Mariska Hargitay Upgrades in the Hamptons

BUYER: Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann
LOCATION: East Hampton, NY
PRICE: $7,340,000
SIZE: 7,000 square feet, 11 bedrooms 6.6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: With the summer coming to a close–and Hurricane Earl bearing down on the east coast–we thought we'd take a virtual stroll out to the hoity-toity and celebrity packed Hamptons, that glittering string of über upscale communities that dot the beachy and bucolic landscape at the far eastern end of the south fork of Long Island.

In early July of 2010 it was reported that the Emmy winning Law & Order hottie-mommy Mariska Hargitay and her actor huzband Peter Hermann upgraded their East Hampton digs from a modest 2,554 square foot house on East Hampton's Buell Lane to an historic and rambling shingle-sided farmhouse in the same posh part of town as the summertime spreads of Martha Stewart, Mort Zuckerman, and Jerry della Femina. The property is, as it turns out, also just around the corner from the very English-y Coxwould estate–listed for a bone breaking $425,000 for the 2010 summer season–that the Kabbalah Kween is rumored and reported to have leased for the summer because the $10,000,000 horse farm that she bought in late 2009 from Kelly Klein does not, alas, have a house on the property.

Blame it on the booze butter beans, but Your Mama quickly forgot about Mister and and Missus Hargitay's new house in the Hamp-toons until recently when we were clued in by the bizzy boys at Celebrity Address Aerial who whispered in Your Mama's big ol' ear that the Hargitay-Hermanns scooped up a 3-story house in East Hampton–purchased through a trust–in late June 2010 for $7,340,000.

Listing information shows the disheveled and slightly raggedly old-school Hamptons "cottage"–built way back 1890–sits on a 1.14 acre parcel and measures approximately 7,000 square feet with a staggering 11 bedrooms and 6.6 poopers. We're not exactly sure what a .6 pooper is but that, puppies, is what the listing says.

A gravel driveway sweeps across the yard to the house where a charming and deep covered porch spans the width of the front facade. There's little Your Mama enjoys more than whittling a summer day away on a shaded porch near the beach with a big stack of tabs, a giant pitcher of gin & tonics, and a big bag of candy. Yes, we're a damn fool for candy. It's a bad habit Sister Woman hates–she's in the teeth bizness–but one we can not seem to break.

Anyhoo, according to listing information, the interior spaces include a trio of parlors with wood floors distressed by age, a dining room, window wrapped sun room, and a huge, funky eat-in kitchen with a turqwaze and black tile pattern painted on to the wood floor. The laminate counter tops have an unfortunate swirly, cream and rose colored pattern, the beat up cabinetry that is supposed to look old and charming just looks to Your Mama like it's seen its better days, the Sub-Zero fridge has a chalk-board front, and above the commercial style range hangs, we are mortified to see, a pot rack that looks all kinds of hungry to clank some unsuspecting water boiler on the damn head.

Presumably, many if not most of the cottage/mansion's 11 bedrooms are situated on the second floor. Also on the second floor is a huge deck, part of which is covered, that overlooks the back yard. Another long deck runs along one side of the main floor at the back of the house and steps down the in ground heated swimming pool that too is surrounded by decking.

Even more deckingwraps around a small blue wooden building–let's call it a quaint little pool house with French doors and 9-over-1 panel sash windows–and around to where a very 1970s looking round hot tub has been sunk into the deck. The grounds also include wide swathes of lawn, mature plantings and shade trees, a guest house and a recording studio.

The unassuming, quirky, and unpretentious property–if anything in the Hamptons that cost more than seven million clams can be considered unpretentious–was sold by a British born but New York City based fashion designer and her rock and roll drummer huzband. While we always appreciate a home that genuinely looks and feels of its owner–and we do appreciate that this house does look and feel of its former owner–we don't care for the particulars, in this case a wildly eclectic hippy-dippy beach house meets Shabby Chic meets English country house meets city sophisticate day-core. However, it's really of no use speaking on it because Your Mama has to (hope, pray and) assume that the Hargitay-Hermanns have brought or will bring in their own nice, gay decorator and maybe even a smart architect to put their own spin on the interior spaces.

The real estate whereabouts of Miz Hargitay and Mister Hermann are oft reported on and speculated about. We're not sure how much light we can throw down on the matter but here's what Your Mama knows.

In October of 2007, Miz Hargitay and Mister Hermann unloaded their 2,500 square foot Jeffrey Bilhuber designed TriBeCa penthouse at 19 Beach Street for $5,100,000 and quickly laid out $7,000,000 for a 4,817 square foot penthouse pad in the then newly converted O'Neill Building on bizzy, wide, and loud Sixth Avenue in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood.

Eight or so months later, after learning their toddler got into a swank school on the Upper East Side, the peripatetic pair hoisted the 3 bedroom and 3.5 pooper doo-plex digs at the O'Neill Building back on the market with an asking price of $8,250,000. A few months later, in October of 2008, just one year after moving in, the Hargitay's packed their bags, strapped their baby on their back, and moved back out having sold their corner unit aerie for $8,150,000 to a New York City property mogul.

There was chatter among the celebrity real estate gossips back at that time that the Hargitay-Hermanns were either looking to move uptown–closer to their tykes pricey institution of learning–or to one of the leafy and expensive enclaves in Westchester County just to the north of New York City. Honestly bunnies, we don't have a clue where the Hargitay-Hermanns went but iffin Chelsea was too far for their child to commute to toddler school, then Westchester County might as well be the damn moon, you know?

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

Ladees and Gentlemen, The Taupe Office

Lord have mercy, what is with Americans and their affinity for wishy-washy beige day-core?

The Oval Office, that room in Washington, D.C. where American presidents sit and pull the levers of international politics, has never been a particularly stylish place decoratively speaking. It was a fairly utilitarian affair until Pat Nixon injected an oval shaped electric royal blue rug into the mix. Ever since then each president–with the assistance of his not always very stylish wife and a well paid decorator–has done up and did over the Oval Office to reflect their own personal decorative tastes.We're down with that. We genuinely feel that the got-damn president of the U-nited States of America ought to have an office in which he (or, perhaps one day, she) feels comfortable and relaxed and capable of making decisions that have global impact. We don't even mind if a few of our tax dollars go towards funding a redecoration of the Oval Office, even if it is for an administration we don't care for.

However, we got some issues with the latest tasteful, rigorously restrained, and totally taupe incarnation of the Oval Office. President Obama's newly redone office is a cautious and almost frumpy sea of taupe with just tiny hints of blue on the sofa pillows and the table lamps sitting on the side tables in the seating area in the center of the room. Even the vertically striped wall paper fades away into visual obsolescence.

Your Mama well recognizes that in a time of war and economic austerity for the peeps of America–at least the ones who don't work on Wall Street–it would have been wildly inappropriate to unleash a crayon box full of color in the Oval Office. This bizness, however, seems to Your Mama's pea sized brain like decorating for the lowest common denominator. We smell a conscious effort by the Obamas and Mister Smith to create a set up and get up that would not offend voters–conservative ones in particular–so many of whom are eager as beavers to find a reason to knock the president down a notch or two and just might see something more stylish as a sign of uppity elitism and/or lack of connection with the common man. (Please note kiddies, that is not intended as a political statement, it's our meaningless opinion of the day-core.)

As vanilla as it may be, the Oval Office's new day-core is definitely more up to date and of this time than the wealthy grandma look of previous administrations. But honestly chickens, while everything is in good taste and (we presume) high quality, this looks like the sort of thing one might find in the lobby of an expensive business hotel.

All that said, what Your Mama really wants to know is what's the shit with the fruit bowl on the coffee table? Do Michael Smith, the Prez, and his adviser peeps really think Benji Netanyahu, Nancy Pelosi, or General Austin are gonna reach down for a banana or a damn nectarine in the middle of high stakes meeting? Pleeze.

It should be noted that no tax payer money was spent on the overhaul of the Oval Office. The cheddar for the redo came from a pool of money created by private donations given specifically for the purpose of doing over the White House day-core.

photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times