There Must Be A Pony In Here Somewhere

Published: Wednesday, 19 Aug 2009 | 1:47 PM ET

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What would you do to pay off your mortgage?

Source: Steve Miller The top left crypt is the one up for sale. Marilyn is below. The Ponchers will be next door, and Hugh Hefner below them. Wow, if these walls could talk!

One woman in Beverly Hills is selling her husband's crypt, which just so happens to be above Marilyn Monroe's, on eBay. The bidding started at $500,000 and is now at $4.5 million.

A standard crypt in this cemetery, the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, currently goes for $250,000.

Of course, this one is special.

“Spend eternity directly above Marilyn Monroe,” the eBay

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[EBAY  Loading...      ()   ] auction reads, touting it as a “once in a lifetime—and into eternity—opportunity.”

Elsie Poncher is selling the crypt, in which her husband currently resides, so she can pay off her $1.6 million Beverly Hills mansion and leave it to her kids when she dies, without them having to worry about how to pay for it.

Poncher, who’s been in the mansion for 50 years and just refinanced, has “somewhat recognized the fact that she’s going to run out of money in the next couple of years,” said Steve Miller, a real-estate broker and family friend who’s handling the sale of the crypt for the family.

Apparently, the husband, Richard Poncher, was a bit of an entrepreneur — and a well-connected one at that. He knew movie stars and mobsters, ballplayers and kings. As Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio divorced, he bought two crypts from DiMaggio, not knowing at the time how valuable they would really become after Monroe’s untimely death.

Even at $500,000, it was one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in afterlife circles. In fact, you might recall that Playboy

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[PLA  Loading...      ()   ] octogenarian Hugh Hefner bought the crypt next to Monroe’s in 1992. He got it for a bargain at $75,000.

Poncher recalled to the LA Times that, on his deathbed, her husband said: “If I croak, if you don’t put me upside down over Marilyn, I’ll haunt you the rest of my life!”

Poncher, amazingly, abided by her husband’s wishes.

So, for 23 years, he’s gotten a good look at Monroe. (Well, as good a look as you can get through a marble-and-concrete tomb.) Now, the jig is up — Poncher’s going to have his remains moved to the crypt next door. When she dies, she’ll be cremated and join him in there.

So, was she just tired of her husband looking at another woman?

Miller says, no, it’s just about the money and paying off the mortgage.

Poncher thinks if her husband “was alive today, this is exactly what he would suggest she do,” Miller explained.

The crypt he’s being moved to, incidentally, is above Hefner, so it should still be a pretty good show!

It just goes to show you: You CAN make money in real estate today — you just have to think ... outside the box.

And, for the lucky winning bidder, Miller says, it defies the old saying that “You can’t take it with you” — “This is sort of, you CAN take it with you!” he quipped.

Plus, there’s the fact that the buyer, whoever it may be, will become instantly famous.

“Whoever buys this is going to automatically be somewhat famous,” Miller said. Instead of just reading articles about famous people like Monroe and Hefner, “they’ll be the story!” he said.

Hey, if you can't be famous in life, why not in death?

Pony Treats:

OK, I'll go—I'll go—I'LL GO! The house that belonged to "Cameron" in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is still for sale in Highland Park, Ill., where director John Hughes grew up, for a cool $2.3 million.

Fishing for Foreclosures. In tony Palm Beach, Fla., they're trying an interesting approach to cleaning the pools of foreclosed homes: They're "hiring" algae-eating fish. Hmmm. Sounds fishy to me.

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• Homeowners Still Don't Get It
• What Shape Is the Recovery—Triple U? Square-Root Sign?
• Foreclosures & Short Sales: Are You Buying a Money Pit?
  
  
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