Wayne Gretzky

Former hockey player great Wayne Gretzky was just announced by Breitling watches as their newest brand ambassador. As far as I know Mr. Gretzky made his "Breitling public debut" a few weeks ago at Breitling's new, New York boutique opening. Gretzky will star in a new ad campaign for Breitling watches alongside something else Canadian, a mid 20th Century Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver aquatic plane - meant for take off and landing on water. The plane imagery is due to Breitling's connection and desire to be associated with all things "aviation." Above, Gretzky is wearing a Breitling Chronomat B01 watch with Breitling's in-house made chronograph movement. Look for more of Wayne's face associated with the Swiss brand's watches soon.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

While browsing through listings this afternoon, the words "price reduced" on a familiar home caught my eye. The Thousand Oaks, California estate that once belonged to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, the same one he sold to Lenny Dykstra, has had yet another price cut. The lavish, Richard Landry-designed home has over 6.5 acres of space that includes three guest houses, formal gardens, tennis courts, pool, spa and gym. The neo-Georgian main house has six bedrooms. Dykstra bought the home from Gretzky in 2007 for $18.5 million and Dykstra put the home on the market for $24.5 million. When Dykstra's financial empire began to unravel, the home later had a price cut to $16.5 million and at one point we heard the home might be up for auction. It went off the market for a while but was listed at the start of 2010 for $14.9 million. That price wasn't tempting enough, it's now been pared to under $10 million; the latest listing shows a more buyer-friendly price of $9.999 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Inventor and master pitchman Ron Popeil has listed a gated Beverly Hills home, shown above, for sale. The English country-style house includes a tennis court, a large pool with a deck area and a two-story guesthouse. There are six bedrooms and it is listed at $5.995 million. The listing is here.
--The Beverly Hills home of Dr. Robert Rey, star of E! Entertainment Television's "Dr. 90210," has come back on the market at $4.395 million. It was previously listed at $5.295 million. The listing is here.
--Actor French Stewart and his wife, actress and interior designer Katherine LaNasa, have listed their renovated and expanded Hollywood Hills-area home for $4.195 million. The listing is here.
--Designer Brogan Lane has listed her 1924 Spanish-style boutique hotel and rental property, Villa Delle Stelle, in Hollywood at $1,098,100.
--Producer Marshall Herskovitz has sold his home in a Brentwood equestrian area for $4.6 million.

From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--Real estate developer Louis Cappelli has found a buyer for the 13-room duplex at 515 Park Avenue he owns with his second wife, actress Kylie Travis. The six-bedroom unit was listed for $29.5 million when it went into contract last week.
--Japanese filmmaker Keiko Ibi has gone into contract to sell her condo at 15 Central Park West. The one-bedroom unit was most recently listed for $3.485 million.
--Clifford Brokaw, a Goldman Sachs alum and a managing director at Corsair Capital, has paid $2.9 million for a third-floor apartment at 907 Fifth Avenue. It first went on the market for $4.4 million in May 2008.
--The lower half of George Gershwin's former duplex at 132 East 72nd Street has gone into contract after more than nine months on the market. The two-bedroom co-op had most recently been listed for $3.05 million. Socialite Debbie Bancroft's apartment, which is located one floor up and comprises the second half of Gershwin's former home, is still on the market for a reduced price of $1.5 million.
--African telecom mogul Yerim Sow has re-listed his three-bedroom pad at 15 Central Park West for $21 million. The listing is here.
--via the Real Deal, real estate mogul Elie Hirschfeld has put his East Hampton estate up for sale for $25 million. The listing is here.
--via the New York Post, Anna Wintour's daughter Bee Shaffer is searching for a place of her own and has been spotted touring two apartments in the "$2.3 million range" at 330 Spring Street and 505 Greenwich with her mom.
--via Curbed, real estate heiress Caroline Cumming has closed on the sale of her home at 11 Spring Street. The building had been listed for $26 million and sold for $19.5 million.
--Vice magazine co-founder Shane Smith has reportedly paid $2.2 million for a loft on Desbrosses Street in Tribeca.
--Hedge funder Glenn Dubin and his wife, Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin have put their 12-room, 6,000-square-foot duplex at 1010 Fifth Avenue on the market for $18.5 million. The listing is here.
--via Curbed, New York's tiniest townhouse at 75 1/2 Bedford Street has gone into contract. It was most recently listed for $2.499 million.
--via the NY Observer, Kenneth Horowitz, the Florida-based entrepreneur who founded Cellular One and Weather Risk Solutions, has paid $5.2 million for a 46th-floor apartment at Trump Palace on East 69th Street.
--via the NY Observer, software mogul Marty Sprinzen has closed on the sale of his ninth-floor apartment at 838 Fifth Avenue. The apartment, which Sprinzen bought in 2007 for $15.8 million sold for $22.5 million.
--via the NY Observer, Russian chessmaster Garry Kasparov has paid $3.4 million for a penthouse apartment at 205 West 76th Street.
--Billionaire publishing heir Robert Ziff has gone into contract to sell his condo at the Trump International. It was listed for $11.5 million.
--Late fashion designer Abbijane Schifrin's former townhouse on East 19th St. has been chopped in price. It was listed at $8.75 million when we checked it out as an estate of the day but is now $7.995 million.


From the NY Post:
--Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and his wife Janet have been spotted shopping for a New York City apartment in the $7 million to $15 million range.
--Late news anchor Walter Cronkite's three-bedroom, five-bathroom co-op at 870 United Nations Plaza has just hit the market for $2.995 million.
-- Belarus-born model Maryna Linchuk has purchased a one-bedroom condo in Nolita for $1.1 million

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Fashion designer Christian Lacroix has sold a Paris apartment for €1.2 million, or about $1.8 million. He had originally listed the apartment in January for €2 million.
--Singer John Legend has paid $1.9 million for an apartment in New York's East Village neighborhood and has gone into contract to sell his two-bedroom condo for around $1 million. It was recently listed at $1.195 million.

--Former money manager Stanley Chais, said to have channeled millions of dollars of investor funds to Bernard Madoff, has cut the price on his Los Angeles condo to $3.35 million. He paid $4.4 million for the unit in 2007 and had originally asked $4.7 million for the two-bedroom apartment in the Sierra Towers in West Hollywood. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
--The West Village duplex that Jude Law is currently renting is up for sale for $6.9 million. The listing is here.
--Faith Hill and Tim McGraw may have listed their Nashville home and they have peeled $4 million off the price of their Beverly Hills home. It was listed at $14.8 million when we checked it out as an estate of the day in October of 2008 but is now down to just $10.8 million.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Former West Virginia Gov. Gaston Caperton has listed his West Virginia home, shown here, for $3.65 million. Caperton, who was governor of the West Virginia for two terms starting in 1989, is currently the president of the College Board and has overhauled the SAT system, adding writing component to the test. . This home built in 1997 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia has a decidedly wacky bent. It hasa lookout tower and is painted red, blue, yellow and gray. Check out the listing here.
--A penthouse located at South Beach's Setai condo-hotel has gone to contract for $24 million, breaking the city's record for a condominium.
--"Friends" supporting actress Jane Sibbett has put her Topanga, California home, known as Trust Ranch, on the market for $7 million. Sibbett, who played Ross's lesbian ex-wife, Carol, on the sitcom,and she and her husband writer/producer Karl Fink are buying a farm in Hawaii for about $2 million. The four-bedroom home sits on 17 acres and the design is based on the golden ratio, a mathematical proportion considered aesthetically pleasing. The listing is here.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Conflicting figures about regarding Leonardo DiCaprio's penthouse apartment in the Hudson Blue building in New York. The latest is that DiCaprio's new abode will be a one-bedroom condo with a private 800-square-foot rooftop terrace with a hot tub which cost the actor under $3 million.
--Aw, Martin Scorcese is a good dad, he's helping eldest daughter, Catherine, purchase a condo with a $799,000 in Williamsburg.
--Model and actress Emma Heming has paid $1.85 million for a two-bedroom condo in Chelsea.
--Broker, Melanie Lazenby, whose father, George Lazenby, played James Bond in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has listed a rather Bond-like $11.5 million duplex penthouse condo. The listing is here.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--The widow of real estate developer Charles Evans( brother to producer Bob Evans and the producer of the 1982 drag classic Tootsie) has sold their triplex apartment which was listed at $29.5 million.
-- Broadway producer Marty Richards has accepted an offer for his co-op at the iron-gated River House on East 52nd Street. The apartment, which we mentioned recently has been on the market off and on for around seven years was listed for $22.7 million.
--André Balazs, the hotelier turned condo developer is making great deals on the William Beaver House. Over the summer he reportedly sold the penthouse for $4.7 million, now he has sold the 47th floor's A and B apartments for $5 million.
--Octogenarian photographer Frederick Eberstadt has sold his longtime apartment at 791 Park Avenue to Alexandra Heyman Nash, a children's photographer for $6.7 million.
--Ex-White House senior staff member Dina Habib Powell and her husband, Richard have spent $3.85 million on an apartment at The Metropolitan.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Wayne Gretzky has paid $875,000 for a house in Westlake Village, California. He recently sold his home in Thousand Oaks to baseball star Lenny Dykstra for a reported $18.5 million.
--The mansion in Encino that singer Macy Gray sold earlier this year for $4,750,000 is back on the market after a major rehab for $11,700,000. Is it worth it? You be the judge, check out the property website here.
--Former Guns N' Roses guitarist and songwriter Izzy Stradlin (also known as Jeffrey Isbell) has paid $1,098,000 for a home in Ojai. Check out the listing sheet here.
--The official sale price on Gene Wilder's Bel-Air home was $2,725,000.
--A home in Bannockburn, Illinois once owned by Bears coach Mike Ditka is on the market for $2.29 million. The listing is here.
--"Simpsons" actor Dan Castellaneta has sold his beautiful five-bedroom, contemporary-style house in Santa Monica. It had been listed at $3,295,000.
--Actor Michael Urie from "Ugly Betty" has paid $749,000 for a 10th-floor condo in the Hollywood Versailles Tower in Hollywood.
--Actor Goran Visnjic of "ER" has sold his Spanish villa-style house in Sherman Oaks for $1,780,000 to hockey star Sheldon Souray.

From the Real Estalker:
--Rumor has it that New York "It Boy" Fabian Basabe and his La Perla lingerie heiress wifey Martina Borgomanero have left new York and moved into a condo on lower Sunset Plaza Drive in West Hollywood.
--The Real Estalker Mama takes a look at the Calabasas home Jag star Catherine Bell put on the market. When we first saw it on the market at the end of August it was listed at $3.25 million but now sits at $2.895 million. Check out the pictures at the listing here.
--The estate of Cheng Ching Wang, the late father of designer Vera Wang, is leasing out the 33-acre estate in Pound Ridge for $25,000 a month.
--Cheng Ching Wang's home in Palm Beach, Florida is also on the market for $23 million. The impressive five-bedroom estate is listed here.
--Looks like A-Rod won't be buying Shaq's Star Island mansion in Miami after all. Various sources are reporting that Alex Rodriguez walked away from the $32,000,000 home and are staying in the Coral Gables area where they currently own a $12,000,000 home.
--The answer to a "Who's House Is This" posted by Mr. Big Time, appears to be Go Go's guitarist Jane Wiedlin who reportedly left this charming modern home in Silverlake to move downtown into a sixth floor condo at the Little Tokyo Lofts which she bought for $695,000.
--Back to Cheng Chin Wang, his estate also sold off an eight-bedroom home on Gin Lane in Southhampton, NY for $11.5 million this summer.
--What to make of guitar god Slash's lawsuit against his real estate agent? We'll take a look at the home as our estate of the day.
--Singer Carole King has put her Stanley, Idaho ranch on the market for $19 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Earvin "Magic" Johnson and his wife, Cookie, have purchased a $7.6-million vacation home in Dana Point with views of the ocean.
--Professional golfer Corey Pavin and his wife, Lisa have purchased a home in Brentwood for $3 million.
--A home once lived in by Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman was just sold by veteran TV director Reza Badiyi for $1.8 million.