Filed under: Estates

An architect and urban designer, Rem Koolhaas’ concept of the “generic city” created years ago might finally get the opportunity to be constructed in Dubai as a 1.5 billion square foot project called Waterfront City. It will be like picking up a section of Manhattan and placing it on an artificial island just off the Persian Gulf, balancing elements of unique construction, such as the 44-story sphere, with rows of towering skyscrapers. This bold statement would establish Dubai as the center for urban experimentation and one of the world’s fastest growing metropolises. Working in a sphere would be a nice change of pace from the strict rigidity of a typical building — even though would you still have elevators?

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Filed under: Estates

When I saw that this one was up for sale, I was excited. When my family used to live on Cape Cod, I’ve often passed by this house on the way to the Hyannis Yacht Club. On sunny days I often saw a man painting on outside on the observation deck of the tower. This home is set at a bend in the road in Hyannisport and faces Nantucket Sound. The almost 8,000 square-foot home is on enviable piece of land with 300 feet of private beachfront. The home, which was built in 1910, is in need of a bit of a renovation but it’s a treat to see the artist’s works everywhere. The studio is messy, as all good studios should be, but it looks like great space. The home is listed at $8.95 million.

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Filed under: Estates

I don’t write too much about condos in Los Angeles but we’ve definitely got them. For the most part they don’t have the appeal of some New York condominiums when it comes to poshness and elaborate style but this one is pretty breathtaking. It’s the double penthouse that takes up half of the highest two floors at The Wilshire on Wilshire Blvd. The condo has a private foyer and a big and ornate two-story living room with silk draperies, custom rock crystal chandeliers, hand-made carpets and sculpted moldings. The home has a beautiful bronze and iron staircase and balcony detail, a water filtration system, four fireplaces and remote control security monitors. The walnut family room has the look of a European pub with coffered ceilings and a granite bar. The media room has a 100-inch rear screen projection system and there’s a formal dining room and separate sitting room. There’s a private in-unit elevator which also goes to the upper floor where there’s a mahogany office, guest suite and a storage area that includes a hair salon and wrapping room, which can be converted into an additional bedroom. The master suite has an antique marble fireplace, blackout shades and soft pastels. The gentlemen’s bath and dressing room has a steam shower and the ladies’ bath has a spa and big closet. The building has 24-hour concierge service, 24-hour valet, gym facilities and swimming pool. This condo is listed at $11.5 million.

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Teachers’ eyes stake in Prague airport
Globe and Mail - News & Comment Market Action Globe Investor Globe Fund Your Money Managing Small Business Globeinvestor Gold The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is looking at adding another foreign airport to its growing portfolio of

SUUTI portfolio value falls Rs 20K cr since Jan
Business Standard - Sources said SUUTI was able to exit most of the other small and mid-cap stocks, cashing in on the three year bull-run. Business Standard Ltd. Copyright & Disclaimer feedback@business-standard.com | Designed and Developed by E Dot Solutions I Pvt Ltd

Review: RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120
Computerworld - Recommended March 13, 2008 (PC World) Research in Motion ’s latest BlackBerry Pearl handset, the 8120, sets a new cell phone standard for delivering business-class e-mail and great multimedia in a small, sleek package. It’s the first Pearl with Wi-Fi

Prizewinning pizza sparks sales boom
CNN Money - NEW YORK (FORTUNE Small Business) — For people who love pizza, Emporium, Pa., has in the last few months become a destination. The small town, a three-hour drive from Pittsburgh, is home to Pizza Palace Plus , and to owner David Smith’s award

Calvert President and CEO Receives 2008 Latino Economic Development
Biloxi Sun Herald - LEDC’s Small Business Development Program provides a fantastic service to small business owners and entrepreneurs.” The awards will be presented at LEDC’s annual gala, to be held on May 1.

For Terrapin Beer Co., happy hour has arrived
Atlanta Journal Constitution - Contract brewing is a good way for a small, entrepreneurial company like Terrapin to build its business without investing much capital. But the practice carries something of a stigma in a burgeoning American craft beer culture that values the local

Computer programming pioneer Joseph Weizenbaum dead at 85, advanced
Minneapolis Star Tribune - He was the Scientific Council chairman of Berlin’s Institute of Electronic Business at the time of his death. Weizenbaum was buried at a small family service in the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin.

Some viruses come pre-installed
Seattle Post Intelligencer - Apple disclosed the most information, saying the virus that infected a small number of video iPods in 2006 came from a PC BUSINESS HEADLINES · Dendreon looks for early results on Provenge · Foreclosures are up in King County and across state · On

Paterson: Time to get back to business
Buffalo Business First - New York state’s 55th governor won’t be sworn in until St. Patrick’s Day but David Paterson is already getting to work in Albany. Paterson, who has served as the lieutenant governor, will replace Eliot Spitzer, who resigned Wednesday after being

Changes in small towns mean changes for Class B basketball
In-Forum - There are not that many people here and you find out when the town is pretty small, it’s hard to get back to the state DeMaine got out of coaching and into the crop insurance business several years ago.

HP Hires Stephen DeWitt to Lead Americas PC Business
MSN MoneyCentral - PSG’s portfolio includes PCs, mobile products, client virtualization and connected entertainment solutions, Internet services and support for consumers, small to mid-size business and enterprise customers.

Knowledge Itself Doesn’t Make the Difference
Yahoo Finance - BI), Strategic Planning, and Financial Planning tools designed to support business operations with highly-reliable reporting, analysis, monitoring, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation processes. Bitam solutions are being used by small, medium

Zeacom Unveils New Unified Communications Suite at VoiceCon Orlando
Consumer Electronics Net - Zeacom Communications Center 5.0 is expected to further strengthen Zeacom’s position as a leading telephony software provider to small to medium sized organisations seeking to integrate their business communications and processes.

Chase Donates $10,000 to Family Service Association of Greater Elgin
MSN MoneyCentral - The firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers, small business and commercial banking, financial transaction processing, asset management, and private equity.

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Filed under: Estates

Even in one of the hottest real estate markets in the United States people are starting to feel the pinch of the foreclosure crisis. The AP has a story on the falling housing prices in one of the most beautiful and high-priced areas in the country. In January, home sales fell more than 55 percent from the year before. The number of houses at any stage of foreclosure jumped by 152.9 percent. So far the very high-priced wine towns of Calistoga, Yountville, St. Helena and Rutherford are still doing well but the city of Napa and the town of American Canyon have been hard hit, finding that the newer housing developments are particularly vulnerable both to lack of sales and forecloures.

Part of the worry for Napa is that its exponential growth has been fueled by wine tourism which may begin to wane in the current economic climate. Currently condos, offices and retail stores are under construction, designed to appeal to the tourists and part-time residents. While the general wisdom seems to be that recessions do not cause people to stop drinking wine, it might cause them to cut back on winery tours which would impact other luxury retail businesses which have come to the area in the past couple of years.

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If there were real estate staging awards (and really there should be, I might just need to create them) then today’s listing might be nominated in the “most obvious” category. This three-bedroom New York condo loft at 76 Crosby is the one of those white New York box condos and instead of using colorful furniture to warm the place up a bit the stagers used white couches, white flowers, white towels in the bathroom. Also, I think the Barcelona lounge chair should be stricken from the stager’s playbook. The condo’s walls are blindingly white but the bathrooms are dark stone and tile caves of bathing retreat. The opaque glass wall in the living room also gives me pause, it makes the space seem rather narrow. The apartment is over 5, 262 square feet of space but the pictures don’t seem to show that to best effect. Coincidentally, when I was googling around for more information on this building I saw that Curbed covered this place yesterday pointing out that both Gawker head Nick Denton and cheery TV personality Kelly Ripa inhabit the same building. I also found an old sold listing at Corcoran with a very similar staging job. This one is listed at $9.4 million.

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Earlier this year I mentioned the listing for the Land’s End Inn in Provincetown, MA. Now another inn has gone on the market in another Massachusetts resort area, Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. This classic white clapboard home is an 1890s Captain’s House which was renovated in 1993 and operated as The Tuscany Inn. Now it is a private residence with L’Etoile restaurant on the main floor. There are eight guest rooms, eight and a half baths, two dining rooms with seating for forty people, terrace dining seats and a bar area. The building has a restaurant kitchen with basement wine storage. There are jarbor views from the second and third floors. Unfortunately the listing photos for this one are even worse than the bad ones we saw for the Land’s End property so you’ll have to use your imagination to conjure up an Edgartown summer evening. It is listed at $8.7 million.

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Filed under: Estates

It’s tempting when an actor plays a beloved character on television to assume that the actor and the character are the same. Today’s estate is proof of the difference between a character and the actor who played him. This Tudor home in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles would never do for Jack McFarland from “Will & Grace” but it’s perfect for Sean Hayes, the actor who played him. You are not getting flamboyance here. The Real Estalker Mama, who first had this story, found it a bit stuffy and it’s a fair criticism. It’s definitely not the Frankie Muniz style pop art funhouse, it’s the home of a person who is settled in. But oh we should all be able to settle in like this. One of the Real Estalker Mama’s commenters mentioned that it seemed like a Midwestern luxury home and it does remind me of something one might see in Winnetka, Illinois. The wood-paneled office, the formal dining room and the grand staircase all give it the feel of the lovely home you must leave behind in order to become a Hollywood star.

The four-bedroom home has all sorts of lovely spaces. There is a marble and wood master lavatory that’s almost living room sized. The yard features a charming pool area and an outdoor fireplace and amusing area. The Real Estalker Mama reports that Hayes purchased the home in 2001 when it was listed at $1.575 million so no matter what he’s going to make some money on the deal. As well he should (although maybe not quite as much he’s hoping for with an $8.95 million listing).

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter:
–As we saw on Friday, Tommy Hilfiger has put his Greenwich, Connecticut home on the market for $27.9 million.
–An oceanfront estate with a $65 million asking price has just gone to contract on exclusive Gin Lane in Southampton.
–It’s official, Parker Posey has sold her one-bedroom co-op for $1.3 million and purchased a two bedroom on lower Fifth Avenue for around the same price.
–Retired Goldman Sachs manager turned bed-and-breakfast proprietor Robert Mnuchin, and his wife, Adriana, have spent $20 million for a full floor co-op at 944 Fifth Ave.

From the NY Observer’s Manhattan Transfers:
–Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb has shut on his famous $45 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West. No mortgage records were filed with the deed, which recommends that Mr. Loeb paid cash to satisfy the most high-priced sales price ever on Central Park West.
–Even though he passed away in Monaco last March, the British skyscraper developer Howard Ronson has added to his real estate portfolio. His limited liability corporation just paid $11 million, according to public deeds, for the Berwind Manor’s glass penthouse. It’s not clear if his widow controls his real estate deals now, but his brokers stated it was Ronson’s idea to buy the mansion piecemeal.
–Lawyer Aaron Charney who sued his firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, last year alleging homophobia and collected a settlement, has purchased a penthouse. He and a partner just paid $1.495 million for a penthouse at the newly converted condo at 93rd Street and Broadway.
–Developer Bruce Ratner has paid $6.9 million at 128 East 62nd Street.
–A $38 million Upper East Side mansion designed by Stanford White in 1903 has gone to contract. Rumor has it that the buyer is Thomas Montag, the former co-head of securities trading at Goldman Sachs.

From The Wall Street Journal Online’s Private Properties:
–The ex-wife of technology entrepreneur Warren V. “Pete” Musser has decided to auction off her Philadelphia Main Line estate on April 19. Interior designer Hilary Grinker Musser is reportedly willing to accept as tiny as a quarter of its original $12.5 million asking price, the suggested opening bid of $3 million.
Columbia Law School professor Hans Smit, who’s listed a mansion, shown above, for $30 million, has turned down a $20 million offer. I can almost comprehend why, it’s an elegant 1909 French Renaissance-style marble house with all sorts of original details. Check out the listing here.

From Berg Properties Huge Time Listings:
–Model/heiress Lydia Hearst pays $1.49 million for a two-bedroom condo in Mid-Town Manhattan.
–Billy Howerdel, a guitarist who founded and played in A Perfect Circle, has sold his four-bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills for $1.875 million.

From the Real Estalker:
–Veronica Hearst’s 28,000-square-foot Villa Venezia mansion on 3.77 acres in Manalapan, Florida sold at a foreclosure auction in Florida this day for $22 million. Rumor has it that Greg Norman might be interested in picking it up.
–Russ Weiner, founder of Rockstar energy drinks has cut the price on his Hollywood Hills home from $22 million to $15.9 million. Check out the property website here. He has also dropped the price on his Franklin Hills home around $2 million, it’s down now to $2,995 million.
–(via the Telegraph) Indian billionaire Lakshi Mittal has put his mansion on Bishop’s Avenue in London on the market for

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Filed under: Estates

This one intrigues me because it’s a nice example of taking an existing building and creating a new structure. This home in the Ellsworth section of Sharon, Connecticut started with a Meeting House, built in 1812. There is a beautiful main room with original wide-plank floors, enormous windows, and a huge working fireplace. The upper portion of the Meeting House has been converted to living/guest quarters with rustic details and marble bath. In the rest of the house there is also a first floor master bedroom suite with large master bath, additional second floor master bedroom suite, large home office, pantry/utility room, radiant heated floors and a three-car attached garage. The home is on 5.69 acres with stone walls and ponds. It is listed at $2.495 million.

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