TomCruise

Suri Cruise is getting started early on her designer handbag collection, and (no surprise) so far she has the very same taste as her mother Katie Holmes. Suri was spotted carrying a tiny metallic Salvatore Ferragamo "Sophia" bag (not the bag shown here) recently as she was carried aboard a helicopter in Jamaica by dad Tom. Mom, bringing up the rear, was toting her own larger version of the same "Sophia" design. Color and all.

Yes she's a cutie, and no we don't know the whole story, but is it really necessary to give a little girl a purse worth almost a $1000 when everybody's traveling and in jeans and t-shirts? Maybe if she's going to the Oscars.

Via LuxuryLaunches

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--The Beverly Hills home of the late DJ Adam " DJ AM" Goldstein has come on the market at $3.795 million. The listing for the midcentury one-story home, shown above, is here.
--Lakers player Sasha Vujacic will be among the first owners to call the W Hollywood Residences home when the building opens in mid-January. He has purchased a two-bedroom condo in the 15-story building.
--Author and screenwriter Brian Garfield has sold his Beverly Hills Post Office-area home for $1.795 million.
--The Antonio Moreno estate, a 1930 mansion named for the film star who lived in it until 1935, has sold for $4.2 million.
--Football great Joe Montana and his wife, Jennifer, have listed their 500-acre estate in Sonoma County's wine country for $49 million. The property website is here.

From the NY Post:
--A mysterious Asian real estate investor by the name of J. Lo has been renting a $100,000-a-month Park Imperial condo that belongs to Kobi Alexander, a former technology executive-turned-fugitive who's on the lam in Namibia. He has also signed a contract on a seven-bedroom condo at the Park Laurel building on West 63rd Street for close to its $28 million asking price. Lo also put a bid of close to $40 million on a Time Warner Center apartment owned by Internet pioneer Todd Wagner even though that residence isn't on the market. Lo also checked out a $31 million penthouse at Trump Park Avenue but has yet to make an offer there.
--Pharmaceutical mogul Richard Ullman has just sold his condo at One Central Park West for around $17 million.
Ullman also owns a condo at 15 Central Park West, which he bought for $23.5 million and then tried to sell for a sky-high $75 million price tag that found no takers.
--The new rental building at 808 Columbus Ave. has gotten some star power. Residents in the luxury building include Shannon Elizabeth and "Law & Order" actor Anthony Anderson.

From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--Thomas Renyi, who retired as chairman and CEO of the Bank of New York last year, has picked up an apartment at 920 Fifth Avenue for $7.55 million, $2.55 million less than what it was first listed for in April 2008.
--The Hampshire House apartment once owned by the late Wall Street titan Zalman Bernstein is back on the market at a discount. The 25th-floor residence first went on the market for $17.5 million in 2007 but is now priced at $11.5 million. The listing is here.
--Arlene Farkas, the ex-wife of real estate heir Bruce Farkas, has cut price of her 14-room duplex at the River House. The five-bedroom co-op first hit the market for $15 million last November and is now listed for $12.3 million.
--Retired Phillip Morris executive Murray Bring, and his wife, Kathleen, have sold their 14th-floor apartment at 935 Park Avenue for $3.625 million.
--via NYT, sculptor Louise Bourgeois has been identified as the buyer behind the purchase of costume designer William Ivey Long's townhouse on West 20th Street. Bourgeois' Easton Foundation picked up the building for $4.75 million and will use it as an exhibition space and archive.
--via Curbed, Christopher Nixon Cox, the grandson of Richard Nixon, has sold his two-bedroom apartment at 10 East 70th Street for $1.4 million.
--via NYT, hedge fund manager Steve Eisman, who took a loss on the sale of his old apartment at 1125 Park Avenue back in August, has bought a four-bedroom penthouse duplex at 1120 Park Avenue for $7.4 million, 36 percent less than the original asking price.
--Investor and philanthropist Ephraim Gildor has fond a buyer for his duplex penthouse at the Park Laurel. It was listed at $28 million.
--Victoria's Secret president Ed Razek has sold his one-bedroom co-op at 32 East 64th Street for $2.25 million.
--Deborah Doyle McWhinney, who was appointed as the head of Citi's Personal Wealth Management division this spring, has paid $2.88 million for a co-op at 25 East 86th Street.
--Hedge fund manager Paolo Pellegrini has closed on the purchase of a 3,500-square-foot apartment at 88 Central Park West. Pellegrini and his wife Henrietta paid $9 million for the co-op, down from the $10.995 million asking price that owners Ray Errol Fox and Jean Thomas were seeking.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Software mogul Marty Sprinzen has found a buyer for his apartment at 838 Fifth Avenue. He bought for the ninth-floor residence for $15.8 million in 2007 and put it on the market for $24.5 million in May.
--Abigail Disney, Walt Disney's grandniece, put her two 300 West End Avenue apartments on the market for a combined $13,445,000 in 2008. She had paid the singer Harry Belafonte just $10.75 million for them a year and a half before. Last month, she and her husband sold off the apartments for $7.2 million, $3.55 million less than they'd paid.

From the Chicago Tribune's Elite Street:
WBBM-Ch. 2 political editor Mike Flannery has listed his longtime 17-room mansion in Beverly for $1.25 million. The listing is here.
--An 11-room, red brick center-entry Colonial-style house in Kenilworth that served as actor Steve Martin's family home in the 1987 movie "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" has sold for $1.4 million after initially being listed in 2007 for $2.995 million.
--Tammy Walker, wife of the late Northwestern University football coach Randy Walker, has taken a big loss on the 13-room Colonial-style house in Wilmette that she and her husband purchased shortly before his death in 2006, selling it for $1.555 million.

From Homes and Property UK:
--Pete Townshend's ex-wife Karen has sold Tennyson House, the Twickenham mansion where she and Pete raised their three children. The three-story Georgian brick house sold for £5.5 million.
--Comedians Lenny Henry and Dawn French have dropped the price on Hyde End Farm, their six-bedroom Grade II-listed Georgian home near Newbury. It was listed at £3 million through Strutt & Parker but is now down to £2.25 million.

From the Real Estalker:
--Michael Bay has picked a large piece of land in Bel-Air. He paid $10.9 million for a 4.93 acre, 3-parcel property with beautiful views. The current main house measures 6,067 square feet and includes two bedrooms but Bay may be planning to tear the house down.
--Did CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper and his partner buy a firehouse on West Third Street in New York City's Greenwich Village?
--Lisa Marie Presley has listed at home in Hidden Hills, California for $8.95 million.
--Media heir Lachlan Murdoch and his wife Sarah have spend $23 million Australian on Le Manoir, an estate in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. The mansion was sold at auction by the French Government who used the Bellevue Hill estate as their consulate.
--Rumors are swirling that Tom Cruise paid $18 million for a home in San Francisco's Sea Cliff neighborhood but the Real Estalker thinks the buyer could also be Larry Ellison.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Casino mogul Steve Wynn has paid $7.5 million for a Sun Valley, Idaho home.
NBA player Allen Iverson has cut the price of his Villanova, Pennsylvania home again. It is now listed at $3.25 million. It was at $3.999 million when we checked it out as an estate of the day last year.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are on the move again and old friend James Packer is helping them find a place to stay. The Australian billionaire is offering the couple his private suite on the 39th floor of the Crown Towers hotel complex while they are in Melbourne next month. Katie Holmes will be in Australia filming the production of the horror movie Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark. The large suite is being renovated for the Cruise family and the Daily Telegraph reports that an equivalent suite rents for $27,500 a night.

Stationer Mrs. John L. Strong, one of the world's leading boutique luxury brands whose customers included Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Oprah Winfrey and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, is shutting down after 80 years. The company has decided to close its Madison Avenue atelier, its boutiques, web site, catalog, wholesale and corporate businesses due to the recession, the Times reports.

Nannette Brown, the company's chief executive and creative director, said that an inability "to finance the business's expansion plans combined with a challenging retail and economic environment, left the company with no alternative but to close." Efforts to sell the company also failed. "This is a sad day for Mrs. John L. Strong," Brown said in a statement, "and a sad day for luxury as the world has become increasingly bereft of unique, hand-finished products." Indeed.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Since August, billionaire art collector Eli Broad has been trying to sell a six-room, two-bedroom tower apartment at the Sherry-Netherland, the Fifth Avenue hotel, shown above. The place is listed with Stribling for $15 million.
Mariska Hargitay sold her eight-room duplex in the 1887 O'Neill Building for $8.15 million. She paid $7 million for the penthouse last year.
--Rumor has it that Hugh Jackman has picked up Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy's triplex at 176 Perry Street for somewhere above $25 million. It was listed at $40 million when it was our estate of the day last November.
Is the four-bedroom Park Avenue apartment belonging to the late William F. Buckley overpriced? His son says so. It was our estate of the day on Friday.
--A defense of the Plaza, when a 16th-floor one-bedroom Plaza suite goes to contract, the building's 181 private apartments will be sold out. The Observer checked out some of the apartments and was only disappointed by the Plaza's hotel-condo units.
---- Courtney Sale Ross' duplex at 740 Park Avenue is being quietly shopped around for a price said to be over $60 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Another property on the market for $75 million in New York. We'll be checking this one out tomorrow morning.
--Jessica Alba is leasing a two-bedroom apartment at 20 Exchange Place while shooting the film "An Invisible Sign of My Own."
--The longtime penthouse residence of Kitty Carlisle Hart is officially in contract after a relatively short time on the market. The 10-room duplex co-op at 1185 Park Ave hit the market last month with an asking price of $20 million.
--If you buy one of the last unsold residences at South of Fifth in South Beach the developers will throw in a new Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, valued at $260,000. The units are $6 million to $8 million and range from 2,500 to 6,200 square feet.
--One Plaza buyer is now ready to take a loss on his investment. Oscar Schafer, the managing partner of OSS Capital Management, has lowered the price of his 17th-floor, three-bedroom condo from its $18 million June price to $14.5 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Actress Melissa Joan Hart (best known as Sabrina the Teenage Witch) has listed her Sherman Oaks home for sale at $3.25 million. The listing is here.
-- Jewel and her cowboy husband, Ty Murray have put their Hollywood Hills home on the market fort $1.75 million. The listing is here.
Joe Maloof, president of Maloof Cos., has listed his Brentwood home at $4.995 million. The Maloof family owns the NBA's Sacramento Kings, the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas and a huge liquor distributorship in New Mexico. The listing for the home is here.
Actor David Lander, known best as Laverne and Shirley's pal Squiggy has listed his Woodland Hills home at $999,900. The listing is here.
--Producer-director known as McG has picked up a three-bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills for $5.75 million.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--A large, four-bedroom contemporary house in Beverly Hills that was owned for many years by actor Matthew Perry has been listed for $12,500,000. The listing is here.
--Actor J.K. Simmons has placed his five-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills on the market for $1.995 million. The listing is here.
-- via TMZ, Adult film actress Jenna Jameson and mixed martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz reportedly have purchased a newly built, 3,889-square-foot house in his native Huntington Beach, Calif. that had been on the market for $3,399,000. Her home, which was our estate of the day in August, is still on the market for $2.7 million.
--A Hollywood Hills home once owned by Halle Berry is on the market for $4.995 million. The listing is here.
--Another round of 'Which celebrity's house is this? this time with a 4,877-square-foot house in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, which just came on the market for $4.75 million. The listing is here.
--Actress Jane Sibbett sold her 16.96-acre ranch in Los Angeles' Topanga area for $3.95 million not for the $4.25 million that has been reported. It was listed at $5.2 million when it was our estate of the day in April.

From the Real Estalker:
--Nicolas Cage has listed the Gray Craig estate in Rhode Island. It is our estate of the day later today.
--Halle Berry and her Canadian-born model boyfriend Gabriel Aubry are buying a home in St. Hippolyte, around one hour north of Montreal. The modern home on 68 acres was was listed at $1,850,000 and comes with a private lake.
--Bianca Jagger has been evicted from her rent stabilized apartment in New York City on Park Avenue. She stopped paying rent claiming that the 18th floor unit had an asbestos and fungus contamination. She appealed an earlier decision that required her to pay back rent but her tourist visa requires her to maintain her main home outside of the United States and NYC rent regulation laws require that a rent stabilized unit be a "primary residence."
--The NY Post's Page Six has reported that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have five units in their NYC East Village building, one for the gym, one for a playroom for their daughter, two for staff and one for the couple.
--Trouble in the Hills? Seems the prospect of filming the MTV reality TV show at Audrina Patridge's new home on Bryn Mawr Drive.
--Rumor has it that the The Jonas Brothers are moving into a new house in the East Gate section of Bel Air. The property includes a four bedroom main house, a three bedroom guest house, a large office suite and a swimming pool but it is not clear whether or not the singing brothers bought or are leasing.

From Newsday's Real LI:
--Rosehearty, Rupert Murdoch's Colonial mansion on Centre Island has been pulled off the Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty website, as well as the MLSLI Web site. The listing agent Barbara Candee of Daniel Gale says Murdoch and wife, Wendi, are currently deciding what they want to do with the property for the short term. It was our estate of the day in July 2007.
--A charming Art & Crafts home on Sag Harbor's historic Main Street has been listed for $3.995 million. The five-bedroom home was built circa 1920, and has been featured in Hamptons Cottages & Gardens magazine. The listing is here.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Steve Martin is asking up to $28,100 a week to rent out his villa on the Caribbean island of St. Barthelemy. He bought the house last spring. The listing is here.
--Hilary Swank is in contract to pay $3.5 million for a two-bedroom apartment at the Superior Ink condominium building.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Last year developer Harry Macklowe spent approximately $60 million for several apartments to combine into one huge residence at the Plaza. Now he's reportedly quietly looking for someone who might want to pick up the 10,000-square-foot expanse. A similar-sized pad in the building has reportedly been floating a $100 million price tag to brokers.
--Diana Ross is re-listing her Greenwich estate, known as Quarry Farm, for the same $39.5 million price.
--Investor Chris Knight has finally sold Shorewood, the former Shelter Island estate of ex-Gov. Hugh Carey. He originally asked for $33 million after buying for $10 million but it now looks like the selling price is in the mid $12 million range.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--As the Real Estalker predicted last week, Veronica Hearst is selling off her co-op at 4 East 66th Street for around $30 million.
-- Bear Stearns senior managing director Bill Bamber and his wife closed in February on their new apartment at Third Avenue around 92nd Street, paying $1,995,000 million for a new two-unit, four-bedroom condo with views of the George Washington Bridge, the Triborough, and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir five weeks before the firm collapsed.
--According to city records, 23-year-old Scarlett Johansson just sold her duplex loft at 66 Leonard Street for $1,898,000, even though she paid $1,950,000 back in January 2006.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Tony Danza has sold his five-bedroom home in Sherman Oaks area for an undisclosed price after it had been on the market for $6,150,000. It was our estate of the day last November.
--Eddie and Alex Van Halen sold their late mother's home in the Summit neighborhood in the Beverly Hills, CA postal area for $1.5 million; it was listed at $2.2 million.
--Actor Kyle Bornheimer has paid $1.25 million for a three-bedroom house in Los Feliz and has sold a home in Silver Lake for its $739,000 asking price.

From the Real Estalker:
--The charming contemporary Hollywood Hills house owned by Naomi Foner and Stephen Gyllenhaal, the parents of Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, has been reduced from a listing price of $4.2 million to $3.795 million. The listing is here.
--Sharon Stone has been trying to flip this Beverly Hills post office listing for a few years but now it's up for rent for $58,000 a month, the listing is here.
--Care to spend even more on a rental? The Beverly Hills home that has been rented by both Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe is now available for $100,000 a month. The listing is here.
--Rumor has it that P. Diddy is looking for a new house in Los Angeles.
--via the Globe and Mail, Rush lead guitarist Alex Lifeson has put his Toronto home on the market for $5.699 million Canadian. The listing is here.
-- via the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Atlanta Falcons owner, Home Depot co-founder and billionaire Arthur Blank has put his home on Tuxedo Road in Atlanta, shown above, on the market for $10.9 million. The listing is here.
----Ricky Martin has picked an island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for around $8 million. No word on which one but I'm hoping it's this former estate of the day.
--Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and family are in the south of France, reportedly holed up in Villa Maryland, Paul Allen's home in St. Jean Cap Ferrat.
--The Beverly Hills post office home of music mogul Ron Fair, has hit the market for $4.795 million. The property website is here.
--Actors John Ales and Wendy Gazelle have put their two-bedroom home in the Nichols Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills on the market for $1.247 million. The listing is here.

From WWD:
--Cornelia Guest is putting her historic family home Templeton in Old Westbury, N.Y., on the market for $20 million. The home is listed with Daniel Gale Sotheby's realty.

From UPI:
--Robert De Niro is planning to open a Japanese-themed condo and hotel complex in New York, Nobu Hotel. The building will ready in two to four years.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Actress Mel Harris has listed her home in Pacific Palisades. It's our estate of the day later today.
--Tom Arnold has listed his home in Tarzana for $2.275 million (he paid $1.95 million a couple of years ago). The property website is here.

Celebrities and their motorcycles have had a long and enduring affair. From before the iconic movie, Easy Rider, celebrities, mostly men, have taken to the open road. Why the link between the famous and the fast? Certainly wherever there is money there are toys to spend it on but could there be more to the lure. I asked Mike Werner, the man behind Bikes in the Fast Lane Motorcycle News for his take on the link between the two. Mike has an interesting theory. He says there are three basic types of celebrity motorcycle riders: the ones who are riding to look cool and may have many bikes but not so many miles on the bikes, the "real biker" celebs who were into biking before they became famous and now have the money and time to indulge their passion and the ones who started off riding as a fashion statement but then found themselves getting really into motorcycles. Mike Werner cited Robert M. Pirsig, the author of the much-loved book Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance who said that the allure of riding a motorcycle is that you are one with the road in a way you cannot be in a car, you are exposed to the weather and the air and the smell of the road.

Motorcycles also offer an escape from the world of celebrity, the chance to feel free and slip away from the world. It's no surprise that many of the celebrity motorcycle riders are also pilots. Each offers both the exhilaration of potential danger as well as the feeling of mastery, to be both in control and yet aware that you are not completely in control, that the environment you are in also controls you. I suspect that being famous can be similar in some ways, a odd juxtaposition of power and powerlessness.

Paris Hilton, to my knowledge, has never been seen, outside of the red carpet of course, on the $250,000 custom motorcycle she is shown riding in the picture above. The gallery below includes just some of the celebrities famous for loving and riding (at least to premieres) their motorcycles.

One of the perks of being married to Tom Cruise has to be the shopping. Since Katie Holmes met and married the diminutive action star she's logged so much time at Barney's they should thank her in their annual business report. Recently though, it was the Beverly HIlls Neiman Marcus that got the Katie touch. In Touch reports that she had a $300 lunch with friends there on December 15 and then went on a massive shopping adventure that totaled around $100,000. Katie's picks includes a $30,000 rose-gold Cartier wristwatch, a black Giorgio Armani suit for $5,400, Gucci snakeskin sneakers for $990, a Prada ski coat for $1,395 and four pairs of Barker Black handmade English shoes at $825 each all for her hubby.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Christie Brinkley has found a new home in the Hamptons, picking up a waterfront estate in North Haven which had a $10.995 million price tag. Her ex-husband, Peter Cook has also bought a place in North Haven for close to $1.2 million.
--Broadway producer Jeffrey Finn has purchased a one-bedroom pied-a-terre at the Platinum condo complex for just over $1.4 million.
--Rachel Hunter is looking for a fixer upper in the Hamptons. Good luck with that.
--Hotel developer Robert Burns wins the dubious distinction of spending the most money on a Hamptons rental. He is renting an oceanfront Southampton home for a record $1.2 million for the year. He is currently working on building a new mansion in the area.

Bonus from the NY Post:
--Is Alex Rodriguez of the NY Yankees looking to buy the Lake Carrington Estate? The home in Greenwich, Connecticut is billed a "couture-ready" mansion, a nine-acre lakefront property dominated by a Georgian-style stone mansion spanning 35,000 square feet. The listing is here.

From The Real Estalker:
--Scarlett Johansson has picked up a home in the Hollywood Hills for around $8 million.
--Ricky Martin has listed his Miami mansion, shown above, for $16.9 million. No interior pics but the listing is here (that's one deep blue pool).
--Keyshawn Johnson's condo at The Californian in Los Angeles is for sale for $3.595 million.
--Rumor has it that Britney Spears may have sold her Malibu mansion.
--It was nearly two years ago that we first learned Kathleen Turner was set to put her Amagansett home on the market for $7.95 million, now we finally have the listing which is for $6.995 million. Check out the charming beach home here.
--Real estate goddess Ellen Degeneres is at it again putting another tempting home on the market. This Hollywood home is listed for $1.995 million. Ellen and her team do some mighty fine renovating. Check out the calm white splendor at the property website.
--Numerous websites are reporting that Britney Spears may be buying Ray Liotta's old nest in the Pacific Palisades. We'll be checking out this home later as out estate of the day.

From Celebrity Babylon:
--Rumor has it Tom Cruise has picked up a plot in Montecito from Rob Lowe and his wife and may be building a getaway house.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Trusts and partnerships linked to billionaire hedge-fund manager Bruce Kovner paid about $70 million earlier this year for a bunch of oceanfront properties in California's Santa Barbara County. The Kovner-related entities paid $35 million for a three-acre lot with a large Tuscan-style home, $20 million for a four-bedroom house on three acres and then $15 million for six acres.
--New York attorney and real-estate investor Alan Schnurman has just gotten approval to sell eight lots in a Hamptons subdivision, 41 acres in all, for $64.5 million. He bought the land in 2005 for around $25 million. Schnurman's got some success behind him, he recently sold six lots in Bridgehampton for $37.5 million that he bought in 2005 for $12 million. That buyer in turn has put the lots on the market for almost $50 million. The listing is here.
--As we already knew, Anne Heche's home is on the market for $3.795 million.
--As the Real Estalker predicted weeks ago, Paris Hilton has put her home on the market. The price is $4.25 million. She bought in 2004 for around $2.9 million. The listing is here and warns that there is "a pre-screening process" for getting your look at the place. Also, The Gilded Moose has a great commentary on the interior.
--Basketball player Rasheed Wallace has listed his nearly 10,000-square-foot residence in Portland, Oregon for $5.2 million, making it one of the most expensive listings in the area. Rather bland for a sports star's house, you can check it out here.

From TMZ:
--Johnny Depp has picked up a penthouse in the Eastern Columbia building in downtown Los Angeles for about $2 million. The striking turquoise Art Deco building is an LA landmark but the neighborhood is still in transition.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Jazz singer Lalah Hathaway has sold her Los Angeles home for $848,000 to yoga instructor and model Rainbeau Harmony Mars.
--Michael Jordan's ex-wife has paid $4,720,500 for a mansion in Chicago's River North neighborhood.
--The hunt is on, which house is the house Orlando Bloom bought in the Hollywood Hills for $2.8 million.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Howard and Yvonne Tsao, who graduated from the NYU Stern School of Business barely a year ago, just paid $11.75 million in cash for a 58th-floor spread at the Park Imperial on West 56th Street.
--More news from the infamous 30 Crosby Street, home to Lenny Kravitz and formerly infamously, Courtney Love. Trader Richard Barabino, who sold his second-floor loft there for $6.5 million, will really miss the show-off factor of the apartment and also the help which he refers to has being "like little puppies wagging their tails eager to do something to help you out."
--Steven Kessner, a real estate magnate named by The Village Voice in June 2006 as one of "NYC's 10 Worst Landlords," has bought his son Robert a $1.395 million apartment at 300 East 85th Street, a tower called the America.
--Jeweler-craftsman John Landrum Bryant and his heiress wife, Patricia Bauman, have paid $7.1 million for a four-bedroom apartment in the Beekman that includes a garden, wine cellar, two wet bars and a master bedroom with a kitchenette and fireplace. They plan to put in a jade stone fireplace.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Mel Gibson has sold his Malibu beachfront home for nearly $30 million. He bought the home in the fall of 2005 for $24 million. Also, in May, he bought a 400-plus-acre agricultural and cattle ranch in Costa Rica for $25.8 million, according to La Nación, a Costa Rican publication.
--Former Dodger and Angel center fielder Steve Finley and his wife, Amy, have listed their Rancho Santa Fe estate at $20.5 million. The home has 12,000 square feet and is on seven acres. You can find the listing on the Barry Estates website.
--The Malibu home of the late Daniel Jacoby, an Internet banking pioneer, has been sold for about $12 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
-- Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have sold their 8,000-square-foot condo on Harrison Street for close to its $14 million asking price. The couple purchased it in May 2005 for $7.95 million.
--The Sutton Place apartment of the late Patricia Kennedy Lawford is about to be sold for close to its $12.7 million asking price.
--Tennis player Yannick Noah is adding to his apartment paying $500,000 for the studio adjacent to his duplex apartment at 230 Central Park South.
--Agent Michael Ovitz has been looking at the Jean Nouvel-designed condos under construction at 100 11th Ave. searching for a possible penthouse.

From the NY Observer:
-- Harry Belafonte , who sold his 48-year home on West End Avenue for $10.75 million last October, has paid $5 million for neighboring apartments in the freshly converted Apple Bank Building.
--Actor Michael Imperioli and his wife, interior designer Victoria Imperioli have paid $2.4 million for a four-story walk-up at 499 Canal Street.
--Film mogul Harvey Weinstein is busily renovating the Far West Village townhouse, which he bought last June for $14.95 million.
--T-shirt seller Sunshine Megatron (formerly known as Aaron Schwarz) has sold a Soho triplex penthouse for $5.35 million.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--The listing for the $125 million Saperstein home Fleur de Lys in Holmby Hills is here.
--Jack White has finally 5,800-square-foot house in Detroit, Mich. for $590,000. Last time we saw it, when it was our estate of the day in October, it was listed at $930,000.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--A five-bedroom house in Toluca Lake that belonged to Damon Wayans is back on the market for $4,495,000 eight months after Wayans sold the house for $3.3 million. The listing is here.
--Miami Heat center Alonzo Mourning has reduced the asking price of his 10,121-square-foot bayfront mansion in Miami, Fla. from $10 million to $9.5 million. It is our estate of the day later today.
--Mike Tyson has sold his Southwest contemporary-style house in Paradise Valley, Arizona for $2.339 million, according to the Arizona Republic.
--Roseanne Barr has paid $1,780,000 for a 46.33-acre farm in Hawaii, according to public records.
--According to Curbed LA, Josh Duhamel has listed his three-bedroom, 2,516-square-foot contemporary-style house in Brentwood neighborhood for $2,399,000. The listing is here. It has a great pool.

From the Real Estalker:
--TomKat rumors galore. Did Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes buy this palace of palace of opulence in Bel-Air? Or are they looking to build a lavish new estate.
--The Jane Wyatt estate has been purchased by Sandy Gallin, a music manager, who will most likely renovate and flip.
--Josh Duhamel and Fergie are staying in Brentwood picking up an eight-bedroom home which was listed at $5.299 million.
--Soap actress Dana Sparks and her husband Steven have listed their home in Lake Sherwood for $4.85 million
--The townhouse of the late Phyllis Cerf has now been reduced to $9.4 million from $9.9 million.
--Adam Nathanson, the son of Marc Nathanson has put his Mulholland Drive home in Los Angeles on the market for $2,350,000.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Supermodel Gisele Bündchen has sold her 4,000-square-foot Hollywood Hills home for $4 million.
--Dave "The Edge" Howell Evans of U2 has purchased a 120-acre parcel in Malibu with a cottage and a creek on it for close to $15 million.
--Lindsay Wagner, known best as "The Bionic Woman" has sold a condo in Chatsworth for $649,000.
--A Neutra designed condo near UCLA has been sold for close to $600,000.
--So far this year, seven $20-million-plus homes have sold in the Bel-Air, Brentwood, Malibu and other Westside areas. Last year at this time, there had only been two.

The latest TomKat rumor involve a pricey piece of real estate. It his being reported that newlyweds Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have gone British for their latest purchase, snapping up a six-bedroom home known as Rede Place in Dormans Park, Sussex, England. The couple paid around $4.75 million for the home which has an indoor swimming pool, game room, greenhouse and a staff cottage.

Why this area? The Church of Scientology has long had ties to nearby East Grinstead. The founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard was the owner of Saint Hill Manor which remains a powerful Scientology center.

The latest extravagant gift for little Suri Cruise, the daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, is a pink airplane pram. Tom Cruise was given the gift when he appeared on Ellen DeGeneres's show. According to the Celebrity Baby Blog, the pram is a modified version of the Fantasy Flyer shown here. The little plane was customized with extensions to the wheel legs, a handle, a hood and Suri's name stenciled along the side. Cruise also received a tiny black satin flight suit and sunglasses.  The Fantasy Flyer, in its unmodified form, sells for $305 at Elegant Child.

Did a hotel strike change Tom Cruise's plans? Breaking Travel News reports that 60 employees at the Ritz Hotel in Paris went on strike Tuesday. Cruise was scheduled to appear there to promote "Mission Impossible 3" on Wednesday. But Reuters reports that the actor ditched the press cued up outside and spent the day exploring Paris with his two older children. Katie Holmes is at home with their newborn, Suri. Cruise has been hard to track this week, first saying he would cut short his tour but then extending it.

She's barely out of the womb but little Suri Cruise, the daughter of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, has her first designer shoes. Page Six reports that Kelly Ripa wasted no time in logging onto Felder and Charles and sending the happy family a pair of the Roberto Cavalli crib shoes shown here. The $114 shoes have a leopard lining and Swarovski crystals.