Filed under: Estates

Homes like this in Boston don’t come on the market too often. This stately brick townhouse is located on Beacon Street opposite the Public Garden. The home was built in 1846 for former Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Crowninshield and must have been the height of fashion and luxury at the time. The home went through a major renovation in 1990. The renovation seems to have included the huge kitchen that has French doors opening out onto the garden. Other features include a library, a billiard room with a wet bar, a dining room with a dumb waiter and a caterer’s kitchen. The top floor includes a huge modern gym that includes a hot tub and steam shower. There is also a roof deck with great Back Bay skyline views.The listing states that there is outdoor parking on a private street. This might mean some major parking hassles in the winter, but what you’re paying for here are all the vintage details, the curlicued plaster medallions on the ceiling, nine Tiffany-designed stained glass windows and some of the most gorgeous woodwork I have ever seen. The staircase alone is worthy of poetry and those tufted velvet built-in seats next to the large fireplace are so evocative of the time period this house was built in that they seem to be part of an oil painting.. There are five bedrooms total and ten fireplaces. There are some strange quirks, too, such as a rather coffin-like bathtub. But with an old beauty of a house like this, you have to embrace the quirks. It is listed at $6.9 million.

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Filed under: Estates

Today’s home has me pondering the problems associated with older homes. Here we’ve Up Holland, a nice nearly 20-acre spread near St. Michaels, Maryland. The historic home is believed to date from the late 1700s and is part of a land grant patented ca. 1667 . The six-bedroom home has been added to and modified over the years and now has a Greek Revival facade with a two story porch. The home has a formal living room and library with fireplaces and nine foot ceilings. The dining room is believed to be the oldest part of the house and has wood floors, wood-burning fireplace, old doors and a back stairway. The country kitchen has a brick fireplace and a table. The home is in need of a major overhaul, I just wonder how much can be done to bring it into the modern age. In its current say the home seems to be a patchwork of its various additions and renovations. I might direct potential new owners to Tusculum, a former estate of the day that is an older home that has been elegantly recreated. The home also has a carriage house that has two garage bays, a greenhouse/potting shed and a second floor studio. The land includes a swimming pool and pool home and a wide pier on Broad Creek provides anchorage for several boats. The home is listed at $3.485 million.

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Real estate in the Says might be having tough times but in Canada things seem to be booming and we’re seeing more astonishing estates all over the country. This one in Metchosin in Greater Victoria, British Columbia is one of the most expensive. The home was finished in 2006 and sits on 67 acres. The design received a National Canadian Architect Award. The design is a mix on interior and outdoor design that includes pools of water which are part of a geothermal heating and air conditioning system that pulls water from the ocean and runs through the house. The water also divides the living and bedroom areas. The home is quite striking, if perhaps a bit chilly looking. I love the giant red couches in the living room area. The estate includes a guest house, boat home, covered pool, and a tennis court. It is listed at $24 million Canadian.

Continue reading Swanwick Ranch, Estate of the Day

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Filed under: Estates

This stately home in the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco hit the market earlier this month. The Neo-Classic mansion sits high on a hill and was designed by Houghton Sawyer in 1912 for sugar baron Adolph Spreckels and his wife Alma, as their first residence. The five-bedroom mansion has Bay views and has been retrofitted for seismic integrity. The photos reveal that in many areas the original wood work and beautiful moldings have been retained. As faithful readers know, I love a good library and this one is a beauty with a fireplace and plenty of shelves. The kitchen seems less than inspired, it looks like it belongs in some other home, certainly not a home worth this much money. And, while I’m finding fault, I can’t understand why someone would take a home like this and then install tiny round ceiling lights. I like light as much as the next person but in a home with good bones like this, modern round lights set flush into the ceiling are an abomination. This home is listed at $25 million. Zillow’s zestimate is screamingly off here, they’ve got it at close to $4 million.

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Filed under: Estates

What attracts me to this home, billed as a “gentleman’s ranch” in Spicewood, Texas, is the sense of space. The center of the home is anchored by a large great room that’s ringed with limstone archways that lead to other rooms. The main home has been designed for two with the guests ensconced in a separate six-bedroom guest house. The main house is designed for pleasing on a grand scale. The kitchen is massive and there is also a 1,500 bottle wine room and a big pantry. The Owner’s suite includes a separate living room and study, sleeping quarters and a hobby room. The master lavatory is a bit kooky with one of those round tubs which seems to be put in front a shower area. The property is 18 acres total and the rest of the buildings are clustered around the pool and patio area which includes a summer kitchen with a grill, refrigerator, sink and granite countertops. The land also includes a six-car garage with attic and closet space plus a half bath. This home is listed at $4.25 million.

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Oh my, today’s estate just stirs up all my dreamy little artsy bohemian fantasies. As the Wall Street Journal’s Christina S.N. Lewis reported in the Private Properties column, a farm in Spain’s Catalonia, owned by the family of surrealist Joan Mir

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter:
–Newly married Harvey Weinstein has sold his SoHo condo for $8 million.He bought the loft apartment in 2005 for $6.8 million and he and his new wife Georgina Chapman now live in a townhouse in the West Village.
–Former and potentially future first daughter Chelsea Clinton is interested in a $3 million, two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in the coveted One Madison Park condominium complex.

From the NY Observer’s Manhattan Transfers:
–Popular real estate broker Robby Browne shut last month on a two-bedroom apartment at Robert A.M. Stern’s new Fifteen Central Park West which he plans to rent out for somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.
–Former internet entrepreneur Wayne Correia was briefly worth about $400 million during which time he paid cash for a New York City penthouse. Later he moved into a steel bus traveling the country. This month, his old eight-room penthouse at 136 Waverly Place shut for $8.7 million.
–The man who wrote Beyonc

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If you are a fan of Santa Fe style, this is the one for you. It’s a newer Bob Ritter built stone and adobe home that took more than 500 tons of native moss rock and 53,000 adobe bricks to complete. This home is located in the Club Estates area and is on over 9 acres overlooking the 14th fairway of the Sunrise golf course. There are four bedrooms and over 7,000 square feet of space total. The details here, like the wood beamed ceilings, the smooth adobe fireplaces and the hallways rimmed with stone are nice but there is something about this home that feels off and chilly. Perhaps adobe does not lend itself to the vastness or perhaps its the ultra Southwestern staging job. This home is listed at $4.6 million, which seems a bit high.

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Filed under: Estates, Journeys

Luxury and Fort Lauderdale are not exactly synonymous but the new 105-suite il Lugano resort hopes to change that. The hotel, which opens on January 2, offers oversized one-bedroom suites and the two-bedroom suites with big balconies. There are also entertainment suites with terraces that are capable of handling up to 50 guests. Amenities include full-sized refrigerators, microwaves and cook-tops and washers and dryers.

The top four floors are given over to 23 residences. The units range in size from 1,600 to 7,000 square feet with 10- to 11-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling glass windows. European kitchens and huge balconies. Unit owners are entitled to use all hotel amenities. A three-bedroom condo is currently listed at $1.95 million.

The hotel has a swimming pool, fitness center, lobby bar and 10 boat slips on the Intracoastal Waterway. A signature restaurant fronting the Intracoastal will be announced next spring. Introductory rates begin at $199.

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Filed under: Estates

To put you in a Christmas state of mind, let’s visit the tiny town of Bethlehem. Bethlehem, Connecticut that is, for a look at Fox Hollow Farm. This cute post and beam home is on 197 acres of woods and pastures that are probably looking pretty Christmasy right about now. The farmhouse has exposed beams, soaring ceilings and cozy stone fireplaces. The first floor includes the country kitchen, dining room with seating for 20, a huge exercise room that has a sauna and a private deck with a hot tub. The listing states that it was built in 2001 but that kitchen oddly looks even older, perhaps its the color. The living room is dominated by a great stone fireplace, unfortunately blemished by the placement of a flatscreen TV. There are four bedrooms total including a master suite with a brick fireplace and an office with built in desks and bookshelves. Fox Hollow Farm is also located in one of only three state towns with no zoning, meaning that the property could be used for a corporate retreat, small school, equestrian farm, Inn, restaurant, place of worship or residential development. It is listed at $5.25 million.

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