DuncanSheik

Back in October we first heard that Suzanne Sheik, a jewelry designer and mother of singer Duncan Sheik, had put her New York City townhouse on the market for $17.5 million. Now the home has had a $2 million price chop so I decided to check it out as an estate of the day. Sheik bought the 7,000-square-foot townhouse at 132 East 62nd Street from the estate of late socialite Phyllis Cerf Wagner for $8.5 million in 2007.

The home is a 20-foot-wide residence spanning five stories. In the last couple of years it has gone through a major restoration adding state of the art appliances and updating the home with a modern but elegant look. The townhouse was built in 1871 by architect John Sexton and is part of the Upper East Side Historic District. The listing says that the bookshelves still hold literary treasures signed and annotated by authors such as: Faulkner Mailer, Capote, and Didion many of whom visited the house when Phyllis Cerf Wagner was in residence as did other famous guests like Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra (the home currently features an abstract oil painting by Frank Sinatra).

The main entrance opens to a foyer with carrera marble floors and glazed walls while the service entrance has wood floors, a mud room and leads into the pantry. The ground floor includes a chef's kitchen and a living/dining area that opens to a serene garden with water wall. The original staircase has been reinforced and leads to a floor with a drawing room, den and a street facing library/dining room. The third floor is given over to a master suite that includes a dressing room and a paneled study with a fireplace. The fourth floor offers two bedrooms, kitchenette and laundry and the fifth floor has three more bedrooms and a sitting room. Some of the furniture and fine art is available for purchase separately. This home is now listed with Stribling at $15.5 million.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Eddie Van Halen and his brother, Alex Van Halen, have sold a home in the gated Summit neighborhood (where Britney Spears lives) in Beverly Hills for an undisclosed price expected to be in the $2 million and $3 million range (it had been on the market for $2,200,000). The house was the home of their mother who died in 2005.
--A vacant, 2.08-acre lot in Pacific Palisades area that was once was owned by Michael Keaton sold for $7.8 million.
--Actor Jesse Metcalfe has sold his home in the Hollywood Hills which was listed at $1.495 million for an undisclosed price.
--via the NY Times, Musician Duncan Sheik's Tribeca loft, shown above, is on the market for $2,850,000, down from $2,925,000 (he bought in 1999 for a little over $850,000). The loft is currently configured as a one-bedroom, one and a half bath unit with a soundproof recording studio. He is selling the unit, because he would like his home to be solely his home, and not also the place where he also works. The listing is here.
--Purchase price revealed, Tobey Maguire paid an even $10 million for nearly an acre in Brentwood.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Julio Iglesias, who recently tore down his home in Indian Creek Village, Florida to build a new Spanish-style hacienda has picked up a place to hole up while he's waiting for his new home to be completed. He purchased a four-bedroom home for $7 million in the same community.
--A Greenwich, Connecticut house that once belonged to cosmetics queen Helena Rubenstein and was most recently renovated by Sheryl Leach, the creator of Barney the purple dinosaur, has been sold. It was most recently listed at $4 million.
--A private island compound in the Florida Keys built by late Alcoa Chairman Arthur Vining Davis is for sale for $20 million. The estate is 63 acres, has a helicopter pad and runs partly on solar power.

From the International Herald Tribune's Raising the Roof blog:
--via the Palm Beach Post, Donald Trump has lowered the price of his 6.5-acre Palm Beach estate from $125 million to $100 million.
--via the Telegraph, David and Victoria Beckham put their house in Madrid's La Moraleja neighborhood on the market last year for £6.5 million but are having trouble selling and may reduce the prie.
--via the London Times, A Russian businessman known as the "blini baron of Moscow" has paid $51.5 million for the former home of Gianni Versace.

From the Real Estalker:
--LeAnn Rimes and Dean Sheremet are reportedly putting their Nasvhille home on the market for around $2.3 million.
--The Real Estalker Mama takes a look at the monumental La Reve estate in Georgia, it's our estate of the day later today.
--Actor Harold Perrineau, who plays Michael on Lost has listed his West Hollywood home for $2.399 million.

From the New York Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Former hotel CEO Edward Scheetz has bought a SoHo penthouse for $10 million. it turns out that Scheetz is the owner of the apartment at 76 Crosby that we recently featured as an estate of the day.
--Bonnie Pfeiffer Evans, the widow of producer Robert Evans's brother Charles, had listed her t 895 Park Avenue place for $29.5 million. The apartment went to contract but the board-approved buyers a hedge-fund man and his wife, are getting divorced and quibbling over the sale. He wants to surrender their $2.95 million deposit and cancel the deal, she wants to continue with the purchase (perhaps because in the divorce she'd get half the value of the place.
--Luxury watch executive Benny Shabtai's contemporary townhouse at 870 Park Avenue which was listed in February 2004 for $23 million and has been through a rasher of price changes is now on the market for $33 million. The listing is here.
--Real estate developer Gary Sherman has put a vacant lot at 24-26 Downing Street. for sale at $20.25 million, for $45.4 million he'll sell you the lot with three fully built townhouses. The future townhouse have been listed individually for about $15 million. The listings are here.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--New York socialite Alex Hitz has listed his Sunset Strip area home for $7.5 million. The property website for the gorgeous contemporary is here.
--Baseball paitcher Jaret Wright has put his Newport Beach home on the market for $1.795 million. The virtual tour is here.
--The longtime L.A. residence of jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, 65, has been put on the market at $2 million, completely furnished. The gated 2,800-square-foot house has been designed as the perfect retreat for artists, musicians and actors who want on-site facilities. The property website is here.

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