Let's Talk About Rihanna, Shall We?

Several weeks ago there were a couple of tongue wagging reports that international pop music superstar Rihanna, née Robin Fenty, moved into The Fortress, an industrial-edged and aggressively contemporary and much discussed concrete and glass edifice high above the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. And she has, according to several of Your Mama's better connected sources.

Your Mama first (dissed and) discussed the lasciviously muscular and almost cathedral-like residence back in January 2009 when, after nearly two years on the market with a exceedingly optimistic original asking price of $14.995 million, it was sold by (unfortunately named) energy drink entrepreneur Russ Weiner for exactly $8,000,000 to then 29-year old DJ and producer Val Kolton.

A little more than two years later Mister Kolton put the illustrious property, perched prominently a private .6 acre promontory with 270-degree views that sweep across the whole of the Los Angeles basin and often poo-pooed by highly opinionated armchair architecture critics, back up for sale with an also wildly optimistic $12 million asking price. The price eventually tumbled to $8.595 million before Mister Kolton managed to unload the white elephant at a nearly million dollar loss, not counting carrying costs, improvements, and etc., in October 2012 to a still unidentified buyer for $7,212,500.

Listing details from when The Fortress was last available for purchase show there are a total of 7 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms including a second floor city view master suite with dual bathrooms and a curvaceously walled dressing room plus a detached guest house above the garage with two bedrooms and at least one bathroom.

Other features of note include a 60-foot long, double-height entrance gallery with glass panel roof, several seating nooks, a fireplace and a floating, glass-tread staircase that Your Mama would find terrifying and terrifically difficult to navigate after a few gin and tonics. Along the rear of the residence there's a double-height formal living room traversed overhead by a glass-floored bridge, a much cozier den with built-in entertainment unit, and a double-height library/billiard room.

A couple steps up from the dining room there's an impressive all-stainless steel center island kitchen designed by Porsche Design Group that Your Mama and our eagle-eyed housegurl Svetlana both agree must be a time-consuming and murderous endeavor to keep finger print free or at least reasonably finger print free. Listing details we dug up also indicate there's a spacious screening room with built-in booze bar and candy counter and a fully equipped fitness room filled with angry looking contraptions that Your Mama's fat ass would have no idea how to use.

Outdoor spaces include a gated motor court between the main house and the guest house, a small grassy side yard with unobstructed city views and a koi pond, and, out the rear of the residence, a slender swimming pool and attached 12-person spa that together form a shape luridly similar to the male anatomy.

We have no idea how long Miss Riri plans to reside in The Fortress but iffin we were the betting type—and we're not—we'd bet both our long-bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, the itchy-footed Barbadian will soon move on to another rented residence because, although she's one of the highest earning entertainers on the planet, she doesn't seem to stay anywhere very long typically prefers to rent rather than buy.*

Late 2012 brought an avalanche of reports in the tabs, gossip glossies and property gossip columns that stated the Barbadian singer purchased an approximately 11,000 square foot contemporary in the affluent and somewhat staid, hence unlikely seaside community of Pacific Palisades for $11.9. However, children, a two minute search of public records reveals the property is actually owned by a corporation easily linked to the same non-famous fellow who purchased the property in 2004 for $1.32 and custom built the luxuriously appointed (if woefully specious) residence. **

Last fall, after one too many intruders managed to find their way onto the above mentioned Pac Pal property, Riri packed up her designer duds and hightailed it to New York City where she reportedly rented a $39,000 per month duplex penthouse in SoHo. Listing details and previous reports indicate the sun flooded penthouse was had been listed for $14.6 million and has four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in 4,660 square feet of interior space and a 2,400 square foot private terrace.

It was around the time she decamped L.A. for The Big Apple that word got out that Miss Riri had (allegedly) paid around $21.8 million for a 10,000-ish square foot townhouse villa with in Barbados that she'd leased the previous summer (2012) for an unknown amount of money. (Your Mama can not confirm or deny whether Miss Riri actually bought the super-luxe five bedroom and five bathroom or not because we really just don't know but it certainly makes sense she's set down some real estate roots in her homeland.)

In February of this year (2014), for her 26th birthday, the often touring seven-time Grammy winning entertainer was reported to have leased a nearly 19,000 square foot chalet in the celebrity-approved ski haven of Aspen, CO. Some of the features of the massive pseudo-chalet encompasses 7 bedrooms, 11, bathrooms, a 40-foot tall foyer, a five-car garage (with turntable), two elevators, and tennis court with adjacent clubhouse. The house, a short walk into downtown Aspen, is currently listed for $45 million.

NOTE: The children ought to keep in mind that listing photos of The Fortress are from the time the house last sold and may or may not reflect the home's current state of decorative affairs.

*Miss Riri spent $6.9 million on a newly constructed, 8500+ square foot contemporary in Beverly Hills in September 2009. Just about two years later Miss Riri filed a lawsuit against the property developers that claimed the house was riddled with design and construction defects that allowed water to enter and damage the interior areas. We don't know what became of the lawsuit—and, frankly, we don't much care—but property records show Miss Riri sold the property at a punishing loss, in late 2011, for $5,030,000. In September of 2012 the current owners, presumably after fixing whatever defects allegedly ailed the property, re-listed the property for $9.95 million. After (at least) two failed escrows, the property remains on the open market with a much lower asking price of $7.995 million.

**Not long after Riri packed her bags the house went up for lease at $65,000 per month and in late March (2014) the property popped up for sale on the open market with a $14.995 million price tag.

listing photos (Los Angeles, The Fortress): The Partners Trust
listing photos (New York): Town Residential (via Streeteasy)
listing photos (Barbardos): Chesterton International
listing photos (Aspen): Joshua & Co.