I went to a new CPA to give him my business taxes, and he stopped me cold with this question:  Do you and your husband have wills?  When I answered “no” he stated, “Do you know what happens when you die without a will?”  Ouch.  I do know, and it’s not pretty. Dying without a will means your say gets to decide what happens to your estate.  This may or might not be what you want.  Even if it is, it means there will be many months, and lots of hassles, between your death and the distribution of funds.  If, like us, you have a second marriage, it gets even uglier.  Here is one short list of possible problems, from Senior Magazine On the internet.

We have been “talking about it” for some time, and we even started making lists of assets and started allocating beneficiaries.  So now we’ve to do it.  And so do you.

My CPA said, “Don’t do it yourself.  Go to an attorney.”  I’m calling mine in the morning.

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I’ve written about the deluxe “car condos” before but I found this recent article on storage condos fascinating. More and more people are using storage condos not just as a place to stores a few things but to actually uses as a sort of second home, a place to actually spend time with your stuff. GarageTown sells units that come with cable television, high-speed Internet, individual thermostats, and clubhouses where the owners can hang out together. At 2,000 square feet the largest spaces are as massive as some homes. All says have self-storage units but most are the rather chilly and drab cement and metal spaces you can rent out. The storage units as condos are for the most part, clustered in resort areas and places with long winters. But that’s changing. Even rental units are getting more and more deluxe marking a shift from when people would just plunk their things in a storage facility and promptly forget about them. The prices for condo garages and storage condo units vary but GarageTown’s units in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho cost about $57,000 to $85,950 (for comparison sake, one-bedroom condos in the area under 500 square feet begin around $100,000). For those who simply don’t have enough room, the storage condo becomes your garage or basement away from home, not just a place to store things but also a hideout from everything going on in your home.

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I’m taking another look at this one because when I first wrote about it last Might there were no inside pictures for the listing. Searles Castle in Great Barrington, Massachusetts has 40 rooms and seven turrets. The home, which has most recently served as a private school is now up for sale for $15 million. The castle, which is on 61 acres, has a fascinating history, it is one of two in the New England region (the other is in New Hampshire) that bear the name of Edward Searles. Mary Hopkins, the widow of railroad tycoon Mark Hopkins commissioned the castle which was built in 1888. She hired interior decorator Edward Searles for the project, and they married a year before it was finished (she was 22 years older than he). After she died he stayed in the castle for a time and then after his death it has been a private private school, conference center among other businesses and was most recently the John Dewey Academy. The castle has 36 fireplaces, a dungeon, and more than 50 rooms for a total of around 60,000 square feet. The finishes here are astonishing imported marble, accentuated fireplaces, carved wood ceilings, a Louis XIV drawing room with details in gold and original painted ceiling, music room with 42-ft dome ceiling, a slate roof, hipped and conical roofs accentuated by finials, chimneys, gablets and turrets. It’s been sitting on the market since last Might for $15 million.

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This striking home in the Queen Anne neighborhood in Seattle is perched on a hill so you get fantastic views of the Seattle skyline including the Space Needle. And it has a roof terrace to like those views. Although it is 4500 square feet there are only two bedrooms making it more of a home for empty nesters than families. The kitchen has beautiful countertops and the home had an open floor plan that puts the emphasis on the large windows facing the view. There’s also a home theater and a 100 1000-bottle wine cellar. This home is listed at $2.488 million. %Gallery-14974%

Continue reading Queen Anne, Estate of the Day

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The Hudson Blue building in New York’s West Village first attracted my attention because Leonardo DiCaprio is moving into the building. The glass and steel modern building is a bit like the designer imposters version of the coveted Richard Meier buildings (if you like Meier, you’ll love Hudson Blue). The building is located between West 11th and Perry Streets. This apartment is one of the penthouses and has Hudson River views from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Building amenities include a “cyber doorman,” terraces on each floor and storage and ownership in the first floor facility which affords residents the ability to design and use as a fitness, media or meditation room. The apartment is an eighth and ninth floor duplex with three terraces. The lower floor has the dining/living room, galley kitchen and a bedroom while the upper floor is given over to the master suite with a sitting room/home office and spa bath with sauna. It is listed at $6.995 million.

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The Parisian neighborhood of Montmatre has a rich history in the arts. The hilly area was once home to Pablo Picasso, Van Gogh and others including Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. His home Ch

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the Real Estalker:
–The Desert House, the sleek and modern prototype for the deluxe prefabs created by starchitecture firm Marmol Radziner in Desert Hot Springs has been listed at $1.85 million.
–Did Scott Baio move to a five-bedroom house in Encino? The Real Estalker Mama reports that Baio and his wife, Peaches Renee Sloan, still occupy Baio’s home on Royal Oak Road in Encino. It looks like the couple “bought” the new home on the show for reality drama’s sake.
–Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford are renting out a beach front four-bedroom home in Malibu for $22,500 a month.
–Rumors have been swirling that Britney Spears bought a new home in Hermosa Beach before she went into the hospital. The home in question appears to be owned by professional photographer Dani Brubaker (who recently took pictures of Britney and her kids for OK Magazine) and it seems unlikely that Britney actually purchased this home.
–Has billionaire Ron Burkle helped Michael Jackson save Neverland Ranch? Roger Friedman at Fox News has reported that Burkle might have intervened of Jackson’s behalf to provide an extension to give Jackson time to refinance.
–Jennifer Aniston has moved out of the Malibu cottage she’s been renting since 2005.
–Jermaine Dupri has listed a five-bedroom home in Atlanta, Georgia for $1.5 million. The listing is here.
–Melrose Place actor Grant Show has listed his three-bedroom home in the Beachwood Canyon for $1,995,000. The listing is here.
–Singer Dido has listed her house in the prestigious Bird Streets area of Los Angeles for $4.6 million. The listing is here.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Private Properties:
–A Parisian home that once belonged to Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir is on the market. It is out estate of the day later this day.
–NBA point guard Baron Davis of the Golden Say Warriors has sold a pair of adjacent condos in West Hollywood for $2.66 million.
–Investment banker Warren Woo has paid $20 million for a house in Los Angeles, plus $2 million more for furnishings.

From the NY Observer’s Manhattan Transfers:
–A two-floor penthouse at 530 East 72nd Street which was lived in by Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow and then by Andy Warhol’s doctor, Denton S. Cox is on the market for $5,995,000 and it’s a real fixer-upper. The listing is here.
–Ex-F.B.I. Special Agent Ali Soufan, who now works for Guiliani Partners, and his wife just paid $1.7 million for a new Manhattan apartment.
–Stephen Drucker, Home Beautiful’s editor, and real estate agent Frank Newbold closed this month on a two-bedroom co-op at 125 East 74th Street for $1.45 million.
–Parker Posey, who late last year listed her apartment in an 1845 brownstone on East 10th Street near Third Avenue for $1.175 million, is in contract to purchase a $1.35 million one-bedroom co-op at 30 Fifth Avenue.
–Salman Rushdie’s ex-wife, 37-year-old Padma Lakshmi, the model-turned-Top Chef hostess paid $1,651,111 for a long, full-floor loft in Alphabet City.

From Berg Properties Huge Time Listings:
–Wilmer Valderrama has sold a home in Tarzana for $1,750,000 after it had been listed for $2,250,000 and later reduced to $1,950,000.
–Rupert Murdoch has taken $2,000,000 off the asking price of his Long Island, N.Y. mansion, Rosehearty, reducing its listing price from $14,800,000 to $12,800,000. It was our estate of the day back in July.

From the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter:
–A new record residential price has been set for the North Fork of Long Island. A 135-acre estate that includes a 19-acre vineyard has been sold for $19.5 million. The original asking price for Indian Neck Farm was $22 million when it went on the market in 2006.
–Edgar Bronfman Jr. and his wife, Clarissa, finally have taken possession of their 11-room co-op at 1040 Fifth Ave.
–Author and interior decorator Regina “Gigi” Mahon has paid just over $14 million for two condo apartments on the fifth floor at the soon to be finished Plaza.
–Polo-playing communications mogul Adam Lindemann has found a new oceanfront Hamptons hideaway in Montauk for $21.5 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
–Keith Yamashita, a high-powered business consultant, has listed his contemporary Manhattan Beach home at $3.449 million because he and his partner, Todd Holcomb, are planning to return to San Francisco, where their 10-year-old company, Stone Yamashita Partners, is based. The listing is here.

From AOL Real Estate:
–A list of America’s richest counties.

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Some homes in Sarasota, Florida strive for spare and modern design. This isn’t one of those houses. This is the other kind of Sarasota house, a lavish new construction designed to catch the eye of the high-end shopper. Records show that the property on Sarasota Bay was purchase for under $1.5 million back in 2003. The home was developed by Laughlin’s Luxury Lifestyles and built by Triangle Construction and is a lavish 14,243 square foot residence. Believe it or not, the listing states this one is a certified green home. There are five bedrooms and the finishes include lots of marble and travertine as well as exotic woods including Brazilian cherry, teak and bamboo.The grounds include a huge pool and spa and a dock and boat lift. It’s been on the market for a while, check out this press release from August 2006 that says that Sky Sotheby’s Realtors Laura Brady and Stuart Mattison “personally commit to spending upwards of $50,000 over the course of the first year, of which 5 percent goes to photography and copywriting, 20 percent goes for the launch event, 15 percent goes for World wide web ads, 30 percent goes for direct mail and brochures, 25 percent goes for print advertising, and the balance goes for odd and ends.” It looks like the home was previously priced at $10,850,000 but it is currently at $9.950,000. Even though it was built in 2006, the extreme extravagance already makes it seem like a relic of an earlier, more optimistic time.

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When it comes to remote vacation homes ease of management can be nearly as important as location. That’s one of the major selling features for the Sundowner on Nevis, an idyllic Caribbean island. The Sundowner is part of the Four Seasons Nevis where all homes come with security systems, provisioning services for food, and routine maintenance of the homes. The home is prepared for your arrival and locked up when you leave. You also get access to the resort’s championship golf course, clay or hard tennis courts, a full range of watersports, the fitness center, and the full-service spa. The home has five bedrooms (each with walk-in closets and refrigerators), massive living room and a kitchen.

The home sits on 1.19 acres in the hills for views of the ocean and St. Kitts in the distance and, a bit closer the 13th hole of the award-winning Robert Trent Jones II golf course. There’s an infinity pool with a large terrace and there is a bar downstairs for poolside pleasing. The home also has a wraparound terrace. The decor doesn’t seem to quite match the home’s pricetag and the kitchen is a bit less than fabulous but you aren’t there to cook, you are there to soak up the sun. This home is listed at $4.5 million.

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One doesn’t really think of real estate when discussing rare objects. After all, land is everywhere. When it comes to discussing what’s “rare” in real estate there are a few distinct categories and despite the old adage, it’s not just location, location, location. In fact location is just one of the considerations. When it comes to location, one thing to consider is that the smaller amount of land available, the rarer the land. Property on islands in the Caribbean such as Richard Branson’s Necker Island or places like Nantucket, Bermuda, Kiawah Island has a certain rarity just because the real estate available is defined by the shoreline. There’s no chance of endless sprawl in these places. Another factor in rarity which also goes under the heading of location is proximity. Nearness to New York City pumps up the prices in the Hamptons, Westchester County and Greenwich, Connecticut.

Sometimes rarity comes down to exclusivity. We see this in the case of private communities where owners pay to be safely tucked behind gates and have access to shared facilities like clubhouses. Exclusivity is sometimes taken to its most ruthless degree when it comes to New York real estate. Getting into one of the famous buildings in New York City such as 740 Park takes not just money but also a fair bit of clout.

What I think makes real estate most rare is history. A piece of real estate that has been lived in by famous people and has a long history achieves a certain level of rarity. The Dakota in New York is a prime example, the list of famous people who have made the Dakota home are as much a part of its value as the building’s charm and location. Also under the rubric of history is architecture. For example, in Los Angeles where I live, homes created by modern architect Richard Neutra are worth far more than their square footage and acreage might lead you to believe. A Neutra home owned by Vidal Sassoon recently hit the market for $25 million.

At the intersection of location, exclusivity and history you find some of the rarest pieces of real estate, European castles that are hundreds of years old, villas perched cliffside overlooking the Mediterranean, homes that have their own vibrant character. One of my favorite examples, La Rondinaia in Ravello Italy, was owned by Gore Vidal and is now being turned into a niche hotel. My pick for the rarest piece of real estate currently on the market is Bran’s castle, the castle in Transylvania that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is expected to fetch upwards of $135 million. The rarest real estate is, the kind that nearly never comes on the market, it remains handed down in families. For some more of the historic estates on the market check out the gallery below.

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