Leeza Gibbons Gets a New Crib in the 90210

BUYER: Leeza Gibbons
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $6,600,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Once upon a time, celebrity gossip program presenter (Entertainment Tonight and Extra), radio personality (Hollywood Confidential), and bizness ladee (Sheer Cover make-up line) Leeza Gibbons owned a compound on Los Angeles' Courtney Avenue that once belonged to Tinseltown's favorite wicked mommy Joan Crawford.

According to property records, Miz Gibbons and her then architect/actor/artist/Parabounce inventor huzband Stephen Meadows picked up the 8 bedroom and 6.5 pooper compound in September of 1991 for $1,995,000. Mister Meadows proceeded to do an architectural hocus-pocus on the historic hillside property that includes a 1926 Mediterranean mansion, matching but newer 2.5 story guest house, and private swimming pool complex with sauna room and a Playboy mansion style spa situated a grotto.

After making a couple shorties and nearly 15 years, Miz Gibbons and Mister Meadows went splitsville in 2005. Their bust up triggered a real estate saga of near epic proportions, or at least one that lasted more than half a decade. Soon after going their separate ways the erstwhile couple attempted to sell their 1+ acre spread located near the bottom celebrity packed Nichols Canyon. The property was listed and relisted several times including in late 2006 when it hit the market with an asking price of $7,995,000. By September of 2008 and with at least two dead deals in the water, the asking price had dipped to $7,395,000. Although we have no idea if it's true or not, it was around this period of time that Your Mama heard through the real estate grapevine that Miz Gibbons was occupying the main house and Mister Meadows was inhabiting the guest house. Can you say awk-ward in a high-pitched sing-song manner?

By October of 2009 the price had sank to $6,850,000. Three months later it plummeted to $5,850,000 and another month later the Gibbons/Meadows shaved another half a million clams off the price tag. In early June of 2010 the property was ripped from the market and in late June it was sold for–are y'all sitting down?–$4,795,000. That is by any standard an ass-load of money but it is also a full 40% less than the former couple had originally hoped to get for it when they listed the property at the tippy-top of the market when properties were trading at inflated prices like they were the last cup of ice water in the desert.

According to the bizzy boys at Celebrity Address Aerial and confirmed with property records, just days after she closed on her one time love nest in Nichols Canyon Miz Gibbons also closed on a mock-Mediterranean style pile in the same swank neck of the 90210 as David Geffen, Mike Ovitz, and David and Victoria Beckham who do not, it seems, spend much time in LaLa Land anymore. Records show the entrepreneurial Miz Gibbons forked over $6,600,000 for her new Bev Hills house.

Miz Gibbons' new digs, which sits hard, hard, hard up on the street with just a sliver of lushly landscaped front yard, measures 6,579 square feet according to listing information and includes 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers.

The front door opens into a dramatic impress the pizza man style double height entry that includes walnut wood floors and a tightly curved staircase with a wrought iron balusters and hand-painted tile risers. The walnut floors continue into the small formal living room that features a faux-beamed ceiling, fireplace with limestone surround, and a quartet of gently arched dark wood French doors, two that open to the front of the house and two that open to the back yard.

Since listing photos depict the day-core of the seller–or, taking note of all the way too many orchids throughout the house, more likely that of a stager with an orchid fetish–and not the style of Miz Gibbons it really would not be fair to say that the day-core of the formal dining room so depressing and upsetting and utterly banal that it has driven Your Mama to the drink even before 9 in the a.m. But there, we said it anyway.

The "epicurean" kitchen, a sort of faux-Tuscan/mock-Mediterranean/French-farmhouse hybrid, is all fake-aged cabinetry, carved corbels, and florid chingaderos and includes, we regret to inform, a tawdry tile mural located behind the mac-daddy sized Viking brand range that shows a cornucopian crush of flowers and fruit. Your Mama isn't sure what kind of person thinks that a tile mural behind the range is a good idea, but it is not. Ever. These things are really nothing more than a silly and over-done decorative flourish and we sincerely hope that Miz Gibbons and her nice, gay decorator have the good sense to chip that thing out and replace it with the same sort of ordinary but expensive tumbled stone tiles that comprise the rest of the back splash. None the less, the kitchen, while a bit of a horror show in Your Mama's mind, is well equipped with three copper farmhouse style sinks, two side by side stainless steel fridge and freezers, two dishwashers, a breakfast counter and a breakfast table.

There are a number of less formal living spaces in Miz Gibbons' new crib that include a family room with stone fireplace flanked by arched niches with built in cabinets for hiding the electronic equipment, a study/office, billiard room with a wall of built in cabinetry fitted with ice maker, dishwasher, wine fridge and several shelves full of booze, and a home theater that has the smallest home theater screen known to man. There is also a fitness room and upstairs sitting room that opens to a small sunbathing terrace.

Miz Gibbons' new back yard is only just slightly less slim than her cramped new front yard, but the developer of the property has managed to pack in a lot into the wee space including a covered outdoor living room area with fireplace, faux-beamed ceiling, and flat screen tee-vee. The back yard is also fitted and kitted with a built in barbecue cabana with long eating and drinking counter, and itty bitty heated swimming pool, raised spa with hand painted tile work.

Additional amenities include a small gated motor court and 3-car garage, a total of 4 fireplaces, laundry facilities, staff quarters, central vacuum, and a Crestron home technology system so that Miz Gibbons can shut the drapes in her bedroom while having a nightcap in the kitchen. The property is also equipped with a serious state of the art security system that includes surveillance cameras. That means iffin anyone wants to be a twit and roll on by Miz Gibbon's house they'll be filmed for posterity.

To where Mister Meadows decamped is unknown but given that he requested spousal support in their dee-vorce–as was reportedly agreed upon in a 2002 post-nuptial contract–Your Mama has a sneaking suspicion it's not anywhere nearly as expensive as his ex-wife's new mansion.