We've got a lot of pictures on today's home, the impressive Beverly Park mansion of Faith Hill and Tim McGraw which the Real Estalker has revealed is now up for sale. Big Time Listings reports that the musical pair purchased the home in this community in Beverly Hills for $6.2 million in 2003. The home has six bedrooms and has been professionally decorated but with an eye toward music and whimsy. The home's tasteful cream and beige public rooms are offset by a dramatic bordello red sitting room and a cutsey pink breakfast room. The home includes a gym, gourmet kitchen and a large master suite with his and hers baths. The rooms that are decorated for their three girls are pretty much dream children's rooms with collections on display and plenty of room for tea parties and sleepovers. The property is over four acres that includes gardens and a pool area. The couple has listed this home for $14.8 million.

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

Most live/work situations for artists are lofts in cities but today's home is a live/work in a more rural location. Today's home is located in the Santa Ynez Valley area of California and sits on 20 acres of land. The contemporary home was completed in 2006 and featured in Interior Design Magazine and is the 2007 AIA Design Award winning home. The 7,000 square foot main residence has a spare design that showcases the outdoor patios and walkways. There is an 800 sq ft master bedroom suite with his and her walk-in closets and laundry, a huge 1200 sq ft guest suite with two bedrooms and a common den with fireplace. Meant to be a live/work facility, the home also features an 800 sq ft art studio with adjoining 75 sq ft office, large 260 sq ft office with adjoining bath and an exercise room with bath. The outdoor areas include a picnic area, fireplace, and a pizza oven as well as a thin 70' foot long lap pool with a large spa. It is listed at $8 million.

Last week, we looked at a home in Santa Monica, California that was pretty charmless but this week I've got something in Santa Monica more to my (and I hope your) liking, It's the home of actress Julianna Margulies, the curly-haired brunette actress best known for her role on the NBC drama "ER." Her home is currently rented to Kyra Sedgwick, star of TNT's "The Closer" and the wife of Kevin Bacon. There's much to love about this home, which was built in 1927. It's a cozy three-bedroom with charming details like a living room with a wood beamed ceiling (the listing describes this as an "emotional living room") and a bathroom with Delft-style tiles. The small property includes a pool and directly opposite the pool is an adorable guest house with one bedroom, kitchen and bath. You might need to rent that out to afford this one, it is listed at $4.5 million which seems a bit ambitious given the fact that the main house is under 3,500 square feet.

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

[via LA Times Hot Properties]

German director Wolfgang Petersen first made a splash in the U.S. with the movie "Das Boot" about a World War II U-boat and its crew and since then his budgets have grown larger and larger including grand spectacles such as Poseidon and Troy. That's why his comparatively modest Santa Monica home is a bit of a mystery. Is it an investment property or a flip? Is his main residence elsewhere? I'm not certain but it's hard to imagine him in this pretty but bland six-bedroom home with no pool and no home theater. It was just completed and is in a state of utter brand spanking newness with fresh carpets, freshly laid and polished floors and walls in various shades of sunny yellow. It's got some nice features, the kitchen with a granite-topped center island, a Viking range and a wine refrigerator. There is an open house for the home today. It is listed at $3.95 million.

[via The LA Times Hot Properties]
Experience more lush living in luxury homes and mansions or see the stars living large with celebrity homes galleries at AOL Real Estate.

Last time I checked out a house in the Tiburon area for a look at the most expensive zip codes, the top house in the area was listed at $38.5 million. Since then that same house has climbed to $44 million and the top of the market has seen a few more lavish homes such as today's estate listed.

The Tiburon peninsula lends itself to beautiful properties that make the best of the views in the San Francisco Bay area. This one, called Paradise by the Bay turns its approximately 6.8 acres into a charming family compound. This luxury estate has been in the same family since 1926. The estate includes a five-bedroom main house, three outbuildings, a championship tennis court, pool, children's playground, and scenic waterfront area in a secluded cover.

The main house has water views from the dining room, kitchen, master suite and living room. The lower level media/family room opens to the lawn area. There is a patio room that has been historically enjoyed as an area to entertain and host noted musicians. Other features include an office which is situated adjacent to the main house, overlooking the gardens and distant Ring Mountain. The lower deck "cottage" is an ideal guest retreat overlooks the water and opens to a deck.

The small pool is surrounded by grass and also has a cabana and bar designed for entertaining and relaxing by the pool. This area is accessible by a private road for the catering staff. The massage sanctuary is a private massage deck that allows one to hear the lapping of the water and enjoy complete serenity while getting a massage. You can also enjoy veggies from your own organic gardens or send the kids off to play in the children's play area with sand box. In fact the property is so rambling that the pathways are marked with cute signs pointing the way to different areas. This property is listed at $22.6 million.

For more prime properties and lush locations, see Luxury Homes and Mansions.

I've seen plenty of big listings in Malibu but this one has everyone talking, William J. Chadwick, a managing director of the real estate investment banking and capital management firm Chadwick Saylor & Co., has put his Malibu home on the market for $65 million, a price that could be a record for the area. The 10,500-square-foot home also comes with 150 feet of beach front in the ultra-desirable Carbon Beach area, a 75-foot pool and spa, a wine cellar and six bedrooms. Other home features include a wall-sized aquarium, a master suite with hers and his bathrooms, a pub, a gym, a swoonworthy Art Deco home theater and a garage geared for the collector. For a home of this worth it's surprisingly tasteful. No Trump style excesses here, just a colorful and perfectly appointed beach house. Certainly for this type of money you could get more square footage elsewhere but it's a lovely home for those who want Carbon Beach cachet.

[via LA Times Hot Property]

For more prime properties and lush locations, see Luxury Homes and Mansions.

This week in the LA Times Hot Property, Ann Brenoff digs up a small yet lovely home with a rather astounding price. The home in question in the Emerald Bay area of Laguna Beach, California and belongs to Mossimo Giannulli and his wife actress Lori Laughlin who is set to star on the new 90210 show this fall. Mossimo is best known by his first name as a popular designer for Target. This small three-bedroom home (it's around 2,000 square feet) home is decorated in a bright beachy style. No pool, just a small year courtyard but you are a short walk from the beach. It's cute, really cute, but is it $12.995 million worth of cute? Only if you are very smitten with lovely Emerald Bay.

I've covered the work of Xorin Balbes before this designer does some of the coolest interior design around Southern California rehabbing older homes into showplaces. He collaborated with architect Paul Ashley on this Palm Springs dream home, a four-bedroom contemporary built in 1974. The home has a maser suite with mountain and pool views plus a gorgeous bath complete with steam shower. There are three more suites each with a custom bath. The home is completely walled and gated which gives you privacy in your glass palace. It's modern design heaven with soaring ceilings, high-end finishes of bleached wood, concrete, marble and glass. The outdoor space includes covered patios and a large pool area. The whole place is as flawless as a movie set and the perfect pad for entertaining. This home is listed at $3.75 million.

My favorite houses in Malibu are the beach houses, that whether modern or more traditional, reflect a certain casual style. But up from the beach you can find a few beautiful homes that seem more Holmby Hills than Malibu. This estate, Villa Versailles is yet another entry into the growing category of homes that have been built and then put on the market by those whose wallets and eyes might have been bigger than their stomach for living on such a grand scale. Curbed reported back in April that this 10-bedroom home was built in 1992 by a builder/developer for the love of his life who quickly decided that Malibu's relative remoteness didn't suit her. The couple reportedly moved out after a single weekend. And so for over 15 years the home has been on and off the market. It's been used in many photo and video shoots, rented out for various purposes and generally been gawked at for a long while. The home is on 5.33-acre estate acres including multiple pools, the gardens, the horse stables, and the caretakers' residence. The home has around 16,000 square feet of space which is significant because Malibu has passed an ordinance restricting the size of homes to 11,172 sq ft for the main house on a five+ acre lot minimum. You couldn't built one this big yourself there anymore, thank goodness.

The home may be called Villa Versailles but the style is Villa Versace with the black marble bathroom, columns topped with gold-painted capitals, and plenty of white and marble everywhere. A house that is not lived in is like a car not driven, it develops a certain staleness. It could benefit from a good stager to warm it up a bit. The home is listed at $23.75 million which is a fair amount for a home that is not beachfront in the area.

Usually we find the European style grand homes on the East Coast but Stonebrook Court is located in Los Altos Hills, CA. The home was built in 1914 and restored by its owner during the last seven years. This mansion is approximately 30,000 square feet and is on 7.5 acres. The English English Tudor and Jacobean revival style exterior is bisected by a porte cochere separating the living quarters and a grand ballroom. The interior is done in modernized Renaissance Italian style with 12-foot wood ceilings, a an antique carved marble fireplace, a ballroom with 16th Century gilded Venetian ceiling paintings said to be from the Palazzo Grimani. The library has mahogany bookcases and a secret room with wet bar and beer taps and the breakfast room features new Gothic arch windows. The main residences has seven bedrooms and there is also a gym, garden building, a caretaker's house, and a 3 car garage.

The home is now wired for state-of-the-art security, audio, phone, internet and all other modern features including a heating system covering 16 zones. The garden which includes follies, rolling lawns, knot garden, boxwood parterres and long perennial borders filled with roses. The pool features a stone fountain/spa surmounted by an antique bronze statue of Neptune. No wonder this has mansion has been host to many weddings.

A 2005 article in the Los Altos Crier reveals more details on this home including that it was formerly known as Morgan Manor (it was the home of Percy and Daisy Morgan) and has serves as both a popular brothel and an elite day school at different times in its past. It took a team that numbered in the thousands and a lot of money from owners Kelly and Christina Porter to restore the home back to its former glory. It is simply one of the most stunning homes available on the West Coast. It is listed at $45 million.

I wish I had more than six pictures to show you of this one. This Newport Beach beauty is on a double lot on the sand at Peninsula Point. It was deigned by Michael Collins to showcase an impressive modern art collection. The home is actually two homes, a five-bedroom house and a two-bedroom guest house. The grounds include a pool, spa, koi ponds, oceanfront terraces, a beachfront lawn, cabana, pool bar and many additional amenities. The homes have an open floor plan with large "disappearing" wood and glass doors. The guest house has a subterranean level designed for entertainment and lounging, with media capabilities, bar and a saltwater aquarium window affording dramatic underwater pool views. This home is listed at $29.5 million.

Last week our Sunday estate was the home of a former "ER" actress, this week we've got another TV actress, Mel Harris, most famous for her role as the winsome and whiny Hope on the show "thirtysomething." The LA Times Hot Property column reports that Harris has listed her Pacific Palisades property, a charming four-bedroom Country English-style home. She has owned the home for five years and it has been remodeled with a new marble-countered kitchen and bathrooms. There are older details to love such as the Batchelder tile fireplace in the living room and the beautiful beams and archways. The new master bathroom is a bit too over the top for a house of this scale and graciousness and the travertine tile in the kitchen seems like it would be a better fit for a Florida flip than for this older Californian. The home was originally listed at $4.347 million but is already down to $4.197 million which still seems like a lot of cash for 4,5000 square feet even in the pricey Palisades.

Actress Jane Sibbett often gets cast in the role of the glacial blonde but her home in the Topanga area is warm and inviting. She first put her Trust Ranch on the market last fall for $7 million. The 17-acre property in the hills is a horse ranch with a four-bedroom home that was renovated according to the mathematical proportion known as the golden ratio and features "blessings" such as fun and laughter embedded in the walls. Sibbett and her husband writer/producer Karl Fink are buying a farm in Hawaii but that sale is contingent on this one as reported in the Wall Street Journal. And so, the couple has cut the price of the ranch to $5.2 million. The pair bought the property for just $750,000 ten years ago but have made significant improvements and expansions to the home. The house will appeal to those with a love of nature. There is a vegetable garden, a six-horse barn and plenty of hilly land. It doesn't have a pool or the requisite large deck for entertaining so it won't meet the needs of many L.A. shoppers but it is great home for those who want to feel like they are away from Los Angeles.

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, 90049 . This zip code encompasses the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, CA. This zip code has a median price of $3,114,000 with a sky-high appreciation rate of 440% since 1990.

The ritzy area of Brentwood has been a celebrity magnet over the years from Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland to Britney Spears and Jim Carrey. The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger lives in the hills above Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood. The most infamous resident of Brentwood is perhaps O.J.Simpson who lived in the area just a few miles away from his wife at the time of her murder.

Today's home is located between San Vicente and Sunset in the heart of Brentwood. The property has around 6000 square feet under roof in two contemporary homes, each with their own personality. There are plenty of windows and bright open spaces and a breezy and spacious feel. This estate is listed at $10 million.

It's the season for worrying every last deduction you can possibly take on your taxes. As you are sweating those last minute details here's a story to make your blood boil. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will get a $3 mllion tax break because his Japanese-style home in Woodside, California is "functionally obsolete."

Ellison's Octopus Holdings LP bought the 23-acre site in May 1995 for $12 million and then sent to work on a nine year project constructing his version of Xanadu, a lavish 8,000-square-foot home based on a Japanese emperor's 16th century estate. Ellison seems to have a taste for all things Japanese, he also bought a home in Atherton in 1987 and turned it into a Japanese-style palace with seven bedrooms, a traditional tea house, bath house, gardens, a koi pond and waterfalls on 2.8 acres. That home was quietly put on the market in 2005 for $25 million. The property website for that home is here.

According to the Chronicle, the assessor's office based its January 2005 valuation of Elllison's Woodside home on reproduction costs, the $166.3 million it should have cost to build the home. The construction actually cost more than $200 million. But attorney William Bennett representing Octopus Holdings argued that the property was worth only $64.7 million at that time and in the two tax years, since entitling Ellison to a $3 million rebate on taxes paid. The appeals board agreed and so the $3 million will come from San Mateo county's property taxes paid this year. Of that $3 million it is estimated that nearly $1.4 million would have gone to schools in the area .

Ellison's home decline in value is shocking in an area that boasts very expensive real estate thanks to the Googleaires, people who made their fortune at Google and invested in big homes locally. The reason for the dip in value is essentially that Ellison created a home that no one else would want to buy. The home is said to suffer from "significant functional obsolescence" because the Japanese architecture, elaborate landscaping and over improvements to the property have made it a home that is costly to maintain and has reduced value to to others.

Ellison, who has a net worth of $25 billion according to Forbes, has turned his attentions to Southern California in recent years. In 2005 he picked up five lots in Malibu's pricey Carbon Beach area for a reported $65 million and is said to be looking into buying an NFL franchise for Los Angeles.

As the Chornicle article points out, perhaps the only good news out of this may come from the fact that it draws attention to the fact that homeowners can have their property values reassessed. With the declining real estate market in many regions some people may be in a situation where their property is being over-assessed but they are not aware of it.

[Thanks to Uncle Roger and Lana for calling our attention to this one]