Rent Steven Spielberg's Beach House

OWNERS: Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $125,000/month
SIZE: 7,237 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It has come to Your Mama's attention via a covert communique from Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air (OFGBA) that Hollywood honcho Steven Spielberg has quietly put his Craftsman-style beach front compound on celebrity lined (and quickly disappearing) Broad Beach in Malibu (CA) up for lease for the 2013 summer season at $125,000 per month.*

Your Mama's brief and unscientific research on the internets indicates the three time Oscar winner (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List) acquired the larger of the two parcels that comprise the ocean front estate in October 1989 for $3,375,000. Property records show he picked up the adjacent property in April 2002 for $3,191,000. A couple of quick and rudimentary calculations on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows Mister Spielberg coughed up a total of $6,566,000 for both properties that combined encompass 1.08 acres with more than 150 feet of quickly dwindling beach frontage.**

Listing details kindly provided by OFGBA shows the main house measures 7,237 square feet with a total of seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms. There are four bedrooms on the ground floor and three more on the second floor, as per listing details, including a spacious, ocean-view master suite complete with private study/library and a massage room.  Additional living space is accommodated in a detached two bedroom guest house and a flexi-use "bonus space" that could be used as an art studio, fitness room or meditation lounge.

The main house wraps around a wind-protected courtyard with multi-level decks and a small swimming pool and spa. Other amenities, according to marketing materials, include a screening room—natch, two fireplaces (living room and master bedroom), a three car garage, and a top-flight security system.

It might seem strange that someone with pockets as deep as Mister Spielberg might choose to lease out one of his luxurious homes but it might be that he's looking to recoup some of the excessive fuel costs he'll surely incur this summer while he takes his $200 million yacht, the 282-foot long blue hulled Seven Seas, on an around the world cruise with stops in exotic locales such as Shanghai, Sri Lanka and Hawaii.***

Despite its ever-shrinking beach, Broad Beach is lined with homes owned by entertainment industry movers and shakers. The Spielberg-Capshaw beach estate is just a couple doors down from the double-lot spread owned by Pierce Brosnan and listed last summer for least at $250,000 per month. Other Showbiz homeowners on Broad Beach include Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Steve Levitan, Dustin Hoffman, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Ray Romano, Avi Arad, Jami Gertz, and Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gourmet—here they are putting their special spin on Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun.

Award show super-producer Ken Ehrlich, who bought his East Coast-y beach front Cape Cod in early 2010 from investor (and Milwaukee Brewers owner) Mark Attanasio and, as it turns out, has it up for lease at $100,000 per month for the 2013 summer season. Other big business types who maintain homes on Broad Beach include Chicago-based real estate magnate George Novogroder and tool and die tycoon—and big-time real estate baller—Eric Smidt. The late insurance mogul Burton Borman's Frank Gehry-designed domicile popped up on the open market last week with a—uh—hopeful $57,500,000 price tag.

Make no mistake, chickens, despite their low-key, of-the-people image Mister Spielberg and Miz Capshaw are red-blooded real estate baller with a fat portfolio of pricey, high-maintenance properties. In addition to their deluxe digs in Malibu their Los Angeles holdings include a 5+ acre multi-residence hillside compound on a hillside in the ritzy upper Riviera area of Pacific Palisades and an expensively equipped multi-acre equestrian facility tucked back into rustic Sullivan Canyon below Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's Pacific Palisades estate.

Mister and Missus Spielberg-Capshaw also have a solid real estate foothold on the east coast. As far as Your Mama knows—thanks to a heads up by one of the helpful children—they still own a 6,000 square foot, two unit Gwathmey Siegel-designed combo coop at the star studded San Remo building on Central Park West where other high profile residents/owners include Demi Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Donna Karan, Steve Martin, and Paul Hewson—the rock star otherwise known as the unimonikered Bono.

And finally, they maintain Quelle Farm, a nearly 10-acre Gwathmey Siegel-designed compound on Georgica Pond in East Hampton, NY, with extensive equestrian facilities. The property is close enough for the Spielberg's scullery maid to borrow sugar from Time Warner widow and philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross who recently heaved Cody House—a 5.42 acre pond-front spread on Georgica Pond—on the open market with a tongue wagging $75,000,000 asking price. Mister Spielberg also owns three vacant lots directly opposite Quelle Farm. Your Mama assumes he bought the lots in order to preserve his view. A couple years ago he donated conservation easements the three lots that come to almost 7.5 acres to the Peconic Land Trust, a tax benefitting maneuver that will protect the land from development in perpetuity.

Property records indicate that in late 2007/early 2008 the redonkulously rich couple dropped $20,000,000 on a 3.3 acre Georgica Pond fronting estate that's located on the same swanky lane as their compound but isn't contiguous. We're not sure what their long term plans for the property are but it appears to Your Mama they've already razed the early 20th century singled cottage that stood on the property when they bought it.

*listing details suggest a longer term rental may be possible.

**Since 2008 when storms damaged a number of homes in Malibu, radical and expensive measures, including a 4,100 foot long revetment and towering walls of sandbags, have been taken over the years to protect the multi-million dollar homes on Broad Beach.

***Those with the dough can charter Mister Spielberg's super-luxe yacht that comfortably accommodates 12 in seven staterooms and is staffed by two dozen crew. In 2011 the ship sized boat was available at a skin peeling $1.3 million a week. 

listing photos: The Partners Trust

The White Knights

"More?" I asked retossing the salad in the kitchen. 

"Please," Mr. Wonderful said seated at the table. As I strode toward him with the salad bowl Jackson plopped on the floor in front of me stopping me in my tracks.

"I guess he wants salad, too."

Funny things had been happening since Jackson had gone for an accidental swim in our pool: 1) His coat got cleaned; 2) His fur turned as soft as silk and; 3) He became nice. The bratty and emotionally bruised kitty that we had taken in when no one else would, had--after one dunk in the pool--become a loving house pet. 

We should have tossed him in the drink months ago.

When he was overboard in the deep end, we came to rescue him. When he was dripping wet, I rubbed him dry with fluffy bath towels. When he was soaked and looked hairless and hilarious (!), we did not laugh. Too much. These things had made a sea change--or pool change--in our cat's attitude about us. 

To be fair Jackson had been warming up to us lately, specifically since our trip to Seattle. It was a simple six-day trip and a needed break for Mr. Wonderful and me. While we were perusing the Space Needle and coffee shops of the city where Frazier was set, Jackson was doing what he normally did--sleeping 72 hours a day. Nevertheless, we'd arranged with Harold and Norma to feed and water our kitty while we were away.  

When we returned full of stories of Washington wines and "Frazier Crane" sightings, Norma hurried over to our house with her brows knitted together and her blue eyes looking pained. 

"We fed your cat all week," she said biting her lip "but I'm afraid he's… gone." 

"No, we just saw him--sleeping in the spare bedroom." 

"Oh thank goodness!" she said grabbing my arm for support. "I thought we'd lost him!"

"No, he's right where we left him." 

"We came in the house every day to feed him but I never saw him." 

"That's his normal. He's not fond of people. Us included," I said explaining the odd psychology of our house pet. 

"Oh," she said sympathy oozing from her pores for us.

Once Norma had left the house, Jackson slunk out from his hiding place, he rubbed up against my legs, circling them then stopped to stand with his paw on my foot, then he repeated the dance with Mr. Wonderful and his foot. At the time it seemed to me that during those six days of our absence Jackson feared that we were gone and he would be on his own. Again. Then it must have hit him that he would miss us playing the ribbon and the stick game with him, miss us petting him, miss our bodies being furniture for him to lounge all over like a polka-dotted feather boa.

However this pool experience was different. After it, he'd become outright affectionate. Purring, wanting to be petted at many and various times of the day, holding my hand. (Okay that last one is a stretch, but he does put his paw on my hand now!) It reminds me of what they call the "White Knight Syndrome", which is when a rescued person falls in love with the person who rescued him. Perhaps we were Jackson's White Knights? Perhaps he now knew that we were his White Knights? And perhaps he knew that we knew that he knew that we were his White Knights?

Regardless, the White Knight Syndrome must have started while we were in Seattle when he realized that he'd miss us if we never came back and he lived on without us. Meanwhile while in the pool struggling for one of his nine lives, maybe Jackson realized that this time he could be the one to go and never come back; that we'd continue fixing up this house, drinking wine and coping with the neighbors but Jackson just… wouldn't. Following this realization through--if cats could do this--and since cats in videos can get 16 million views on youtube, I think they can do more than we give them credit for. Anyway, following this realization through, meant that Jackson wouldn't get any more petting or playing or catnip-induced good times racing around the kitchen.

I think his realizations after his dunk in the pool caused Jackson to die a little inside. But it also caused him to live and love a little more, too. Now he seemed to embrace living and interacting with us, which was a good thing. Or at least he stopped being a pain in the neck for his White Knights, which was a great thing.

Any way you look at it, water helped. Yep, we should have tossed him in the drink months ago. Ah, live and learn!

Anna Faris and Chris Pratt Sell Hollywood Hills House

SELLER: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,295,000
SIZE: 2,563 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only a few weeks ago that Your Mama let the cat out of the celebrity real estate bag about married comedic actors Anna Faris and Chris Pratt dropping $3,300,000 to acquire a three bedroom and 3.5 bathroom mock-Med mini-estate in the Hollywood Hills from Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and his actress missus Jolene Blalock.

The couple have now hoisted their previous home, a 1950s modern ranch-style home on the open market with a $2,295,000 price tag. The house is, literally, across the street from their new house so iffin they wanted they could have schlepped their belongings from old house to new house with little more than a dolly and a couple of shopping carts temporarily pinched from Bristol Farms on Sunset.

This is not, bless her real estate heart, the first time Miz Faris has attempted to sell this particular house. Back in December 2007 she and her then first husband, actor Ben Indra, listed the house for $1,995,000, the exact same amount they paid for the place in November 2005. We don't know the details of their settlement but several sources confirmed to Your mama that Miz Faris got the house in the divorce.

Whatever the case, current listing details show the 2,563 square foot single story residence sits a bit above the quiet and little-known cul-de-sac street on an up sloping, .87 acre lot in the lower Nichols Canyon area. There are three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.

A quickie comparison with the old listing photos show there have been a number cosmetic changes and at least one major alteration since Miz Faris last had the house on the market: Although the 1980s gold-veined mirror remains in place, he previously lime green and avocado-colored powder pooper was painted white—as were the previously charcoal colored kitchen cabinets—and the master bathroom was gutted.

Also markedly different is the day-core. Gone is the spare, mid-century modern dining room set and vamoosed was the low-slung sectional sofa and the burled wood and Lucite coffee table in the living room. In its stead is now the ho-hum handiwork of Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota who stripped away every last vestige of decorative personality and replaced it with the sort of things designed not to offend anyone who might be offended by outspoken decorative choices.

Instead of a proper front hall, the front door opens directly into a large living room with chatoyant hardwood floors, unfortunately low ceilings, an oddly intrusive fireplace, and wonderful floor-to-ceiling, wood-framed windows and doors that open to the swimming pool and look out to a close up view of the steep and verdant hillside behind the house.

A small, "formal" dining area adjoins the living room and connects through to a decent-sized kitchen equipped with simple, eggshell-colored cabinetry, mottled brown and black granite counter tops, and top quality stainless steel appliances. In the space where the architect probably intended a breakfast table to be set up there's a gigantic, built-in butcher block topped work island and a pantry cabinet that sadly stops just short of the ceiling and doesn't quite extend from wall to wall. Your Mama could happily live without the greenhouse window over the sink since we have an innate detestation for them.

The wood floors extend into the step-down master bedroom has that has at least one rustic wood beam that runs across the ceiling, a bank of glass doors that open to a small stone-walled terrace, and a walk-in dressing room with enclosed cabinetry. The newly renovated bathroom was outfitted with a custom double vanity and a party-sized, marble-lined and sky-lit steam shower. Both of the guest/family bedrooms also open through wood-framed sliding glass doors to small, (semi-)private patios.

Although it appears to Your Mama that a supermodel slim terrace runs along the back of the house that connects the kitchen (and bedrooms) to the swimming pool, the most direct route is through the living room. The shady-looking oasis has organic flag stone terracing, a lagoon-ish swimming pool, at least three built-in fire pits, and a whole lotta Asian-infused tropical rain forest type landscaping. A steep stairway of railroad ties zig-zags up the hillside behind the house and swimming pool to a flat pad with a Bocce court surrounded by a flag stone terracing with multiple seating areas and canyon views.

listing photos: John Aaroe Group

Monday Morsel: Dmitry Rybolovlev

In 2008 Russian fertilizer plutocrat Dmitry Rybolovlev paid blowhard billionaire Donald Trump an astonishing $95,000,000 for Maison de L'Amitie, a 33,000+ square foot mega-mansion on 6.26  acres with 475 feet of ocean frontage in famously snooty Palm Beach, FL.

Since his much publicized acquisition, according to South Florida gossip Jose Lambiet, Mister Rybolovlev has been inside the meretriciously opulent convention center-sized house "once or twice" and now plans to tear it down by the end of this year because it is—so the stories go—riddled with mold.

What exactly Mister Rybolovlev plans to do seems to be up in the air. Could be he'll replace the existing residence with an even bigger monument to his extreme wealth or—as was speculated by an unidentified source in Mister Lambiet's report—he could try to subdivide the property "into as many as a dozen large beachfront lots."

It was Mister Rybolovlev—or his now 24 year old daughter, Ekaterina, depending on who you as or what you read—who in 2011 shelled out a shocking $88,000,000 for financier Sandy Weill's posh penthouse apartment at 15 Central Park West in New York City and who reportedly agreed to pay Greek shipping heiress Athina Onassis Roussell $154,000,000 for the the legendary Greek island of Skorpios and the smaller neighboring island of Sparti.

photo: Bing

Monday Morsel: X-Tina Aguilera

After a couple years on the market pop music provocateur Christina Aguilera finally sold her extravagantly decorated and gleefully garnished Beverly Hills mansion—the one she bought from Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne in 2007 for $11.5 million—in late April (2013) for exactly $11,500,000.

The buyer of the 11,571 square foot mock-Med mansion, according to Yolanda Yakketyyak—and confirmed with property records—is 30-something year old Chinese actress Miao Pu. That name won't ring many bells for readers of western celebrity gossip glossies but in China, children, she is unequivocally Show Business royalty.

Does this mean Miss Pu wants to make a run at Hollywood fame and fortune? We shall see, won't we?

Miz Aguilera decamped to a big new crib in the guard gated Mulholland Estates community in Beverly Hills/Sherman Oaks where some of her new neighbors include Paris Hilton, Vanna White, Charlie Sheen and British pop star Robbie Williams

photo: Pacific Coast News

Monday Morsel: Leroy Schecter

Last August, amid a flurry of reports by property gossips on both coasts and around the world, steel magnate Leroy Schecter wanted $95,000,000 for his not yet fully-combined two-unit combo-condo at the hideously high-priced 15 Central Park West building in New York City. He hacked the price to $85 million in early April (2013) before he took it off the market a few weeks later.

The 35th floor aerie is back on the market for $85 million but it's also, as first reported in  the New York Observer, up for grabs as a rental for a throat constricting $125,000 per month. The now combined, suburban macmansion-sized apartment has, according to the floor plan included with current online listings, 4-5 bedrooms and five full and two half bathrooms plus four park-facing rooms (living, dining, library, master bedroom), three exposures (east, south and west), two laundry rooms, and more than a dozen closets—many of them walk-ins.

Mister Schecter, a well-known real estate baller, was recently outed as the $25 million buyer of the 11,000-plus square foot Rothschild mansion on E. 70th Street. The octogenarian real estate baller also owns a train station sized water front mansion with 7 bedrooms and 14 toilets on the prestigious, guard-gated Indian Creek Island in Miami Beach that he listed in May, 2012 for $45 million and reduced in May, 2013 to a still sky-high $42 million.

floor plan: CORE

Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig Sell in Santa Monica

SELLERS: Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig

LOCATION: Santa Monica, CA
PRICE: $6,900,000

SIZE: 4,584 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.75 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Actor/producer/director Ken Olin and three-time Emmy-winning actress Patricia Wettig seem to be a real rarity in Tinseltown. Not only have they been married—to each other—for more than 30 years, they frequently work together (Brothers & Sisters, Alias, thirtysomething) and they've owned and occupied the same historic house in Santa Monica, CA since 1995 when they acquired the early 20th century center hall Colonial Revival residence for an undisclosed amount of money.

While their marriage seems solid they recently decided to sell their Santa Monica home of 15-plus years. Online resources indicate the now 50- and 60-something year old former thirtysomething actors first put their sophisticated spread for sale in early April (2013) with a celebrity-sized $6.9 million asking price. The property was quickly put into escrow with an unknown buyer at an unknown price but, alas, the deal was not consummated and the house was returned to the open market over the weekend with its original $6.9 million price tag.

Listing details reveal the residence was designed by distinguished L.A. architects Sumner Hunt and Silas Burns and built in 1913 for Thomas C. Bundy, the fourth son and scion of a prominent property developing Santa Monica family. T.C. Bundy was three-time national double tennis champion turned real estate developer who who founded the Los Angeles Tennis Club and developed L.A.'s Miracle Mile District and parts of Sherman Oaks.

The 4,584 square foot main residence occupies a flat, .4 acre double wide corner property and, although substantially updated and upgraded, retains much of it's original detailing: plaster moldings, leaded windows and built-in cabinetry. There are, according to listing details, four bedrooms and 3.75 bathrooms plus a separate guest house with an additional bathroom.

Pale blond original wood floors run throughout the main living spaces that include a generous foyer and a roomy formal living room with multi-pane casement windows, built-in book cases, a wood burning fireplace, and French doors that lead out to a walled dining terrace. There's a second fireplace in the formal dining room where a massive, original built-in hutch is smartly balanced with an austere white oval dining table and eight iconic Hans Wegner chairs.

The spacious eat-in kitchen has a vintage vibe but is fully souped for modern living with crisp white custom cabinetry, top quality stainless steel appliances, and a chunky butcher block topped center island with two-stool snack and booze counter. The kitchen adjoins a good-sized breakfast room with built-in cabinetry as well as a large family room with paneled wainscoting painted a subtle shade of gray, over-sized multi-pane windows, and a third, corner fireplace. Also in the general vicinity of the kitchen, according to marketing materials, are an office and an enclosed porch.

The sun-flooded second floor master suite has more wood floors, high ceilings, two closets and a vintage-style attached bathroom with a sarcophagi-style soaking tub set into a windowed niche lined with gray-grouted off-set subway tiles.

The backyard is a fantasia of mature trees and flowering shrubbery, numerous terraces, at least one fountain, and a pergola shaded dining area and lounge with outdoor fireplace. The dark-bottomed swimming pool is solar heated, according to listing information.

Your Mama's research reveals that in addition to their home base in Santa Monica, Mister Olin and Miz Wettig also own a modestly scaled if hardly inexpensive home in the Hamptons where they bought a 1.5 acre parcel in May 2006 for $800,000 and in 2008 they complete the custom build out of a contemporary residence with 3,239 square feet and a lap lane swimming pool.

Property records show the Olin-Wettigs share a long, private driveway with two other larger but remarkably similarly contemporary residences. As it turns out one of the houses is owned by two-time Tony winning Broadway actor and director Joe Mantello (Angels in America, Take Me Out, Wicked, Assassins) Property records suggest the other is co-owned by Mister Mantello's former long-time man-mate, Pulitzer prize nominated playwright (A Fair Country) and screenwriter (Brothers & Sisters) Jon Baitz, and Tony winning and Emmy nominated actor Ron Rifkin (Brothers & Sisters, Alias, Law & Order: SVU) and his wife Iva Rifkin.

listing photos: Teles Properties