diandra douglas

The good news is that celebrity homes seem to sell more easily than your average luxury real estate. The bad news is that there a lot of celebrity homes still seeking a new buyer. I dug through my 2010 archives, month by month, to assess the damage and see who is still trying to sell.

Some celebrities including Mel Gibson, have tried a price cut of over a million. Others including Uma Thurman, Ricky Martin and Richard Chamberlain have held their ground and their properties have sat on the market for over six months. Sheryl Crow tried to take the auction route but failed to sell her Tennessee farm.

But of course the biggest celebrity real estate tail of woe for 2010 has to be Nicolas Cage. He managed to sell off his New York apartment and his Las Vegas house but saw two New Orleans homes and his Bel Air mansion fall to foreclosure. His Rhode Island home, shown above, is still on the market for $7.75 million, a far cry from the $15.7 million he paid for it.

A look at every celebrity home listing we covered in 2010 with updated results is after the jump.

Finally a dose of real estate wisdom from Diandra Douglas. We've been following the saga of Michael Douglas' ex-wife as she fights for a share of Michael Douglas' earnings from Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps." Her case, which hinges on a clause in their divorce that said that she was entitled to profits from spin-offs from his existing projects, was rejected in New York but is currently under consideration in California. All the while, Douglas has kept her Montecito, California home firmly priced at $29 million for nearly a year. But when I looked recently the price had been dropped down to $24 million.

The former Mrs. Douglas owns an enviable spread in Montecito, the ultra-pricey enclave that is home to Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and others. The Tuscan villa is on over seven acres which is actually divided into two lots. It is rumored that she got a $45 million settlement in the divorce as well as this home. The Real Estalker reported that the home was purchased way back in 1979 for just $275,000. The 1920s Mediterranean has large iron gates and a motor court leading up to the grand home. The home has been recently updated and has a 75' pool, guesthouse, tennis court, Japanese water garden and green lawns from which to take in the ocean views. Tile floors, dark wood beams, vaulted ceilings and arched French doors all add to the feeling of classic Californian Mediterranean style. The pool/guest house offers another living room and kitchen.

It looks like Gordon Gekko will keep his cash for now. A Manhattan judge has dismissed a claim brought against Michael Douglas by his ex-wife Diandra Douglas in regard to his paycheck for the movie Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. The ex-Mrs. Douglas was looking to get half of his take, arguing that because Douglas first played Gordon Gekko in Wall Street when the pair was married it qualified as a spin-off from his existing products. The battle may not be over yet. The judge did say that because their 1997 divorce settlement took place in California that's where the case belongs. Michael Douglas' attorney, Marilyn Chinitz seemed confident that if Diandra refiles the case in California she will have no greater luck because judges there are accustomed to film industry cases.

The pair had an acrimonious divorce. Michael Douglas was accused of being a sex addict who was unfaithful and Diandra Douglas pocketed a reported $45 million. She also got a home in Montecito, California that she currently has listed for $29 million.

It's the divorce that never ends. The NY Post reports that Michael Douglas' ex-wife Diandra Douglas has staked a claim to his share of the "Wall Street 2" money. She filed a suit against Douglas saying that she should get half of the up-front money and royalties from "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."

The pair had an acrimonious divorce back in 2000. Michael Douglas was accused of being a sex addict who was unfaithful and Diandra Douglas pocketed a reported $45 million. She also got a home in Montecito, California that she currently has listed for $29 million.

There was a clause in their divorce that said that she was entitled to profits from spin-offs from his existing projects. Is "Wall Street 2" a spin-off or a sequel? Diandra Douglas's suit says that the movie qualifies as a spin-off because it is the same character. At a hearing last week the judge said he thought that there was a difference between sequels and spin-offs but wouldn't make a decision until he decided whether or not the case should be heard in New York or California.

The pair were reunited back in April at the trial of their son, Cameron. The Post reports that in a letter to the judge Michael Douglas asking for leniency for his son he described his ex as "a young mother without any parenting skills handed down from her own parents."

Today's estate belongs to Diandra Douglas, the former wife of Michael Douglas. The former Mrs. Douglas owns an enviable spread in Montecito, the ultra-pricey enclave that is home to Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and others. The Tuscan villa is on over seven acres which is actually divided into two lots. It is rumored that she got a $45 million settlement in the divorce as well as the home that is our estate of the day.

The Real Estalker says that the home was purchased way back in 1979 by the Douglases for just $275,000. This is way before Montecito became the fashionable area it is today. The 1920s Mediterranean has large iron gates and a motor court leading up to the grand home. The home has been recently updated and has a 75' pool, guesthouse, tennis court, Japanese water garden and green lawns from which to take in the ocean views. Tile floors, dark wood beams, vaulted ceilings and arched French doors all add to the feeling of classic Californian Mediterranean style. The pool/guest house offers another living room and kitchen. The home is listed at $29 million, hugely expensive but par for the course in Montecito.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Rosemarie Stack, the widow of Robert Stack has put her Wilshire corridor condo up for sale for $6.5 million, shown above. It is listed here.
--"CSI: Miami" actress Khandi Alexander's Hollywood Hills home is still on the market. We'll be checking it out later as our estate of the day.
--Meg Ryan's Bel-Air home is now officially listed at $19.5 million. The listing is here.
--Roy Schlobohm, whose father founded the Shirley's of Hollywood bra and lingerie manufacturing company in 1948, has listed his Malibu beach home at $13.3 million. It's too pretty to pass up, we'll be checking this one out later this week.
--World champion ice skater Tai Babilonia listed her Sherman Oaks home at $1,085,000 and it was in escrow in less than a week.

From the Real Estalker:
--Venture capitalist Tom Perkins has put his home in the Bay Area back on the market for $20.5 million. It was that same price back in 2006 when we checked it out as an estate of the day.
--Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott have picked up a home in Encino for $2.495 million. Their Westwood home was our estate of the day recently.
--Toby Keith has put his Nashville home on the market. It was our estate of the day on Saturday.
--Jade Jagger has put her London house on the market. We'll be checking out this one on Monday.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Alex Rodriguez has lowered the price of his Park Avenue apartment and is also offering it for rent. He is now asking $12.5 million for the four-bedroom unit Trump Park Avenue or will rent the place unfurnished for $50,000 a month. Braden Keil took a tour and found it "surprisingly elegant" looking "more like the home of a buttoned-down business executive than an athlete." We covered this and A-Rod's other home for sale as our estate of the day last week.
--Model Elizabeth Jagger has moved out of her Greenwich Village apartment after the owner of the five-unit townhouse decided to put it on the market. The listing for the five-story 1853 Anglo-Italianate townhouse, available for $7.95 million, is here.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Baseball player Steve Finley and his wife, interior designer Amy Finley have put a beachfront home in Del Mar, California on the market for $21.5 million. We'll be taking a closer look at this one on Tuesday.
--Dennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco, is still in jail but is still trying to sell his Nantucket home. He bought the home for $5 million for the house in 1997. The current asking price of $16.45 million is less than the home's assessed value of $16.92 million. The listing is here.
--In Manhattan, a 10-room apartment at The Dakota is now listed for $19.5 million, down 19% from its original $24 million set in June. The owner is a Wall Street executive and the listing is here.
-- Diandra De Morrell Douglas, the ex-wife of actor Michael Douglas, is in contract to sell her townhouse which was most recently listed at $9.25 million.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Corcoran broker Deborah Kern, has two $12 million NYC listings, her own eight-room Majestic co-op which she and her husband, James Kern, a former senior managing director at Bear Stearns, paid j$5.2 million for in 2005 and the Park Avenue home of Mark Goldstein, who became the co-head of Bear Stearns' European investment banking last year who bought his home for $5.275 million in 2006.
--Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz, whose father, the Texas natural-gas mogul George P. Mitchell, is currently ranked by Forbes as No. 349 on the list of the world's billionaires, just bought a condo at 50 Orchard Street for $1.4 million.
--Alice R. Gottesman, whose father is the investor David Gottesman (No. 428 on the Forbes list ), spent $6,957,917 on two neighboring co-op units at 118 West 79th Street.
--Roy Judelson, whose father, David Judelson, co-founded Gulf & Western in 1956 and the biotechnology company Biopure decades later, has a bigger apartment. He and his wife paid $10.5 million this month for an 11-room, four-bedroom, 3,950-square-foot co-op at 33 East 70th Street.
--The Park Avenue home of the late fashion designer turned real estate executive turned Showgirls producer Charles Evans has had another price cut. It was originally listed at $29.5 million and is now at listed at $20 million. The listing for the triplex penthouse is here.

From Newsday's Real LI :
--Kenjocketey, a Lloyd Neck, NY estate that we first covered back in 2005 when it was for sale for $16.25 million is still on the market, now for an even $13 million. The listing is here.
--Fashion designer Adrienne Vittadini has lowered the price of her Water Mill, New York home to $6.495 million. It will be an estate of the day later this week.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--A four-bedroom house in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood that the late actor Paul Winfield had owned until he died in 2004 has sold for $3.65 million.

From TMZ:
--Orlando Magic star, Dwight Howard has picked up a new home in Longwood, Florida for around $8 million and it's a former estate of the day which was once listed at $9.7 million.
--Nicolas Cage who recently has listed several of his properties has put one of his New Orleans homes for sale for $3.7 million (Big Time Listings reports he bought the home for $3.45 million in 2005). The listing is here.

From the IHT's Raising the Roof blog:
--Villa Fontana, a 16th Century villa outside the Tuscan town of Cortona is on the market for the first time in 500 years. The 16-bedroom villa is listed at 8 million euros.