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It's always a special treat when the Defamer Special Real Estate Correspondent weighs in with a virtual walkthrough of a C-list celebrity home or drops by to pick nits with the LAT Hot Property column. Today, he files a report about the recent property moves involving talk show host/budding local land baroness Ellen DeGeneres, whose acquistions seemingly won't stop until the entire city is blanketed in love nests for her and Portia de Rossi:

In the ever-more-complex swirl of real estate transactions surrounding Ellen DeGeneres, part of her Mulholland “compound” is back on the market after being sold, the bulk of the property has been reduced in price, and the talk-show hostess has made another purchase, buying a Marmol + Radziner home near the “Bird” Streets for $6.5 million dollars from commercial director Dave Ramser. Whew...

“The Tree house,” a 2,000 square foot post and beam home built in 1951 is back on the market at $2.4 million dollars. The concrete and teak home was fully renovated by Ellen and her team with a “Zen” meets 1950s modern feel. The master bath has a Japanese slate and tile inspired bath with floor to ceiling glass on two sides overlooking private fern gardens. There are giant bronze Buddhas throughout the home and over 2,500 square feet of decking. Gated and walled, with large panes of glass, the house overlooks half an acre of woods as well as glimpses of Ellen’s other properties also on the market. The home is off Mulholland, near Woodrow Wilson and Laurel, a celebrity-filled neighborhood, skewing music industry. Apparently this house was purchased from Ellen as a “gift” to a mistress. When the wife found out, the buyer was forced to put the house back on the market.


In related news, Ellen’s adjacent compound has been quietly reduced to $8.9 million, from the nearly $13 million reported in the LA Times on June 26th, 2005. Since that time, and the sale of the lesser property above for a little over $2.2 million, Ellen was also reported by the LA Times (in November) to have spent $22 million on two properties above the Sunset Strip. Perhaps the pressure is on.

And, in the “celebrities are not like you and I” category, its been whispered that Ellen has bought above Sunset, spending around $6.5 million dollars for a recently-built architectural gem build by rock-star architects Marmol + Radziner (architects of the much-acclaimed Neutra Kaufmann House re-model) for commercial director David Ramser, who was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement as part of the sale. I guess syndicated TV pays pretty well if you can let $13 million ride, spend another $22 million and still have almost $7 million more to spend on a lark.