and I had finally finished our garden's turf-less transformation. Now came the hardest part: hearing what the neighbors had to say about it. 

Norma bustled outside wearing large dark sunglasses over her regular eyeglasses.

"It's looking good," she said pointing to my labor of love.

"Thanks, Norma," I beamed.

"So what else are you going to do to it?" My stomach dropped. I felt like a preschool teacher had just told me my kid was less than perfect, that is; if I'd had a kid and he/she'd had a preschool teacher.  

"This is it," I said forcing a smile. "We're finished."

"Well... it looks like a nice yard."

"It's not a yard," Harold corrected her. "It's a 'garden'."

"Oh, okay," she said nodding. 

I heard the white noise of Jerry's weekly rose-food spray stop. I looked up to see him pop up from behind his rose bushes adjusting his San Francisco 49ers baseball cap. 

"Your yard is looking real nice," he said. 

"Thanks, Jerry--"

"It's not a yard," Harold said. "It's a 'garden'."

"Oh, sure." Jerry said but by his tone it sounded more like the neighborhood rose specialist was unsure of calling what we'd just created anything close to a 'garden'.

"Hey, neighbor!" Charles said trotting across the street. "Your yard looks great!"

"It's not a yard," Harold said. "It's a 'garden'."

"Whatever you call it, it looks awesome!" Charles said beaming everyone a 1,000 watt smile. "Is that the French game thing you were talking about?" he said pointing to our Pétanque court.

"Yes," I said fearing for what would come next.

"Well invite us over so we can play on it already!"

In that moment I loved Charles more than ever. But I also loved Jerry, Norma and Harold because although it may not have been what they would have chosen to do, they supported us and our new 'garden'. I hope we can be half the neighbors they are to us when they change their yards--or not--to look like our turf-free one. 

Bruce Willis Lists Beverly Hills Estate

SELLER: Bruce Willis (and Emma Heming)
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $22,000,000
SIZE: 10,379 square feet, 11 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Middle aged—and still procreating—action flick actor Bruce Willis is in the mood to shuffle his extensive residential real estate holdings in both the Big Apple and the City of Angels.

In New York City the smooth pated and famously smirky Die Hard franchise superstar owns a five bedroom and four bathroom condo crib at the full service Trump Place complex on the west side of Lincoln Center that was listed on the open market in February (2013) for $11,650,000 and is currently in contract with an unknown buyer for an unknown price. In mid-March Mister Willis and his considerably younger second missus, Emma Heming, shelled out, according to property records, $8,850,000 for U2 Bassist Adam Clayton's stunning three bedroom and four bathroom park-facing cooperative apartment at the distinguished Eldorado building on Central Park West.*

Back on the Left Coast, much to this jaded celebrity property gossip's mild surprise, Mister and Missus Willis Number Two have hoisted their large but hardly behemoth Beverly Hills, CA mansion on the open market with a beastly $22,000,000 price tag.

Property records show Mister Willis acquired the property in June 2004 for exactly nine million dead presidents from movie industry bigwig Alan Ladd, Junior.

Current listing information shows the 1928 Spanish style residence sits tightly on a shy acre parcel in a prime section of lower Beverly Hills—it is, after all, less than half a mile to the posh and plummy Beverly Hills Hotel—and has 11 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms in 10,379 square feet of fully renovated, updated and upgraded interior space. The Los Angeles County Tax Man's public records show the 2012 property taxes rang up to a stomach upsetting $114,838.

Listing details are—as of this minute—painfully slim but listing photographs show an airy double-height entry that connects through to a roomy formal living room with wood floors, wood burning fireplace, and exposed wood beam ceiling. There's an unnecessarily large enclosed loggia and the formal dining room broods with wine colored walls above medium brown wood wainscoting, a barrel vaulted ceiling covered in some sort of repetitive pattern texture that could be tin or carved wood or wall paper or any number of other materials. Wide banks of glass doors in both the living and dining rooms open to a central courtyard decked out with little more than a few plants, a couple chairs and a rugged stone fountain.

The spacious kitchen has a long center island with snack counter, Old School honey bee tile flooring, and, behind the top quality commercial style range, a tiled back splash where a green tiled rectangle has the words "Spring Street" spelled out in reversed out white tiles, an homage to the New York City subway system that doesn't make sense to Your Mama in a Beverly Hills kitchen.

Although it appears to Your Mama that most of the public rooms orient themselves to the interior courtyard—in some cases the quickest route from one part of the house to another—the angled back of the house opens through a couple of arched glass doors to back yard. Looking past the nagging notion that the rear facade lacks any convincing architectural authenticity, the backyard includes a small patch of grass and a large deck that encircles a long rectangular swimming pool.

At the butt end of the irregularly shaped lot there's a lighted tennis court that backs up to a service alley that runs behind a handful of other similarly sized mini-estates and mansions. Some of the nearby estates and homses are owned by L.A. luminaries like mega-resort building multi-billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, the inestimable coochie-cooer Charo, Peter Falk's widow Shera, and 3-D technology tycoon Joshua Greer who, in 2011, paid fellow tech tycoon turned big-time philanthropist David Bohnett $23 million for a nearly 10,000 square foot white brick Georgian on a double lot.

Mister Willis's real estate portfolio runs deep and the Hollywood staple won't be without a Tinseltown bedsit once he sells his big Bev Hills residence. He also owns a 2,900 square foot ranch style residence off Mulholland Drive in the 90210 but it's not known—at least to Your Mama—if Mister and second Missus Willis intend to occupy the property.

*Mister Willis's propert portfolio currently also includes (but may not be limited to) a number of residential and commercial holdings in and around itty-bitty Hailey, ID.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

Digging In

"Today we finish the garden!" I said pulling on my work boots--again--and putting on my soil-encrusted baseball cap--again.

"You said that last weekend," Mr Wonderful mumbled rubbing his shoulder. "And the weekend before that. And the--"

"Today is different."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm tired of being dirty."

We'd worked on it for a whole month. Every weekend was devoted to doing something in the front yard: 1) Creating the Pétanque court; 2) Planting the natives and drought-tolerant plants; 3) Weeping that it was taking so long.

So single-handedly I decided that today--yes TODAY!--was the final day. 

My garden design had a three-prong approach:

Close to the house I had a bed of purple lavender and a bed of purple and white lantana. In the middle we built the honey-colored Pétanque court. Along the street we planted the California natives that were so small they didn't show up in pictures now, but next year! Just wait! They'll be huge!

At the half dozen nurseries I shopped at, I picked the biggest, healthiest drought-tolerant plants. Unfortunately when I got them home and in the ground, they looked itty-bitty. 

Here's the lantana BEFORE going into the ground.

Here's the lantana AFTER going into the ground. Sigh.

Then we watered and mulched everything we'd planted. Plants love nothing better than being snuggled under a bed of rotting leaves and decomposing tree bark, which you have to disperse while doing a downward facing dog pose. Ah! Gardening is so glamorous!

Then we created a path of stepping stones to walk from the Pétanque court to the front walk sprinkling Dymondia, aka "Silver Carpet" among them.

So here's the plant list: 

Manzanita, Cleveland Sage, Salvia, Wooly Blue Curls, Verbena, Blue Fescue, Dymondia, Buckwheat, Dragon's Blood, Lavender, Yellow Bladder Pod (yes, that is a real plant) and Aloe.

As the sun was spreading pink and melon colors across the evening sky, we finished the garden. Finito. I stood up and tossed my soiled garden gloves in the wheelbarrow. Mr. Wonderful looked at me and laughed.

"You're covered in dirt," he said.

"Well get a good look because this is the end of me being dirty." 

"What do you mean?"

"Last one in the pool is a rotten egg!"

That evening the pool never felt better.

Go-Go's Guitarist Jane Wiedlin Lists L.A. Loft

SELLER: Jane Wiedlin
LOCATION: Los Angeles
PRICE: $596,000
SIZE: 1,280 square feet, 1-2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Go-Go's guitarist Jane Wiedlin was squarely on the pioneering real estate vanguard when, in 2007, she sold her historic Streamline Moderne residence in the heart of L.A.'s hipster-choked Silver Lake community and decamped to a sun-flooded loft condo in an even hipper, industrial, and still somewhat gritty if not exactly seedy section of downtown Los Angeles known as Little Tokyo.

Although not exactly wildly popular, living in downtown L.A. is trés chic and even trendy amongst arty-farty Angelinos in search of a more urban, pedestrian friendly existence than is customarily available in the sprawling, auto-oriented mega-city that—let's be honest, butter beans—functions more like an interconnected amalgamation of suburbs than a proper city. Simmer down, children, we ain't hatin'. Just like Randy Newman, we love L.A. But, you know, it is what it is. Anyways...

Miz Wiedlin is, of course, best known as the perky, pixie haired and squeaky-voiced rhythm guitarist for the iconic late-70s and early 80s all-women pop-punk band The Go-Go's. It was she, in fact, who co-wrote the hard charging yet infectiously bubbly music for the band's hit song Our Lips Are Sealed. Miz Wiedlin left the group in 1984 to pursue a (less successful) solo career but occasionally re-groups, records and tours with her Go-Go's gal pals. Indeed, the Go-Go's sold out the Hollywood Bowl last summer (2012), thirty years after the first time they sold out the legendary L.A. venue.*

In addition to whatever personal musical pursuits Miz Wiedlin still pursues she's also a tireless advocate for animal rights, dabbled in acting, and co-created the Lady Robotika comic book. Some years ago she became an ordained, mail-order minister who offers her marriage and commitment ceremony services as Reverend Sister Go-Go for between $1,500 and $4,000 (plus travel, accommodation and food expenses), depending on the package.

Property records and other online resources show Miz Wiedlin purchased her approximately 1,280 square foot loft at the Little Tokyo Lofts building as a bare shell in March 2007 for $695,000. In 2010 the diminutive rocker—who looks almost disturbingly like Joyce DeWitt from the 1970s and '80s sitcom Three's Company—had the top floor loft listed for lease with an asking price of $4,250. It's now listed for lease at a much lower $2,350 per month. It's also for sale with—as of today—a $596,000 price tag. Miz Wiedlin pushed her downtown digs on the sales market in late-April (2013) with an asking price of $850,000. Since then, the price tag has repeatedly been slivered—a dozen times as of this morning—to its current $596,000. By Your Mama's quick and rudimentary calculations, even if Miz Wiedlin manages to secure of a full price buyer at today's asking price of $596,000, she's still faced with a $99,000 financial gut punch, not counting carrying costs, customization, and real estate fees.

Current listing information shows the "Rockstar-owned penthouse loft" has "million-dollar views," two deeded parking spaces, "fantastical original decor"—which is putting it mildly, and $459 monthly home owner's association fees. Current listing details also show the sixth floor corner unit has magnificent steel casement warehouse windows, yellow blond maple hardwood floors, coveted 12-foot ceilings, and at least one exposed structural column around which Miz Wieldin had a Saturn-inspired steel bar and shelving system installed where she stores and displays her collection of burlesque oriented bar ware.


The loft's front door opens into a multi-functional foyer/dining/kitchen space where Miz Wiedlin's decidedly peculiar but refreshingly personal decorative style immediately smacks a person across the face with its remarkable, well, weirdness. Those children with less fantastical and more traditional taste might categorize the day-core as Unrestrained Hot Mess but in a low- to no-budget marketing video that popped up on the YouTube in late 2009 Miz Wiedlin describes her decorative phantasmagoria, a kooky and deeply personal blend of "Asian, mid-century and Future-y stuff,"  as "Bladerunner-esque." Frankly, as nuttily done as Miz Wiedlin's loft may be—and it is unquestionably wacky, Your Mama would most certainly rather look at this odd and deeply personal decorative extravaganza than look at another one of those awful, cookie cutter Bacchanalia of beige that's way too often lauded as tasteful.

At least one wall in the combo foyer/dining area is papered with vintage 1970s Mylar that's been seamed and riveted to look like the side of a space ship, she proudly declares in the marketing video. At least one more wall has cinematically pedigreed, vintage orange and silver abstract pattern wall paper that was used in the cult-classic film Barbarella. Miz Wiedlin says in the video that the film's the late movie producer Dino De Laurentiis retained several rolls of the stuff that she bought on Ebay. We.re not wallpaper people but, kitty cats, of all the kooky stuff Miz Wiedlin's got stuffed  like sardines up in that loft, this wallpaper is a goddamn treasure. The compact but perfectly serviceable open concept kitchen area has black granite counter tops, a butcher block topped work island, rental-grade stainless steel appliances and maple cabinetry painted a lustrous Chinese lacquer red.

The dining foyer and kitchen space opens up into a roomy corner living room where Miz Wiedlin tiled the front of the (gas) fireplace with ebony river stones and sparkly grout. An open back entertainment unit strikes a cacophonous pose in front of graphic black and white vintage wall paper. Godawful vertical blinds, the very kind penny-pinching landlords install in rental apartments both far and wide, twist and pull back to reveal giant, multi-pane warehouse windows filled with urban city and skyscraper views.

Custom made sliding shoji screens divide the living room from an unexpectedly spacious, bedroom-sized dressing room lined with hardware-free flat-front closets and a built-in storage bench along the window wall. Miz Wiedlin helpfully suggests in the marketing video that the enclosed dressing room, with its magnificently kitchen lighting sconces—multi-colored bunches of glass grapes dangling from the sharp teeth of a dragon—can do double duty as a guest bedroom.

A bent steel floating staircase, designed and fabricated by the set designer for the Indiana Jones movies, ascends to a loft bedroom with a very low ceiling and, at night, a glittering, laying down view of the surrounding city lights. Miz Wiedlin furnished the head-banging bedroom with a custom studded leather headboard and vintage 70s sci-fi themed wall paper on which 60s-era space ships battle on a shimmery silver background. Sorry Miz Wiedlin, Your Mama lives for you but that bizarre, undulating row of bamboo makes for an ass-ugly and piss-poor safety railing.

The decorative bravery—or treachery, depending on one's point of view—reaches its full, blunt force in the loft's lone, double-sized bathroom that's equipped with a stacked laundry and multi-functional shower pod that Miz Wiedlin describes as "the bomb" and "a party in itself." The steam-equipped contraption has multiple shower heads, a jetted tub, a radio, a foot massager and—because every shower needs it—disco lighting. Miz Wiedlin goes on to describe the wacky, self-designed sink and vanity situation as a combination between "a pyramid and an octopus from a different planet." The walls are custom-tiled with what the sci-fi fan calls "an alien cityscape" and overhead there's a lumpy silver ceiling treatment meant to give the room the vibe of an "alien cave or cloud." This is not a bathroom for those who love neutral finishes and travertine tile but it is most certainly an eccentrically customized crapper in which one will never forget shaving their legs, brushing their chompers or doing their dirty bizness.

The Little Tokyo Lofts complex, originally built in 1922 as an industrial structure, offers its urban setting preferring residents a quiet interior garden courtyard, an outdoor swimming pool and spa, and a long and narrow dog run with faux-grass. There's also a small fitness room, 24-hour security with video surveillance, and gated garage parking connected by a private pedestrian catwalk over the swimming pool terrace.

Your Mama seriously and sincerely wishes Miz Wiedlin all the luck in the world unloading her highly customized digs in downtown L.A. However, our brief and unscientific research suggests the lovably goofy and kinda nerdy Miz Wiedlin may have have a difficult time unloading her downtown loft even with its substantially discounted asking price. Although it is still hipper than shit for artists, bohemians and others to live downtown, the 2007-08 real estate bubble burst had a tremendously negative impact on L.A.'s then burgeoning downtown condo and loft market. Once upon a time the lofty apartments at the Little Tokyo Lofts traded for $300-700,000 but, alas, sale prices plummeted and, for the most part, remain a fraction of their peak. A 710 square foot studio style loft that sold in 2007 for $376,000 sold in February (2013) for just $225,000. A higher floor studio style loft that went for $408,000 in September 2007 traded hands in mid-March 9 (2013) for a mere $160,000. And, most troubling of all for Miz Wiedlin might be a lower floor loft of similar size to her own that sold in early 2007 for $647,000 but traded hands in late February (2013) for a measly $218,500.

Miz Wiedlin has previously owned a couple of homes in Los Angele. In 2004 she sold a hill climbing mini- estate tucked up into an out of the way area of the mountains above Burbank for $1,200,000. She later and briefly owned the Skinner House, a delicious, William Kesling-designed Streamline Moderne in the heart of the Silver Lake that she bought in June 2005 for $1,135,000 and sold in late 2007 for $1,495,000 to Atlanta-based decorator William "Bill" Stewart.

Property records show Miz Wiedlin also briefly co-owned a Beaver Cleaver-ish residence in the Madison, WI neighborhood of Maple Bluff that she picked up in December 2007 for $322,000 and sold two years later for $355,000. She moved to Wisconsin, where she was born and lived until she was six, because she fell—ahem—Head Over Heels for then Madison-based musician Travis Kasperbauer.

As far as we know—and we really know so very little—Miz Wiedlin and Mister Kasperbauer—and their canine menagerie—currently live in an area of San Francisco's Castro District that our S.F.-centric b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau tittered to Your Mama is often referred to by local queens as The Swish Alps. Property records and other digital resources show the couple share a two family house with an attached but separate recording studio that was acquired in late 2009 for $1,207,000. Last year the couple spent $300,000 to acquire a small cabin on 10+ fairly remote acres in the mountains near Anchor Bay (CA), in Mendocino County.

*We just can't get enough how 50-something year old Miz Wiedlin proudly wore a knee brace for the Hollywood Bowl concert. Useless fun fact: Much to the screaming delight of many, The West Hollywood Water Skiing Team, comprised of a leggy sextet of some of L.A.'s most illustrious drag queens including Willem Belli and Detox of RuPauls Drag Race semi-fame, donned leotards and tutus and danced back up on Vacation.

listing photos: Keller Williams Pasadena Market

Going Native!

"I'm going to buy native plants for our garden," I said sipping a crisp Chardonnay.

"Good," Mr. Wonderful said popping an olive into his mouth.

"At a nursery specializing in natives."

"Good."

"In San Diego."  

"Good--huh? WHAT?!"

I didn't blame my husband for being shocked at the prospect of me driving four hours--round trip--to buy plants. Personally I thought I had reached a new level of koo-koo because on this beautiful spring day--one that I did not have to work in the office--I would willingly hole myself up in a space smaller than a cubicle and go inland (read: scorching heat) where it would feel like the air conditioner had broken down 10 years prior. It was craziness! 

The only thing that made me stick to my plan was the manzanita tree. After reading up about the gazillion varieties of manzanitas, I'd decided we needed the Dr. Hurd manzanita variety, better known by plant people as: Arctostaphylos manzanita. I know, the name just rolls off the tongue, right? After calling nurseries in 26 different area codes, this San Diego spot was the only place east of the Sierras that had a 15-gallon (read: big) Dr. Hurd manzanita.  So I packed my music, maps and snacky-snacks and drove south, young man! 

This nursery was located 20 minutes northeast of San Diego in a place called Escondido, which is Spanish for "hidden". Driving to it proved my fears had been well founded--the car was small, the sun was hot and the nursery in Escondido was very "escondido". I followed my map's directions but after driving up and down the same road for 30 minutes without finding the street that the nursery was located on, in complete frustration, I turned into a street that didn't have a name, a street sign or any sign of life. Of course this was the street of the nursery--Las Pilitas. 

Once parked I approached the two Las Pilitas nursery workers, who both wore cowboy hats. 

"It's hard finding your nursery without a street sign," I said stretching my legs.

"Someone stole it," the woman with the tan hat said.

"Why don't you get a new one?" 

She shrugged, "Everyone knows where we are." 

Not me or the other 349 million Americans who don't live in San Diego! You've added even more time to my drive, which means I'll be stuck in L.A.'s rush hour traffic going home--is what I wanted to say. Instead I smiled because I was here to buy plants, not cause trouble.

According to the woman's name tag she was "Liz" and after talking to her for six seconds I discovered she was an expert on natives. I showed her a picture of a California native and asked for its genus and species, with one glance at the photo she said it was a Verbena lilacina "Paseo Rancho". I asked about salvias and she gave me a 40 minute treatise on how bees, hummingbirds and every person on the planet--which included me even though I didn't know what they were six weeks ago--loved verbenas. When I asked her for the 15-gallon Dr. Hurd manzanita trees, she marched me to their spot. 

"They're small," I said trying to mask my disappointment at how the 15-gallon pot was bigger than the 12-inch plant.

"They'll grow," Liz said. 

"I'll take two."

"No," Liz said putting her hands on her hips. "You can't buy two manzanitas."

"But I want two."

"I don't care."

"I'm paying you!"

"I don't care."

Not only was this nursery "hidden" but so was its capitalistic nature. I'd never heard of an American businessperson not selling anyone what they wanted. Usually my problem was buying too much. Today Liz was going to ensure that I bought too little. 

"Look," she said locking her eyes with mine over her reading glasses, "You don't have the space for two manzanitas in your garden plan, so I'll sell you one."

"But it's so small," I whimpered.

"Natives don't like being in pots. They dislike being bound. But you put them in the ground and wham-o they'll take off." 

I took her word for it. But as we loaded the plants in my car I looked at my natives--an unassuming collection of small pots holding smaller twigs. My husband already thought I was crazy to drive all the way down here to buy plants but if I came home now with a couple pots of soil and twigs he would completely freak out.

I shared my concern with Liz. She said to get the natives in the ground and take a picture of them. Then one year later take another picture of them and then we'd see how much they'd grown.

A year?! 12 months?! 365 days?! Nooo! But what else could I do except believe her? 

That night I greeted Mr. Wonderful with a carful of plants.

"I'm home," I said.

"Good," he said.

"This is what I bought," 

"Good."

"It'll take a year for them to grow."

"Good--huh? WHAT?!"

I told you.