Filed under: Estates

We visited North Bay Road in Miami Beach last month for an estate of the day but a reader, Marie, sent me the link for this one. I figured it was worth sharing with you. I’m not quite sure what sort of happy money cocktail designers are sipping along North Bay Road but it makes for some interesting decorating decisions, especially as newer owners with lots of money try to bend older homes to their will. The last estate we saw in this area was a strange amalgam of modern and absurd baroque. This one is a less obvious and more lavish case, but there are still some interesting juxtapositions here. The current owners seem to have a hankering for the modern, hence the new spare and bare contemporary kitchen and bathrooms, but this home still has the particularly Miami affliction of gold paint details on the walls. The home is over 10,000 square feet with nine bedrooms and it has a nice chunk of bay frontage with a dock. This estate is listed at $18.9 million.

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Filed under: Estates, Journeys

What’s the cut-off for size for boutique hotels? I generally think it is under 150 rooms but a new multi-use project in Knoxville, Tennessee bills itself as having a boutique hotel even though it’s got 200 rooms. The Metropolitan Plaza project is actually a fairly massive project, including a 15-foor tower with as many as 32 condos above the hotel room as well restaurants, a bank and retail shops on the lobby level. There’s also an office tower planned that would stand about 7-8 floors tall. The $78 million project from Knoxville-based Commercial & Investment Properties also includes an enclosed pedestrian bridge linking the complex to the Knoxville Convention Center.

The proposal beat out two other proposals for the redevelopment of the downtown say Supreme Court Building.The project does not have a hotel brand linked to it yet but the developer states that several are interested. Once approved, construction on the project could start as early as this fall and be finished by early 2010.

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Municipal bonds are a good buy in the market these days.  Rates of return are high and you get the tax free aspect.  They’re a goo defensive pick in this volatile stock market, except for those areas that are being hit hard in the sub-prime loan default area.  Their tax base is going down the tubes.  Think Florida and Nevada, among others.

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