We're gonna start off easy here with some information about the sale of the Richard Neutra designed Kaufmann house located in the scorching hot desert of Palm Springs that was sold a couple of days ago as part of the Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art sale in New York City.According to the people at the Los Angeles Times, the house was sold to an undisclosed buyer for $16,840,000. Which sounds like a lot of damn money for a house in Palm Springs. But children let's remember that this isn't just any house. If you're part of the modernist cabal, this house is considered a work of architectural art and we imagine the new owner will use and preserve the house as such.
Interestingly, and probably not surprisingly to a few of the modernist enthusiasts Your Mama chats with, the house sold towards the lower end of the $15-25,000,000 estimate.
Now, let's discuss this undisclosed buyer...Could it be the house luvin' billionaire we hinted at last week? Could it be yet another foreign buyer cashing in on a still declining dollar? Could it be an organization of some sort? We can certainly imagine that a museum like MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in LA might have liked to pull the funds together to purchase this as part of their "collection."
But as of now? Who knows? Do you? If you do, be sure to let Your Mama know.
photo: Tim Street Porter
Wish I knew who bought it - personally.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I'd like unfettered access to it, I hope it remains a private home, with perhaps an occasional tour for charity; as iconic as this house is, I'd hate to see it tricked out as a museum with motion detectors, smoke alarms, and big beefy guards at the door . . .
. . . hey, wait a minute . . .
It looks like the Donald finally sold his palm beach estate
ReplyDeleteDonald Trump is selling one of his Palm Beach mansions for $100 million – not a misprint – after buying it in 2004 for $41.35 million, reports the Palm Beach Post. .
I'm going to guess Ellen Degeneres. She just switched studios from NBC to Warner Bros. Perhaps they gave her a little free pocket moolah?!?
ReplyDeleteNot sure if he was willing to pay $17M for this little piece of art, but the house would be a perfect fit for Michael LaFetra.
ReplyDeletePALM BEACH — The Donald is getting his price.
ReplyDeleteAn oceanfront Palm Beach mansion Donald Trump owns is under contract for sale to an unnamed foreign buyer for $100 million - the property's official asking price - according to sources close to the billionaire real estate mogul.
Trump mansion
Photos More photos of the mansion
What $100 million buys
Donald Trump has a contract for $100 million to sell the Palm Beach estate he bought for $41.35 million in 2004. Some of what the still-unnamed buyer gets for his money:
# 6 acres
# 475 feet of oceanfront
# 62,000-square-foot home with nine bedrooms
# Ballroom
# Media room
# Wine room
# Art gallery
# 4,100-square-foot conservatory
# Two guest houses
# 48-car garage
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What are these?
The 80,000-square-foot property at 515 N. County Road sits on 6 acres and has 475 feet of unobstructed oceanfront, making the price per linear foot $210,526.
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Trump would not comment on the just-signed contract except to say that the property "is the best piece of land anywhere."
The deal reflects the still-booming mansion market in Palm Beach, a market seemingly immune to the gyrations in the residential real estate industry.
I don't think Mr. Trump would recognize art if he was hit over the head with it....have you seen his grotesque lair??
ReplyDeleteI hope that whoever bought it really loves it. My guess is that they do and that they appreciate the honor and responsibility of owning a Neutra.
ReplyDeleteI wonder when the Singleton Residence in Bel Air will finally be unloaded. If this home in Palm Springs can fetch $16+ million, you'd think someone would be interested in another Nutra property on 5 acres in Bel Air. I mean, it might not be everyones most desired area of Bel Air but that much land has considerable value plus a Nuetra. Not sure how much money would need to bring it back to a more natural Nuetra state as the current owners mutilated the home into a Nuetra shell with a "more current" floor plan if that's what you want to call it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the Singleton residence is that current owner Vidal Sassoon made some poorly conceived renovations and additions to the original house.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but in that location and with that much land, I'd expect some Nuetra loving millionaire to swoop and and negotiate the price down hard in this soft market and re-renovate back to being on par with how the house was and should be.
ReplyDeleteIt is spelled Neutra.
ReplyDeleteI concur coreigh, perhaps Mr. Sassoon, who is stank rich, doesn't feel the need to negotiate, even in a staler market. I'd love to see it renovated back to the beaut it was. Yeah and the 5 acres is pretty sweet as well
ReplyDeleteWhat about Brad Pitt? Doesn't he love Neutra?
ReplyDeletePerhaps, however, the home is no where near the size to accomdate the his crew and to expand it to do so would destroy its integrity.
ReplyDeleteThe land at the Singleton property sucks - It's not 5 acres of lawns, it's 5 acres of hilly terrain - & the location sucks - Just because this property sold for a specific price doesn't mean to say the Singleton property then must be worth 'X' amount - They are totally different.
ReplyDeleteLINK
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/6bhbgb
Looks like Trump sold his estate just in time check this out, now I know prices are going to come wayyyyy down !!!!
"Banks are just picking apart the appraisals on houses right now," Wiseman said. "I've seen several cases where the bank doesn't accept the appraisal and the loan just tanks."
So now watch the 10MM estate come down to 3MM the 6MM homes will come down to 1.5MM and the 3MM home will come down to 700k
the market will pick up and we will see at least 10 sales a day of high end properties on here real soon.....
ha ha ha !!!!
I heard Donald say on cnbc that he sold the pb house close to asking price but he says that the market in pb and Manhattan is good but the rest in the us not good and that Dubai is booming.
ReplyDeleteShhhhhh children! Walk quietly for the door and it won't notice we left. Girl at the bar has some Friday drink specials to keep us entertained until it gets bored and crawls back to it's hole in the ground.
ReplyDelete(Whispering...) Will Aunt Mary have chocolates for us, too?
ReplyDeleteThe Singleton Residence was nice although not my favorite. It doesn't take your breath away and the land isn't as prime as it would seem. The views are fairly spectacular but still lack amazing Westside views.
ReplyDeleteThe part the Sassoon's butchered was the far wing where the bedrooms are... the floor plan is wacked. Other than that I found it quite nice.
Who are some other high end buyers/celebrities that enjoy fascinating architecture?
Maybe someone bought it as an early wedding gift for Ellen & Portia?
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the happy couple!
This is one of the rudest blogs I've ever read (Not Mama, you commenters).
ReplyDeleteYou are all so snid and stuck up like you know everything, when most of you probably live in studio apartments and make $30k a year. If you really were successful you wouldn't feel the need to state it constantly.
And if you really were intelligent you wouldn't talk to each other in such demeaning ways.
All it takes is a little selective reading. I think there are many insightful humorous, intelligent and very creative contributors to the comments sections and I thoroughly enjoy reading what they have to say. I was, at first, alarmed by some of the hostility but it gets easier to let it dissipate into the ether. There is too much good here to dismiss everyone.
ReplyDeletecoreigh
ReplyDeleteWhat is your problem?
Nobody forces you to read these comments and it is not my fault that there is a new bad neighbour in the studio above you in Boyle Heights
Coreigh let me pour you a double on the rocks.
ReplyDeleteWSJ reported today that the buyer is a foreigner with homes in the US and Europe. The buyer prefers to remain anonymous.
ReplyDeleteIf Trump can sell the PB house maybe there is hope for the Sapsertstein puptentfor $135MM
ReplyDeleteThe house was actually auctioned for 15 million (the additionally purchased orchard made the price go up)and this was a lot lower than expected. Too see more pics and details of this and other modern homes for auction, go here:
ReplyDeletehttp://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com/2008/05/neutra-kaufmann-home-sells-for-less.html
Buy an ad.
ReplyDeleteEllen has great taste but I hope she's not the buyer. She always wants to redo the houses she buys. The Kaufman house is restored to perfection. The buyer needs to leave it alone.
ReplyDeleteIf Ellen always wants to redo the house why did she buy her new place? Don't talk unless you know what you're talking about.
ReplyDeletePalm Springs is a festering, cancerous dump whose corrupt, senile and corpulent city council have let the city decay into a faded wasteland as it wallows in the memories of it's mythical Hollywood past like a drunken old whore with a false eyelash desperately dangling from one heavily bloodshot eye...a place full of empty storefronts and desperately passe retro-modernist "furniture" stores that are just a gay man's tax writeoff for a garage sale full of their own personal junk. All the money has gone down valley, where life turns into a pathetic Republican prison of beige tennis ball boredom.... all of it will sizzle, shrivel and rot in the fetid stinking dust as the Indians and extraterrestials return to pick over the buried remains of upturned golf carts, 1979 Eldorados with Sinatra eight-tracks still stuck in their dash, and anal sex guides buried in piles beneath the collapsed towers of the tramway as the windmills slowly grind to a halt.
ReplyDelete