From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Evermay, a 12,000-square-foot Georgian-style mansion, on 3.58 acres in the Georgetown area of Washington D.C. has gone on the market for $49 million. The home was built in 1801 and has eight bedrooms. The property includes a gatekeeper's house, three-room staff house, terraced gardens with six fountains and parking for 100 cars. The current record sale in the area is $25 million.
--At least two of the prefabricated houses on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art are available for purchase. MoMA commissioned five full-size homes for Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling The Philadelphia architecture firm KieranTimberlake is seeking a minimum of $1.75 million for the Cellophane House, a four-story, two-bedroom aluminum and polycarbonate home with two walls of solar panels for the 1,800-square-foot structure. Architects Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier have listed their 1,000-square-foot Burst house for $475,000. The listing is here.
--Former Viacom Chief Executive Tom Freston has taken his townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side off the market. Freston was asking $35 million for the home which once belonged to Andy Warhol.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel are house hunting together in NYC and recently toured a condo duplex loft at the Lion's Head building in Chelsea.
--The $70 million Pierre Hotel penthouse triplex listing has officially been on the market for four years.
--A new apartment record may have been set for the Financial District. Platinum Properties has just signed a $7.82 million contract for the penthouse at the Setai at 40 Broad St.,
--Hockey star Eric Lindros has put his condo in One Morton Square on the market for $6.3 million. The listing is here.
--Law and Order star S. Epatha Merkerson has been spotted checking out units in the Kalahari building on 116th Street.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Actress Julianna Margulies has listed her home in Santa Monica, it's our estate of the day later today.
--British model Jasmine Lennard has leased a 1930s Hollywood traditional just above the Sunset Strip for $16,000 a month. Lennard appeared on the British reality show "Make Me a Supermodel."
--Renée Taylor and Joe Bologna have listed their Beverly Hills home which is in teardown condition for $5 million. The listing is here. Check out a gallery of other celebrity teardowns here.
--Movie producer Richard Suckle has put his Hancock Park home on the market for $3.295 million. The virtual tour is here.
--Model and actress Simona Fusco has listed her Bel Air area home for $3.995 million. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
--Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver front man Scott Weiland and his wife Mary Forsberg have put their Sherman Oaks, California home on the market for $2.25 million. The listing is here.
--Baseball player Derek Lowe has listed his Manhattan Beach home for $5.7 million. We will discuss this one as Monday's estate of the day.
--Football player Tony Gonzalez has also listed his home in Manhattan Beach for $3.999 million, this will also be part of Monday's estate of the day.
--Reality TV star Audrina Patridge has picked up a new home in the Hollywood Hills which was listed at $1.29 million.
--via People, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will decamp from the south of France to Berlin with their brood and move into Palais Parkschloss on Wannsee Lake while Pitt films a movie.
--Billy Baldwin and Chynna Phillips have listed their Bedford Corners, New York home. It was our estate of the day on Friday.

From Newsday's Real LI:
Property that once belonged to inventor Elmer Sperry, who founded the Sperry Corporation is on the market in the village of Bellport, New York. The nearly five-acre property has a thre-bedroom cottage and 300 feet of beach. The property was sold by the Sperry family in 2007 for $5.5 million and is now back on the market for $5.7 million. The listing is here.
--The Westhampton Beach home of Asian art dealer Michael Weisbrod, which originally went on the market last year for $9 million, is now being handled as a bankruptcy sale.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Video artist Douglas Gordon (he does photography and sculpture, too) sold his 2,000-square-foot loft at 225 Lafayette Street to Italian photographer Elisa Sighicelli, who paid $3 million, according to city records.
--Lawyer Eleanor P. Vale has listed her apartment in the Hampshire House for $10.9 million to raise money to help her children in this bad economy. She bought in 2005 for $1.515 million. The listing is here.
--Cosmetics queen Laura Mercier sold her 5,500-square-foot, eight-room loft at 205 West 19th Street for $8.5 million back in April but the sale just cleared public records recently.Her buyers are Ana and Henry Pincus, the son of ailing venture capital titan Lionel Pincus.

From the AP:
--Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard's estate in Stillwater, Minnesota has sold for $1.825 million. It was our estate of the day last month and was listed for $1.95 million.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Pickfair, , shown above, the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, is one of the most famous estates in Los Angeles. The original home was designed by California architect Wallace Neff in 1919 and visitors to the home ranged from George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald to Joan Crawford and Noel Coward. Pickford lived in the mansion until her death in 1979. It was later bought by Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss and then owned by actress Pia Zadora and her husband, Meshulam Riklis who built a new, larger mansion. They sold in 2005 (it was for sale for $27.5 million in 2004) and now the 17-bedroom home is up for sale for $60 million. The listing is here.
--Actress Jane SIbbett and her husband Karl Fink have sold their Topanga horse property, Trust Ranch, for $4.25 million. It was originally listed at $7 million about a year ago and was at $5.2 million when it was our estate of the day back in May.
--George Hamilton recently bought along the Wilshire Corridor wrote into the purchase offer that the seller, who runs a popular bakery, had to keep him in cookies for a year.
--Kevin Spacey has bought a new loft in the e Biscuit Co. Lofts for $1.2 million. The loft is for Trigger Street Productions, his production company, to create low-budget feature films and independent products.
--Doctor/Author Vladimir Lange's and his wife, Marilyn, have listed their five-bedroom, four-bathroom home in the Sunset Strip area for $6.2 million.The property website is here.
--Sports marketing guru Sonny Vaccaro has listed his 6,200-square-foot home in a gated Calabasas community for $2.399 million. The listing is here.
--Cinematographer Newton T. "Tom" Sigel has put his Malibu home on the market for $7.995 million. It's our estate of the day later today.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon has just paid $20 million for Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s condo in the Carhart mansion on East 95th Street.
--Kiefer Sutherland has picked up a circa-1830s Greek Revival townhouse in the West Village for $8.2 million.
--More and more Plaza condos are showing up back on the market including a two-bedroom unit on the sixth floor, a 15th floor two-bedroom for $12.5 million and a one-bedroom on the 16th floor for $3.35 million.
--The listing for Tommy Hilfiger's $50 million apartment at the Plaza is up. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
--Film producer Robert Chartoff and his wife Vanessa have put their Cliff May-designed home in Malibu on the market for $8.75 million. The listing is here.
--Richie Sambora has picked up a three-bedroom apartment at Two Liberty Place in Philadelphia.
--Film producer Andrew Lazar has put his five-bedroom Tuscan-style home in Los Angeles on the market for $6.95 million. The listing is here.
--Brothers and former child actors Rider and Shiloh Strong have put their home on Wonderland Ave in Los Angeles on the market for $1.26 million. The listing is here.


From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Zinc magnate Bill Flaherty and his wife Tina are in the midst of a messy divorce which may lead to the sale of their penthouse at 1040 Fifth Avenue which could get over $30 million.
--A new record could be set in Tribeca with the sale of the penthouse at 145 Hudson Street which has has gone to contract. It was listed at $34.5 million, the current record stands at $33.15 million.
--Director Joel Schumacher has picked up a $1.36 million apartment at 25 Fifth Avenue.
--The Observer checked out 11 Spring Street, a 19th century building being renovated by Caroline Cummings, the 27-year-old who bought 11 Spring from Rupert Murdoch's elder son, Lachlan, exactly two years ago for $12 million. The 4,600-square-foot penthouse has been on the market at $17.95 million for over a year, just like the $15.15 million triplex downstairs and a $6.7 million flat in between.
--Russian financier Andrei Vavilov is suing the Plaza's developers to get back a $10.7 million deposit plus interest and damages back on a two-unit penthouse that he was set to purchase for $53.5 million. He says he was a victim of bait and switch.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Brad Pitt aid $1,287,500 in April to purchase a 1,534-square-foot house in Los Feliz that's adjacent to his existing compound.
--Public records show that tennis star Pete Sampras got $16.98 million for the Beverly Hills mansion he had early this year for $25 million.
--Mary Steenburgen and her 25-year-old son Charlie McDowell (Malcolm McDowell is his father) have paid $550,000 for an 886-square-foot condominium unit in West Hollywood.

From Newsday's Real LI:
--Ross Klein, who was recently president of the luxury brands group of Starwood Hotels and is now global head of luxury and lifestyle brands for Hilton Hotels is selling his two-bedroom home in Bellport, NY. The home is a 1954 Weyerhaeuser kit house, which Klein restored and decorated with mid-century modern pieces and is listed at $799,000. The listing is here.
The estate of Masterpiece Theatre's Alistair Cooke has put his home in Cutchogue, New York on the market for $5.2 million. The listing for the home is here.


From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--The Wall Street Journal takes a look at Willem Dafoe's rubber house in upstate New York. It is still listed for $850,000 and was our estate of the day back in June.
--The 3,000-acre Santa Fe estate of the late Richard L. Fisher, a New York real-estate developer and philanthropist, has sold for slightly more than its $15.5 million asking price. We looked at this one way back in 2005 when it was listed at $14.5 million.
--Turns out the owner of Cher's former Key Biscayne property is entrepreneur and film producer Sean Wolfington and his wife, Ana, for $8.8 million in May 2006. They listed the six-bedroom, 7,300-square-foot house a month later but dropped the price to $11.9 million in October 2006 and it is now at $12.9 million which is the price it was at when we covered it as an estate of the day last month.

Free-spending Russian billionaire and Luxist mascot Roman Abramovich has soared to No. 8 on this year's Vanity Fair 100, aka the magazine's annual "New Establishment" list of the world's most powerful and influential people. That's a big jump for the oligarch, who only ranked 20th on last year's list.

Aside from his impressive art and real estate acquisitions, VF notes that Abramovich is also getting more involved in Russian politics. Although he resigned a regional governorship in July, Abramovich plans to run for an even higher profile political post next month.

Elsewhere on the just-released list, Abramovich's pal Vladimir Putin has captured this year's No. 1 spot, while power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are ranked at an eye-opening No. 9, ahead of Michael Bloomberg and Steven Spielberg. Check out the complete list here.

In Los Angeles, Derringer Cycles are the new Bentley. Whether you want to go green or just look good doing it, you'll want one of these moto-hybrids.. You can reach speeds of 40mph, pedaling not required. (Hence the hybrid in moto-hybrid: you can pedal as if on a traditional bike, use the engine for assistance, or rely completely on your bike's 4-stroke engine.) Depending on how often you choose to pedal, your moto-hybrid can get up to 180 miles per gallon.

The Derringer cycle was conceived by famed industrial designer Adrian Van Anz (Brad Pitt is a fan) to "take the compromise out of environmentalism," riffing on parts Ducati and parts Schwinn. You can order up your hand-built cycle in splashy colors ranging from Fresco Blue to Bad Girl Pink (there's Good Girl Pink, too), or custom paint jobs like 22-carat engine-turned gold. Check out the gallery for all the cool options.

Derringer has a retail store at 7954.5 West 3rd St., L.A. and can talk bikes with you over the phone at 323-944-0091. Cycles sell for $3,500.

Luxe British outerwear company Belstaff, founded in 1924 and known for their distinctive motorcycle jackets, is teaming up with Audi to produce a one-off SUV to benefit the charity founded by Ocean's Eleven co-stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The stars' charity, Not On Our Watch (NOOW), which my colleague Laura Malesich reported on earlier this year, raises awareness about humanitarian crises around the world. Belstaff and Audi are co-designing a special edition Q7 luxury SUV which will be sold to benefit NOOW's efforts in Darfur, Vogue UK reports. Earlier this week, Clooney and Pitt hosted a fundraiser for NOOW at the Venice Film Festival.

It's not quite Brad Pitt body wash but the architecture-loving dad has teamed up with Kiehl's on their new new Aloe Vera Biodegradable Liquid Body Cleanser. The product is the popular skincare brand's first item that is completely eco-friendly right down to the packaging and is certified by Cradle to Cradle. Pitt won't be appearing on the bottle or in the advertising but he did pen a hand-written note that will be on the bottle. All the profits benefit JPF Eco Systems, a charitable foundation created by Kiehl's and Brad to support global environmental initiatives. The project hopes to raise $1 million for charity with the first funds raised earmarked for Pitt's Make It Right foundation, which builds eco-friendly housing for those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

ninemillion.org, in partnership with Nike and Microsoft, is the UN Refugee Agency's attempt to better the education of the nine million child refugees in the world by 2010. It was through this organization that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt made their significant donation to children in Iraq in June, and Nike's upcoming Human Race -- a world-wide 10K involving a million runners on August 31 -- will donate up to $1.5 million in proceeds from registration fees and donations. There's still time to sign up!

In addition to its fundraising efforts, ninemillion.org serves as a virtual bulletin board, where kids in refugee camps in Uganda or Thailand post their stories and visitors to the website can see their pictures.

Super cool movie star Steve McQueen was without a doubt one of the most stylish men of all time. As we've noted in the past, his rugged sportiness, authentic masculinity and innate good taste have inspired countless fashion designers, not to mention scores of other actors who followed in his wake. McQueen fans of all sorts have a lot to celebrate this summer: there are two major new books on the "King of Cool" coming out, as well as a special McQueen tribute edition Ford Mustang, while the star's famous 1970 Porsche, worth an estimated $2 million, is going up for auction.

The first book just went on sale: Steve McQueen: A Life in Pictures edited by Yann Brice Dherbier (Pavilion, $40). The mix of classic and less well-known images of the style icon is artfully put together, but what struck us most about the book was its large format, showing details that you just don't get in smaller versions (see the gallery for a preview). For instance, in this cover image you can clearly see that McQueen is wearing a classic Baracuta jacket from England - which by the way are still sold here at Ben Silver in Charleston, one of the best men's clothiers in the country.

Equally striking and noticeable due to the impressive scale are the identifiable images which have clearly influenced designers like Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors who have built whole collections and ad campaigns around the King of Cool. Lauren in particular is a well-known McQueen fanatic. The index to Michael Gross' brilliant biography of the designer, Genuine Authentic, contains no less than six separate entries for the actor.

Gross writes that Lauren staged shoots based on McQueen's movies - his favorite film is said to be 1968's The Thomas Crown Affair - sometimes with himself in the starring role, and hung photos of the actor in both his houses and stores. If you look closely enough at the photos in Dherbier's book and compare them to Lauren's designs you can see where he copied sweaters, jackets, details on suits, even the carelessly elegant way McQueen always wore his clothes.

The other book, Unforgettable Steve McQueen hasn't been published yet - we'll update you on that when the time comes - but it features a foreword by another McQueen wannabe: Brad Pitt. We'd say he's making a good start at filling the King of Cool's shoes, but he's got a ways to go yet.

At the recent Design Miami/Basel fair in Switzerland, Brad found himself some pricey, artistic furniture pieces perhaps to fill out his new home overseas. The exquisite hollow white marble table was hewn from a single block of Carrara marble by Dutch designer Jeroen Verhoeven. The rococo styled Cinderella table cost him a whopping $293,000 and is only one of six. He also showed interest in a few other unique items such as a aluminum woven rug and a gold lacquer-coated fiberglass sofa. Seems like no matter what he does with his time, money or talent these days he is always making the news.

Brad (and his ever growing resume) has embraced a new project not on film, but with a hard hat in Dubai. He will be collaborating with an architectural firm there, Zabeel Properties, as well as the firm he currently consults with, LA-based GRAFT, to design a new hotel that will be built sustainably. Zabeel Properties is known for also being socially-responsible with its projects, considering the community's needs as well as its inhabitants seeing the development beyond the walls and through a larger lens. Lending his enthusiasm and expertise, after his experience with Make It Right which is still building homes in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, Brad certainly also creates added interest in any project he throws himself into. The primary fixture of this development project will be an 800-room five-star hotel with American themes and an environmentally-friendly structure. Once again, Dubai is on the cusp of both luxurious and current interests, going green with glamour.

No one seems to know whether they are buying or leasing but various sources agree that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are settling into a chateau on the French Riviera. This is no surprise, the couple has been looking at various spots in the region for at least a year. Now they have reportedly settled into Chateau Miraval, a $70 million estate in the tiny village of Brignol in the Var. The large estate includes a castle with 35 bedrooms, perfect for all the children and the entourage as well as 20 fountains, aqueducts, a lake, a swimming pool, and a thriving vineyard. It's also surrounded by a large forest and has a three mile driveway offering this couple the most valued feature of all, privacy.

Brad Pitt obviously knows when he's on to a good thing. We're not referring to Angelina Jolie in fact, but rather Tom Ford. Wearing head to toe Tom made Pitt one of the most stylish stars at last year's Cannes Film Festival - actually, make that any year - so it's no surprise he's back this season sporting more of the designer's dapper duds.

Last week Pitt wore a classic made-to-measure Ford black two piece notch lapel wool suit with a white shirt and solid black silk jacquard tie to the Kung Fu Panda premiere. And on Tuesday he upped the ante with an ultra-elegant made-to-measure black mohair blend single breasted peak lapel tuxedo, black silk moiré bowtie, and 18K white gold and diamond shirt studs and cufflinks from Ford's menswear collection to the Changeling premiere. That's what we call stealing the show.

This group of guys don't just sizzle on the screen together, they are putting their star-power towards a very deserving cause. As co-founders of Not On Our Watch (NOOW), a non-profit which focuses on bringing global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities, they recently gave $500,000 to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). In an effort to help stem hunger, the WFP uses helicopters to deliver support in manpower and food to the Sudan. These guys also donated $1 million to WFP in 2007. They make philanthropy look good -- really good.

[Thanks, Lana]

I've been hearing rumors about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie looking at property in the South of France for at least a year now but this week the gossip seems to have hit critical mass and it looks like this globe-trotting family may really be picking up a French chateau. The property in question ins located in the village of Eygalieres in Provence, France and has the romantic name of Mas de la Chapelle St. Sixte. US Weekly has reported that the Jolie-Pitts had been looking at the property last year but then decided not to purchase because the locals wouldn't let Brad Pitt but in a motorbike track on the over six-acre property. Now that the couple has gotten approval for the track it looks like the deal is back on.

The Telegraph had a great piece in January that covered the story of Mas de la Chapelle St Sixte and provides a sharp little photo gallery of the home in question. The main stone house was built in 1150 by monks and it was where was where Pope Clement VI stayed during the wine harvest in the 14th century. More recently it played host to Vanity Fair editor in chief, Graydon Carter at the high price of £1000 per day. The current owners are Jennifer and James Butler, a writer and a retired TV producer and art collector who fell in love with the historic ruin in 1990. The house had been empty since 1954 and the couple spent six years and a lot of money restoring it in keeping with local traditions. The couple has listed the home for 14 million euros ($22.089 million) partially because the couple were not sure how to divide the home among their nine children. The home has seven bedrooms and five bathrooms which frankly seems a bit tiny for the Jolie-Pitts, their children and their entourage of assistants but what a lovely place to be a bit cramped in.

[via Bikes in the Fast Lane]

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.