Dane and Gayheart Settle in the Post Office

BUYERS: Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $2,400,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen children, Your Mama has a number of celebrity real estate tidbits and morsels that have been cluttering up our trusty laptop computer for too long and it's high time we vanquish them to the 'been-there-done-that' dust heap. We're going to start the arduous process with the Beverly Hills (Post Office) property snatched up way back in June of 2010 by married television stars Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart.

Sadly we know far less about Miz Gayheart's professional achievements than we do about her sometimes bumpy personal life. She got her start in the early 1990s as a fresh-faced model for Noxema but in early 2001 that image was tarnished when she ran over a 9-year old kid in a crosswalk and killed him. It was not, of course, on purpose. She later appeared in a couple of television shows including Nip/Tuck (2004-2006) and Vanished (2006). She hasn't really worked much on the boob-toob the last four or five years but she has performed on Broadway in Steel Magnolias and Boeing-boeing.

Although he's made a few appearances on the silver screen with roles in Burlesque, Valentine's Day and Marley & Me Mister Eric Dane's real claim to Hollywood fame and fortune is, of course, as Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan on the television hospital (melo)drama Grey's Anatomy, a role he's worked and worked and worked since 2006.

The couple made a baby girl they named Billie that was born in the March of 2010, about a month before they closed on their new country farmhouse-style crib in the Beverly Hills Post Office. Eight or so months before that, an embarrassing home video was released that showed the couple frolicking in a hot tub with a former Miss Teen USA. All three of them were nekkid as jaybirds and (allegedly) high as kites. Naturally, a big tabloid brouhaha ensued. Now listen puppies, Your Mama is not the moral po-leese and heaven knows our closet is full of skeletons so we don't fault these two from doing whatever it is they did that night in the hot tub with the former Miss Teen USA. Our issue is that they were stupid enough to video tape the romp. Let Your Mama offer all you young and sexy celebs a word of free and unsolicited but sage advice: If you do not want a video tape of you doing the naughty-naughty or smoking salvia to show up on the interweb then don't video tape your damn self doing that kind of crap. Seriously people. Use some common damn sense for chrissakes.

Anyhoo, as fascinating as their video-taped proclivities may be, it's their real estate doings in which we're actually interested. Property records indicate that in July 2006 Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart paid $1,640,000 to acquire a modestly-scaled if not exactly inexpensive home in the Sunset Plaza area of Los Angeles above the Sunset Strip. Miz Gayheart got herself knocked up in 2009 and like so many other rich and famous folks fixin' to procreate, they started to hunt for a new house in which to bring up baby. According to both Lucy Spillerguts and The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial, the couple settled on what we might call a contempo-country-style house in the rugged Franklin Canyon area of the Beverly Hills Post Office. Property records show Mister and Missus Dane coughed up $2,400,000 for the 3,602 square foot residence.

Listing information Your Mama managed to tease out of the interweb indicates the upscale farmhouse-style abode was built in 2004 and includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers. The walled and gated house sits hard up against the all but traffic-free tail-end of a canyon road where it's nestled into a steep hillside. The drive gate slides opens to reveal a cramped-looking flagstone "motor court" and front-facing two-car garage. Hopefully Mister and Missus Dane moved those potted dwarf fruit trees that lined the driveway when they bought the house because anyone with more than half a glass of wine in them would surely plow through them trying to back out of the garage.

The exterior of the yellow clapboard house is defined by the many over-sized four-over-four sash windows and the interior spaces exude a country charm with wide-plank pine flooring, wainscoting, beamed and vaulted ceilings, and a slew of fireplaces including but not limited to three fashioned from rustic river rocks.

Inside there are formal living and dining rooms and a country kitchen that at the time the couple purchased the property had eggshell-colored bead board-accented cabinetry with a crackled paint treatment, a mix of black granite and butcher block counter tops, a commercial grade range and a prodigious pot rack that loomed ominously over the center work island and breakfast counter. We can only hope and pray they removed the pot rack before it came crashing down on their house maid as she washed out the baby bottles. In the nearby family room French doors and windows line one wall and flank a river rock fireplace on a second wall. The doors swing open to a quaint covered porch that wraps around and runs along the back of the house.

Outdoor spaces are multiple and varied. In the front there's a flat grassy pad perfect for a swing set and/or naked croquet and other party games. On the second floor, a wide vine-draped deck off the master bedroom overlooks the expansive flagstone terrace that wraps around the free form swimming pool, spa and fire pit. At one end of the pool an open air cabana provides respite from the noon-day sun and at the other, a pergola shades a mac-daddy barbecue that probably cost as much as a Toyota. Water spills down a tumble of rocks on the hillside into the pool where a butt-busting and lung bursting stairway zig-zags up the dangerously steep hillside behind the house to a square gazebo set into a small stand of what appear to Your Mama's know-nuthin' eyes to be oak trees. Presumably a lovely view can be enjoyed by anyone with the physical gumption to scramble and drag their booties up the damn hill.

Now, puppies, Your Mama asks that y'all use your real estate noggins and recognize that the listing photos of this house show it as it appeared when Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart bought the property. One imagine's they've but their own decorative stamp, be that what it may be, on the property.

Property records indicate that in addition to their new family next in the Beverly Hills Post Office Mister and Missus Dane have hung on to their previous and previously mentioned residence above the Sunset Strip.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker