If you like Brooke Astor's New York City apartment, be prepared to swoon over Holly Hill. The property in Briarcliff Manor, New York is everything you'd expect of Mrs. Astor's country abode. Max Abelson of the New York Observer's Manhattan Transfers recently took the tour with real estate broker David Turner.

The home is on 64.6 acres that include a four-bedroom gardener's cottage, a chauffeur's apartment atop a five-bay carriage house, an ancient pump house, barn with a three-car garage, a small museum, greenhouse, root cellar, pet cemetery, cutting gardens and something called the Love Temple. The land can be subdivided and developed.

The main house is a 1927 stone manor designed by architect William Delano. It has six marble fireplaces and 13 bedrooms, including staff quarters. The home has an elegant marble foyer, 42-foot-long parquet-floored drawing room, a sun room, an indoor pool and a beautiful library. Other rooms include the photograph-covered Memory Room; the Cardinal's Room with telegrams from the Vatican on the wall and of course a huge master suite. This home is listed at $12.9 million.
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From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Angela Bassett and Courtney Vance sold their Hancock Park home for $3.8 million to George and Laura Carroll, neighbors who bought the home with the intention of moving George's parents up from San Diego to live in it. The Carrolls' house backs up to this property and they plan to install a gate so no one needs to walk around the block. Laura's mom and dad, Joe and Alice Petrucci already live next door.
--Boris Nizon, president and founder of Fame Pictures, a Santa Monica-based photo agency has put his home on Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills home on the market for $3.495 million. The listing is here.
--A home above the Sunset Strip where both Judy Garland and Sammy Davis Jr. once lived is on the market for $4.995 million. The property website is here.


From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin has sold ahome in Murrieta, Calif. for $420,000.
--Author and comedian Amy Sedaris has paid $1.3 million for a one-bedroom co-op unit in Manhattan's West Village. The listing is here.
--Actor Chris O'Donnell has sold his Colonial-style house in Pacific Palisades which had been on the market for $5.395 million.
--Fashion stylist Rachel Zoe has sold her two-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills for an undisclosed price after it had been on the market for $2.595 million.
--Tom Arnold has sold his Tarzana home for an undisclosed price after it had been for sale for $2.275 million.
----Kiefer Sutherland has put his loft/music studio building, shown above, in Echo Park on the market. The space is a converted ironworks warehouse that he bought in 2002 for $700,000. Sutherland turned the downstairs into a recording studio and lived upstairs in a three-bedroom space. Now it is listed at $4.895 million. The listing is here and the listing agent is his ex-wife, Kelly Sutherland.

From the Real Estalker:
----Backstreet Boy Nick Carter has put a home in Parkland, Florida on the market for $1.5 million. The listing completely with rather questionable decor, is here.
--Elle Mcpherson has put her home in Ladbroke Gardens, London, UK on the market for £9,500,000.
--Donald Trump's Palm Beach flip went for $95 million rather than the previously reported $100 million.
--Professional house flipper and reality TV star Jeff Lewis and his partner Ryan Brown may have finally sold the house on Valley Oak Drive that is featured on the current season of Bravo's Flipping Out.
--The Jonas Brothers have picked up a large six-bedroom house in Westlake, Texas which was on the market for $.2.895 million.
--Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt were photographed checking out a $12 million house in Malibu.
--Cary Grant's daughter, actress Jennifer Grant has put her beautiful beach home in Santa Monica on the market for $2.195 million. It's relatively small but it is blocks from the beach and she has turned a rather traditional cottage into a home with lofts, high ceilings and modern interior design. Check out the magic at the property website.


From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--The late Brooke Astor's $46 million duplex at 778 Park Avenue has been taken off the market for the summer for some minor renovations. The listing will return after Labor Day. It was our estate of the day back in May.
--A year ago, nonprofit adoption agency Spence-Chapin sold its headquarters at 4-8 East 94th Street to Richard Mack, a managing partner of his father's multibillion real estate investment group, Apollo Real Estate Advisors for $23 million. Now it's back on the market for $59 million, a full $36 million more than he paid for it. He has gutted the home but not renovated. The listing is here.
--Eugene McQuade, the president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac paid $3.175 million for a 1,917-square-foot apartment in the Museum Tower on West 53rd Street. There are no mortgage filings along with the deed.
--Last April, venture capitalist Fred Wilson and his wife, Joanne, sold a double-wide West 10th Street townhouse for $33,148,800, the biggest single residential deal ever in downtown. Now they're building a Hudson River wonderland. They spent $16 million on the massive site at 397 West 12th Street last April. The new building will have 10 stories of Roman bricks and oversized steel windows, and only five raw-space apartments. About half of the construction has yet to be completed, but the $5.5 million, 3,613-square-foot second-floor loft, and two 6,166-square-foot duplexes priced at $11.5 and $14 million, went on the market this week with Sotheby's. The 2nd/3rd/4th Floor loft combination of 9,779+/-sq. ft is listed at $17 million. The Wilsons get the four-floor penthouse-6,409 square feet, plus 2,932 of outdoor space-for themselves.
----The biggest NYC real estate story of the summer has been potential $100 million sales at 15 Central Park West, where buyers who closed on their new condos just this year are putting the places back on the market at massive markups but will any of these sales come to pass? It seems unlikely.
--A new listing has opened up at the prized 740 Park co-op. The $38 million listing is for a 16-room, five-bedroom, seven-and-a-half-bathroom duplex. The listing is here.

The listing for the much-talked-about Brooke Astor apartment has hit the market. Mrs. Astor, who died at the age of 105 last year was one of the grand dames of New York society. Her home at 778 Park Avenue is considered to be an exceedingly prime New York co-op. The five-bedroom apartment has high ceilings, six terraces and five wood-burning fireplaces. A reception gallery with a wet bar, leads to a living room with a wood-burning fireplace and views up and down Park Avenue. The famed corner library has gleaming red laquer walls (the Real Estalker Mama chillingly described them as looking as if they are "dripping the blood of the under-privileged"), a wood-burning fireplace and French doors opening onto two terraces. The formal dining room also has a wood-burning fireplace and French doors leading out to a terrace. The kitchen includes a pantry, service hall, and three maid's rooms, a set-up which worked well in Mrs. Astor's days but might now be reconfigured into a large eat-in kitchen and family room for today's owner. There is an additional bedroom that can be used as a maid's room or reconfigured to be a second bedroom with ensuite bath. The private quarters include a sitting room with terrace, a separate powder room, and guest bedroom. At the end of the hall is in a corner room with a lovely wood-burning fireplace, terrace, and views toward Central Park. There are 20 closets. This co-op is listed at $46 million.

Only the very, very wealthy can apply to get into the Rosario-Candela-designed 778 Park Avenue co-op. As Max Abelson of the NY Observer pointed out, any potential owner will have to put 100% down and show more than enough cash to pay the steep monthly maintenance of $17,251.