Hump Day Hodgepodge: Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi

Buckle yer celebrity real estate safety belts, butter beans, because famously property fickle Ellen Degeneres and wife Portia de Rossi are at it again. According to gossip juggernaut TMZ the acquired a $26.5 million dollar estate in the exceptionally prosperous California seaside enclave of Montecito.

What TMZ did not reveal is that the high-maintenance estate with its exceptional, stone built 1929 Italianate villa was previously owned by legendary decorator John Saladino. Your Mama discussed the elegant spread back in August 2010 when Mister Saladino first heaved the two pacel property—which he called his "opus"—on the open market with an asking price of $24,500,000.

Property records show Mister Saladino sold the 13-plus acre, two-parcel property in March 2012 at a steep discount off asking for $16,500,000 to American-born and New Zealand-based corporate businessman Tom Sturgess and his wife Heather. The Sturgesses sold the house and its 9.9 acre parcel to a trust connected to Missus Degeneres and de Rossi but—as of this instant—we haven't yet uncovered a recorded sale price.

A second, 3.18 acre lot that Mister Saladino sold to Mister and Missus Sturgess does not appear, according to the property record data bases we accessed, to have been transferred to the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi.*

Listing details from 2010 up show the 13 acre ocean view estate includes a completely updated and upgraded 10,522 square foot main house with six bedrooms, six full and two half bathrooms and nine fireplaces. The mansion oozes with earthy Tuscan character that's juxtaposed against sleek and modern, bathrooms, kitchen and laundry facilities. Numerous loggias and terraces extend the indoors to the out and the extensive, painstakingly groomed grounds include a swimming pool set into a flat lawn with a long view over the tree tops and mansions to the Pacific Ocean.

This is not, as avid celebrity real estate watchers well know, the Missus Degeneres-deRossi's first home in Montecito. In early 2006 they paid $15,750,000 for a downright impeccable George Washington Smith designed estate that—as they're prone to do—they flipped back on the market less than a year later for $24,000,000. They sold the property in November 2007 for $20,000,000 to multi-billionaire Eric Schmidt, currently the executive chairman of Google.

The Missus Degeneres-de Rossi's property portfolio currently includes—but may not be limited to—an iconic mid-century modern in the Trousdale Estates section of Beverly Hills and a 26-acre, multi-residence equestrian ranch near Thousand Oaks, CA that they've had on and off the market for years.

Miz Degeneres and Miz de Rossi have bought and sold a slew of properties including—but not limited to—a couple of ranches in the Santa Ynez Valley and a bluff-top beach house in Malibu they bought from Brad Pitt and quickly flipped for a million more than they paid. And, of course, they compiled the multi-residence compound above Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills that they sold at a staggering multi-million dollar loss last year for $39,500,000 to Ryan Seacrest.

NOTE TO THE CHILDREN: Listing photos here show the house as it was gussied up by Mister Saladino. It's not known—not to Your Mama, anyways—if Mister and Missus Sturgess purchased and/or retained Mister Saladino's decorating handiwork.

*That does not mean the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi did not also buy the smaller 3.18 parcel. It could be that the transfer records simply have not been recoreded. Or it could mean Mister and Missus Sturgess opted to keep it or sell it separately. Time will tell...

listing photos: Village Properties 

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Rupert Murdoch

Somehow Your Mama missed all the hullaballo and brouhaha about legally embattled bazillionaire Rupert Murdoch revealing via his Twitter feed that he'd snatched up Moraga Vineyards in the uppity L.A. community of Bel Air, one of the few commercial vineyards in the City of Los Angeles. It's not yet been revealed how much Mister Murdoch paid for the spread that was last listed for $29.5 millon.

The octogenarian media tycoon reportedly became interested in the vineyard estate that sprawls over rolling hillsides in the heart of an affluent enclave after reading about it in the Wall Street Journal, which, of course, he owns.

As was noted in Mister Murdoch's tweet, the approximately 16-acre estate and its 13-ish acres of grapevines has been owned since 1959 by Tom Jones. No, children, not the famously hirsute Welsh singer Tom Jones but rather the much more staid aeronautical engineer Tom Jones who, until the late 1980s, was the CEO of aircraft manufacturer Northrop Corporation for 30 years.

The vineyard property occupies a former horse ranch once owned by Victor Fleming, the stuntman turned Oscar winning director of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.

Although the gated estate includes a roomy 7,724 square foot single story residence with three bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, plus an additional two bedroom guest house and 4,400 square foot office building, it seems highly unlikely Mister Murdoch and his much younger, wickedly smart and fearsomely feisty wife Wendi Deng will move in since they already own an even more spectacular, horseshoe-shaped Wallace Neff-designed hacienda style mansion perched on a snaking ridge line high above Beverly Hills.

listing photos: Surterre Properties

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Mindy Kaling

As was first revealed this week by the long-legged blond at Trulia Luxe Living, sitcom star and comedic wunderkind Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project, The Office) coughed up $1.695 for a hardcore fixer upper on a winding cul-de-sac in the so-called Bird Streets 'hood above L.A.'s famed Sunset Strip.  Listing details we dug up on the internets show the property has "significant upside potential" and is blessed with bird's eye view all the way to—and on a clear day beyond—the small knot of sky scrapers that comprise Century City.

Listing details show the existing two-story residence has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms jam-packed in to a modest 1,599 square feet. Even more notable then the house—Your Mama has to assume Miss Kaling will significantly alter and expand if not entirely replace with something more suitably luxurious for a celebrity of her station—is the heart racing and glutially murderous amount of stairs required to get from the street level driveway and garage to the house itself that's perched high, high, high up a seriously steep hillside.

Miz Kaling continues to own a restored Spanish Revival bungalow with four bedrooms and three bathrooms near The Grove and Farmer's Market that property records show she picked up in 2007 for $1.575 million.

listing photos: Nicholas Property Group

Hump Day Hodgepodge: Michael C. Hall

Last June Your Mama discussed an architecturally pedigreed contemporary residence in the star-studded Outpost Estates neighborhood in Los Angeles owned by seven-time Emmy nominated actor Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Six Feet Under) and then listed on the open market for $1,995,000. The red-bearded star of stage and screen sold the four bedroom and four bathroom house in August (2012) for $1,837,500, according to property records, to globe-trotting British supper club queen Tamsin Lonsdale.

This week word slipped down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Mister Hall shelled out $3,825,000 for an fully rehabbed two story 1923 Spanish Colonial casa in the celebrity friendly Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.*

Listing details show the main house has four en suite bedrooms (plus a staff room) and six bathrooms. A separate, detached guesthouse provides at least one more bedroom, a living room and a bathroom.

Other creature comforts of the walled and gated mini-estate include spacious living and dining rooms, a high quality center island kitchen with adjoining eating and lounge areas, and a state-of-the-art media room with fireplace that appears to be in the basement.

The .35 acre spread offers numerous outdoor lounging areas both in the front and in the back plus a swimming pool and a recently constructed over-sized two car garage at the tail end of a long concrete driveway.

*Mister Hall's new house happens to be almost directly across the street from the double-gated mini-estate hospital drama queen Kate Walsh recently put (back) on the market two weeks ago for $4,750,000 and already has in escrow with an as-yet unidentified buyer.

listing photos: Everett Fenton Gidley for Sotheby's International Realty