Texas

Austin Becomes The Latest Town To Sell Rolls-Royces

Keep Austin luxe? The Austin Statesman reports that the hip Texas town will soon be home to six Rolls-Royce models. Auto dealer Sonny Morgan is adding the luxury car to his posh lineup at the John Eagle European dealership this month. The dealership already features Lotus, Aston Martin and Bentley models. Morgan told the Statesman that he thinks the $250,000 Rolls Ghost is a good fit for Austin's younger, tech-loving buyers. Business is good it appears, Morgan said that he has already sold three cars so far, two to buyers in San Antonio and one in Austin. This is the third dealership in Texas, there are Rolls dealerships in Dallas and Houston.

Tags: austin, rolls-royce, texas

Four Seasons Houston Awarded AAA Five Diamond Status

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

On the heels of a three-year, $25 million renovation project that introduced re-styled guest rooms, a new resort-style swimming pool area and a fresh, modern lobby, the Four Seasons Houston has been named the the city's only AAA Five Diamond Hotel. The travel authority's highest and most exclusive rating was awarded to the hotel for an unparalleled experience of luxury and sophistication in an artfully designed setting, complemented by service that goes above and beyond. A destination in its own right, the new $4 million pool (above) at the Four Seasons Houston is downtown's only outdoor, resort-style pool.

The pool, which glows with artful lighting at night, meshes dramatic cityscape views with exotic materials such as Turkish travertine tile, environmentally-friendly Ipe wood decking, and lush tropical plants. The pool renovation included the creation of cabana-style patios, a trellis-covered event space, soothing water wall, hot tub, fire pit and poolside bar. Acclaimed San Francisco-based design firm BAMO also created custom-designed furniture and one-of-a-kind abstract artwork designed for the hotel's luxe new guest rooms.

Gallery: The Four Seasons Houston

Tags: AAA, AAA Five Diamond, awards, Four Seasons, Four Seasons Houston, hotels, Houston, luxury hotels, swimming pool, Texas

FERRARI Is Top Texas License Plate

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

At a Texas license plate auction you might expect that a license plate like COWBOYS or GO HORNS would sell well, and they did. But the big winner at the license plate auction held at Cowboys Stadium on January 13 was a license plate bearing the word FERRARI. The place drew a $15,000 bid while COWBOYS sold for $11,500 and GO HORNS went for $10,500. PORSCHE sold for $7,500 and MUSTANG went for $7,000.

The auction was put on by My Plates and the company auctioned 33 plates in all with proceeds being shared by the company and the state. This was the first auction in which Texans could get personalized plates with a full seven letters of their choice. Other choices included BEST MOM ($3,750) and COOL DAD ($4,500) as well as MAVS FAN($1,200) and AGGIES1 ($2,750). Winners will get the rights to the plates for 25 years with an option to renew and can resell the plate if they want to. My Plates also sells new specialty license plates in the state of Texas. My Plates announced that 7-character personalized plates will be available to order at www.myplates.com starting March 7 at 7am and ending March 14th at 7am. The seven characters are available only for seven days. All plate messages are subject to approval by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.Texans have bought more than 34,000 My Plates since November 2009, putting more than $2.6 million in the state general revenue fund.

[via Washington Post]

Tags: license plate, license plate auction, license plates, texas

Orvis Presents North America's Finest Hunting Lodges

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Sports, Books

Last spring we reported that legendary Vermont-based sporting outfitters Orvis had published a great new book on fly fishing's finest destinations. Now the company has come out with an equally compelling companion volume on hunting game birds. Great Hunting Lodges of North America: Wingshooting's Finest Destinations (Rizzoli) is a lavishly illustrated look at the very best upland and waterfowl hunting destinations around. Profiles of almost 20 featured Orvis destinations celebrate the great American sporting tradition and include detailed information on the local game species and wildlife, the lodge and the surrounding countryside, along with in-depth sidebars on key game birds and sporting dogs. Even if you're merely an armchair adventurer who's never fired a shotgun the great outdoor photography is worth the price of admission in its own right. Featured lodges include the Eagle Nest Lodge in Montana, Flying B Ranch in Idaho, Greystone Castle in Texas, The High Lonesome Ranch in Colorado, Mexico's Rancho Caracol, Deer Creek Lodge in Kentucky, Harris Springs Sportsman's Preserve in South Carolina and Pine Hill Plantation in Georgia. Check out the gallery for a preview.

Gallery: Great Hunting Lodges of North America

Tags: books, coffee table books, Colorado, dogs, fishing, fly fishing, Georgia, guns, hunting, hunting lodge, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, Orvis, Rancho Caracol, shotgun, sporting, sports, Texas, Vermont, wildlife

The Process And Progress of A Significant Georgian Estate Restoration

by Susan Kime (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, By Design

If this home looks familiar, it is. Deidre Woollard's 2008 post in Luxist was about this home, then on the market for
$11.2M. But since Deidre's article was posted, the estate was sold, remodeled and renovated. It is slated to be finished in two weeks, and the price reflects the work done: it is now $14,500,000. Here's the history:

This home is located in the private, gated community of Shadyside, close to Rice University and the Rice University Medical Center in Houston. Shadyside was originally planned by J.S. Cullinan in 1916. However, he did not treat the development as a speculative venture, selling to anyone with money, rather, he offered building sites to individuals he referred to as 'congenial parties.' By the time the first owners were ready to plan their houses, the practice of hiring out-of-state architects was common in Houston. Cullinan hired St. Louis architect James P. Jamieson to design his house. Stockbroker Hugo V. Neuhaus commissioned renowned architect Harrie T. Lindeberg of New York City who was trained under Stanford White in the design of significant country estates.

Neuhaus secured additional commissions for Lindeberg in Shadyside -- that included the wholesale merchant D.D. Peden, for whom our this home at 2 Longfellow Lane was originally built and designed.

Gallery: Longfellow Lane

Tags: D.D.Peden Estate Houston, Georgian Architecture, Harrie T.Lindeberg, J.S. Cullinan, National Register Of Historic Places, shadyside, texas, texas real estate, Zubers View Of America Wallpaper

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Luxist Takes a Tour of the Nike Golf Oven

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Sports

Nike advertising has a way - one of the biggest, best ways, actually - of seizing your attention. That is only in small part due to the ubiquity of the company's ads. It is more substantially due to: Nike ads don't sell products; Nike ads sell you on the idea of being everything you can be, perhaps better than you ever thought you could be. Take the World Cup: Nike didn't sponsor the tournament; Adidas did. But which company do you remember? Can you even remember an Adidas commercial? Or does your bell toll for "Write Your Future"?

The company was founded on a single idea, and it has continued to let its ideas grab the attention, with the products playing... accessory, as it were, to the achievement of those ideas. When Luxist was invited to the Nike Golf Oven in Ft. Worth, Texas, we met the men behind Nike's idea of golf, and to see how those ideas were made material. You wouldn't guess this would be the place for a Skunkworks devoted to fairways and greens, but then again, there are a lot of things we'd have never guessed about Nike. This is just another one.

Gallery: The Nike Golf Oven

Source

Tags: ft. worth, golf, nike, nike golf, nike golf oven, sports, texas

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Texas Winery Sold In Bankruptcy Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Gruet, a popular New Mexico maker of sparkling wine is expanding to Texas with the purchase of the Cap*rock Winery in Lubbock. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports that Cap*rock Winery sold for $6.5 million during a bankruptcy auction. The winery had filed Chapter 11 back in December and has continued to operate. Gruet will be the 21-year-old winery's fourth owner. The sale includes the winery, crushing facility and the 25-acre site, along with fermenting equipment, bulk and bottled wines, bottling lines and the year's crushing contracts.

Tags: caprock winery, gruet, texas, wine

Texas To Auction Off Desirable License Plates

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

If you live in Texas and want a special popular tag, mark down September 22 on your calendar. That's when Texas Department of Motor Vehicles , in cooperation with a private company will be auctioning off 30 highly desirable seven-letter combinations at Cowboys Stadium. Up for bid will be tags including cowboys, ferrari, rangers, ftworth and porsche. Winners will get the rights to the plates for 25 years with an option to renew and can resell the plate if they want to. The revenue from the sale will be shared between the state and MyPlates.com, the company that holds the contract to sell Texas' personalized plates. Other states have raised millions through similar plate auctions.

My Plates sells new specialty license plates in the state of Texas. A variety of specialized backgrounds and messages are available independent of this auction. The most expensive are the luxury series which has a choice of 18 background designs and a message of up to six letters/numbers. A ten-year license plate in the luxury series costs $595.

[via Dallas Morning News]

Tags: cowboys, license plate, license plate auction, license plates, License Plates for Money, license tag sale, texas

Sabine On Fifth Complex, Eludes Foreclosure, Heads For Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Real Estate Developments

More signs of condo fallout in Austin, Texas. A bunch of units from the Sabine on Fifth project will hit the auction block on February 28. The project, which is located in a 10-story former office building, escaped foreclosure after the owner CWS Capital Partners was given a loan extension. Auctioneer Kennedy Wilson will sell off 27 of the available 44 units (the building has 80 units total) with bids on one-bedroom units starting as low as $85,000 and two-bedroom starting at $195,000. The apartments were once listed near $204,900 and $550,000. Condo buyers will receive a one-year Tower Health Club and Spa membership and up to $1,500 in closing costs paid by the seller.

Tags: austin, condo, condo auction, CondoAuction, sabine on fifth, SabineOnFifth, texas

Top Ten Hotel Openings of 2009

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

Hotels shutting their glass and filigree doors or going into some form of financial distress could have made more of this year's new than new openings; still, the quantity and quality of newly available suites to call your own felt just as stellar as in better years past. Sure, we didn't get the J line of hotels (yet), but we did get the Bardessono -- and 82 geothermal wells and hand-loomed Coyuchi linens are probably as good as anything Jay Z had to offer. Whittled to just ten, with the help of our friends over at TabletHotels.com, in no particular order here are Luxist's top openings of 2009...

Tags: austin, bahia, barcelona, bardessono, best hotels 2009, black rock oceanfront resort, BlackRockOceanfrontResort, brazil, british columbia, BritishColumbia, crosby street, CrosbyStreet, france, hotel, hotel st cecillia, hotels 2009, Hotels2009, HotelStCecillia, la reserve ramatuelle, LaReserveRamatuelle, melbourne, new york city, NewYorkCity, puli shanghai, PuliShanghai, st tropez, StTropez, suites avenue, SuitesAvenue, texas, the cullen, TheCullen, top hotels, TopHotels, uxua casa, UxuaCasa, yountville

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Sugar Land, Estate of the Day

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates

The old adage about things being bigger in Texas certainly holds true when it comes to this massive Mediterranean in Sugar Land, Texas. The six-bedroom contemporary mansion features some pretty dramatic decor. The grand rotunda is home to an original freeform sculpture suspended from a three-story dome. The home's 'living island' living room has a moat with an illuminated bridge and is surrounded by one inch mosaic tile walls,a copper mesh water wall and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking two pools and a golf fairway. The master wing includes a master suite with a fireplace, morning bar, gym, bathroom with a steam shower, private courtyard, walk-in closet and a spiral staircase leading to a personal reading room. The home also has a two-story library with an attached office, a circular wine cellar, recording room, home theater and two pools outside. For more shots of other rooms including the home's disco lounge, check out the architect's portfolio. This home is listed at $11 million.

Gallery: Sugar Land

Source

Tags: estate of the day, EstateOfTheDay, sugar land, SugarLand, texas

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Luxury Homes And Condos Up For Auction In Dallas

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Real Estate Developments

Luxury homes and condos continue to hit the auction block. In the Dallas area, homes and condos which once were priced over $1 million will be available at bargain prices during an auction on November 7. Fifteen luxury homes in McKinney's Craig Ranch area and 29 high-end condominiums in Dallas' Preston Hollow neighborhood will be auctioned by the Kennedy Wilson Auction Group. Bidding on the homes will start at $125,000 to $370,000 and starting bids for the condos in Park Hollow, in the Preston Hollow area, will range from $215,000 to $495,000. The auction will take place at the at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas and Kennedy Wilson is holding informational meetings in advance of the event.

Source

Tags: auctions, condo auction, CondoAuction, dallas, luxury home auction, LuxuryHomeAuction, real estate auctions, RealEstateAuctions, texas

Mary Lou Retton In Houston, Estate of the Day

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Perennially perky retired Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton has moved back to her hometown of Fairmont, West Virginia and is eager to sell her Houston home. The Wall Street Journal's Private Properties reports that she has cut the price of her 9,000-square-foot Houston home by 10 percent after three months on the market. The medal-winner-turned-motivational-speaker built the home in 2002 with her husband, real-estate investor Shannon Kelley.

The six-bedroom, home is on two wooded acres in Houston's Memorial Villages area. It has indulgent outdoor space that includes a raised terrace, grotto pool, dining loggia with fireplace and a park-like backyard. The sprawling master bath has a sitting area and there is also a media room and children's playroom. The home is now listed at $4.7 million.

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

Gallery: Mary Lou Retton In Houston

Source

Tags: celebrity real estate, CelebrityRealEstate, estate of day, EstateOfDay, houston, mary lou retton, MaryLouRetton, texas

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Trahan Ranch, Estate of the Day

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates

I don't usually cover homes under $1 million for estate of the day but this one is worth an exception on architecture alone. This home was designed by 2006 Rome prize winner Patrick Tighe and is located in the small town of Wimberley, Texas, 40 minutes outside of Austin. The compound in surrounded by 12 acres and the home was designed work with the rugged landscape. The home's facade is dominated by a swooping cear-lined roof that offers that for the shade for the walls of glass below which are supported by a dance of steel columns. The home rambles over the land and has a master suite on one end and guest rooms on the other with large open common living areas in between. It is listed at $899,000.

Gallery: Trahan Ranch

Source

Tags: estate of the day, EstateOfTheDay, patrick tighe, PatrickTighe, texas, trahan ranch, TrahanRanch, wimberley

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Dallas Condo To Be The Site Of Second iBidcondo Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Real Estate Developments

The first iBidcondo auction took place last months and a $690,000 condo at the Star Riverside complex in Austin sold for around $87,000. The beat goes on with iBidcondo's announcement that the will be auctioning off a unit in the Beat Condos in Dallas Texas on July 27.

Up for bid is a two-bedroom unit on the 4th floor, with a "retail price" of $280,000 which is expected to sell for between $50,000 - $100,000. The building is a ten-story concrete, steel and glass tower with a salt water pool with spa, poolside cabanas and a multiuse facility perfect for entertaining guests; controlled access entry and gated, garage parking.

The way iBidcondo works is that you buy a seat for $100. The seats cover the cost of the property so that the auction price is donated to a charity. You can see an interview with the winners of the first auction on the iBidcondo website.

Source

Tags: condos, dallas, ibidcondo, real estate, RealEstate, texas

Texas

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