Shopping for Real Estate

Searching for the stars, was our first game this morning. With our fabulous and potentially unreliable Map of the Stars we set out to find some homes close to us in Brentwood. We found the current home of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, but like many homes of famous people, you got a view of the gate, only. We did however get a peek at Harrison Ford's current home, although he's got a new one on the go up off Mulholland.

Then for game number two, we set ourselves up as prospective home buyers and with our broker, Gary, we toured some high end homes, two of which were in gated communities. Curiously enough, the first home we chose was in Mulholland Estates, which just happens to be the home of Charlie Sheen, around whom there has been a recent firestorm due to his bizarre behaviour and recent firing from 2 and 1/2 Men.
So after navigating through the media trucks, we were granted access to the estate and found a home for 14 million. This place had a nice view, but was showing unfurnished, except for sparse beds in a couple bedrooms.

Since we were within the gates, we took a little tour of the estate and found some pretty impressive homes - one of which had probably been Charlie Sheen's - and some sported matching Rolls Royces in the driveway. There are a lot of impressive homeowners in this community, including Barry Bonds, Faith Hill, Samuel L. Jackson, Magic Johnson, Martin Lawrence, Reba McEntire, Eddie Murphy, Sylvester Stallone, Rod Stewart, Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Robbie Williams and Richard Zanuck.

So we thought, "Who the hell wants to be neighbours with Charlie Sheen?" and moved on to house number two. This house was back in Bel Air and was going for 13 million. It was hosted by Mauricio Umansky who is the husband of Kathy Hilton's sister and therefore uncle of Paris. Yikes! His wife is also one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. This house was heavily into the Chinese motif and along with it's view of the Getty Centre, it was fabulous!

We'll put this house on our short list.
The third house was in Bel Air and adjacent to Sunset Blvd. It had been recently reduced by 5 million to 35 million. It was done in French Chateau style for a Saudi prince.

This place had the French theme going for it that would attract us and the dining room sat 50. Perfect!

It also had lots of rooms for company with 15 bedrooms, including the guest house by the fountains. This would nicely support all of our Canadian visitors.
We waffled on this one, but the coupe de grace was that the traffic noise from Sunset Blvd. was a little intensive. So, we'll have to give this one a pass.
To finish off the day, we chose a stroll on Venice Blvd., avenue of the really weird. This is a walk that never ceases to entertain with it hawkers, shops and unique characters.



There were also a good number of surfers braving the icy March waters of the Pacific. No one would ever get a great ride on these waves, but they were there nevertheless.


The weather continues to be fabulous, so we have been lavishing in these wonderful March moments.
Dinner tonight was chez Betty & Gary, with fish and extras. Yummy!