Sunday, January 30, 2011

Weekend Wrap Up

1.
American ex-pat actor Johnny Depp and his French baby momma Vanessa Paridis are reported to have picked up the Palazzo Donà Sangiantoffetti that overlooks the Grand Canal in Venice. Mister Depp, who reportedly outbid an Arab royal, paid around £8,580,000 for the fixer upper. That's 13,599,800 at today's rate in American dollars.

2.
Did y'all know that tennis queen Venus Williams thinks she's a decorator?

3.
New York Yankee Derek Jeter's new department store-sized mega-mansion on the Davis Islands in Tampa, FL is finished and, hunnies, it's an architectural damn doozy, a real hot mess of the highest magnitude.

4.
The art- and book-filled Upper East Side penthouse of legendary New York City restaurateur Elaine Kaufman has hit the market with an asking price of $2,995,000. The petite two bedroom and 2.5 pooper penthouse has a wood burning fireplace in the living room, a gigantic wrap around terrace and is so far east it might as well be Brooklyn.

We are definitely not down with Miz Kaufman's choice of Southwestern print sofas in the living room, but we'd probably walk buck-nekkid through a ring of fire for the abstract impressionist painting in the dining room and we suffer even greater humiliation for the painting in the entrance hall that may or may not be a Franz Kline.

Ms. Kaufman's eponymous restaurant on Second Avenue near 88th Street has been a mecca and institution for the literati, glitterati and celebrati for decades.

5.
The folks at Curbed had a little conference call chit-chat this week with the real estate boys from Million Dollar Listing. The season 4 premiere is February third. Your Mama is not being paid any money for plugging the show–hello!–but we did get an invite to the premiere party and plan to drink our payment in numerous gin & tonics at the open bar.

17 comments:

lil' gay boy said...

Great wrap up!

1). Bigger-than-life palazzo, pint-sized buyer. But hey, if he's willing to throw down a sizable chunk o' cash for a Venetian fixer-upper, he can almost be forgiven for The Tourist... almost.

2). Unnecessarily nasty; we've all seen much worse here ––– much, much worse. At least she's proven she can successfully copy a Smith+Hawken catalog.

3). Was that Davis Island or Devil's Island? As an out-sized contemporary, it was just an exercise in ego-stroking vulgarity. As a faux English country house on the Florida coast, it's an incomprehensible shiteosity.

4). Fabulous floor plan with a more-than-generous terrace, a WBF, and the all important location in the 80s. If you threw in the books & artwork, I wouldn't care if the sofas were upholstered in bandicoot foreskins...

5). Those ladies need to be taken out to the woodshed & bitch-slapped ––– please.

Anonymous said...

Memo to self:
Do not, repeat NOT, ask any person called Williams to help with the decor.
Never and no time and no way.
The Aussie

Anonymous said...

How much do you think Derek Jeter had to pay whoever gives building permits to have that hideous house approved??? I would die if I was one of his neighbors and had to live next to that monstrosity--and I would imagine Jeter's new house caused the property values to decrease even more than they already had.

Raina Cox said...

Most Marvelous Mama,

Thanks so much for linking to my Venus Williams article!

xoxo,

Raina
If the Lamp Shade Fits

StPaulSnowman said...

LGB. You disappoint! You must have upped your dosage on nice pills. I was counting on you for something more damning about that blasphemous perversion of English architectural elements. At least Mama was merciful in not showing any interior shots.

Anonymous said...

I just quite recently read the 2004 book Everyone Comes to Elaine's and was surprised at what a fun and interesting little read it is. It includes numerous vignettes authored by famous/infamous long-term café habitués. Wish that I'd gone there at least once, but when I used to visit friends in NYC millennia ago in its heyday, they wanted to go to places like Orso and the Odeon. Oh well, sic transit and all that...

Madam Pince said...

Raina, honey, you earned your wings on that V Starr piece. Those Williams girls think way too highly of their (minimal) talents. Wal-Mart has better home decorating displays.

debnurse said...

OMG.....first...does johnny depp have money to throw after money?
what a dump...and "on the grand canal" so every tourist can be looking at your bizness? I really like the laundry hanging off the neighbor's "terrace" ugh...I will NOT comment on V starr and her decorating skills. I will be nice.
jeter's "house" is a hot mess.

lil' gay boy said...

Snowman,

Sorry to disappoint (nice pills?!? What on earth are those?); I have a wicked cold and am really much too enervated to waste time shredding that eyeball-scratching pile of faux Cotswold crap; Jeter has to live in it, poised between the surprisingly humid 8th & 9th Circles of Hell (Fraud & Treachery), otherwise known as Palmetto Bug Haven... that should be punishment enough in my book.

I can't wait to see how his obligatory "trophy" strewn man cave will turn out, complete with the de rigeur pool table ––– can you say The Accused?

Eww.

Anonymous said...

At first glance I thought Depp's palazzo was next to the place where Wagner died (after a nasty argument with Cosima), but alas although similar, it is not the same place.

To Marky: well if you had gone to Elaine's I doubt you would have gotten anywhere near the celebrities. She put her ordinary customers out in the boondogs of her restaurant. The regulars had tables with seats reserved for them.

Anonymous said...

I think Mr. Jeter should hire Ms. Williams to decorate his hotel, I mean house in Trampa, I mean Tampa. It would complete the look:)

Hot Chocolate said...

nice floor plan on Elaine's place though.....good POOPER PLACEMENT and WINDOWS!!!!

StPaulSnowman said...

LGB; Thanks, now sated, I can get on with my life. This place is tinfoil against a filling. The thought of Palmetto bug in Jeter's Pimms cup is most appealing.

angie said...

Having lived in the vicinity, I have to comment on Jeter's place. What was he thinking? I can assure you there isn't another house in the entire bay area that even remotely resembles that. The front facade is hideous, just hideous.

Footie said...

After seeing the absolutely horrifying building-stage photos of Jeter's house, I'm going to admit that the finished house is not that bad! Don't get me wrong, it's still not good, but I was expecting MUCH worse...

Jeannified said...

Mama, I LOVE Elaine Kaufmann's place...decor and all!!! (My husband teases me and says that I must be Mexican, because I love such bright colors! ;-)

ms_wonderland said...

Depp's purchase of the palazzo has been denied by his rep. If he bought all the houses he's supposedly bought, half the world would be owned by Mr Depp.

The Daily Mail is such a rag, all cut and paste and make the rest up. JD does not own houses in Hawaii and Somerset (UK) either. I actually told Mama about the Somerset rumour a while back, for which I offer humble apologies. Lawd, if Johnny Depp was living down the road from me, I'd have to take to my fainting couch.