Monday Morsel: Mark Wahlberg

SELLERS: Mark Wahlberg and Rhea Durham
LOCATION: Beverly Hills (Post Office), CA
PRICE: $13,995,000
SIZE: 7 bedrooms, 10.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: All the celebrity real estate gossips are laying it on thick the last few days about two-time Oscar-nominated actor/producer Mark Wahlberg and his model wife Rhea Durham pushing their 1.7 acre compound deep in the Beverly Hills Post Office on the open market late last week with an asking price of $13,995,000. We figured we might as well join them.

This is certainly a big events in the tiny world of celebrity real estate but this is not, chickens, Mister and Missus Wahberg's first time time trying to wrestle this real estate bear to the ground. In October 2008 the former rapper/man-panty model turned sensationally successful and well-respected actor/producer (In Treatment, Entourage, The Fighter Boogie Nights) fleetingly listed his superstar-style estate on the open market with an asking price of $15,900,000. The house was taken off the market after Miss Durham became preggers with the couple's fourth child.

Property records and previous reports show Mister Wahlberg purchased the walled and gated 7 bedroom and 10.5 bathroom compound in November 2001 for $4,950,000. Current listing information does not indicate the size of the main house but listing information we scared up from 2008 shows the manse measures 8,932 square feet. Current listing information parses the bedroom and bathroom count as being 5 bedrooms in the main house–1 master with two bathrooms and 4 additional rooms each with private facilities–and 2 bedrooms plus 2 bathrooms located in the detached 3,500 square foot two-story guest house.

The main mansion has all the standard rooms and luxury accouterments that can and should be expected in a ten million dollar plus house including generously proportioned formal entertaining rooms, extensive casual living areas, updated (if not particularly inspired looking) kitchen and bathrooms, and–natch–a state of the art 35mm screening room.

There are those celebrities with the desire and financial capability to fashion for themselves and their family a private and all but self-contained haven to which they can retreat from the prying eyes of the public and enjoy all the creature comforts of a 5-star resort. Mister Wahlberg has done just that up in the Hills of Beverly where his privately situated hillside hideaway offers lushly landscaped grounds, sloping lawns and meandering patios, various terraces with mountain views, a dramatically lit putting green, and a lagoon-style swimming pool with grotto, waterfalls and cabana. The swimming pool complex, guest house and main mansion are arrayed around the property's idiosyncratic centerpiece, a lighted sunken sport court and 2,500 square foot shed-like structure that houses a voluminous two-story gymnasium packed with an extensive collection of intimidating body shaping devices and a built-in boxing ring.

In May 2009 Mister Wahlberg paid more than eight million clams for a six-plus acre vacant parcel in Beverly Park, the legendary 24/7 guard-gated enclave nestled into the mountains above Beverly Hills where the wide streets are lined with high hedges and tall walls that hide steroidal mansions owned by a long list of very successful showbiz types such as Denzel Washington, Paul Reiser, Reba McEntire, Rod Stewart, Sylvester Stallone, and Eddie Murphy not to mention both Adrienne Maloof and Lisa Vanderpump from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Apparently Mister Wahlberg has caught a serious case of real estate size queenery because the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that he plans to erect a unequivocally colossal 33,000 square foot mega-mansion on the property. A covert communique from a canary we'll call Donald Digsitup linked Your Mama over to a website that indicates that Mister Wahlberg didn't have a 33,000 square foot mansion designed but rather an even more elephantine "42,000 sf private residence" designed by the renowned Landry Design Group.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland and Keller Williams Realty