Whether you're looking for the perfect final touch for your home bar or simply love antiques and English history, these pub signs available from J. Peterman are truly unique specimens. Each authentic and hand-painted and many still in their original wood or metal frames, the collection includes subject matter going back to the time of Queen Victoria. Some signs represent subject matter commonly used by pubs over the years (such as the swan in this sign) while others are more unique, like the Wilton Arms sign shown here that honors the coat of arms belonging to the local lord. Prices vary from $495-$1895.

Back in March I reported on the fact that it seems that shuttle flights between cities on the East Coast like New York, Boston, and Washington haven't been faring too well in recent years. Joe Brancatelli who writes the Seat 2B column for Portfolio says that the recent news that Delta will add first-class cabins to its shuttle flights between New York, Boston, and Washington isn't a positive sign; it proves that the shuttles may well be on their way out. The shuttles have become less profitable and the shuttle aircraft which are equipped with standard first- and coach-class cabins can now be used on any flight path. In the 1980s large shuttles used to run every hour and promised no reservations needed. Now the remaining shuttles use smaller aircraft and fly less frequently especially on weekends and non-peak times.

Is this the last gasp of the shuttle flight? It certainly seems like it, the rise of technology, the high-speed Acela train, private jet charter services and even luxury bus lines have made shuttle flying less and less attractive. Like Joe Brancatelli, I'm a little nostalgic for the shuttles of my youth but in these days when it seems that hardly any flights go smoothly and airlines are struggling to stay afloat it seems like the shuttle is an idea whose time is long gone.

We've all heard stories when we were kids about far away kings and queens that were so rich they never went anywhere without having rose petals (or some other lavish item) sprinkled beneath their feet as they walked. But as much fun as it is to imagine living like that it's not something that really realistic, is it?

Pietra Firma thinks it is, and for the perfectly realistic (*cough*) price of just $1,000,000 per square meter they offer floor tiles not made of roses but instead each featuring over 1000 genuine diamonds, along with thousands of insets of precious materials like mother of pearl, abalone, and black onyx.

So ... they are beautiful. I wonder how many square meters they've sold and to who?

Today's home belongs to the one and only Joss Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Firefly" and the summer's internet sensation, Dr. Horrible. Ann Brenoff of the LA Times Hot Properties column reveals that Whedon is selling his English County style home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. The home is on a double lot and has four bedrooms. Clearly a home for someone who works, and plays, at home, it's got two offices, a media room and music studio. There is a two-story guest house and park-like grounds but no pool. It doesn't look like Whedon has enlisted the help of a decorator but the home is full of books and art and cozy places to sit and think. It is listed at $3.695 million.

Experience more lush living in luxury homes and mansions or see the stars living large with celebrity homes galleries at AOL Real Estate.

I saw the video of Dan Aykyroyd talking about Crystal Head vodka a week or so ago but I wasn't sure it was a real thing but turns out it is Aykroyd's newest venture in the world of liquor. Aykroyd's wines are currently the top selling celebrity brand in Canada and he recently announced they would be available in the U.S.

The selling point for Crystal Head vodka is is that it is quadrupled distilled and filtered three times through charcoal followed by triple filtration over Herkimer crystals. It also comes in that nifty skull bottle designed by John Alexander and manufactured by master artisans in Milano's Bruni Glass Company. The Infinium Spirits division of Wilson Daniels is marketing Crystal Head Vodka in the U.S. and it will be available initially in California, Texas, Nevada, Louisiana and Florida. It retails for $49.95.

As for the legend of the crystal skulls, I tend to side with the comprehensive article in Archaeology Magazine that came out earlier this year when the crystal skull craze began over the latest Indiana Jones movie.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is selling a massive 8-ft. wide Jean-Michel Basquiat painting at Christie's in New York on Nov. 12, where it's expected to fetch about $12 million. Untitled (Boxer) (above), painted in 1982, is an important "proxy self-portrait,'' Brett Gorvy, Christie's international co-head of postwar and contemporary art, tells Bloomberg. "The black artist as defiant hero.'" In 2002, Ulrich, a noted collector, sold Basquiat's 1982 Profit I at Christie's for $5.5 million. In July, Irish rock band U2 sold the artist's Untitled (Pecho/Oreja) for $10.1 million at Sotheby's in London. The auction record for a Basquiat work was set at Sotheby's in New York last year with the $14.6 million sale of 1981's Untitled.

Perhaps we should say "The Wild West Meets the Eastern Seaboard." The Whitaker August Auction House in New Hope, Pennsylvania (it is also possible to participate online) regularly features couture and vintage clothing, western wear and "cowboy collectibles," and Asian, Bolivian, and Native American textiles and art.

Their upcoming event, taking place October 24th and 25th, will feature pieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art, NYC Costume Study Collection, and Mia Farrow's very own closet. See the gallery below for some of the items that will be auctioned.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Actor Christopher Lloyd has put his smaller house in Montecito, shown above, for sale for $3.6 million. The elegant home has two bedrooms, bamboo floors and a raised bamboo pergola overlooking the pool and spa. His other home in the area which was listed in 2007 for $11.27 million and was an estate of the day, has been taken off the market.
--Mark Wahlberg has listed his house in Beverly Hills at $15.9 million. The listing is here.
--Basketball player Elton Brand has sold his Hollywood Hills home for $4.55 million.
--Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon has listed his home in Brentwood. it's our estate of the day later today.
Another "Buffy" and "Angel" veteran, writer David Greenwalt, recently sold his house in the Pacific Palisades for $2.958 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--The asking price for the triplex penthouse at artist Julian Schnabel's, pink Palazzo Chupi building in the West Village has been cut by $5.5 million to $24 million. It was our estate of the day earlier in the year.
--Quarterback Tom Brady has cut the price on his Time Warner Center apartment from $18.29 million to $17.75 million. We'll be checking this one tomorrow.
--Cosmetics mogul Adrien Arpel and her husband, Ronald Newman, have paid $5.9 million for a seven-room co-op at 900 Fifth Ave.
--One of the Hamptons' premier properties, Fordune, will be listed for rent next year. This may be the first time since Henry Ford II owned the 42-acre oceanfront Southampton property. it will rent for $600,000 to use it from August through Labor Day next year and has 12 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a game room, a library, a large formal dining room, staff rooms and a commercial kitchen.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Cher has paid $1,400,000 to purchase a two-bedroom, 1,455-square-foot house in West Hollywood,California. It may be a house for her daughter, Chastity.
--Regis Philbin has put his Greenwich, Connecticut home on the market for $5.4 million. It was our estate of the day on Friday.
--Brad Garrett finally has sold his 10,223-square-foot mansion in Hidden Hills, California. The most recent listing price was $8.35 million.
--Little more than a year after he sold it for $2.9 million, the former house of fashion critic Steven Cojocaru in the Hollywood Hills is back on the market, for $3.695 million. The property website is here.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--The home used to film ABC's "Bachelor" shows is for sale and the price has been dropped to $8.75 million, down from just under $13 million. You can see listing pics from when the home was listed at $11.5 million here.
--Last month, philanthropist Carroll Petrie sold a Palm Beach, Fla., house for $3 million, $500,000 less than she paid less than a year earlier, to investor John D. Firestone, of the tire-manufacturing family. In May, she paid $7.45 million for a 6,700-square-foot, five-bedroom home about a mile farther south.

From Newsday's Real LI:
-- A 4.08-acre property on Meadow Lane in Southampton will be listed soon for $38 million. According to public records, the oceanfront mansion was owned by Virginia Salomon, who died last month. She was married to Citigroup's honorary chairman William R. Salomon (and former managing partner at Salomon Brothers, Inc.) for more than 70 years. The 6,000 square foot house, built in 1992, has six bedrooms and eight baths, with a gunite pool and is located just west of designer Calvin Klein's home.
--Hairspray actress Nikki Blonsky may or may not be leaving Great Neck. Her family's home was recently seen on the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island for $649,000.
--Hilary Duff's longtime boyfriend, New York Islanders center Mike Comrie has purchased a condo in Garden City.


From the Real Estalker:
--Former Green Bay Packer quarterback Brett Favre has listed his Wisconsin home for $475,000. It was our estate of the day on Saturday.
--Technology guru Halsey Minor is not only trying to sell his home in Bel Air, he is said to be spending $15 million to renovate Le Petit Trianon in San Francisco, which he bought in 2007. The home was on the market for a while (I first got wind of it in 2005) and is said to be in some disrepair.
--The listing for the $24 million Goldwyn mansion has been temporary pulled from the market so that it can be renovated.
--Baseball player Tom Glavine and his wife Christine have put their home in Alpharetta, Georgia on the market for $3.75 million. We'll be looking at this one as an estate of the day on Monday.
--Cameron Diaz is said to be house shopping in Beverly Hills.
--More Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner real estate rumors, this time it is said that they have put their home in Brentwood on the market for around $8 million.
--Tae-Bo king Billy Blanks is getting a divorce and has put his Hidden Hills home on the market for $11.5 million. The listing is here.

From The Sun:
--Robbie Williams has picked up a seven-bedroom mansion in the Beverly Park community in Los Angeles for over $20 million.

From ONTD:
--Lauren Conrad of The Hills has been spotted house shopping in her home town of Laguna Beach.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
-- Kurt A. Locher, formerly a Lehman Brothers managing director recently bought a $5.25 million apartment at 500 West End Avenue. His old place on Park Avenue is still on the market for $2.495 million. We discussed this one earlier this week.
--According to numbers prepared for The Observer by research site StreetEasy, the days of easy luxury apartment sales are over. As of Monday, Manhattan had 168 super-luxury listings asking at least $15 million each which is nearly twice the number from autumn 2006.
--Former investment banker Jack Grubman has put his New York City townhouse on the market for $32 million. It was our estate of the day on Thursday.
--Sarah Allentuch, a former assistant to Woody Allen, and her husband, Greg Mottola, who directed Superbad recently bought a $2.6 million apartment at the new One York condo.
----An East River mansion, 7 Sutton Square, has sold for $32.5 million, well above its $25 million asking price. The seller is William F. Reilly, a retired magazine mogul and the buyer is listed anonymously, though a billing address is given care of Wildenstein & Co., which suggests that the house now belongs to the art collector Guy Wildenstein.

From the Daily Mail:
--James Bond star Daniel Craig has picked up a £4million apartment near Regent's Park in London.

I'm noticing more and more small lodges and inns up for sale. Small family-owned properties are particularly vulnerable at a time when travel is dropping off. The latest is the Garlands Oak Creek Lodge in beautiful Sedona, Arizona. The property is ten acres surrounded by the beautiful red rocks of Sedona. It includes a main lodge built of hand-hewn timbers, 16 guest cabins, two year-round residences, employee quarters, a fast-drying clay tennis court and a creek side yoga and pilates pavilion. The property includes a restaurant and the owners have even authored a cookbook called "Sharing the Table at Garland's Lodge." Garland's Lodge is listed at $13 million.

Looks like Charlize Theron will be heading to court against watchmaker Raymond Weil. The case, which we first reported on last year, has gone before a New York judge who ruled that the case has enough weight to proceed to a jury trial. Raymond Weil is suing for $20 million in damages saying that Theron violated her endorsement contract, which dictated that she only wear Weil watches, by wearing a Dior watch at a public appearance. She of course has also been the face of Dior's fragrance, J'Adore. Damages will be decided at trial but it seems likely that the opposing sides will settle before then. Charlize Theron has already gone on to a new watch, jewelry and accessories contract with Breil Milano.

The black Versace safety pin dress worn by Elizabeth Hurley at the 1994 premiere of the film Four Weddings and a Funeral has been deemed the best red carpet gown of all time. The Telegraph reports that the a poll of 3,000 women by the Debenhams department store determined that the black dress with gold safety pins that exposed much of Elizabeth Hurley's admirable figure was the most iconic frock. The dress went on sale last year at Harrods as part of their "Timeless Luxury" promotion for £10,690.

Second place went to Audrey Hepburn's white flower patterned Givenchy dress, followed by Julia Roberts in black-and-white vintage Valentino at the 2001 Oscars. Others in the top ten included Jennifer Lopez's plunge-to-the-navel Versace at the 2000 Grammy Awards and Bjork's infamous swan dress at the 2001 Oscars.

The last NBA season is but a memory even for Celtics fans but Kevin Garnett's 2008 NBA Finals $1,000+ limited edition sneakers are still up for sale. Adidas made 56 pairs last year and still has 13 pairs available for $1,017. Boston Sportz points out the Celtics have a big banner on their online store counting down the leftover sneakers but probably won't be dropping the price anytime soon.

Luc Bags is an online retailer who brings Buenos Aires' unique style to you without the shipping nightmare. They import the bags themselves and ship free to anywhere in the United States from their California headquarters.

The bags are elegant and functional, and carefully chosen so as not to overwhelm the consumer with too many similar-looking pieces. It is easy to fall in love with Luc Bags.
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Started by a North-and-South-American romance of another kind, Luc Bags is run by husband and wife team Constanza Brotfeld, a native South American, and Rence Winetrout, a native North American. Constanza hand-picks the designs herself, and we think you'll find she has excellent taste. See the gallery below for some of our favorites.

Whether you're a prince or a pauper, there's probably a day (or night) you can get into the best museums in your area for free. For example, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis offers free admission every Thursday night (sponsored by Target), and the first Saturday of every month. Their sculpture garden, where you find the Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, at right, is always free.

In New York, you can always visit the Guggenheim in Soho for free, as well as The Whitney at Phillip Morris and The Museum of American Folk Art. A number of other museums offer a "suggested donation" admission, and are instructed to treat you the same whether you're donating $1 or the full fare. Here's a pretty good list for New York.

The Art Institute of Chicago is free from 5-8 on Thursdays, Los Angeles free days are listed here, and if you find yourself in Paris, the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month and on Bastille Day, July 14th.

Be sure to Google museums in your area, or check the website of any museum you intend to visit to see if there's a free day of which you can take advantage.

It's just another easy way to make life more lux for cheap or free.

A unique wine school has been founded in the Puligny-Montrachet France to help deepen the knowledge of wine professionals as well as devoted amateur wine lovers. The Ecole du Vin et des Terroirs is a non-profit organization created by members of the Burgundy wine world to broaden wine and viticultural knowledge with an ecological, environmental and humanistic approach. The Ecole du Vin et des Terroirs holds seminars (one half-day to two days long) which focus on understanding soils, wine techniques, biodynamics, tasting, botany, and many other topics. The seminars are limited to just 12 people and are taught by a variety of people including an ethnobotanist, a creator of tasting glasses, authors, engineers and of course, winemakers. The seminars are taught primarily in the vineyards and are resuming now that harvest season is ending.