Your Mama Hears

...from Yolanda Yakketyyak, who swears on her mint-condition '85 Seville, that the mysterious buyer who paid $10.85 million for Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi DeGeneres's equestrian-oriented ranch-compound in Hidden Valley near Thousand Oaks, CA is none other than luxury t-shirt tycoon (and budding real estate baller) James Perse and his wife, Brandi (with an "i") Briskman.

Your Mama has discussed the horsey compound several times so if you want a more detailed description of the bucolic and semi-remote spread you can go here or here. Otherwise, suffice to say, the Missus Degeneres acquired the 26 acre ranch property in June 2009 for $8.5 million and, in typical real estate fashion for them, soon flipped it back on the market, first as a pocket listing and then on the open market. Originally priced at $16.5 million and last listed for $10.995 million, the property includes eight renovated residential cottages, two art studio/entertainment space barns, a ranch office, a stable block for half a dozen horses (plus a riding ring, etc), a screened yoga porch, a tree house, and a tennis court. There is not, as far as we know, a swimming pool.

Mister Perse, in case you don't follow the intersecting highways and bi-ways of fashion and commerce, is the progeny of Tommy Perse, owner of the legendary Los Angeles clothing boutique Maxfield. Mister Perse (the son) has become successful designer and an international purveyor of an eponymous line of luxury lounge-around wear; Think $65 for 100% domestic cotton slub casual v-neck t-shirts, $225 for slouchy woven crepe elastic waist pants—essentially swanky sweat pants—and $165 for sueded double knit kangaroo pocket hoodies.

The entrepreneurial Mister Perse has branched out in recent years to—among other things—design low-slung (and prodigiously pricey) furniture, develop a moisture-wicking performance-wear brand (Yosemite), and produce high-cost limited edition lifestyle products such as hand-crafted vintage-inspired skateboards, a rather sinister-looking all-black beach cruiser, solid teak pool and ping pong tables, and teak dog beds fitted with an hypoallergenic organic foam cushion covered in a waterproof, 100% Belgian linen polyfill duvet.

Anyhoodles, poodles, avid watchers of the upper-end Los Angeles real estate game will recognize Mister Perse as an increasingly frequent buyer (and seller) of superbly sited and impressively expensive real estate. In late 2010 he and the missus quietly shelled out $16 million for a glassy, bluff-top house in the Point Dume area of Malibu, in April (2013), after more than a year on and off the market, he finally unloaded in an off-market deal a one-bedroom house at the tippy-top of the Bird Streets above the Sunset Strip, and, most recently, in July (2013), the stylish (and obviously considerably rich) couple dropped $6,690,000 on a nearly 2-acre gated estate—also in Malibu's Point Dume area—that they bought from Dave Matthews Band guitarist Stefan Lessard.

And, finally, everybody knows by now that two Mays ago (2012) the Missus DeGeneres paid $17.4 million an iconic mid-century modern mansion in the lower section of Trousdale Estates in Beverly Hills and this last May (2013) they coughed up $26.5 million for an elegant, ten-ish acre estate in Montecito, CA, with an elegant, 10,000+ square foot stone-built villa designed and built by the elegant decorator John Saladino.

video: Interior Pixels (via YouTube)