SELLER: Some say it’s Tom Cruise, but y’all should be skeptical of that
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $ 28,000,000
SIZE: 8,300 square feet, 6 bedrooms,

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In 2009 property gossips in New York City and around the globe went plain ol’ berserk over the wildfire celebrity real estate rumor that Tom Cruise and his then third and now ex wife Katie Cruise just might be the mysterious buyers who shelled out $ 15,075,000 for a stunning six floor townhouse on West 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the heart of the Gold Coast in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

The speculation and rumors apparently got started by chit-chatting doormen on the block and they persisted even after both Mister Cruise and Missus Cruise—through their representatives, natch—issued denials of the much-alleged townhouse acquisition. Based on our own research into the scuttlebutt, Your Mama is not now and never was convinced that Mister and ex-Missus Cruise were the real buyers of the elegant1860 townhouse.

Whoever the owner may be, it has come to Your Mama’s attention by way of a short missive from our ever-intrepid aide de camp Hot Chocolate that the townhouse long alleged to have been bought by Mister and ex-Missus Cruist back in 2009 has popped back up on the market with an attention getting $ 28,000,000 price tag, and, well, it’s pretty damn spectacular.

Current listing details show the 21-foot wide and approximately 8,300 square foot townhouse, blessed with a magnificent wrought iron railed stoop, stands six stories above ground with an additional finished basement level below grade. There are a total five terraces, seven working fireplaces, 7.5 bathrooms, state of the art built-in surround sound and humidification systems, and an hydraulic elevator that conveniently services all but the penthouse level.  Listing details show the townhouse was worked over but good by accomplished New York City-based architect Steven Harris.

We counted six bedrooms on the floor plan included with online marketing materials, divvied up as follows: a staff suite with kitchenette and roomy full bathroom on the garden level; two ample, full-width bedrooms on the fifth floor, both with relatively compact windowless en suite facilities; two more smaller bedrooms on the fourth floor, one with small private study and puny bathroom and the other with small private terrace and unexpectedly spacious bathroom; and, finally, the master suite on the third floor that encompasses a full-width bedroom, a large walk-in closet plus additional closet space, and a luxuriously appointed but windowless marble bathroom with double sinks and cramped, windowless crapper cubby. The master bedroom connects through to the upper landing of the townhouse’s rear stairs where French doors open to a terrace that’s probably larger than a typical Greenwich Village studio apartment and the master bathroom has a back door into a street-facing library/private sitting room—also accessible from the stair hall—with built-in bookcases on either side of a fireplace.

The parlor floor hosts the primary public entertaining spaces and includes a vestibule entry and foyer, a cozy front parlor, and, separated by a short gallery that runs behind a well-placed powder pooper and elevator shaft, a more stately-scaled rear parlor. Beyond the rear parlor there’s a sunny sun room that could also be used as a formal dining room or den). On the garden level below, a den—or possible dining room—generously spans the full width of the house and has a could-be-awkward attached three-quarter bathroom. A short corridor links the den/dining room to a top quality double-wide galley kitchen that opens at the back through a bank of French doors to a slender garden/terrace that wraps around to an interior courtyard nestled in between the kitchen and the den/dining room.

A glassed in solarium on the penthouse level opens on opposites ends through vast panels of glass to a pair decks that have been well planted for privacy. The smaller, south-facing street-side deck is equipped with an enclosed outdoor shower and—buckle your safety belts for this one—a partially sunken Japanese soaking tub for which Your Mama is living, hunties, living. Not because we like to sit like stew meat in a vat of near boiling water—we decidedly don’t—but but The Dr. Cooter sure does, and on a regular basis. Had we a Redwood number like this on a drop-dead deck like that we might never have packed our bags and headed west. Anyways…

Whether Tom Cruise actually owns this show stopping townhouse or—as Your Mama thinks—it’s owned by a much less famous but even richer businessman, it’s a stunner sure to be a hot property, don’tcha think? Fer chrissakes, kids, about the only thing that might make this place better, really, would be a private garage. And, seriously, a person could suffocate holding their breath for an 8,000-plus square foot townhouse with a mid-block location on a prime street in the Greenwich Village Gold Coast with a private garage, you know? All real estate is a compromise even if it cost $ 28,000,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens
The Real Estalker

BALDWIN HILLS: The Baldwin Hills Scenice Overlook gets its very own experimental music composition sound., debuting this Sunday at (obvs) the BHSO. The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound commissioned the piece by Australia and Norway-based MURAL, who will perform with a group of local musicians (and a fellow from South Carolina). More info here. [Curbed Inbox]

LOS ANGELES: This morning, City Councilmember Tom LaBonge declared John Parkinson Day, in honor of the great Los Angeles architect who designed the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Union Station, Bullock’s Wilshire, and City Hall. Parkinson was from Britain originally and his day coincides with BritWeek; author Stephen Gee will also be leading John Parkinson tours as part of the festivities. [Curbed Inbox]

Curbed LA

SELLER: Steve Cohen
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $ 115,000,000
SIZE: 9,000 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms (plus 2 bedroom and 1 bathrooms staff suite)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week Your Mama briefly discussed the art buying real estate doings of legally embattled billionaire financier Steve Cohen (last item) who just forked over $ 60,000,000 to buy a 6.5 acre ocean front spread in East Hampton (NY) that happens to be located just a couple doors down from the non-beach front house he already owns.

In our uncharacteristically brief discussion we repeated the much reported upper end celebrity real estate scuttlebutt about the multi-billionaire and his second wife Alexandra quietly shopping his duplex penthouse in Manhattan off market with an electrifying (and publicity ensuring) $ 115 million price tag.

Mister and Missus Cohen—who combined have seven children, four together, two from his previous marriage and one from hers—purchased the unusually spacious penthouse in 2005 for around $ 24,000,000. They engaged the no doubt hideously expensive services of now-deceased super-starchitect Charles Gwathmey who transformed the nearly 9,000 square foot glass-wrapped aerie into a sleek machine for urban living high atop the Bloomberg Tower/One Beacon Court building, one of Midtown Manhattan’s most dynamic and expensive mixed-use towers.

The floor plan include with current listing details shows Mister and Missus Cohen’s dazzling penthouse has a foyer the size of a corporate reception area that leads directly into a vast, 45-foot long combination living and dining room wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows filled with the exact sort of panoramic city views that urban real estate dreams are sometimes woven. There’s a built-in buffet in the dining area, a 24-foot double height ceiling over the living room area and a wavy wall behind which Mister Gwathmey tucked an unusually large two-room powder pooper with a circular throne room. We have no idea what the man-statue is doing in the corner but we can all assume it cost Mister and Missus Cohen more than Your Mama’s BMW and its shadow would scare the tarnation right out of us on a boozy, woozy and dimly lit night.

Just off the main entrance Mister Gwathmey installed a two-room office suite with built-in desk and cabinetry and a separate, paneled reception room/lounge with full wet bar (sink, fridge, ice maker and wine fridge).

More casual, family quarters include a media room with over-sized t.v. set into a custom entertainment center and a colossal eat-in kitchen with breathtaking corner dining area and an almost entirely stainless steel center island kitchen with extra-thick slab stone counter tops. The refrigerators and freezers are located in a vestibule just off the kitchen where there’s also a walk-in pantry that makes Your Mama swoon with envy.

Official online marketing materials show the penthouse has a total of six bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, including the two bedrooms and one bathroom in the staff wing tucked up behind the media room on the lower level. A private guest wing on the upper level has a private den, a dry bar, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, loads of closet space and at least two televisions. A third guest bedroom with private bathroom (and television) opens off the upper level gallery as does the laundry room and the expansive master suite that includes a private sitting room (with t.v.), home office (with t.v. and wall of windows that overlooks the double height living room below), 28-plus foot bedroom (with yet another t.v.), two fitted closets and dressing rooms and a pair of bathrooms slathered in slabs of richly veined white statuary marble.

There is not, as far as we can see or surmise from listing details, even an inch of outdoor space.

Monthly maintenance and taxes ring up to a stomach churning $ 24,783, according to current listing information. That means Mister and Missus Cohen cough up $ 297,396 a year for their mansion-sized Manhattan penthouse pied-a-terre not counting maid service, repairs, upgrades and etc., an amount Your Mama’s bejeweled abacus determined would take a New York State minimum wage worker a bit more than 1,025 weeks (or nearly 20 years) to earn.

In addition to his no-longer-wanted duplex penthouse atop One Beacon Court and his two houses in East Hampton, Mister Cohen’s residential property portfolio bulges with an 8-story townhouse in the West Village he picked up last year for $ 38,000,000 and a self-contained, 17-plus acre compound-estate in Greenwich, CT with a multi-winged 35,000-plus square foot red brick Georgian mega-mansion, guard house, extensive formal gardens, a tennis court, private golf green, a monolithic Richard Serra sculpture next to the motor court. Property records show Mister and Missus Cohen also own the 4.5 acre spread next door that they bought in June 2006 for $ 5,000,000 and subsequently built a brand new residence with seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms in just over 7,900 square feet. We have no idea why Mister and Missus Cohen would need another 8,000 square foot house right next to their already gargantuan 35,000-plus square foot mansion, but such are the sometimes inexplicable real estate ways of the super rich, right?

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran
The Real Estalker

The city is trying to offload a 100-year-old wooden wagon wheel and axle that it found at the bottom of Echo Park Lake during its recent draining (It “might have been part of a wagon used during the construction of the lake or for other neighborhood purposes”). So far they’ve found no takers among organizations that might like a nice historical artifact; they’re hoping to get rid of it by the end of the week. [Eastsider LA, image via, previously]

Curbed LA

The mixed-use Blossom Plaza project in Chinatown is seeing a little more forward motion this week, after two years of quiet (save for a tentative mid-2013 start date announcement). On today’s City Council agenda is a report from the LA Housing Department (pdf) requesting permission to commit to funding the project with $ 5.3 million from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Developer Forest City and the city of LA are still working out terms of FC’s lease for the site, but this is another sign that the project really might be back from the dead, again. All told, Blossom Plaza will have 240 apartments, 53 of which will be classed as affordable. The transit-oriented development will also include a cultural plaza, 175 parking spaces for the adjacent Gold Line stop, bike amenities, and an enhanced bus shelter. In addition to Blossom Plaza, the Housing Department is also seeking to commit to funding phase two of the Linda Vista Hospital redevelopment in Boyle Heights, which will have 97 senior housing units, and the Navy Village development on the Harbor City/San Pedro border, which will provide 74 two-bedroom apartments for homeless families.
· Council Transmittal from Los Angeles Housing Department (pdf) [City Clerk]
· Blossom Plaza Archives [Curbed LA]

Curbed LA

COMPTON: Compton’s cool City Hall (designed by Harold L. Williams and built in 1977) just got a lickety-split energy efficiency upgrade–historic preservation consultants Chattel, Inc. replaced 40 to 50 window panels a day from November through December 14 last year, sliding in just before the December 31 Department of Energy deadline. The new windows are the same thickness and color as the old ones, but have glazing that helps cut down on heating and cooling. Chattel also found that the building is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as “the finest building” by Williams (who was mentored by fellow African-American architect Paul R. Williams, but no relation). [Curbed Inbox]

LOS FELIZ: The Lower Reach River Supply Conduit Improvement Project strikes again! The reservoir-replacement work that’s been driving Silver Lakers nutty is shutting down Zoo Drive through Griffith Park (from the LA Live Steamers Railroad Museum to Riverside Drive) from today through June. All the attractions will stay open and there’ll be a 12-foot-wide lane for pedestrians, bikers, and emergency vehicles. Here’s a map of the closure. [Curbed Inbox]

Curbed LA

CENTURY CITY: The Westfield Century City parking structure, one of the few in the area that offers free parking, will switch to an hourly fee starting February 1. Parking for up to three hours will be a dollar per hour–after that, it’s a dollar every fifteen minutes and the cost maxes out at $ 24. To get completely validated and free parking from Westfield, you will have to show receipts of $ 250 or more in purchases from that day.

THE GROVE: Topshop has announced that its LA flagship shop will open at The Grove on February 14 at 4 pm sharp. Expect serious lines and a few famous guests.

MELROSE: The newest shop to open on Melrose Place is Equipment, whose 1,000-square-foot space is filled with dozens of the brand’s pretty, silky button downs. The shirts range in price from $ 198 (for a standard one-pocket) to $ 208 (two pockets); cashmere costs a bit more at $ 298 to $ 338.
· Racked LA [Official Site]

Curbed LA