Eddie Murphy

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--La Villa Contenta, a Malibu estate that has appeared in several movies and television shows is for rent for $250,000 a month. Chris Cortazzo of Coldwell Banker Previews International has the listing.
--The Dana Ranch, a 60,000-acre working cattle ranch in Montana, is quietly being offered for sale for $45 million. The owners are selling because they are retiring David Johnson with Hall & Hall in Bozeman has the listing.

From NJ.com
--Eddie Murphy has dropped the price on his New Jersey estate, Bubble Hill, to $12.75 million. It was once listed at $30 million.

--Kimora Lee Simmons has cut the price again on her mansion in Saddle River, New Jersey. It was once listed for $23.8 million but can now be had for $13.9 million.


From the NY Post:
--Fashion designer Valentino and his longtime partner Giancarlo Giammetti were seen checking out the $12 million cupola penthouse at 141 Fifth Ave. The listing for the three-level condo is here.
--Monneyman Gizman Abbas, a partner at Apollo Global Management, was the first to close on a $3.6 million triplex "townhome" at the 21-unit Fairchild, at 55 Vestry St. More than $40 million in sales are expected to close between now and the end of June.
--After a $26 million renovation, the Panoramic View Resort & Residences is selling condos at the11-acre, 20-unit oceanfront property in Montauk. The one- to five-bedroom residences measure 1,200 to 4,500 square feet and are on the market for $2 million to $6 million.
--Marielle and Edmond Safra have bought the full fourth floor of 2 E. 67th St., for around $18 million for two units, which they will be combining into one. The two units were originally listed for a total of $34.5 million in 2008.

From the Real Estalker:
--Sheryl Crow has listed Cross Creek Farm, her home in College Grove, Tennessee for $7.5million. The listing is here.
--Pia Zadora has listed her Pacific Palisades, California home for $10 million. The listing is here. She also has a Lake Arrowhead, California home on the market for $4.45 million. The listing is here.
--Jamie Lynn Spears has listed her home in Liberty, Mississippi for $250,000. The listing is here.

From the NY Times Big Deal:
--Jessica Hecht, a television and stage actress who was just nominated for a Tony Award for her role in "A View From the Bridge," has just bought a three-bedroom apartment in the Alwyn Court. Hecht and her husband, Adam Bernstein, a television and music video director, paid $2.05 million for a three-bedroom three-bath co-op that was originally listed for $2.295 million last September.

Beginning in the 18th century, English country houses had glass-paned orangeries where exotic plants, flowers and citrus trees flourished throughout the cooler months, providing a haven from the elements for their inhabitants and spaces for entertaining in summer. Their popularity surged during the 19th century when new construction techniques allowed for ever more fantastical structures, but they pretty much disappeared as tastes and styles changed in more modern times. At Tanglewood Conservatories, on the Eastern Shore area of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, Alan Stein, Nancy Virts and co. aim to recreate some of that bygone elegance. The company designs and builds bespoke turn-of-the-century domes, conservatories, greenhouses and swimming pool enclosures in high style.

Every structure is made by hand at the Tanglewood atelier, and the prices, starting at $175,000, reflect the time, attention and high quality materials that goes into their construction. They can be added to existing houses and mansions or built as part of brand new estates, like this incredible spread in Washington. Some of their well-known clients include Eddie Murphy, director / producer Ron Howard, the Dallas Cowboys' Don Abbey, late Lazard Freres CEO Bruce Wasserstein and interior designer Mario Buatta. Each creation is totally unique; Tanglewood never repeats the same design twice. The fit and finish of a Tanglewood conservatory has more in common with fine furniture than carpentry. Usually constructed of solid mahogany, these are intricate, complex, highly detailed structures, some large enough to hold fully-grown trees. The company also constructs glass and copper domes, roof lanterns and skylights in virtually any size, shape and design.



The Victorians regarded the conservatory as nothing short of a triumph of architecture over nature. Swimming pool enclosures might seem a more modern innovation, but in fact the tradition of building extraordinary structures to enclose both public and private swimming pools is in even older, dating to the great Roman balnea or thermae. Most Roman cities had at least one such building, which was central to the public life of its citizens. Most private villas also included a bath house. The opulent pool enclosure pictured above was constructed for an estate in Kentucky. Tanglewood's sensitivity to form, proportion, materials and detail is evident in its pleasing lines. Their craftsmen are heirs to a 300-year-old craft and woodworking tradition, especially in an area with a long history in boatbuilding. See the gallery for more examples of Tanglewood's high-end designs in various styles.

When this blog launched in December 2004 one of my very first celebrity real estate stories was about Eddie Murphy's Bubble Hill estate in New Jersey. In five years many things have changed but Murphy's desire to unload this mansion hasn't abated. The estate immortalized in Murphy's song "Bubble Hill" in 1989 recently went through a renovation to make is as blandly luxurious as possible.

The 32-room house is on a four acre knoll in the Englewood's East Hill section. The gated and walled,mansion is around 25,000 square feet and includes large entertaining areas. While much of the home has been smoothed out and beiged-up to appeal to the masses one thing still survives, the wood-paneled billiard room with the red curtains, jukebox and the neon signs spelling out "Bubble Hill." This home was at $30 million five years ago making it the most expensive single-family home in the state at the time. At its current price of $14.99 million, it's no longer even the most expensive home in Englewood.



UPDATE: The Real Estalker reminds me this isn't the only Hill in Eddie Murphy's live. Clove Hill Farm, which we covered in 2006 when it was listed at $9.95 million is now listed at $5.95 million.

From the Real Estalker:
--Turns out that Nicole Murphy, Eddie Murphy's ex-wife, isn't just selling her home near Sacramento, she has also put her Calabasas home on the market for $9.995 million. Check out the virtual tour here.
--Gossip diva has put her mid-century Modern home in Hancock Park on the market for $2.995 million. We are checking it out later as our estate of the day.
--Musician Robert Cray has listed his three-bedroom home in Los Feliz. The home is located in The Oaks neighborhood where Brad Pitt also has a home and includes a guest house, an office/studio. The land also includes some Zinfandel vines. It is listed at $3.25 million.
--Pussycat Doll Carmit Bachar has bought a house which was listed at $699,900 in Valley Village.
--More news from Los Feliz, actor T.R. Knight has bought himself a gorgeous vintage fixer-upper in the area for $2,912,500.
--Want to spend $100,000 per month on a rental? Then you too can live in a Beverly Hills home rented by Tom Cruise and maybe even stay in the North wing while your significant other sleeps in the South wing, just like the Cruises supposedly did.
--Model Kylie Bax has listed her Hollywood Hills home for $1,749,900. The listing is here.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Serial househopper Denise Richards has put her newest Hidden Hills home on the market for $3.9 million. Richards listed a home last year for $4.3 million also in Hidden Hills and then moved into this one. She then moved into another one in the same area which cost around $4.6 million. The listing for the home is here.
--Danny Bonaduce has bought himself an $825,000 condo in Hollywood.
--Producer-director Paris Barclay has bought a home in Valley Village for close to $1.7 million and sold another in the Hollywood Hills for slightly more than $1.7 million.
--Cinematographer Dion Beebe, who won an Oscar for his work on the 2005 movie "Memoirs of a Geisha," has listed his Hollywood home for $1.875 million. The listing is here.
--Jeffrey Bischoff, founder and president of the music-merchandising company Cinder Block, is putting his traditional-style Los Feliz home for $1.749 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are house hunting in Manhattan, they've been spotted at the Time Warner Center.
--Billy Joel and his wife, Katie Lee Joel, have just gone to contract to buy an oceanfront property next door to their Sagaponack home that has an asking price of $12.99 million.
--A townhouse on the Upper East Side that Madonna was spotted checking out has been sold to real estate investor Keith Rubenstein and his wife, Inga for its asking price of $35 million.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--The real estate market may be in trouble but you wouldn't know that by some recent New York sales, a three-unit duplex penthouse at Trump World Tower recently went for $33.6 million. And over at Palazzo Chupi, artist/director Julian Schnabel's magenta monstrosity, William J. B. Brady, co-chairman of global technology for Credit Suisse, paid $15.5 million for "Unit 1" even though he already bought a four-bedroom duplex penthouse elsewhere for $6.95 million less than four months ago and city records put his billing address at a penthouse in the Millennium Tower. But who can resist the chance to live with the Schnabel in a building that includes seven-foot fireplaces, antique Moroccan window dressings and a shared pool. Brady has put the Greenwich Street penthouse on the market for $12 million. The listing is here.
--British power-player Sir Ronald Cohen, a close friend of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has paid $5 million for a 2,948-square-foot condo at 388 West Broadway, two floors down from hotelier Jason Pomeranc.
--Boris Belotserkovsky, a co-owner of Russia's largest gambling operator, and his son George have paid $5,010,205 for a 13th-floor condo at the Plaza.
--Nigerian-born supermodel Oluchi Onweagba has bought a two-bedroom apartment at the new 10 West End Avenue condo, near Lincoln Center for $1,708,500. Her husband, Luca Luca designer, Luca Orlandi bought a Gramercy House penthouse earlier this year for $3.345 million so this apartment is for investment purposes. She plans to rent it out for around $11,500 a month.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--The official price that singer Christina Aguilera paid to buy Ozzy Osbourne's mansion in Beverly Hills is $11,500,000.
--Actress Valarie Pettiford, who starred on the UPN's 'Half & Half' has sold her house in Studio City for $1,181,000 and paid $520,000 for a town home in the North Hollywood area.
--Danny Masterson has paid an undisclosed amount for a loft unit in the new Broadway Hollywood building in Hollywood.
--Soap opera actor Sebastian Roche has paid $1,525,000 for a house in Los Angeles' Venice area.
--Ali Landry has sold her four-bedroom home in Los Feliz for $1,812,000 to a congressional candidate from New York.
--Gene Wilder has sold his Bel-Air home for an undisclosed amount.

From TMZ:
Jessica Simpson was seen apartment hunting in Manhattan.

I got today's estate from Braden Keil's Gimme Shelter. Clove Hill is Eddie Murphy's country estate. The 205-acre farm in Dutchess Country, New York has a main house with a 11,500-square-foot five-bedroom, seven-bath main house with a media room, bar and gym. The farm also has a seven-acre lake, pool, tennis court with viewing stand, two-bedroom log cabin guest house, and a barn-styled building which is home to a movie theater and game arcade, There is also an eight-stall horse barn and a pool house. As mentioned earlier, it's listed at $9.9 million. it's nice enough but it doesn't seem very Eddie. After the jump, imagine Eddie Murphy sitting on a bar stool made of antlers.

UPDATE: As of October 2009, this home is listed at $5.95 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Deep discounts for Bubble Hill, Eddie Murphy's New Jersey home is now down to $22 million (from an original listing price of $30 million). His Dutchess County farm, known as "Clove Hill," is also listed at $$9.9 million check it out later as our estate of the day.
-- A five-bedroom apartment at 2 E. 67th St. is expected to be sold as part of an estate sale in the low-$30 million range. The prewar home has 16 rooms and several fireplaces.
--Robert De Niro is still renting Central Park West but almost bought a triplex penthouse in a renovated townhouse at 3 E. 75th St. The townhouse is back on the market for $20 million.
--The planned condo project at 485 Fifth Ave. is a no-go. Deposits have been returned and the developers are thinking of turning it into a hotel. This is a move we have seen in a lot of condo projects in trouble but not usually in ones were almost half of the units are already sold.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Her Serene Highness Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, a German noble has bought a full-floor co-op at 14 West 17th Street for $3.2 million for her daughter, Princess Elisabeth.
--Jean Pierre Collardeau, a con man who took investors for over $20 million has sold his apartment for $1.68 million. The money will go toward reimbursing his victims.
-- Designer George Beylerian has sold his 9,750-square-foot brownstone at 16 East 77th Street for $10.4 million. He bought the brownstone in 1977 for $270,000.

From the Wall Street Journal:
-- Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale have bought a Beverly Hills home once owned by actress and singer Jennifer Lopez for close to the $15.5 million asking price.
--Matthew Maxwell Kennedy, son of the late senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, has put his six-bedroom home in Hyannisport on Cape Cod on the market for $5.995 million. The shingled home is located around the corner from the main Kennedy compound The listing is here.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
Macy Gray has put her Encino home on the market for $4.559 million. Fun features of the home include a basketball court with a mural, dual staircases, a dome ceiling and pool and spa. The listing is here.
--Michael Berns, consulting producer on the CBS drama "Waterfront" has listed his Point Dume home at $3.5 million. The home has five bedrooms, access to a private beach, outdoor shower and a master bathroom that has a steam shower with a sound system and dual rainheads. The listing is here.
--Kells Jesse, a production designer and his wife, Meshell, have bought a home in La Cañada Flintridge for $915,000.
--More sports action in Manhattan Beach, basketball player Slava Medvedenko has sold his home to L.A. Kings hockey player Alexander Frolov for about $2.3 million.
--Cheryl Chase, the voice of Angelica C. Pickles on the cartoon series "Rugrats," has listed her Sunset Strip-area home for $1.2 million. The charming, traditional home has a white picket fence, three bedrooms and an office/den. The listing is here.