Meat Loaf on the Move

SELLER: Michael Lee Aday, a.k.a. Meat Loaf
LOCATION: Calabasas, CA
PRICE: $3,200,000
SIZE: 7,142 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama recently received a communique from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial who shined our rheumy eyes and celebrity real estate attentions on a hacienda-style house inside a gated enclave of 14-16 mansions nestled into the rugged Santa Monica Mountains above the suburban Los Angeles, CA community of Calabasas. The owner of the property, according the The Bizzy Boys and other online sources, is a gentleman named Michael (nee Marvin) Lee Aday. Mister Aday, who legally changed his first name from Marvin to Michael in 2001, is better known as the actor/epic rock and roller Meat Loaf.

Youngsters will be forgiven if they only recognize Mister Loaf because of a recent appearance on the gay gay gay hit tee-vee show Glee and/or as a contestant on the current season of hairrific "birther" billionaire Donald Trump's The Celebrity Apprentice where he's competing for charitable donations.

Mister Loaf's success and fame, however, go way back to the early- and mid-1970s. In addition to appearing in dozens of stage productions, television programs, reality shows and movies (Hair, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fight Club, House, M.D., Popstar to Opera Star ), Mister Loaf has earned himself a Grammy award and sold shocking numbers of records. His Bat Out of Hell album from the mid-1970s has, in fact, sold upwards of 43,000,000 copies making it one of the top three or five best-selling albums of all time.

What we're saying, kids, is that although the man goes by the name of a dinner entrée, too-frequently sports crystal-studded suits and is far enough past his prime that he's on The Celebrity Apprentice with a slew of former superstars such as the formidable weed-whacker Dionne Warwick, steroidal ex-pro baseballer José Canseco, exceptionally erratic actor Gary Busey and bossy attorney Star Jones he is none-the-less no less than a living legend in the entertainment industry who enjoys international super stardom. We do not tease, hunnies, this is the serious truth.

Property records show Mister Loaf and his then-fiancee now wife Deborah Gillespie purchased the somewhat remotely-located 10-ish acre spread in April of 2005 for $2,325,000. One listing we dug up on the internets says the property spreads across "approx. 11 acres." The same listing also reads "11.45 Acres" and the tax man's records show "9.9863." Whatever the exact size of the lot, Mister Loaf and his then-fiancee hired nice, gay decorator David Dalton to turn out the interior spaces and spent a few more big bucks having the kitchen re-done and a built-in barbecue center, swimming pool, spa and extensive resort-style landscaping installed. When all the work and renovations were completed, Mister Loaf's Calabasas crib appeared in the glossy pages of Architectural Digest's April 2008 issue.

At the risk of sounding more than a little catty–which is sometimes unavoidable–when Your Mama learned that Mister Loaf's house was featured in Architectural Digest it made perfect sense because the day-core of the main living spaces looks quintessentially like what Your Mama expected to see in the pre-Margaret Russell pages of the venerable if tired publication: Correct, without much quirk and not particularly, uhm, interesting. Miz Russell and her That Girl do, for those who don't read the mastheads of magazines, recently left her cozy gig at Elle Decor where her last title was the rather cumbersome "vice president and editor in chief of brand content" and scooted her boot over to the editor in chief's office at Architectural Digest. A.I.'s offices moved from Los Angeles to New York City and just six short months after she grabbed the weary wheel of the musty and fusty ol' grande dame of shelter publications, A.I. was re-launched with a snappier and sexier new look. So far so good.

But we're going off the rails, darlings. Iffin Your Mama wanted to yakkety-yak about the real estate and decorating industries we'd continue to prattle on about how Sotheby's International Realty here in Los Angeles is fixin' to hand back the once-plum listing for the entire W Hollywood Residences condominium project. Scandale! And we will discuss, but not right now. More on that juicy nugget to come.

Listing information for Mister Loaf's abode in the Santa Monica Mountains shows the two-story tile-roofed residence was constructed in 2004, measures 7,142 square feet and contains a total of 7 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms.

A double gated motor court at the front of the house provides access to garage space for three attached garage spaces and the shy front entry that barely whispers, "Over here. You come in right here." The hotel-lobby-like formal living room has a fireplace, built in wet bar, Spanish tile floors laid on the diagonal and too-perfect cross-hatched wood beams and the formal dining room seats twelve in wing back chairs upholstered in what looks like a red silk brocade with riveting details.

Less formal spaces include a paneled library/media room with fireplace and a 105-inch flat-screen television set, a family room with fireplace and more too-perfect wood beams that's open to the well-equipped kitchen done up with two colors of granite (or marble or whatever), two colors of cabinetry and two matching multi-colored chandelier-style light fixtures over the center work island.

The main floor master suite features a fourth fireplace, private terraces, a tray ceiling with a very Architectural Digest-y Fortuny chandelier and a very large but far from excessive private head with soaking tub, separate glass enclosed shower, double vanity and a built in flat-screen boob-toob custom-mounted into the cabinetry where it can easily be seen by both Mister and Missus Loaf while they brush and and floss their chompers. A family/game room on the second floor conveniently services the four bedrooms suites some of which, it appears to Your Mama, Mister and Missus Loaf utilize as office space. Listing information shows there are some staff quarters somewhere up in there too but we don't know if Mister and Missus Loaf employ live-in domestic help.

The conventionally upscale interior day-core of the Mister Loaf's mansion isn't exactly what most would expect of a man who cultivates the persona of a slightly unhinged and hard-partying rock star. There are no bongs sitting on the coffee tables, nary a mirror dusted with white powder, no skanky hos lying seductively across a lounger by the pool and no cigarette burns in the carpets. A person must visit the fitness room, where Mister Loaf's many awards, accolades, gold and platinum records are hung cheek by jowl and floor to ceiling, for any hard evidence that this luxurious home is owned by an international rock icon.

Numerous French doors open rooms at the back of the house to a generously sized and Spanish tile-floored outdoor living area shaded by a striped twenty- by sixty-foot awning. Immediately beyond the covered terrace the swimming pool, spa and sunbathing terraces provide respite from scorching heat and weary bones. Beyond the cement pond, a rolling expanse of well-watered lawn stretches back to a terraced hills side with river-rock waterfall and what may or may not be some fruit trees. The nearby neighbors on either side of Mister and Missus Loaf's mansion don't block much of the expansive views of the scenic surrounding mountains peaks.

It's entirely unknown to Your Mama why Mister and Missus Loaf might want to vacate their totally customized abode but they do. In the above mentioned 2008 article in Architectural Digest, Mister Loaf stated, “I love buying and doing houses,” the singer admits, “trouble is, once I finish one, I want to do another. But we’ve lived here four years—a record. Maybe this time, this one’s the keeper.” Apparently not.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker Beverly Hills South