I saw the video of Dan Aykyroyd talking about Crystal Head vodka a week or so ago but I wasn't sure it was a real thing but turns out it is Aykroyd's newest venture in the world of liquor. Aykroyd's wines are currently the top selling celebrity brand in Canada and he recently announced they would be available in the U.S.

The selling point for Crystal Head vodka is is that it is quadrupled distilled and filtered three times through charcoal followed by triple filtration over Herkimer crystals. It also comes in that nifty skull bottle designed by John Alexander and manufactured by master artisans in Milano's Bruni Glass Company. The Infinium Spirits division of Wilson Daniels is marketing Crystal Head Vodka in the U.S. and it will be available initially in California, Texas, Nevada, Louisiana and Florida. It retails for $49.95.

As for the legend of the crystal skulls, I tend to side with the comprehensive article in Archaeology Magazine that came out earlier this year when the crystal skull craze began over the latest Indiana Jones movie.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--In Palm Beach, movie producer Sidney Kimmel, the founder and chairman of Jones Apparel, has put his oceanfront mansion up for sale for $81.5 million.
--After nearly two years and $3 million in price cuts, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne have given up trying to sell their Malibu beach house, shown above, (which is currently listed at $10.995 million) and are now renting it for long-term lease at $37,500 a month or for short-term lease in the summer at $85,000 monthly.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--The Milbank Mansion, the lavish townhome otherwise known as the Bob Guccione townhouse has officially gone to contract and Braden Keil's sources say that the sale number may be under $50 million which is actually not bad for a 27-room, 22,000-square-foot, double-wide vintage home. Of course this makes us wonder what the final price will be for the Sloane townhouse which is currently listed at $64 million.
--News anchor Kaity Tong and her husband, Patrick Callahan, are finally moving back to their duplex penthouse in Chelsea which they left last summer when their home was discovered to have toxic mold. The developer of a condo project next door, Elad, though unsure if it caused the leak, offered to put the couple up at the Gramercy Park Hotel until the problem could be fixed.
--A vacant plot in desirable land in East Hampton is set to hit the market. The approximately 18-acre plot of vacant land bordering Lily Pond Lane and Apaquogue Road across the street from Steven Spielberg's estate have applied for permits to subdivide the land. One broker says it could be worth $8 million an acre or more.
--The Bridgehampton estate of Lyor Cohen, the chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group, is about to be listed for sale, it's about to be listed at around $9.5 million.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Private equity boss Frederick Iseman and his ex-wife are dealing with the terms of their break-up, which promised that the ex-Mrs. Iseman would have lifetime use of the co-op. But Iseman has bought out the missus for $5 million then transferred ownership to trusts run by his family. He will also be paying her five yearly sums, adding up to about $10.5 million. The couple is also divvying up the furnishings and fine art including sharing join custody of the den lamp.
--More about the Sloane townhouse, the mansion was previously divided into 11 apartment units and it seems that luring out the tenants before the listing was no easy task.
--Dr. William A. Haseltine, the former chairman and CEO of the Human Genome Science pharmaceutical corporation,has paid $9.7 million for an 86th-floor apartment at the Trump World Tower.
--Dancer George Faison, who left Alvin Ailey's company in 1969 to start his own troupe and is now the artistic director of the Faison Firehouse Theater in Harlem, has sold his West End townhouse for $5.95 million.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Oprah Winfrey has sold a 4,806-square-foot, 39th-floor penthouse in Atlanta's Buckhead area for $1.8 million.
--Saxophonist Kenny G has paid $2.85 million for a four-bedroom house in Los Angeles' Studio City area.
--Designer-developer Xorin Balbes has sold a six-bedroom "significantly rehabbed house" in the Bird Streets area of Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills for $5.725 million.
--A four-bedroom house in Ojai that was recently owned by actor and director Harold Ramis, and that was designed by architect Wallace Neff, is on the market for $6.95 million. The listing indicates it has already gone to contract.
-- A 2,867-square-foot house in Bel-Air that once was owned by Farrah Fawcett has sold for $3.608 million.
--'Gilmore Girls' actress Melissa McCarthy has sold her 1,284-square-foot house in West Hollywood for $1.325 million.
--Dan Aykroyd has put another Los Angeles home on the market. This one is listed at $2.595 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Times Big Deal:
--Brokers find interesting things sometimes when they show an apartment. Sharon E. Baum of the Corcoran Group walked in on a string quartet rehearsal when showing an apartment at 27 West 67th Street, owned by the estate of Albert Fuller, a harpsichordist. The duplex apartment had been used for decades as a musical salon and performance space, and while it was on the market, it was still being used for rehearsals. The sale of Fuller's apartment will benefit the Helicon Foundation, which was founded by Mr. Fuller in the 1980s to support the early instrument movement. The apartment is listed at $2.975 million, the listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
--Mariah Carey has picked up a four-bedroom home on Windermere Island in the Bahamas that was listed at $4.9 million.
--The Real Estalker Mama checks out the Wanamaker-Munn mansion which we mentioned back in December. The $33 million very grand and lovely home is full of beautiful spaces that evoke the spirit of old New York. The listing is here.
--The Real Estalker Mama reveals some floor plans from the monstrously pricey One Hyde Park development in London.
--Louwana, the Palm Beach, Florida house belonging to the late Aimee de Heeren is available for lease at $90,000 per month. It sits on an ocean front parcel that sits next to the estate Donald Trump has on the market for $125 million.
--Artist/director Julian Schnabel has listed two apartments at his Palazzo Chupi building, a $27 million duplex and a $32 million triplex. It is our estate of the day later today.
--San Diego Padres pitcher Randy Wolf, who recently bought a house belonging to guitarist Slash has listed his Calabasas home for $4.25 million. Rumor has it that he may have already sold the home to another musician Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Actress Teri Polo has listed her Manhattan Beach home for $2.559 million. The listing for the contemporary home is here.
--Frank Sinatra Jr. just purchased a home in the Beverly Hills Post Office area for $4.1 million.
--A home that once belonged to Deanna Durbin, who in 1939 won "a special Oscar" along with Mickey Rooney "for their significant contributions . . . as juvenile players," is now on the market at $10.5 million. The home was built in 1938 and has eight bedrooms. The listing is here.
--A West Hollywood home owned by Loretta Young and producer Tom Lewis for almost 30 years has come on the market for $2.985 million. The listing is here.

From AOL Real Estate:
--How to save while you splurge on your remodel
--Million dollar starter homes

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--The double-wide, 22,000-square-foot Upper East Side mansion at 14-16 E. 67th St. which belonged to Bob Guccione has been on and off the market for the past six years for prices over $50 million finally has an accepted offer. The reported buyers are edge-fund manager Philip Falcone and his wife, Lisa. The final price is unknown but the home's $59 million listing figure is well above the current record of $53 million for a 25,000-square-foot townhouse on East 75th Street purchased by investment banker J. Christopher Flowers nearly two years ago. Guccione was forced out of the townhouse in early 2006 after he failed to pay off a high-interest loan in a last-ditch effort to avoid foreclosure a few years earlier. Even with the high price the home is said to need work.
--European soccer star Robbie Elliott's two-bedroom, two-bath condo at 205 E. 59th St. is now listed for $1.9 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--The independent news program Democracy Now! has paid $6 million for a raw loft at 217 West 25th Street. Records show the group took out a $6 million mortgage paid for by the literary Lannan Foundation, run by J. Patrick Lannan Jr.
--More news on the homes billionaire Ira Rennert bought for his daughters. He bought two apartments, each over $30 million, for his two daughters, Tamara and Yonina. The first daughter's duplex at 740 Park Avenue closed for $32 million and the latter daughter and her husband closed on designer Vera Wang's old 14-room apartment at 778 Park. The closing price was $33.6 million. There are no mortgage records filed for either deal, which suggests that Mr. Rennert not only spent $65,600,000 on his daughters' apartments last month, but he paid $65,600,000 in cash.
--Actor Frank Langella closed on a $2.1 million, fourth-floor condo at 336 Central Park West this week.
--The old Stanhope hotel which was turned into multimillion dollar apartments was stalled for sales for a couple of years but now all but five of the 26 units have gone to contract since April. Cristina Carlino, the founder of Philosophy cosmetics, paid $11.97 million for the first unit and so far wo other buyers spent about $13 million each with the the second spending part of that amount on an $848,000 one-room, first-floor maid's studio. The biggest listing at 995 Fifth, the custom-built, five-bedroom penthouse, still sits on the market for $47.5 million.
--Steven Feder, the man once known as the Psychic Hotline King and his partner, Lou Thomas Trosclair, sold off for a massive profit the Time Warner Center apartment that they bought from Ricky Martin. They paid $9.75 million in September 2006 for the 3,050-square-foot space and sold it for $15.85 million to a neighbor. They bought a combined-unit apartment exactly 10 floors up, paying $24.48 million. Their seller at the $24.48 million apartment paid just $12.5 million in 2006.
--Trump SoHo, the 46-story glass tower at Spring and Varick streets, has already sold a slight majority of its units-53 percent, even though sales began just in September, and the building isn't scheduled to open until 2009.
--Robert Toll, the CEO of Toll Brothers Inc. the largest luxury home builder in the U.S. reportedly had his compensation cut from $19.2 million in 2006 to $8.4 million for the last fiscal year, as his company's net income fell 95 percent. Toll was planning to move into the three-unit penthouse at One Ten 3RD, Toll's rectangle-paneled new condo on Third Avenue, but his wife vetoed that idea. Instead, the Robert & Jane Toll 2002 Children's Trust, "for benefit of" their 27-year-old son, Jacob, paid $2,235,672 for just one of those three penthouse units.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Kanye West sold his Beverly Hills teardown for around $8 million, less than a year after he bought it for $7.15 million. As I've mentioned in previous columns there is a house on the property but the home was sold for land value and includes plans for a two-story contemporary home.
--The former home of Joseph Hirshhorn, who gave his name to a renowned Washington art museum, has sold for $30 million in Greenwich, Connecticut.
--Jet-charter company owner Todd Rome has agreed to sell his Southampton, N.Y., home, fully furnished, for $11.5 million which is lose to double what he paid for the 1.8-acre property in 2005.


From the Real Estalker:
--Rumor has it that Nancy Daly, the estranged wife of Los Angeles' really rich ex-mayor Richard Riordan, has very quietly sold her Carbon Beach Malibu compound to a young hedge fund honcho and his wife for somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$55 million.
--Actress Michelle Johnson has put her Buddha-themed modern home on Blue Jay Way in West Hollywood on the market for $6.35 million. Check out the gorgeous view at the property website here.
--In 2007, actress Diane Keaton spent $9,100,000 for the Lloyd Wright (the son of Frank Lloyd Wright) designed Alfred Newman Estate on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades. The six-bedroom home sits on a 2.625 acre property. Keaton, who is a famous property flipper in Los Angeles, has put the property back on the market for an undisclosed amount.
--I think I saw a billboard in Los Angeles advertising this one, 138 acres of Hollywood hilltop including Cahuenga Peak, shown above, for $22 million.The listing says that the land can be developed into one massive estate with 360 degree views or that five large estates can be constructed.
--Screenwriter Naomi Foner and television director Stephen Gyllenhaal (yes, parents of Jake and Maggie) have put their modern Runyon Canyon adjacent house on the market for $4.2 million. The listing for the five-bedroom home is here.
--DJ Paul Oakenfold has put his Los Angeles home on the market, it's our estate of the day later today.
--Actress Beverly D'Angelo has purchased the allegedly haunted home in the Hollywood Hills that belonged to Donna Dixon and Dan Aykroyd for $3.8 million (it was listed at $4.2 million).
--Singer Dido may have already found a buyer for her charming home which is listed at $4.6 million.
The Beverly Park mansion belonging to property developer Robert Bisno and his wife Jeanette appears to be headed into foreclosure. The scuttlebutt is that they are in default on a $4,000,000 mortgage and February 29th auction date has been set.
--CSI: Miami star Khandi Alexander has but her home in the Hollywood Hills on the market for $4,495,000. The listing is here (no pictures yet).

From Lexis-Nexis:
----Russian star tennis player Maria Sharapova has purchased a luxury penthouse apartment worth $ 2.1 million in the beach city of Netanya in Israel. (Thanks, Lana)

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Former baseball star Mike Piazza and his wife, the former Alicia Rickter, a 1995 Playboy Playmate, have bought their second property in the Miami Beach area for $10 million. It had been listed at$12.5 million.The seller is Sophia Marcovitz, ex-wife of Marshall Marcovitz, the founder of the Chefs Catalog.
--Jaime Pressly has re-listed her Tarzana home at $1.299 million. Check out the pictures at the virtual tour here.
--Rick Caruso, developer of open-air shopping malls including the Grove in Los Angeles, has purchased a Malibu home for just under $12 million.
--Lisa Hollingshead, a producer who worked on Madonna's "Truth or Dare" movie has listed a Malibu house she owns near the Getty Villa for close to $3 million.
--Before his death in 1982 at age 84, car designer Howard "Dutch" Darrin had planned to develop eight acres he owned in Beverly Hills, the undeveloped residential land was sold and is now available again. The asking price is $5.75 million.




From AOL Real Estate:
--Best American cities for bargain hunters.
--Top improvement projects by cities.

From the NY Times Big Deal:
--The Wanamaker Munn house, a grand limestone and brick townhouse on East 90th Street that had been in the same high society family since the 1920s has been listed at $33 million. The home, shown at right, maintains much of its original details including 10 period fireplaces, a curved grand staircase and elaborate molding and woodwork. The listing is here.

From the NY Times Big Deal:
--Dan Aykroyd and his wife Donna Dixon have listed their New York apartment for $7 million. The couple seems to be in move mode. As we learned earlier this year, their Hollywood Hills home is also on the market for $4.2 million. It turns out that their NY apartment is one I covered a few weeks ago as an estate of the day. Check it out here.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Steven Spielberg is snapping up properties near his East Hampton estate. He is negotiating to buy two properties that would add an additional six acres to his compound.
--Former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Chris Parnell has sold his one-bedroom condo loft in SoHo for $1.8 million and is headed to Hollywood.
-- New York University selling a luxury apartment at The Pierre hotel for $7.6 million. The buyer is Ali Fayed, the brother of Harrod's owner Mohamed Fayed. The 19th-floor two-bedroom co-op was being used as faculty housing for a lucky professor and his family. Fayed also bought an adjoining one-bedroom unit for $2.6 million.
--The penthouse apartment of Hollywood casting director Vic Ramos, who died last October at age 77, is on the market for $3.3 million. The apartment is a three-bedroom duplex with a glass-enclosed den, two fireplaces, a greenhouse and a fully landscaped garden with an outdoor fireplace. The listing is here.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--A three-bedroom apartment that belong to Washington Post publisher Kay Graham has finally been sold, six and a half years after her death, for $2.3 million.
--Mexican radio and music publishing mogul named Rogerio Azcárraga Madero has picked up a couple of new apartments in New York, a $5.3 million penthouse duplex at 715 Park Avenue and a $8.26 million Plaza apartment. He owns many apartments throughout the city which he rents out.
--A 17-room, seven-bedroom duplex penthouse at 1060 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of 87th Street, will sell for around $46 million which is the most money ever paid for a New York City co-op.

From Big Time Listings:
--Action star Jason Statham is the latest celebrity buyer in the Broadway Hollywood Building in Los Angeles picking up an eighth floor unit in the building.
--Marlon Wayans has sold a condo unit in Los Angeles' Sherman Oaks area for $650,000 and has also bought into the Broadway Hollywood building, purchasing a ninth-floor unit in the building.
--Looks like actor Chris Parnell has moved into my neighborhood, he paid $620,000 for a two-bedroom, tri-level town house in Silver Lake.
--Kanye West's six-bedroom Beverly Hills teardown may be sold. The home is now listed as "looking for backup."
--Debbie Harry has paid $580,000 for a co-op apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.
--It's looking more likely that Jason Lee is in fact the buyer of Robert Cray Los Feliz home.

From the Real Estalker:
--The listing for Greg Norman's $65 million Florida estate is up. We'll discuss this later as our estate of the day.
--An update on Michael Jackson. He has had to pay a $3.8 million settlement to his manager Dieter Wiesner that was payable on November 15 and remains in default on the $23,000,000 loan secured by Neverland Ranch. Rumor has it that people are looking to buy the place including Simon Yates, a British discount clothing store owner and of course, the subject of nearly every real estate rumor of late, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
--via Newsday, Tommy Hilfiger may have finally sold his East Hampton home. It has been listed for a while at $24.5 million and Mariah Carey rented it this summer for $350,000. Newsday reports that the buyer paid $2 million more than list price in order to keep the furnishings. It was our estate of the day back in October 2006.
--via new blog Real Sedated. Actress Anna Farris and Ben Indra have put their home on the market for $1.995 million (the same price the couple bought at in November 2005). The virtual tour is here.
-Ricky Martin has put his house in Golden Beach, Florida on the market for $22.5 million. He bought the home in April 2007 for $16.25 million and seems to be looking for a quick flip. The listing is here.
--Ashley Olsen has picked up a four-bedroom home in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles for $1.575 million.
--from the NY Post, Madonna has filed suit against her Central Park West building's co-op board. She says that the board wrongfully blocked her from buying a neighbor's apartment.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Los Angeles Laker Luke Walton has moved up in Manhattan Beach paying $2,750,000 for a new house and selling his town house for $1,235,000.
--A home known as the Bette Davis estate in Palm Springs has been sold for $5 million, about the asking price when the property was listed in June.
--A home lived in by Alice Backes, a character actress from the 1950s to the late '90s, is now on the market for $1.39 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--One Madison Park is now home to two celebrity couples, Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts who are purchasing a four-bedroom apartment for around $6.5 million and Susan Sarandon and TIm Robbins who are purchasing a three-bedroom unit for around $3.5 million. So far the $35 million triplex penthouse is still up for grabs. --Sky --Sky --Sky Studios, the triplex penthouse that went through at least five different brokers, a $10 million price discount has finally closed for $17.5 million. We first fell for this one back in 2004 when it was listed at $20 million. Lucky owner, billionaire Ron Burkle is getting quite a place.
--Yup, here's one just about everyone called, Shorewood Manor, the former Hamptons estate of Gov. Hugh Carey's family is getting a discount. Investor Chris Knight bought if for $10 million and relisted it a few weeks later for $33 million. Now he has listed at $24.9 million. The listing, with new pictures, is here.
--Former TV anchor Forrest Sawyer has paid $3.81 million for a penthouse condo on Riverside Drive in the 90s.
--The price for Beechwood, the Astor mansion in Newport, Rhode Island has been bumped up to $18 million from $16 million.
--Environmental lifestyle guru Danny Seo is selling his eco-friendly Bucks County, Pa., bungalow for $425,000. The listing is here.

From the NY Post's Page Six:
--Gisele Bundchen has listed her two-bedroom New York condo for $10.9 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Real estate developer and Human Rights Watch board member David M. Brown has paid $8.4 million for a three-bedroom Beresford spread next door to the three-bedroom co-op he bought for $10.5 million in July 2004. And 10 floors down, hedge fund superstar Vikram Pandit and his wife, Swati, just paid $17.85 million for the late Tony Randall's 10-room sprawl, with 20 windows facing the park.
--South African gambling and resort magnate Sol Kerzner, was reported to have bought a $10.5 million penthouse at Philip Johnson's Urban Glass House for his daughter Beverley. Now records show that a holding company in the heiress' name paid $8.35 million for a colossal basketball court-turned-triplex at 213 West 23rd Street.
--Former Seventeen editor Atoosa Rubenstein her commodities-trading husband, Ari, paid $3.05 million for a 3,007-square-foot loft at Altair 18, a new condo on West 18th Street near Fifth Avenue.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Singer Jason Nesmith, whose father is the Monkees Mike Nesmith, has paid $500,000 for a condo in the Los Angeles' Valley Village area.
--British actress Anna Friel, who is appearing this fall on ABC's series 'Pushing Daisies,' has paid $1,195,500 for a home in the Hollywood Hills.
--Public records have cleared on the town home in Century City area that Lionel Richie purchased for Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, and reveal that Lionel paid $1,200,000 for the home.
--Public records have cleared for the mansion in Hidden Hills that Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne bought this summer. They paid $12,388,623 for the mansion.
[via the NY Times Big Deal column]
--Rosie O'Donnell has reportedly signed a $1.97M contract to buy a pied-a-terre in Manhattan's theater district
--Former Citigroup Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill has closed on the purchase of his 6,744-square-foot unit in the newly built building at 15 Central Park West in Manhattan for $42,405,000.
--Houston Astros outfielder Carlos Lee has sold his house in Burr Ridge, IL for $250K
--Two Chicago-area houses that were crime scenes sells for $3.7M and $768,600
--Former Chicago White Sox pitcher Donn Pall sells a house in Bloomingdale, IL for $680K and pays $875K for one that is just across the street.
--Eddie Murphy's ex-wife Nicole has listed the couple's longtime Sacramento area home for $6.5 million. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
--You can rent Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon's Los Angeles home for $30,000 a month. And as a bonus it just might be haunted by the ghost of Mama Cass.
--Also for rent is New York Governor George Pataki's Adirondacks getaway for $4,000.
--Alexis Stewart has put her Tribeca penthouse, shown above, on the market for $12.4 million. You can peep the gray floors and all the gorgeous spareness at the listing here.
--Basketball star Cuttino Mobley has put his Beverly Hills home on the market for $3,995,000. It is our estate of the day later today.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--As the Real Estalker reported back in August, John O'Hurley has put his home on the market for $6.2 million. He bought it in late 2004 for slightly more than $3 million. It was an estate of the day in August.
--James Burrows, the director and producer of "Cheers," "Will & Grace" and other NBC comedies has sold his Bel-Air home for close to its $12.9 million asking price.
--The Buddy Ebsen estate in Palos Verdes is on the market for $3.995 million. The listing for the French Normandy style home is here.
--Costume designer Greg LaVoi, has purchased a two-bedroom New Mexico retreat for less than its $479,000 asking price.

Last year, when Dan Aykroyd announced his first wine-making adventure he hinted that there was more to come. And earlier this month when it was announced that he was participating in the first Niagara wine auction, it seemed that a big announcement was imminent. Sure enough, Diamond Estates Wines & Spirits has announced that they are building The Dan Aykroyd Winery. The project is ambitious. A $12-million, 45,000-square-foot winery will be built off the QEW highway where the company's Birchwood Estate winery is currently located. The winery will also showcase some of Aykroyd's movie and television memorabilia. Groundbreaking should be this fall with the winery being operational for a fall 2008 harvest. A couple more views of what looks to be a rather substantial undertaking after the jump.

\Ontario gets its own big wine auction with the inaugural Niagara Wine Auction on June 22 - 24, 2007. The auction even has its own celebrity host, new winemaker Dan Aykroyd. Proceeds from the event will benefit SickKids Foundation and St. Catharines General Hospital Foundation. The event is modeled after the Napa Valley and Washington State events and will include an opening reception, winemaker dinners, a garden party, live and silent auctions and a black tie gala. One ticket to the winemakers dinner, garden party and gala dinner costs $1,000 and a table for ten at the gala start at $5,000.