Filed under: Estates

Limited edition homes? That’s the pitch for the new 34 Leonard loft project in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood. 34 Leonard Street is a building of 16 loft-style homes with open floor plans and walls of windows offering urban and park views. The lobby will be dominated by an art installation from Jennifer Steinkamp, which will be a three-dimensional visual illusion of translucent glass with embedded leaves, sculptured wood benches and artisan crafted limestone walls. The development’s units are designed to accommodate art collections, and art expert Carol Dorksy will offer advice to potential buyers interested in starting or expanding their art collections. Other amenities include a wine cellar that can provide storage of 300 bottles per unit, a grill and bar area on the roof deck, a sunbathing area with an outdoor shower, a pet spa, fitness center, storage and a round-the-clock doorman.

GlobeSt.com reports that the approximate construction cost for the project is $45 million. The 16 homes include, one, two and three bedroom residences as well as a 3,086-square-foot penthouse that has a 2,215-square-foot wrap-around terrace. No presales yet but there are 150 people on the waiting list to pick up the homes, which range from $2 million to $8 million for the penthouse.
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Filed under: Estates

Today’s home in the ritzy Tuxedo Park area of Atlanta was once the home of Robert Woodruff, former president of Coca-Cola. The five-bedroom home was built in the 1930s but has a new pool and pool house. The home is done in a sweeping Regency style, and decorated in that gracious, slightly old-fashioned style that fights with bare contemporary spaces for page space in Architectural Digest. All seems to be in perfect charming order except for that kitchen. This is one home that should not have black stone countertops. The home sits on seven well-landscaped acres. It is listed at $13.9 million.

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Continue reading Windcrofte, Estate of the Day

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Today’s estate is a rather curious one, a bit of faux Provence tucked into the hills of Palm Springs, CA. The home belongs to Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel and sits on 65 acres of desert land. Les Baux de Palm Springs. The couple bought the land way back in 1977 and it came with a small home that the couple eventually enlarged and added to, also including guest houses an amphitheater and an updated pool to the property. The decorating style is a wee bit confusing with some sort of charming French country touches which keep company with velvet sofas, giant chandeliers and more than one zebra skin rug. It’s all a bit crazy but sort of endearing. Even the Real Estalker Mama, who is famous for dishing out the harsh words seems oddly touched by the overblown earnestness of the home. Is it worth $35 million? It’s hard to tell but I suspect the price might be a wee bit overlown too.

[via Palm Springs Life]

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Continue reading Les Baux de Palm Springs, Estate of the Day

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Filed under: Estates, Charity

Michael Vick may have sold his infamous Virginia home which was used in a dogfighting ring last May but the home’s infamy lives on. The home was appraised at $747,000 but sold for bargain price of $450,000 (don’t feel too sorry for Vick, he paid $34,000 for the 15 acres of land in 2002 and built the house). Since then the house has been put up for auction but last month at the auction real estate developer Wilbur Ray Todd Jr. rejected a final bid of $747,000. Todd says he put another $50,000 into fixing up the home which had been vandalized. The property includes the main house,a basketball court, four outbuildings and many dog cages. The main house has two master suites, a media room and a two-car garage. It is now listed at $1.1 million and an animal advocacy group wants to turn it into a shelter for abused dogs. Jalie’s Butterflies, has raised over $11,000 so far. They say that if the do not raise enough money to buy the house donations will got to the ASPCA. You can donate at The Vick House Project.

[via Baltimore Sun]

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter:
–Concern over the real estate market is causing a boom in Hamptons summer rentals. Instead of buying a house you can rent a house in Sagaponack for the three-month summer season fro $1 million, and it doesn’t even have a water view.
–Christine Wolf, the ex-wife of television mogul Dick Wolf, has sold her Upper East Side townhouse for approximately $9.6 million to Shaul Nakash, who runs Jordache jeans.
–Celebrity attorney Gloria Allred has paid $1.75 million for a three-bedroom prewar apartment on West 81st Street.

From the NY Observer’s Manhattan Transfers:
–Political cartoonist Ranan Lurie has paid $11.25 million for an apartment at 15 Central park West.
–Can an apartment which sold for $22.25 million seven months ago sell for $29.75 million now? That’s what fashion trade-show magnate Elyse Kroll is hoping. She bought the Sutton Square townhouse from Chinese television personality Yue-Sai Kan last June. The listing is here.
–CollegeHumor co-founder Joshua Abramson has bought $1.975 million apartment at the Greenwich.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
–Mr. Big Time runs down the real estate doings of Janet Jackson. Finding that she owns a condo in the Trump International Hotel & Tower condominium building, at 1 Central Park West in Manhattan and a home in Henderson, N.V., just outside of Las Vegas. It is believed that she no longer owns any real estate in Southern California but she used to own an oceanfront house in Malibu, a mansion in Bel-Air, a home in Rancho Sante Fe, and one more that she owned in Northridge that now belongs to her ex-husband, Rene Elizondo.
–Donovan Leitch Jr., who is in the band Camp Freddy, has sold his Spanish-style compound in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills for $1,050,000. It was our estate of the day back in October.
–Tom Bosley has sold his English country-style house in the Beverly Hills post office area for an undisclosed price after it was on the market for $2,950,000.
–An eight-bedroom mansion in Beverly Hills that once was owned by Madonna has sold for $15,680,000.
–More details on John Goodman’s purchase on a house in Pacific Palisades, he paid $4.6 million for his newly built home.
–Rapper Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas paid $2.2 million for a six-bedroom house in Altadena last spring.
–via The Wall Street Journal, the buyer of Georgia Frontiere mansion in Los Angeles in Bel-Air has been identified as Hilton Hotels Chief Executive Christopher Nassetta, who paid around $27.5 million. The home was on the market for $29,975,000.
–via The Wall Street Journal, Nicolas Cage has unloaded one of his many properties. He has sold his modern mansion in Newport Beach for $35 million.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Private Properties:
–Football star Terrell Owens has bought two new Dallas-area homes, a townhouse in the Eastside Lofts and a condominium in the new high-rise Azure complex. He still hasn’t unloaded his home in Moorestown, New Jersey which is listed at $3.4 million, reportedly $500,000 less than he bought it for. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
–The LA Times reported on indicted celebrity real estate agents Joseph Babajian and Kyle Grasso. The pair, who made millions on celeb clients were reportedly involved in complicated schemes involving straw buyers, obscenely over-valued properties and forged paper work. The pair is set to be tried in July unless a plea agreement is reached.
–Simon Fuller who owns a home in the “bird streets”area of the Hollywood Hills is reportedly quietly shopping the modern home for $8.5 million. He bought the home in February for $7.65 million.
–Fox News reports that Michael Jackson has may have found a lending institution to help him deal with his massive debt. It still seems likely that Neverland Ranch may still go into foreclosure.
–British hypnotist and author Paul McKenna has bought a home in the Hollywood Hills for $6.6 million.
–Rumor has it that celebrity hairstylist Sally Hershberger will be opening a Los Angeles outpost in the same building that houses celebrity decorator Kelly Wearstler. Hershberger’s Trousdale Estates home was on the market for $6.5 million but appears to have been taken off the market.
–The estate of Howard Gittis, a wealthy businessman, has put his Palm Beach home, shown above, on the market for $23.5 million. Gittis bought the home in 2001 fro $9.95 million. The listing is here.
–Another Gittis property, his Southampton home, is on the market for $59 million.
–Lauren Conrad of the reality show, The Hills, has picked up a home in Los Angeles which was listed at $2.495 million.
–A report on a house that Brendan Fraser and soon-to-be ex-wife Afton sold for $2,995,029 back in February.
–Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel have put their Palm Springs home on the market for $35 million. it is our estate of the day later today.
–Reality TV star Slade Smiley has reduced the price on his Coto de Caza home. It began at $1.725 million and now sits at $1.29 million. The listing is here.
–Jesse Metcalfe, who used to be on Desperate Housewives, has listed his Beachwood Canyon area home for $1.495 million. The listing is here.

From Newsday:
–A North Haven, NY property owned by Robert W. Rust which was listed for $80 million has been pulled off the market. The real estate agent, Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas says she is still the agent on the property but Rust says that he is looking for another agency and renovating the property before puttingit back on the market again.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
–A home once belonging to actor Fred MacMurray in Brentwood is expected to be put on the market for around $10 million.
–A Los Feliz home once owned by Paul Winfield is now on the market for $4.7 million.

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Filed under: Estates

This listing is another to check out just for the art. It’s white walls and open spaces are home to an expansive contemporary art collection. The building, in San Antonio, Texas was originally a candy factory that has been converted to lofts. The building was purchased by Linda Pace, an artist and collector and the founder and trustee of Artpace San Antonio. Pace turned the fifth floor into her residence and the sixth floor into galleries and both are now for sale (Pace passed away last summer). It’s a beautiful penthouse and a testament to the life of a woman truly devoted to art. It is listed at $5.7 million.

Continue reading San Antonio Art Penthouse, Estate of the Day

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Filed under: Estates

The Swiss ski village of Villars-Sur-Ollon,is home to many chalets. This one, tucked into the side of a mountain, is located just a three-minute walk from the cog-railway to start your day of skiing. In the warmer months it is ideally located for spring hikes. The home has old beams, rustic stone and a cedar roof. It is a recent build, so it has a clean and contemporary style. And you can’t ask for better views; you get snow-capped peaks in your window as you sit in your bathtub. There are seven bedrooms total and four bathrooms. It’s listed as price on request.

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Continue reading Swiss Ski Chalet, Estate of the Day

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Paris, France will be home to the world’s greenest office building. Skidmore Owings & Merrill has unveiled plans for the Energy Plus building which will be built in the Gennevilliers area of Paris. It will have solar panels covering the roof, more than any other building in the world, and will produce enough electricity to power the heating, lighting and air condition need of the 5,000 tenants. it will even generate carbon credits. The building will be more expensive to construct which will lead to higher rents, but tenants will not have to pay for electricity and the maintenance costs will be lower. The building’s cooling system will take water from the Seine and pump it around the offices. The project has the seal of approval from Bill Clinton, who endorsed the project at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting lats year.

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Filed under: Estates

Last October I wrote about Tom Ford’s move to pay $84,000 to buy the mineral rights beneath his Galisteo ranch in order to protect his land from possible oil exploration in the region. It looks like a pretty smart investment when you consider what is happening to candy billionaire Forrest Mars Jr. Businessweek reports that Mars, who is worth around $14 billion from his family’s ownership of candy company Mars Inc, has been fighting to keep a gas company off his huge Montana ranch. Pinnacle Gas Resources has a mineral lease to the land and a state judge has ruled that the company has the right to enter Mars’ Diamond Cross Ranch to drill an exploratory well. The company is looking for coal-bed methane, natural gas that is often stored in thick coal seams in the region.The ranch is spread over more than 82,000 acres and Pinnacle’s lease covers 10,300 acres of the property. Mars is worried that if the company does find methane they could use millions of gallons of water from underground aquifers to access it. This in turn would hurt the ranch’s ability to maintain the large herds of livestock on the property. Beth Kaeding, chairwoman of the Northern Plains Resource Council, summed the situation up perfectly in an article in the Jackson Hole Star Tribune, saying: “”If you don’t own the mineral rights, it doesn’t matter how huge your ranch is, how politically powerful you are, how much money you have. Mineral rights trump surface rights.”

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The suburban town on Winchester, Massachusetts is home to a variety of older grand homes. This home, with an English country manor look, was built in the 1930s. It has six bedrooms and sits on two acres that include formal gardens. You’re going to need your Murphy’s Oil soap for this one because there is beautiful woodwork everywhere. Large leaded glass windows keep it from being too gloomy. While the merits of a room covered in toile continue to elude me, the bedrooms do exude a posh coziness. And if ever there was a home that made good and ample use of Oriental rugs, this is it. it is listed at $4.6 million.

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Continue reading Winchester Mansion, Estate of the Day

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