So maybe now we know why billionaire art collector Eli Broad was so busy at the contemporary art shows in New York last week. Bloomberg reports that Broad is interested in building a public museum in Beverly Hills, California. The news comes after a year in which he got his own building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art but then decided not to give his collection to the museum. Broad's new museum would display works from his charitable foundation and personal collection and would hopefully open in about three years. It would be located near the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards and unseat a Starbucks. The foundation already has a headquarters and private museum in Santa Monica.

Broad's foundation is heavily contemporary with photographs by Cindy Sherman, paintings by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol's 1986 silkscreen of the Statue of Liberty, Damien Hirst's 1994 lamb in formaldehyde, and Charles Ray's 1973 collection of 16 Kodachrome self-portraits called ``All My Clothes.'' Last week he picked up Ed Ruscha's 1969 mustard-hued ``Desire'' for $2.4 million, Donald Judd aluminum and Plexiglas sculpture for $1.1 million, a small Robert Rauschenberg painting for $2.6 million, and a Jeff Koons sculpture for $2.2 million.

Singer and current Dancing With The Stars contestant Lance Bass is pretty serious about getting rid of his Beverly Hills Post Office area home this go round. Yes, that's right, as the Real Estalker reports this isn't Bass's first trip to the real estate rodeo. He put this home on the market first back in 2006 for $5.25 million (check out the original house tour from back then here). He bought the home in 2003 for $3.88 million so at that price he was poised to make a tidy profit. The home didn't sell and now he has put the home with the guest house and two pools up for sale at a price that is whisper close to his original purchase price. Why? The Real Estalker's commenters dish that he already has his eye on a new bigger house. The over-one-acre property has great views and lots of space in fact it seems like too much space for only one man. While the decor is a bit off-kilter and downright florid in places there are things to love, like the skylight in the kitchen and the many terraces and balconies with fantastic views. The guest house, perched neatly next to the pool is almost more appealing than the main house. There is also a separate gym which has its own bathroom. This home is listed at $3.925 million. Experience more lush living in luxury homes and mansions or see the stars living large with celebrity homes galleries at AOL Real Estate.

This modern home in the Trousdale Estates area of Beverly Hills has four bedrooms, an open floorplan and a cushy home theater. It has a lovely, if chilly but clean design but all the details from the wood celings to the skylighted bathrooms, are just flawless here. There is a great sense of expansiveness and the listing describes it best, as "Lautner-esque" paying tribute to the great John Launter's classic designs. The outdoor space is pretty nice too offering an outdoor cooking and dining area as well as a pool and spa. This home is listed at $12.5 million.

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

Forbes has just released its annual ranking of the 100 most expensive zip codes in America, and what with fluctuating real estate markets some of the results may surprise you. Beverly Hills for example, the famous 90210, barely makes it into the top 10 nowadays with a median home price of $2.41 million, while Bel Air (90077) lags way back at No. 29 with a median price of $1.72 million. New York City doesn't rate an appearance at all until Tribeca zip 10013 clocks in at No. 14 with a median price of $2.2 million.

That famous province of the rich, Greenwich, Conn. (zip 06870 in Old Greenwich) is way down at No. 26 with a median price of $1.75 million. The most expensive zip code in the country? 33109, the tiny private enclave of Miami Beach known as Fisher Island (above), where sales prices rose by $525,000 over the last year and which has an unbeatable median price of $3.85 million. Listed below are the Top 10 zips. You can see a slideshow of the full list here.

1. Fisher Island, Fla., 33109, Miami-Dade County
Median sales price: $3.85 million

2. Alpine, N.J., 07620, Bergen County
Median sales price: $3.59 million

3. Mill Neck, N.Y., 11765, Nassau County
Median sales price: $3 million

4. Newport Coast, Calif., 92657, Orange County
Median sales price: $2.8 million

5. Water Mill, N.Y. 11976, Suffolk County
Median sales price: $2.72 million

6. Atherton, Calif., 94027, San Mateo County
Median home price: $2.7 million

7. Santa Barbara, Calif., 93108, Santa Barbara County
Median home price: $2.7 million

8. Wainscott, N.Y., 11975, Suffolk County
Median home price: $2.56 million

9. Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., 92067, San Diego County
Median home price: $2.47 million

10. Beverly Hills, Calif., 90210, Los Angeles County
Median home price: $2.41 million

Today's home is listed with Kurt Rappaport of Westside Realty which as usual with him means we get a whole lot of pictures. And today's home is worth it. The Harvey Mudd estate was designed by Elmer Grey in 1922 and sits on an acre of beautifully groomed land that includes a pool. Harvey Mudd was, as the Real Estalker mentioned, a Los Angeles based mining magnate and engineer whose name may be familiar to some as adorning Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, a science and engineering college. I attended Pitzer College, another of the Claremont Colleges for a time, and remember fondly the students of Harvey Mudd who were known for riding unicycles, throwing wild themed parties and blowing off steam in very unique ways after exams.

Mudd's home has recently been in the hands of John Bersci, a noted house flipper in the area. The Real Estalker reveals that the home was listed for $5.95 million around the time Bercsi bought the home in 2004. The Tudor style home has seven bedrooms and many impressive details such as handcarved wood paneling and bannisters, leaded glass windows and ornate floors. As the Real Estalker points out, the weak point is the kitchen which doesn't match the grandeur of the rest of the home. I suspect also that some of the bathrooms need an upgrade. But what you are really paying for is the impressive swath of land on Benedict Canyon Drive and the beautiful bones of this older home which is not always such an easy thing to find in Beverly Hills. This home is listed at $11.495 million.

Flamboyant soccer star David Beckham has a five-year deal with the L.A. Galaxy worth $250 million, so it makes sense that he travels in style even when picking up the kids from school. Still, he caused quite a scene the other day by showing up there in a $500,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe (above) with a phalanx of bodyguards trailing behind in two big black SUVs, the London Daily Mail reports. Beckham, the world's second highest paid athlete after Tiger Woods, had the top down for his trip to the school so everyone could recognize him, but put it up to foil paparazzi after retrieving his boys, the paper reports.

The Times of London has come up with a new list of the world's 10 richest streets based on property prices. The most expensive street on the globe, unsurprisingly, is in ultra-rich Monaco - Avenue Princess Grace, to be exact, where average prices run about $17,000 per sq. ft. It's a pretty safe bet that anyone with an address there is a millionaire at the very least. In second place is Severn Road in Hong Kong's Victoria Peak district (above), where the average price is about $11,000 per sq. ft. Here are the rest of the runners-up:
No. 3 - Fifth Avenue, New York
No. 4 - Kensington Palace Gardens, London
No. 5 - Avenue Montaigne, Paris
No. 6 - Ostozhenka, Moscow
No. 7 - Via Suvretta, St, Mortiz, Switzerland
No. 8 - Carolwood Drive, Beverly Hills
No. 9 - Wolseley Road, Sydney, Australia
No. 10 - Altamount Road, Mumbai, India

I usually save Ann Brenoff's Hot Property column in the L.A. Times for the Sunday Real Estate Round-Up but this is too interesting not to share as soon as possible. Donald Trump has offered to step in and buy Ed McMahon's Beverly Hills home and allow McMahon to continue living there. Trump said in an interview with the Times that although he didn't know McMahon personally he grew up watching him on television and felt that it was an honor to step in and help.

McMahon who is 85 and suffered a debilitating neck injury last year was facing foreclosure within two weeks on his Beverly Hills home. McMahon bought the home in 1990 for $2.6 million and has had it on the market for several years. Most recently it was listed at $4.6 million as shown in the Hilton & Hyland listing. McMahon had defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans with Countrywide Financial Corp.

Trump isn't giving McMahon a free ride. He plans to buy the home from the lender and lease it back to McMahon. According to the Times, McMahon's listing agent, Alex Davis of Hilton & Hyland flew to New York to make a personal pitch to Trump to save McMahon's home.

UPDATE: The LA Times reports that listing agent, Alex Davis, has said there is a second anonymous would-be buyer and so the property is now in a "multiple offer situation."

Model, designer and professional diva, Kimora Lee Simmons has put her home in the Beverly Hills Post Office area on the market less than a year after buying it. Last June, the former wife of rap mogul Russell Simmons paid the $5.9 million asking price on the home. The "country English" style home has five bedrooms and a casually luxe feel even if the exterior is a bit blah (it was built in 1974). The overall style is tasteful if a bit heavy on the rattan furniture. I also appreciate Ms. Simmons's taste in paintings, she appears to have a couple of Basquiats tucked in there.

Ms. Simmons also has Jessica Simpson as a next-door neighbor. Will Kimora get her $7.75 million asking price? It's a cheeky move in this market but as the Real Estalker notes, properties in this area do move pretty quickly. She may have better luck with this one than the one in Saddle River, New Jersey that she and her ex-husband have been trying to move for a while now. it was listed at $23.888 million but now sits at $19.888 million.

For the next couple of weeks we will be checking out some homes in the most expensive zip codes in the United States, up today, 90210 . Thanks to a little Aaron Spelling show called Beverly Hills, 90210 about a bunch of privileged high school kids this is one of the most recognized zip codes in the U.S. It lives up to its reputation with a median price of $3,109,000 and a healthy appreciation rate of 441% since 1990.

Beverly Hills isn't uniformly wealthy but it is the area most associated with wealth. World famous Rodeo Drive has help cemented its place as a luxury destination. The area boasts some of the largest homes in the Los Angeles area and as been home to movie stars since Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford built Pickfair in 1919. We've covered this area of Los Angeles a lot including recently, the homes of Greek playboy Paris Latsis, basketball player Cuttino Mobley and TV host John O'Hurley.


Today's home is in the gated Beverly Park area, one of the very best parts of Beverly Hills, and is located on nearly two acres. The five-bedroom home has a two-story entrance, a large living room/prjection room area, study, kitchen and family room and a loggia with an outdoor kitchen facing the pool and the guest house. The master suite has dual baths. The listing calls is "the best value in the area," pretty amazing considering it's listed at $23.5 million.

Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne made quite a bundle on their ultra deluxe yard sale. Happily, it's all for a good cause. The Osbournes raised $800,000 for the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Foundation at their auction on December 1. The auction, put on by Julien's auctions, included furniture from their Beverly Hills home where they filmed the television show the Osbournes. The couple sold their house and moved on to Hidden Hills.

Some of the scores include Ozzy's coat which went for $3,300, his skull-adorned sneakers for $2,625 and a pair of his wire-rimmed sunglasses for $5,250.The family's custom pool table went for $11,250. AOL Music has a photo gallery of some of the Osbourne offerings.

Elizabeth Taylor may not have acted in a movie in a while but she still attracts attention wherever she goes. Diamond-loving Liz will be dazzling them in Beverly Hills this weekend when she makes an appearance on Saturday at Geary's on Beverly Drive to promote her jewelry line, House of Taylor. The appearance is billed as "Something wonderful is about to happen" and will be an opportunity for Taylor to present her holiday baubles. Plenty of celebrities do the legwork to promote their own lines but few have the star power of Elizabeth Taylor. Unfortunately, the news on Taylor's young company isn't entirely sparkly. House of Taylor Jewelry did secure additional financing in October but the Nasdaq traded stock (HOTJ) has fallen to under a dollar a share (last time I checked it was at $0.56) and has received formal Nasdaq notification for not being in compliance with the minimum bid price requirement for continued listing. Hopefully, Taylor's appearance will help boost the company's bottom line.

[Thanks, fabjewels]

The fabulous Real Estalker Mama led us to the listing for NBA star Cuttino Mobley's house in Beverly Hills. Mobley, who plays for the LA Clippers, has put his five-bedroom home on the market. Mobley came to the Clippers in 2005 and bought the house for $3,650,000. Also in 2005, Mobley's home was robbed of $500,000 in cash, jewelry and other items. I wasn't able to tell if this was the house that was robbed but given its private location with those hills surrounding it, it seems to be the type of location that the band of thieves which has prayed on the rich and famous in the area are prone to strike in. The home is the classic celebrity new build, faux Tuscan with large bathrooms with separate tubs and vitrine-like showers, plasma screens everywhere. The small backyard includes a modest pool and a spa surrounded with cobalt blue tile. Given the price, $3,995,000, it does not look, as our Real Estalker Mama astutely pointed out, that Mobley will be making much money on the deal. Often when a player is looking for a quick sale it means a trade is in the offing. This doesn't seem to be the case in Mobley's case but I have to wonder where Mobley is headed to.

As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, Chanel has recently opened a new Chanel flagship in Beverly Hills. The 14,700-square-foot Rodeo Drive store has a dramatic storefront of white and black with a cast-bronze canopy. The four-story space is a palace of elegance showcasing not just clothing and acessories but also a wide variety of artistic flourishes in Murano glass, gold leaf, feathers and silk. Taking pride of place in the store is this unique watch, a one-of-a-kind version of their J12 tourbillon ringed in sapphire baguettes with a sapphire cabochon set in the crown. The watch is inscribed Beverly Hills No. 1/1.

Oh, John O'Hurley, the man with the silver hair and the stentorian voice, has peddled his persona into an interesting career that included being J. Peterman on Seinfeld (and now actually owning a piece of the J. Peterman catalog), hosting the Family Feud, countless voiceover and commercial gigs and appearing on Dancing With The Stars. O'Hurley seems to be dancing with some questionable taste in his Beverly Hills home which is up for sale for $6.2 million. The 5,400 square foot home on a rather small lot, was built in 1924. O'Hurley's home has a little more personality than I have seen in some celeb homes but, as some of the Real Estalker's commenters have noted, this just doesn't seem like a $6.2 million house. The pool area is small and not very welcoming, the kitchen, despite the high-end appliances, does not seem like the place to create a lavish meal.

There is however one part of the home that, to my eye at least, speaks of its owner, the third floor master suite, and in specific the his and hers master bathrooms. Hers is your standard white marble lavish boredom complete with chandelieresque lighting fixtures. But the man's bathroom, rich in chocolate marble with a huge steam shower and an adjacent cedar closet and plenty o' mirrors seems absolutely perfectly O'Hurley.