The Farrell Residence by Ehrlich Architects, on Saturday’s tour

VENICE: This weekend’s the thirty-fourth annual Venice Art Walk & Auctions, and for the first year, the art auction (on Sunday) will be held at Google’s Frank Gehry-designed binoculars building. Tomorrow, there’ll be an architecture tour focusing on the section east of Lincoln and including the Huguette Caland Residence and Studio, which has just one interior door. On Sunday, the arch tours continue in the area between Pacific and Abbot Kinney. There’s all kinds of other stuff going on too, and it all benefits the Venice Family Clinic. All the info is here. [Curbed Inbox]

BEL AIR: A judge has turned down the chance to stop UCLA from selling its Hannah Carter Japanese Garden in Bel Air, blocking a request for a temporary restraining order against the sale (the request was part of a lawsuit to stop the sale altogether). However, UCLA is going to extend the bidding period for the property, from May 22 until August 15. The garden (and its adjacent house) were gifts from former UC Regent Edward Carter; the school is trying to sell both properties “to fund the professorships and other academic endowments specified by Regent Carter.” [UCLA Newsroom]

Curbed LA

2674 sqft, 3 beds, 2.5 baths, single-family home in Los Angeles, CA – CBS Television City
Trulia Real Estate Search – Los Angeles

Beverly Hills’s requested meeting with Metro officials over their plans to tunnel underneath Bev Hills High School–in order to construct a centrally-located Century City station on the Purple Line extension–took place yesterday. It initially appeared to be a dry affair, with attorneys and engineers discussing soil samples and science class stuff–but there was some major takeaway, according to coverage from the Beverly Hills Patch. Firstly, BH officials, who oppose the tunnel underneath the school and want a station on Santa Monica Blvd., argue that Metro’s science is flawed. Metro wants a station at Constellation Ave. and says a stop on SMB doesn’t only not make sense from a ridership standpoint (it would be across from a golf course), but that it also sits on an active earthquake fault. BH’s team, including engineer Timothy Buresh, says SMB has no active faults and argued that the ridership would indeed be better on the boulevard (salty County Supervisor and Metro Board Member Zev Yaroslavsky took Buresh to task, asking the engineer why he was ok with the California high-speed rail project going under schools, but not LA’s Purple Line). Beverly Hills is trying to make the point that if Metro’s team is wrong about SMB, then they’re wrong to imply that tunneling under BHHS is safe. BH says they have three other routes picked out for a Century City station that wouldn’t require tunneling under the school, though what they are isn’t clear (and the city assuming the role of transit planner seems pretty bizarre).

County Supervisor Michael Antonovich represents the suburban and rural northern portions of LA County. He is also a Metro board member and longtime critic of the Purple Line extension. This is what he had to say yesterday: “The mayor and his friends are trying to jam through an alignment that does not meet the needs of the community,” he told City News Service. “We have alternative alignments that are being presented today that need to be considered.”

While most other people on the board are supportive of moving fast on the subway and not acquiescing to BH’s every demand, Antonovich will assume the role of Metro board chair on July 1–that’s the board’s most powerful role, and one held now by Mayor Villaraigosa.

The mayor didn’t respond to Antonovich’s statements. To avoid obstruction on Antonovich’s part, we would have to guess Metro will approve the entire route of the subway extension to Westwood–including the Constellation stop–at their board meeting on May 24, one week and one day about one month before Antonovich takes over. Yesterday’s hearing ran so long, that public comment on it will have to wait until next week’s board meeting.

As far as Beverly Hills suing, it’s mostly a foregone conclusion. They threatened to do so if any route for the subway goes under the school. Since the subway to La Cienega was certified at the last board meeting, the lawsuits over Century City will hopefully not hold up early construction, which is supposed to start next year.
· Experts Emphasize Flaws in Metro’s Findings [BH Patch]
· 90210′s Way or the Highway Archives [Curbed LA]

Curbed LA

SELLER: Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas
LOCATION: Westport, CT
PRICE: $ 27,500,000
SIZE: 8,617 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We first caught wind of this a couple weeks ago from Westport Willie but didn’t have any meat on the matter until yesterday when both Westport Willie and Westport Wanda let us know iconic former chat show pioneer Phil Donahue and That Girl wife Marlo Thomas heaved their very East Coast-y waterfront estate in Westport, CT on the open market with an asking price of $ 27,500,000.

Property records we peeped aren’t entirely clear but it appears to Your Mama that Mister Donahue and Miz Thomas picked up the two (or more) parcels that make up their now-for-sale estate in February 2006 for an undisclosed amount of dough.

Listing information is somewhat slim on the details but does indicate the Donahue-Thomas’s waterfront spread spans 6.56 acres and has a gated, 420-foot long driveway that cuts through the sylvan property and leads to front and rear motor courts where there’s garage space for 4 cars. The main house, an 8,716 square foot cedar-shingled rambler built brand new in 2007, has 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms and at least 3 fireplaces. An octagonal guest structure up near the entry gates houses a fitness facility and a gazebo down by the water’s edge is probably a nice place to sit back with a big bag of penny candy and a Percival Everett novel.

Other amenities listed on marketing materials include an elevator, security system, wet bar, multi-zoned heating and cooling systems, skylight(s), 9-plus-foot ceilings, office/computer room, partly finished full basement and second floor master suite with fireplace, hardwood floors, walk-in closet, whirlpool tub and vaulted ceiling. Taxes are shown on listing information at a mouth-drying $ 211,330 per year.

Mister Donahue and Miz Thomas used to live in the 17-room Tudor-style mansion next door which they sold to financial and political worlds mover and shaker Herbert M. Allison Jr. in spring 2006 for, according to property records and previous reports, $ 25,000,000.

Other residents of the swanky seaside lane include Harvey Weinstein, billionaire hedge funder Marc Lasry, legally embattled financier Rajat Gupta, and controversial radio shock-jock Don Imus who’s had his waterfront mansion on and off the market for years with asking prices as high as $ 30,000,000 and as low as it’s current price tag of $ 19,900,000.

listing photos: Nicholas Fingelly Real Estate

The Real Estalker

3834 sqft, 4 beds, 4.5 baths, single-family home in Los Angeles, CA – Glassell Park
Trulia Real Estate Search – Los Angeles

LITTLE OSAKA: There’s a great addition coming to the Sawtelle stretch in Nongla, a cozy Vietnamese spot. The restaurant’s a family affair, with recipes from the homeland. Swing by for the opening on May 20 for your dose of spring rolls and pho.

DOWNTOWN: Talk about an upgrade: Industriel has opened in a former Carl’s Jr. space near Sixth and Grand. The two-story restaurant looks like a beaut. Soft opening is on, with an official ribbon-cutting set for tomorrow night’s dinner. Food is described as thus: “urban farm cuisine meets country French eatery.”

ECHO PARK: Señor Fish expands into Echo Park with a new eatery on Sunset, near Echo Park Avenue. Now soft open, the latest SF was delayed for months because of permit issues.

CULVER CITY: The well-regarded Cognoscenti Coffee will open up its first brick and mortar at the bottom of Clive Wilkinson Architects’s new mixed-use complex on Washington, not too far from the Expo Line station. Expect more changes on this stretch of Washington.
· Eater LA [Official Site]

Curbed LA