Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter:
–Heath Ledger’s rental apartment in SoHo is already being quietly shopped around. Ledger had been renting the three-bedroom apartment for $22,000 a month and it is apparently being offered now for around $25,000.
–Clothing magnate Leslie “Les” Wexner, who founded The Limited and owns Victoria’s Secret, Express and Henri Bendel has picked up a four-bedroom condo at 15 Central Park West for $13.1 million.He and his wife have a $50 million, 1,000-acre estate in Ohio.
–Heather Randall, the widow of Tony Randall, is also moving into a similarly sized four-bedroom apartment at 15 Central Park West.
–A $32 million sale at the elite 740 Park Ave. co-op building. The estate of Mosler Safe heiress Janet Coleman sold the 14-room duplex apartment to David Randall Winn and his wife, Tamara Sarah Winn.

From the NY Observer’s Manhattan Transfers:
–New York City has presented finalists for its contest to design emergency temporary housing. The ideas include inflatable apartments, putting housing atop the sidewalk scaffold sheds that fill the streets of Manhattan, and lugging in buildings on tugboats. Ten were given $10,000 to further develop their designs.
–A peek into the life of Steven Green who in 1990 was named one of the NYC’s 10 worst landlords, and spent nearly a month in jail after not providing Queens tenants with hot water.Green later moved to Florida, started a charter airline and early last year failed to get back a $780,000 divorce settlement from his partner, who cited cruelty. He was then sentenced to almost three years in jail for fraud and tax charges. In Might, a month before jail, he was leaving a West Side club when a hit-and-run put him in a coma. Green is recovering from brain damage, and won’t have to report to prison for another few months. His condo at the Essex House was sold off last month for $3 million. After using a a phony Social Security number to get a loan from Wells Fargo he was forced by a U.S. District Court to pay $4.11 million in restitution. So far he hasn’t paid anything but the Essex House condo was highly mortgaged so likely the court will not get much money from the sale.
–Seagram liquor heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. bought his East 64th Street townhouse in 1994 for $4.375 million, and sold it to his Warner Music Group colleague Len Blavatnik, the oil magnate, for $50 million last October. Now he’s hoping for another flip in a much shorter time frame. On Jan. 18, he paid $19.5 million for an 11-room sprawl at 1040 Fifth Avenue. On Jan. 25, without having done any work, he listed the apartment for $24 million, $4.5 million above his purchase one week earlier. Wow, if he gets it, that’s one heck of a payday. The listing is here.
–The chairman of the Metropolitan Art museum’s board, James R. Houghton, has sold his two-bedroom tower apartment in the Majestic on Central Park West last month for $4.9 million.
–Karen Assante, Armand Assante’s ex-wife, has sold her two-bedroom apartment at the 20’s-era co-op 118 Riverside Drive for $2.45 million.
–Listings for the Mark, the 1927 hotel at 25 East 77th Street, have hit the Internet. Corcoran shows 12 listings for the building including the $60 million penthouse, with 12 rooms, five bedrooms, eight baths, and a $35,477 monthly maintenance.

From the Nashville Post:
Singer/songwriter Michelle Branch bought a home in the Belle Meade area of Nashville, Tennessee, several months after selling her home in Calabasas, California. In 2006 she bought a condo in Nashville’s Werthan Lofts.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Private Properties:
–The widow of author Sidney Sheldon has listed their Palm Springs compound for $7.9 million, plus a home across the street for $4 million. Sheldon and his wife, Alexandra, owned a total of four houses in the Old Las Palmas neighborhood. The Sheldons lived in a midcentury modernist seven-bedroom home and also owned a six-bedroom Mediterranean-style guest house. A four-bedroom home with a glass-enclosed indoor pool and a poolside kitchen is also for sale for $1.45 million. Brook Ashley, Scott Palermo and Jim Sanak, all of Prudential California Realty’s Estates division, have the listings (no pictures yet).
–Owners have cut the price of two apartments at New York’s Plaza condominium, the redesigned Plaza Hotel. Fred Farago, the president of a fruit-flavoring company, is now asking $5.9 million for a one-bedroom apartment there, around the same amount he paid for the unit in July and Italian-born architect Teresa Sapey has trimmed $200,000 off the initial $10 million price for her 13th-floor unit which she purchased for $6.9 million in July.
–At 15 Central Park West, Evan Cole, who co-founded ABC Carpet & Home, has concurred to sell his 15th-floor three-bedroom apartment there for over $9 million (he paid $4.83 million). In the same building,Michael Holtz, a travel-agency owner, recently signed an agreement to sell an identical apartment for more than his $8.5 million asking price.
–Actor Rupert Everett has listed his Miami Beach pied-

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This home in the Middleton Plantation area of Charleston, South Carolina has a calm and secluded plot with plenty of gardens and greenery, two ponds and three decks. The home was built in 1982 and could appear dated but the the owners have really gone all out to modernize the interior with a rather stark contemporary palette. The home has four bedrooms and is approximately 6,000 square feet. It is listed at just $1.35 million.

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This custom home is located in Chance Hope Farm, a small waterfront enclave that’s part of St. Michaels, Maryland. Chance Hope Farm is a neighborhood of approximately 50 luxury single family homes that are all are on the water along the Miles River. This home has tranquil views of Eastern Bay and the Miles River. The 7,000 +/- sq. ft. custom built home has a beautiful sun-filled sitting room, a French country kitchen and my favorite feature, a two-story atrium library with a winding staircase. Outside there’s a an inground pool, a pier and a detached three-car garage that has guest quarters. It is listed at $3.495 million.

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I’m showing you this one simply for the decor. This home in the Malibu Colony in California is totally devoted to the world of folk art and Americana. Look beyond the decor and it seems to be a fairly nondescript though lovely white and bright contemporary California home. Slate and hardwood floors and a shiny new kitchen add to the appeal. There are three bedrooms including a second story master suite. It also features ones of the oddest toilet paper racks I have ever seen. The home also has a private pool and spa. This home is listed at $5.5 million.

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I’ve written about the deluxe “car condos” before but I found this current 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 TV, 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 start 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 photos 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 incredible 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 enjoy those views. Even though 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 huge windows facing the view. There is also a home theater and a 100 1000-bottle wine cellar. This home is listed at $2.488 million. %Gallery-14974%

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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 capability 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 home 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 house 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 children 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 State 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 home 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 physician, 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, House 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 completed 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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