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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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 purchased 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 couches, 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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Sean over at Franchise Pick recently talked about McDonald’s. His discussion of post-WWII era families traveling around the country eating at the same place every day (McDonald’s, of course), brought back memories.

In high school, we spent most nights at McDonald’s, cruising around and eating in our cars (this was pre-eat-in). In college, we would leave the dining hall and go to McDonald’s for fries for dessert.

Want to invest your retirement savings in a franchise?  According to the McDonald’s franchise website, you will need about $250,000 in “non-borrowed” personal assets.  After you have been trained at “Hamburger University,” and you open your franchise, you pay a service fee that is a percentage of sales, and rent (also based on sales).

McDonald’s is #5 on the Top 10 Franchises (selected by Entrepreneur Magazine).  And if you buy a franchise, you can give your grandchildren free Happy Meals forever!

I’m almost convinced to do it.

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Filed under: Estates, Water

Plans have been announced for New England’s largest marina, The Newport Club in Rhode Island. The Newport Club covers 44.5 acres of waterfront property on Aquidneck Island, plus 100 acres out into the cove itself. There will be 1,500 marina slips with retail shops, restaurants, waterfront residences, and marine-related support facilities. The slips will range up to 500 feet in hopes of drawing more megayacht traffic to the area. The Newport Club will feature resort style residences ranging from $395,000 to $2,000,000 and there are plans to build brand-name luxury hotels to create a popular yachting destination.

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Filed under: Estates

I love a good idea house where a bunch of high end designers work on one upscale home, now you can get one in the Hamptons at a discount .Braden Keil at the New York Post broke the story that the 2005 Hamptons Cottages & Gardens Idea House is on the market and was just reduced by $3 million. Hamptons C&G publisher Richard Ekstract and his wife, Eileen are selling the eight-bedroom, 7,500-square-foot Bridgehampton mansion which is on 3.7 acres. The home includes a master suite with a private media room, a sitting room and a dressing room. The lower level includes staff quarters. The ground are also home to a 40-foot-by-40-foot pool. There’s a little bit of design house schizophrenia going on here where the rooms don’t really share an overarching theme but its contemporary and impressive in the way that a Hamptons home should be. It reminds me of a bit of the house that Gordon Gekko had in Wall Street. In the Post, Ekstract is quoted as joking that now, at $15 million instead of the original $18 million, the price is too cheap. It is listed by both Corcoran and Prudential Douglas Elliman.

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter:
–Actor/musician Steven Van Zandt, who is a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and his wife, Maureen, have bid on a three-bedroom, three-bath penthouse in a former church on West Fourth Street. The apartment with stained glass windows has an asking price of $5.99 million.
–Actress Frances McDormand and her filmmaker husband Joel Coen have listed their Hudson Valley hideaway. The home on a country road in the town of Esopus, NY has three bedrooms, a screened porch and an old-fashioned kitchen. It is listed at $895,000. The charming home is shown above and the listing is here.
–The Russian Federation have bought one of Manhattan’s pricier townhouses for $35 million. The 25-foot-wide residence at 36 E. 75th St. was built in 1893 and has six bedrooms.
–The price has dropped on the 2005 Hamptons Cottages & Gardens Idea House. Hamptons C&G publisher Richard Ekstract and his wife, Eileen, have lowered the price of their eight-bedroom, 7,500-square-foot Bridgehampton mansion on 3.7 gated acres. It is our estate of the day later this day.

From Berg Properties Massive Time Listings:
–Tobey Maguire has bought a 0.93-acre vacant parcel in Brentwood.
–Comedian Carlos Mencia has purchased actor Eddie Cibrian’s Encino mansion which was listed at $4.395 million. Cibrian has paid $2.5 million for a mansion in Calabasas.
–Actor John Leguizamo has paid $5,750,000 for a town home in Manhattan’s Washington Square area.
–Turns out that Mark Harmon didn’t purchase a new place in Malibu, it went to someone else with a similar name.

From the NY Observer’s Manhattan Transfers:
Dr. Marlene Krauss and her husband, Dr. Zachary Berk have paid $7.65 million for the triplex penthouse at the Claremont Home, a 1980’s-era condo on East 72nd Street between Park and Madison avenues. It was our estate of the day in December 2006 when it was listed at $8.995 million. The couple own the floor below the penthouse, and are combining the two units into a four-level apartment. The couple has put their 15th floor home on the market for $4.75 million to raise money for renovations. The listing is here.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Private Properties:
–As the Real Estalker Mama previously reported, the motion picture producer Jon Peters is asking $39.5 million for four adjoining Beverly Hills parcels he purchased in 1996 but never fully developed. The listing is here.
–Limited Brands marketing chief Ed Razek has purchased an oceanfront villa in the Turks & Caicos. Thetvilla is in Dellis Cay, a 560-acre, residential development being constructed on a private island with a master plan by Pritzker prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid.
–Baseball player Steve Finley, has trimmed 3.4 acres from his home for sale and reduced the price to $13.95 million. The listing is on the Barry Estates website.

From the Real Estalker:
–Jessica Alba has paid around $4.05 million for a new Beverly Hills home.
–Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner have been spotted house hunting in Los Angeles.
–Another big estate hits the market in Los Angeles. The Singleton family has put their Holmby Hills home on the market for $85 million. The main home, designed by Wallace Neff is 15,520 square feet with 10 bedrooms. It is on over seven acres. The listing is here.
–Kate Hudson has reportedly been looking at real estate in TriBeCa.
–Producer Max Mutchnick and partner Erik Hyman are set to purchases a major estate in Hancock Park.
–Television writer Juanita Bartlett has put her Martha’s Vineyard home on the market for $12.95 million. The listing is here.
–Writer and producer Aaron Sorkin recently picked up a beautiful home in the Sunset Strip area of Los Angeles for $6.1 million.
–Tennis star Pete Sampras and his wife actress Bridgette Wilson-Sampras have listed their Beverly Hills mansion for for $25 million. The listing is here.
Actor Harvey Fierstein has put his Brewster, New York home on the market for $749,900. The listing is here.
–via the London Sunday Times, the Toprak Mansion in London has been sold for

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Filed under: Estates

I’ve been lucky to find homes with great woodwork lately. This one in Bellevue, Washington is one of the most astonishing I’ve seen. It is a four-bedroom home designed to invoke a zen-like serenity. The home was designed by architect Curtis Gelotte, who calls it Wood, Stone and Water on his site. Rough stone fireplaces and huge windows as well as an indoor waterfall help complete the feeling of rustic calm. The staircases here are just extraordinary but the most stunning piece of design in the home is the custom designed tea-house canopy over master bed. What a place to sleep. It is listed at $3.5 million.

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Filed under: Estates

It’s not exactly a Frank Lloyd Wright home but it is definitely inspired by the legendary architect. This home near Jackson, Wyoming was custom built for someone who definitely has a taste for the Arts and Crafts style. The woodwork here is stunning, especially the chandelier in the dining room. If you aren’t a fan of this style it can all be a bit much but the overall theme is very consistent and rather restful. The four-bedroom home has an exterior of pressed brick, elaborate cornices, and wrap-around terraces. It sits on 5.37 acres and is listed at $11.4 million.

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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 although 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 says that several are interested. Once approved, construction on the project could begin as early as this fall and be finished by early 2010.

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