LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $600,000
SIZE: 1,539 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Several months ago we received an unexpected communique from long-time informant Babbling Babette who tattled to Your Mama that platinum-haired model/hacktress/reality star Brigitte Nielsen and her much younger fifth husband Mattia Dessi were house hunting in Sherman Oaks, CA, the spiritual if not geographical heart of Los Angeles' ur-suburban San Fernando Valley.
We promptly forgot about the matter until a couple weeks ago when Your Mama and The Dr. Cooter went to visit a couple of effervescent (and hard partying) spinsters with whom we're acquainted. Out of the blue, over multiple shots of Russian vodka at noon, one of our always entertaining hostesses let it slip the six foot tall Danish-born d-list celebrity had recently completed the purchase of a very modest ranch style fixer upper in a little known and not particularly glittery pocket of the Hollywood Hills known as the Hollywood Manor.
Your Mama well realizes many of the children under the age of 35 may not have a clue who Miz Nielsen is but, once upon a time, back in the mid-1980s, she was a punishingly stunning and somewhat androgynous Amazonian model turned budding action flick bad ass (Red Sonja, Rocky IV) who briefly hitched her marriage wagon to Sylvester Stallone (with whom she had dinner at the White House in 1985), had a much-publicized romance with hairy-chested New York Jet Mark Gastineau (which resulted in the production of the second of her four children), and who several times bared her taut and bulbous naughty bits in the glossy pages of Playboy. She was, for a hot minute, the shit. Alas, Miz Nielsen's showbiz career hit the skids almost as quickly as it began but not before she managed to eek out a sporadic if not entirely unsuccessful music career, mostly in Germany, Austria and Spain.
Alas, the the fickle interests of Hollywood turn on a dime and the intoxicating glamor of fame subsequently evaporates. Like so many washed up entertainment industry types the last 5 or 10 years Miz Nielsen eventually turned to reality television. She's appeared in a frightfully long list of tawdry reality programs in both the U.S. and Europe, most notably on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (2008) and The Surreal Life (2004) where she met and embarked on a bizarre (and, one hopes, faux) romance with insanely annoying rapper Flavor Flav. In 2008 she had a slew of plastic surgeries taped for and aired on German television and she currently stars on sixth season of Ich bin ein Star—Hold mich hier raus!, the German version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! It all seems a little depressing to Your Mama but, let's get real, who are we to judge? We spend out days writing about celebrity real estate for Christ damn sakes.
Anyhoo, after we sobered up from our mid-day hooch-fest with the spinsters we had a poke around the property records which do indeed reveal Miz Nielsen paid an even-steven $600,000 for a rather motley looking two-story house in the Hollywood Hills not so far from Universal Studios. Listing information we dug up off the internets shows the 1,539 square foot house was originally built in 1939 and has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and peek-a-boo mountain views.
A fenced and tree-shaded courtyard with fountain on the street side of the house ensures Miz Nielsen's neighbors can't peep in her front windows and leads to wood-floored interiors spaces that include a small "formal" living room with green marble fireplace surround, dining room, sun porch, and a green and white-tiled galley-style kitchen that listing information energetically and generously describes as a "COOKS KITCHEN!"
Many of the house's rooms open through French doors to the various courtyards, terraces and patios that surround the house. The various and multitudinous outdoor spaces include a narrow, awning-shaded strips of lawn with small pond, tended to but still somewhat unruly looking shrubbery clumps, a wide deck with lattice-screened pergola-shaded lounge area, and terraces beds planted with apple, pear, avocado and peach trees.
Additional amenities (and "amenities') include an attached 2-car garage with direct access to the house, sky lights and stained glass windows, two fireplaces, central heat and air, and solar panels on the roof that listing information surprisingly specifically indicates will save Miz Nielson "APPROX 25% OFF" her utility bill.
Your Mama has it on very good authority that Miz Nielsen, who reportedly maintains a house in her husband's native Italy and is sometimes reported to live in Palm Springs, has long leased a house in the Hollywood Manor 'hood that happens to be all but across the street from the one she just purchased.
Other resident celebrities—or "celebrities" depending on your point of view—of the Hollywood Manor enclave include inestimable helmet haired actress Morgan Fairchild, bespectacled tee-vee carpenter Paul DiMeo (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) who owns a Spanish casa once owned by Tinseltown cowboy Tom Mix, and pretty brunette actress Erin Daniels from The L Word who is not, as it turns out, a lesbian.
listing photos: Realty Source
