Zsa Zsa Gabor

Sunday Real Estate Round-Up, 01/23/11

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the LA Times:
--Chris Ursitti, chief executive of GreenHouse Holdings, a global energy and ethanol company in San Diego, has listed a house he built on spec in Pacific Palisades for $9.495 million. The listing is with Madison Hildebrand.
Actor and teen star Carlos Pena Jr. has bought a Mediterranean-style home in the San Fernando Valley for close to its $1.5-million asking price.
--Television writer Lyla Oliver has sold her Santa Monica home for $1.902 million.

From the NY Post:
--Jennifer Aniston was spotted touring an $8.75 million penthouse at 552 LaGuardia Place in the Village. The listing for the five-bedroom apartment is here.
--Jon Pollock, senior portfolio manager at Elliott Associates, bought three ninth-floor units last year and planned to merge them into an almost 8,500-square-foot mega-home at the Apthorp on the Upper West Side. He paid close to $14 million, but now he wants to sell. He's asking $17 million for all three units, or $11.5 million for two units he's already combined.
--Designers/reality TV couple Bob and Cortney Novogratz are redecorating 16 Minetta Lane, once home to late designer Robert Isabell, and holding a party there next week to publicize its return to the market with a $3.95 million asking price.
--Hedge-fund honcho Robert Jaffe has just purchased the five-story townhouse at 138 E. 71st St., which once belonged to Diandra Douglas, ex-wife of actor Michael Douglas for $7.25 million.
--Aaron Tighe, son of commercial real estate queen Mary Ann Tighe has just closed on a prewar co-op at 4 E. 72nd St. He and his wife, Kimberly, bought the four-bedroom, 4½-bathroom duplex for around $5.9 million.
--Jared Kushner has put his duplex at 21 Astor Place on the market for $4.1 million, and he and wife Ivanka Trump are getting ready to buy a four-bedroom, 4,200-square-foot penthouse at Trump Park Avenue. The unit is unofficially on the market for $16 million.

From TMZ:
--The Bel-Air home of Zsa Zsa Gabor is set to hit the market at $28 million.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Billionaire software entrepreneur Tom Siebel has sold his 62,000-acre Montana cattle ranch. The N Bar Ranch had been listed at $45 million.
--Metro Networks founder David I. Saperstein has cut the of Hummingbird Nest Ranch, his approximately 125-acre equestrian estate in Southern California from $75 million to $49.5 million. It was our estate of the day back in 2007.
--Talent manager Sandy Gallin is contracted to sell his Bridgehampton, New York estate. The home was first listed for $32 million in 2009 but was most recently priced at $20 million.

Gallery: Sandy Gallin In Bridgehampton

From the Real Estalker:
--Dennis Quaid may have purchased a six-bedroom home in Austin, Texas that was on the market for $12.5 million.
--Queen Latifah may be renting Jane Fonda's Atlanta, Georgia loft which is still on the market for $2.5 million. it was listed at $4.5 million when it was our estate of the day back in May 2010.

Gallery: Jane Fonda In Atlanta, Estate of the Day

--Mel Brooks has listed a three-bedroom home in Santa Monica for $5.995 million. The listing is here.
--Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith paid $910,000 for a five-bedroom home in Woodland Hills, California that is believed to have been purchased for family or friends.

From Chicago Breaking Business:
--Interior designer and talk show host Nate Berkus has listed his seven-room, full-floor condo Chicago's Gold Coast for $2.65 million. The listing is here.

Tags: celebrity real estate, david saperstein, dennis quaid, Dennis Quaid twins, ivanka trump, jane fonda walkout, jennifer aniston, MelrosePlace, nate berkus, queen latifah, sandy gallin, tom siebel, Will Smith Jaden Smith Willow Smith, zsa zsa gabor

Continue reading “Sunday Real Estate Round-Up, 01/23/11”

Vacheron Constantin Watch Belonging to Marlon Brando To be Auctioned off

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

History is filled with special occasion mementos - gifts and relics that help symbolize the times and people we admired or looked to. Watches seem to have a historical relevancy during such instances. Where commemorative watches are either produced for a special event, or just naturally thrown into such events. Old (as well as perhaps modern) Hollywood was filled with the exchange of celebratory gifts. Watch makers located in Hollywood at the time no doubt had a network of personal engravers waiting to personalize a watch - no matter what the request. I find it fascinating to see the many styles of engraving that was done at the time. Here you see engraving that is meant to look more formal, though obviously done by hand, and I've also seen engravings meant to replicate someone's hand writing.

This all has to do with this timepiece being auctioned off later this month by Antiquorum in New York. This is a Gold cased Vacheron Constantin watch that was given to Marlon Brando by Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1954. The watch was produced around that time as well, and represents a style of guilloche engraved dial decoration that you don't see these days anymore. It is said that the watch was given to Brando by Gabor when "On The Waterfront" was released in theaters. The movie went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as Best Actor for Brando. It is interesting to think about the message she wrote to him. Space was of course limited on the back of the watch, but other than the fact that Gabor was giving it to Brando on a specific date, it is hard to delineate what their relationship was. Maybe it included a message that only they understood. A Vacheron Constantin watch was a luxury watch back then, as it is now. Conservative auction estimates have this watch going for only $3,000 - $8,000.

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

Tags: antiquorum, auction, marlon brando, MarlonBrando, on the waterfront, OnTheWaterfront, vacheron constantin, VacheronConstantin, watch, zsa zsa gabor, ZsaZsaGabor

The Brothel Prince & His Louis Vuitton Rolls-Royce

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Wealth, Crimes and Misdemeanors

Spotted in Monaco recently was this pimped-out Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe customized in a Murakami multicolored Louis Vuitton monogram, belonging to the infamous Prince Marcus von Anhalt. Von Anhalt, who's said to have essentially bought his title - Prinz von Anhalt, Herzog zu Sachsen und Westfalen, Graf von Askanien in full - by paying Zsa Zsa Gabor and her ninth husband Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt millions of dollars to adopt him, is one of Germany's largest and most high-profile brothel and nightclub owners.

He refers to himself as "Prince Germany" and apparently uses the Rolls to promote the Royal Race, a Gumball 3000-style exotic auto rally he launched last year. The Prince, who's been known to pal around with Pamela Anderson, claims to be a millionaire "in the three digit range" and to own 26 cars plus luxury real estate in several countries including Monaco and Dubai, attended by 12 bodyguards and 25 servants. This looks to us like not only a crime against taste but exactly the kind of thing LVMH's lawyers love to sue over.

[via JamesList]

Tags: Germany, Louis Vuitton, LouisVuitton, Monaco, Murakami, Pamela Anderson, PamelaAnderson, Prince Marcus von Anhalt, PrinceMarcusVonAnhalt, Rolls Royce, Rolls-Royce, RollsRoyce, Royal Race, RoyalRace, Royalty, takashi murakami, TakashiMurakami, Zsa Zsa Gabor, ZsaZsaGabor