Blind item that deserves broader play; are Steven Seagal and Greg Kinnear at odds over a tree dispute on their property lines?

Two Fridays ago, the always entertaining Marissa Gluck (whose terra non firma blog we still miss) over at Curbed LA posted a fascinating blind item that we think deserves attention beyond Los Angeles, about “celebrity next-door neighbors in Mandeville Canyon–one is an action hero actor from the late 1980s/early 1990s and the other is a smart-ass actor” who apparently have been “embroiled in a tree dispute involving their property lines.”

It’s pretty clear to us (and to Gluck’s three commenters!) that the action hero actor being cited is Steven Seagal. The “Under Siege” actor indeed does possess an aikido black belt (as Marissa noted), and has owned his seven-bedroom, 6,125-square-foot house, which was built in 1937, on a 2.53-acre flag lot on Mandeville Canyon Road in Los Angeles’ Brentwood area since buying it in late 1991 from actor Tom Selleck for close to its $2.95 million asking price, as the Los Angeles Times’ Ruth Ryon wrote in early 1992.

So who is the “smart-ass actor”? We assume that it’s Greg Kinnear, whose Eduardo Trust paid $3,600,000 in 2001 to purchase the 5,083-square-foot house that sits on a 0.40-acre (17,497-square-foot) lot that adjoins Seagal’s lot on two sides (i.e., Seagal’s property wraps around the side and back of Kinnear’s parcel).

For better or worse, this tree dispute has not made it into any other gossip columns that we’ve heard of. Stay tuned.