Saturday, August 7, 2010

Weekend Wrap Up

1.
The Real Housewives of Any City Anywhere are an endless train of real estate fun and drama for all us real estate gossips. New Jersey's resident evileena Danielle "Beverly Merrill" Staub, the newly turned out lesbian who may be faking her new found lesbian tendencies, is next up on the menu. Back in the fall of 2009 the stripper turned felon turned suburban model mom listed her ticky-tacky Wayne, NJ mansion with an asking price of $1,495,000. Someone must have hit her over the head with the real estate reality check because the 10,500 foot beast was recently re-listed with a much lower asking price of $1,095,000.

Eventually someone will buy her pile and Miz Staub and her two daughters will need a place to live. Since it's unlikely Tee-tee Giudice will let them move into her faux chateau–or one of those sad little apartments above the pizza parlor she and Shorty Giudice own–Dani Staub has been out hunting for a new lair. The twig thin and leather skinned mantis is inching her way towards New York City where she was recently spotted at the Hudson Club at Port Imperial condo complex in West New York, which is actually in New Jersey. Your Mama had a look-see at the floor plans for all the condos at the Hudson Club and, well, frankly, even the largest unit–a 3 bedroom and 2.5 number that measures a meager 1,310 square feet–would be a serious come down for a woman used to living in a big ol' mansion even if it is an ass-uglee one.

2.
Poor trout pouted actress Meg Ryan. The one-time romantic comedy queen of Hollywood didn't have much luck selling her Spanish style mansion in the hoity-toity Bel Air section of Los Angeles. She had the pretty shiny thing shopped around off-market for years–years!–with an asking price of around $19,500,000. Even after every Richie Rich in Tinseltown had a tour, including the Beckhams and the Afflecks, there were no deep pocketed takers for the property that, fashioneestas might find it amusing to know, happens to sit right up next to the Richard Neutra designed west coast abode of egotastic fashion hottie turned film producer Tom Ford.

In November of 2008 Miss Meg hoisted her estate on to the open market with a price tag of $19,500,000. The property was only on the open market for a short time then disappeared until the following November of 2009 when she re-listed the 6 bedroom and 7 pooper beauty with a much lower asking price of $14,200,000. Apparently the five and some million dollar reduction wasn't enough because Miss Meg recently put the property out for least at $40,000 per month.

3.
According to Courtney Love herself, that lovable bundle of real estate whackadoodle, she wants to live in a townhouse in the West Village neighborhood of lower Manhattan. The mercurial rock star apparently looked at buying or leasing Milla Jovovich's townhouse–listed at $7,500,000–as well as the townhouse right up next door to Anna Wintour, the icy but enigmatic high priestess of Vogue. Not surprisingly, Miz Wintour's neighbor rejected Miz Love's application to lease the house even though Miss Love claims her references are "impeccable." Until she finds a townhouse to lease or buy Miss Love is, according to her, shacked up at the posh and celebrity packed Mercer Hotel.

4.
The owners of Astor Courts, the Rhinebeck, NY estate where former first daughter Chelsea Clinton got married last week, have done fired their real estate agent and, in the days immediately following the lavish and stoopidly expensive nuptials, took out a full page advertisement on page 2 of the NY Post proclaiming that, "Yes, It's for sale " for just under twelve million big ones. Oh lo-ward does it get more tacky? Seriously. Bad. Form. Even Donald Trump, the king of questionable, went on the record about how tawdry he thought the whole thing is.

5.
The executors of Dennis Hopper's estate want to sell the recently deceased actor's compound in Venice, CA. The problem is, Mister Hopper's estranged wife Victoria Duffy is digging in her Louboutins and won't leave.

6.
Now that they've settled into a $3,250,000 mini-mansion in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, British jokester Russell Brand and his fiancée singer Katy Perry are reportedly hunting for a New York City pied a terre. Word on the real estate street is that the kooky kouple looked at a 1 bedroom and 1.5 pooper pad with a price tag of $2,830,000 at the legendary Apthorp building on the Upper West Side.

7.
In late January of 2010 tech tycoon turned philanthropist David C. Bohnett and his man friend Tom Gregory listed one of their estates in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles with an asking price of $18,900,000. It didn't take long for someone to snatch up the A. Quincy Jones designed digs. The new owner: big shit gallerist Larry Gagosian who represents big shit artists such as Mike Kelley, Richard Prince, Richard Serra, Jorge Pardo, Nancy Rubins and Anselm Reyle.

8.
In case y'all haven't heard there's a bit of a brouhaha over the recent sale of the Duke-Semans mansion in New York City that Mexican billionaire bought from cab driver turned real estate billionaire Tamir Sapir last month for a blistering $44,000,000. It's all so dee-lishus we can't stand it.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shorty Giudice. lol

Danielle will be just fine because her daughter is going to be one of the next supermodel greats.

She is like the second coming of Claudia Schiffer.
She is pretty phenomenal.

Anonymous said...

Wow, David and Tom's modern is beautiful!

StPaulSnowman said...

Re: Selling on the heels of a "society" wedding.....Each year we have a historic homes tour in our area. It is always well attended with 3000-5000 visitors for the one day event. Invariably, one or two of the houses on tour show up on the market within a week of the tour. While the event is held for the benefit of the community, clearly the real estate pirahnas know a good marketing op when they see it. Just think, you have direct exposure to people preselected to like old homes, (one might say provincial), and willing to pay thirty dollars for a ticket. Hawking the Astor joint using the high profile event is hardly surprising.

Little Red Rooster said...

A view of Tom Ford? I'll take Meg's place!

Ted Casablancas said...

Re: Miz Bohnett, read a cute item a few days ago that there was a short air traffic ban over east hampton while Joe Biden was flying in to visit Bohnett. How come I never get man-friends like that?????

Madam Pince said...

Regarding the Duke-Semans mansion brouhaha: ain't it funny how the mega-rich dicker over (what is to them) small change?!?

Anonymous said...

Re the Astor Courts sale: The Donald says the "new-rich" Clintons were "used." I'd say tacky wedding, tacky people, tacky everything. Why the outrage?

Rosco Mare said...

Quite often, celebrity homes are listed for sale after being profiled in a magazine, etc. The Astor listing is just a different version of the same sales tactic.

On another topic, LA lost two other historic houses this week besides Jonathon Winter's house in Toluca Lake:

(1) The Jorgensen house in Bel Air (Burton Schutt, 1951). Mama featured this house in the blog last year as "Michael Bay Buys in Bel Air."

(2) The Miller house in Bel Air (Wallace Neff, 1932).

I saw both sites yesterday. The Jorgensen's house is a mountain of debris, and the Miller house is being dismantled brick-by-brick.

Good thing the Astor property isn't in LA. Who knows what would happen to it if it was out here!

Siouxie said...

The Jorgensen's house is a mountain of debris

That pains me more than you could imagine. I adored that house.

Chris said...

Russell Brand and Katy Perry will end in tears, should be buying properties here there and everywhere so quickly