I decided to take another look at another huge home that I covered a couple of years ago. Two years ago I first saw Wikiosco (the name means House of Beautiful Waters), a 1895 historic Tudor revival. The home sits on Lake George in New York facing a wide expanse of lake shoreline. The 11,000 square-foot t stone exterior stucco framed home has a beautiful classic interior with a library, leaded glass windows, an elevator, a fitness center and the original fireplace mantels and woodwork. The home has been restored by the current owners but mostly looks as if it is ready to film a Victorian melodrama without much stage dressing. The property includes a two-bedroom guest cottage, an in-ground pool, tennis court and a parking garage with room for over 20 cars. The price hasn't changed in two years, it's still at $17.9 million.
Italian accessories company Breil Milano has opened a new flagship store at 148 Spring Street in Soho, New York City. The stores is one in a series of flagship stores which Breil Milano is opening luxury cities. It evolves from the new monobrand boutiques recently opened in Berlin (February 2008), Florence and Barcelona (April 2008) .
The New York store is located in a historical building but the boutique has a modern contemporary style which combines warm color tones with bronze and green tints. The entire left-hand wall is covered by original tiles by Dutch artist Edwin Vlassenroot who also sculpted lampshades in copper.A more private space has been created at the lower level where jewelry and watches are available to the public. The next stores are planned for Rome and Milan.
There are few apartments in New York more romantic than this one. This penthouse in the St. Urban building at 285 Central Park West is a writer's dream with a library that makes me weak in the knees. The circular, two-level library is inside the domed northern turret of the building. The lower floor has bird's eye maple bookcases, and the top floor or thinking level is designed as a reading retreat inside the dome, opening to a private rooftop reading terrace and observation deck. The library looks out over the park and the city.
The penthouse also includes a living room with wood burning fireplace and access to a terrace, two-story greenhouse, dining room, chef's kitchen and a master suite with two dressing rooms and two marble bathrooms. The second bedroom has a wood burning fireplace, and both the second and third bedrooms have marble baths. There are also two laundry rooms.
The apartment was cobbled together by architect Lee Harris Pomeroy from several different spaces to create one unit with two wings which are anchored by the central turret. It was no easy task, new windows were cut through the mansard roof for better park views. The apartment is 4,000 square feet total and the St. Urban includes amenities such as a 24 hour doorman, a basketball court, full gym, and bicycle storage. This apartment is listed at $14.5 million.
Air taxi service Linear Air has announced the launch of its Eclipse E500 flight service in the greater New York City area. The company's aircraft are based at the White Plains/Westchester County Airport in New York, but will be servicing major and regional airports throughout the tri-state region as well as the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. Linear Air serves 10 times more airports than the traditional commercial airlines serve. The Eclipse 500 is a very light jet which only holds a few passengers so to take your whole entourage to Cape Cod for the weekend you'll need to opt for their eight-passenger Cessna Grand Caravan turboprop. . In order to price out an book flights you need to become a member of Linear Air's service.
Oh, this isn't going to help the relations between Boston and New York. Over the weekend thieves in Attleboro, Massachusetts stole up to $2 million in gold, gems and other valuables including some of the New York Giants Super Bowl rings from a jewelry manufacturer. The thieves disabled the alarm system at E.A. Dion, then cut a hole in the roof and managed to lift a 1,000-pound safe out. The rings, which were manufactured by the company and designed by Tiffany and Co. are white gold set with 1.5 carats of diamonds and valued at $25,000 . Luckily the players and coaches received their rings last month.
Summer can be a great time to visit Manhattan because it's a lot less crowded. The Carlton on Madison Avenue has teamed up with Country, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian's Michelin-rated restaurant to provide guests with a picnic basket to take to one of the city's many parks. The old-fashioned picnic basket includes treats such as rosemary flat bread, tarragon and thyme potato salad, green Muscat grapes, smokehouse almonds, tomato haricot vert salad, cold fried chicken, tuna ciabatta with eggplant caviar and roasted peppers, white truffle lollipops and dark chocolate bark with pistachios, a bottle of wine and two bottled waters. The package includes a night at the hotel ( $499 per night for a Deluxe Room are based on double occupancy) and a welcome amenity of sunscreen and an assortment of magazines and a Continental breakfast for two at The Café at Country. The package is available on weekends though the end of August.
Actor Willem Dafoe has a neat little home in Accord, New York that he's trying to sell off. This home has one immediately distinctive feature, its exterior is clad in neoprene. Known as the Rubber House, it was built for the late choreographer Eugene Loring. It's a relatively small (1,949 square feet) two-bedroom, tucked into a 6.8 acre plot of land. Inside the home has a sunny and spare look that is currently somewhat marred by rather cutesy country furniture. I agree with the Real Estalker Mama who advocated a " a more pared down palette." Still, any home with a tower has my vote. It is listed at $850,000.
Posted Jun 7th 2008 12:05PM by Rigel Gregg Filed under: Wine
City Winery is scheduled to open this fall in an unlikely place: right in the middle of Soho, New York. It will not only be the first winery in New York City but it's the first in any major urban area. City Winery will be a combination members-only winery and public nightclub -- only members will have access to where and how the wine is made. Three membership options will be offered starting at $5,000 and going as high as $15,000 annually, with membership owners getting the title of "barrel owner" with their own 50 gallon American oak barrel, 4 classes each year with wine makers, and a special venue to swap their vintages with other members.
I thought the book "Gotham" was the biggest book on New York city but Gloria Books has it beat with "New York," a giant-sized, 756 page limited-edition book that comes in a Lucite "skyscraper" stand. "Gotham" may still have it beat in page numbers (over 1400 pages) but the New York Books is much heavier, weighing in at 25 pounds. The book is hand-bound in Italian silk and has 33 chapters on all aspects of the city, including history, architecture, design, art & fashion, to music, film, dance and sport. The book includes essays by some of the great writers such as Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, John Updike and many more as well as photography from some of the most famous lenspeople to chronicle the city such as Annie Leibovitz, Alfred Stieglitz, Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Patrick Demarchelier and David Bailey. The Lenape Edition, named after the first Native American tribe to inhabit New York State, is an edition of 850 units and includes a print by Sam Goldstein from the Corbus Archive. It sells for $2,500.
The deliciously, luxuriously beige style of Armani/Casa has a new home in New York. Two new penthouses were just introduced at 20 Pine, The Collection in lower Manhattan. The first of the two penthouses is a two-bedroom, two-bath 1,873-square-foot home priced at $3.2 million. The second penthouse is a 1,829-square-foot one-bedroom with 1.5-baths, priced at $3.1 million.
20 Pine, the former headquarters of Chase Manhattan Bank is now home to 409 residences. The building has a large lobby with an adjacent "library lounge." Amenities include The Collection Pool and Spa with a Turkish Hammam, The Collection Club fitness center and 25th floor landscaped outdoor Terrace Lounge with city and river views. The Concierge Residences at The Collection, from the 25th floor through the penthouses, offer hotel style amenities such the on-site services of concierge service, Quintessentially and a concierge lounge which serves a daily breakfast. The residences at 20 Pine, The Collection range from studios and alcove studios to one- two- and three- bedroom residences to open layout penthouses. Prices start from $715,000.
20 Pine has had a long road to completion, Curbed first talked about it back in January of 2006. The NY Observer reported last month that sales had finally begun on the long-awaited project and that Christopher Beaudet, a managing director at Deutsche Bank, bought a unit for $1.32 million.
The Gap is always a great place to find comfortable and breezy summer clothes, and this year is not only no different but it might actually be better. Gap has collaborated with a series of artists to come up with a line of limited edition t-shirts in celebration of the New York Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial. The list of participating artists includes names like Glen Ligon, Barbara Kruger, Marilyn Minter, Kenny Scharff, and Kerry Marshall. You can buy them online or in a Gap store near you, $28.
Three Ponds in Bridgehampton, New York has crossed my radar before (it's hard to miss a home with a price tag like this) but I've never featured it as an estate of the day. The estate offers 60 acres of farmland in this prime part of New York. The grounds includes a golf course, English cottage garden, a crabapple allee, a lily walk, vegetable gardens as well as hydrangea, butterfly and rose gardens, swimming pool with a pavillion, grass tennis court and of course, three ponds. Other features include two three-car garages, a two-story pro shop, 2nd flor glof club with a bar, separate staff quarters, a three-bedroom guest house, an orangeries, barn and other outbuildings. The 20,000 square-foot main house has seven bedrooms and 12 baths.
This home has been on the market since 2003 when it was listed at $75 million. It's been on the market for $68 million for a while. Why no sale? In 2006 Steven Gaines writing for NY Magazine speculated that the homes distance from the ocean and location near a busy area count against it. At the time the article said that "whoever does write the check will probably pay half the asking price." It's been two years since then and while the price has come down it's nowhere near half. I have to wonder if this property's massive amount of land works against it. A full 18 hole golf course and all those gardens require a huge amount of maintenance especially for a home that may not be a full-time residence.
I first wrote about the Soho Mews, a two-building residential project in New York City designed by architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates in SoHo's largest open buildable site last fall. Now the developer United American Land has partnered with the popular design emporium Moss to offer residents some unique benefits. Residents will receive a 5% rebate in the form of a Moss store credit for most purchases at Moss, free delivery of Moss purchases to Soho Mews residences, and access to the design expertise available at Moss.
It's an interesting twist on the standard building feature of having designer services available but does a 5% savings matter to those who are paying from $2.4 million to $11 million for a home? The project is expected to be ready for occupancy later this year and the 68 residences offer high ceilings, designer kitchens, marble master bathrooms and plenty of glass. The buildings share 6,000 square feet of greenery-soho's largest private park, attended parking, a state-of-the art fitness center, a public art gallery curated by Soho's Art Production Fund, concierge service by Luxury Attaché and benefits at wine bar/restaurant Centovini, Moss and the carpet purveyors of Fort Street Studio. New pictures from the interior design are in the gallery below.
Imari porcelain is one of the most striking styles of Japanese porcelain. The style originated circa 1616 in the city of Arita and the porcelain ware was distributed to Japanese locations through the northern Kyushu port of Imari. The traditional color palette for Imari porcelain is very vivid with an underglaze of cobalt blue, and overglaze of iron red and details in gold paint. Sometimes green and yellow polychrome enamel colors were also used as accents. The rich ornamental look of Imari porcelain is reminiscent of the brocading of Japanese textiles. Next month, Flying Cranes Antiques (located in galleries 55, 56 and 58 in The Manhattan Art and Antiques Center, 1050 Second Avenue at 55th St - NY, NY 10022), will feature a display of Japanese Imari porcelains. Exhibited for sale will be rare forms executed in the rich palette characteristic of the ware. The Flying Cranes Antiques Imari porcelain collection includes various forms: bottle shapes, vases, covered jars, foliate plates dating circa 1850-1880. The cost range for the exhibition is in the $800 to $15,000 with many pieces in the $1,000-2,500 range. Shown here is one of the exhibition pieces - a Japanese Imari porcelain shell-form plate (19th Century - Circa 1850-1880 which has a price of $2,200.
One of New York's most famous restaurants, Tavern on the Green, is now getting a new branch all the way across the country. Tavern on the Green will be opening a massive 40,000-square-foot restaurant at San Francisco's Metreon. The restaurant will be on the the top floor, with an outdoor terrace overlooking Yerba Buena Gardens. The restaurant will have the same luxurious style that makes Tavern on the Green a popular tourist destination in New York with chandeliers, murals and art.
The new Tavern on the Green will focus on catering and special events. Brian Young, the former chef de cuisine of the three-star Michelin restaurant Le Bernardin and executive chef at Citarella the Restaurant, has been hired as executive chef. The restaurant is expected to open during summer 2009 and will focus on contemporary American with an emphasis on local ingredients and wine selections. The restaurant is closely identified with New York and with more formal fine dining than casual California is often used to, it will be interesting to see how they adapt the concept to the West Coast crowd.
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