gerard butler

Good friends eat same food, wear same watch brand? Clearly not a marketing set up shot, this photograph has actors Adrian Brody and Gerard Butler each eating McDonald's burgers, sitting court-side at a Lakers' game, and both wearing Montblanc timepieces. What else do they have in common?

Brody is seen with a Montblanc Star Sport watch in steel. The classic sport themed watch comes in a few dial colors, has a Swiss ETA Valjoux 7750 automatic chronograph movement, and is about 42mm wide - retails for $3,735. Butler is wearing a Montblanc Timewalker Dual Carbon Chronograph which is part of the brands well-known TImewalker collection of watches. This one has a two coatings of DLC (diamond like carbon) for hardness and the block color and is matched with gold accents. It is 43mm wide on a leather strap and also has as Valjoux 7750 automatic chronograph movement. Price for it is about $6,480.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

From the Wall Street Journal:
--Hedge-fund pioneer Paul Tudor Jones is asking $30 million for his 6,250-acre hunting retreat on Maryland's eastern shore. It is our estate of the day on Monday.
--A 44-acre Aspen, Colorado estate sold for $31.5 million, for what brokers say is a record price for the area this year. The seller of the property was Bob Zangrillo, founder of private-equity firm Z Capital.
--After nearly four years on the market at $33 million, a roughly 6,500-acre Carmel Valley, California ranch, shown above, has seen its asking price cut 35 percent to $21.5 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Times:
--Renee Zellweger has listed a pair of apartments on New York's Upper East side. 82nd Street, The apartments take up the entire second floor of a co-op on 82nd Street at Madison Avenue. She paid $8.2 million for all three units. One, a three-bedroom unit is $6.975 million. The listing is here.

From Newsday:
--A three-acre estate in Sagaponack that includes land once owned by businessman Ronald Lauder as well as a planned 11,600-square-foot, 10-room traditional home designed by architect Francis Fleetwood has has a price cut to $14.995 million down from $17.75 million. The listing is here.
--An Old Westbury estate that once belonged to the family of the late commercial shipping magnate Michael P. Grace had had a price cut. The five-bedroom Colonial was listed at $4.498 million but is now listed at $3.968 million. The listing is here.


From the LA Times:
--"CSI: Miami" star Rex Linn has bought a Sherman Oaks home for $1.415 million.
--Iron Chef Michael Symon has picked up a two-story loft in the Dogtown Station mixed-use development in Venice. The two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit was listed at $1.1 million.
--Judd Apatow and his wife, Leslie Mann, have sold their Pacific Palisades home for $5.26 million.

From Housing Watch:
--Actress Jessica Alba is trying to lease out her 3,035-square-foot Beverly Hills home for $8,950 a month. The listing is here.

From the Los Angeles Times:
Los Angeles poster artist Robbie Conal and his wife, movie and television title designer Deborah Ross, have listed their Gregory Ain-designed home in Mar Vista for $1.149 million. The home is in a development of 52 so-called "Modernique Homes." The pair added bamboo floors, a new kitchen and an art studio.

--Artist Ed Ruscha has sold his Point Dume-area home in Malibu for $4 million.
--The Studio City home of the late model agent Nina Blanchard has sold for $1.1 million.
--The late Nancy M. Daly's former Malibu home, which recently sold for more than $40 million, has been leased out for $200,000 a month by the new owner.
--Singer-songwriter Graham Nash and his wife, Susan, have sold their longtime Encino home for its asking price of $1.6 million.
--A Bel-Air compound owned by the late real estate broker Jon Douglas has come on the market at $18.7 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Post:
--Julia Roberts has purchased a penthouse co-op at 45 W. 10th St. for $3.895 million.
--Technology investor Peter Thiel, a Facebook billionaire and PayPal co-founder, is renting a three-bedroom apartment at 15 Union Square West.
--Gerard Butler recently checked out a $7.995 million townhouse condo at 385 W. 12th St.
--Ad man Alan Levenstein, former vice chairman at Bozell Worldwide, and his wife, Gail, who ran the private-client division at Bill Blass for many years, have put their 2,200-square-foot, second-floor co-op at 75 Central Park West on the market for $4.25 million.The listing is here.

From the Wall Street Journal:
The Boca Raton, Florida home of former Tyco chief executive Dennis Kozlowski has had a price cut to $19.5 million. The 1.6-acre waterfront compound is composed of five adjacent lots and has more than 600 feet of waterfront. It was listed at $24.5 million when we checked it out last year. His former North Hampton, New Hampshire home will be up for auction on November 9 and is our estate of the day tomorrow.

A three-story home on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill is for sale for $12.9 million. The home's current owner is Sandra Lloyd-Smith, ex-wife of the late Texas oil tycoon Robert Mosbacher. The listing is here.

From the NY Times:
--Many of New York City's ultrarich are choosing to rent rather than buy, spending between $10,000 and $100,000 a month.
--Walter Cronkite's summer home on Martha's Vineyard has gone to contract. It had an asking price of $12.25 million.

From the NY Observer:
--George Robb, Jr., the founder of the RPM Nautical Foundation, who until last year was married to model Veronica Webb, has picked up an apartment at 15 Broad Street for $2.785 million.
--John Eck, the president of NBC TV, and his wife Malia have just bought a condo at 43 Clarkson Street in the Far West Village for $3.675 million.
--Zachary Kestenbaum runs who, with his father, runs Building Link, a digital management system for residential properties, has bought a $4 million coop at 1095 Park Avenue.
--Edwin C. Cohen, son of Nixon Treasury Secretary Edwin S. Cohen, has sold his his Central Park West coop for $9.75 million. He bought the home for $11 million in 2006.
--Leonard Stern has paid $14.25 million for a Soho penthouse at 495 West Broadway.
-- Dickson Chu, who is in charge of development and products for Citi, and wife Kristin have paid $2.7 million for a unit at Extell's Aerial West at 245 West 99th Street.
--Writer Vicky Ward and publisher Matthew Doull have sold their Bleecker Street townhouse for $6 million.
--Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown and her pundit husband Dan Senor have moved into The Hastings at 71 Murray Street buying a loft for $4.495 million.
--Judith Greenberg Seinfeld who used to work in perfume and is now a real estate maven picked up a unit at 27 West 67th Street for $4.7 million.
--Bruce and Marlo Wrobel have sold their four-story home at 150 Lincoln Place to Roopal Luhana and Birbal Kaikini for the asking price of $3.195 million.
--Roger A. Enrico, former CEO of PepsiCo. and current Dreamworks Animation chairman has purchased a three-bedroom at 37 West 12th Street at the Butterfield House for $3.14 million.

Decorating an event meant to combat world poverty presents issues that only a seasoned expert such as Yale educated party planner Bronson Van Wyck, who volunteered his time, would be prepared to tackle. Fabulous hors d'oeuvres and expensive lighting wouldn't have been the right message for Wednesday's event at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to benefit the Global Poverty Project, Aussie Hugh Evans' fast-track plan to end extreme poverty.

"I met Hugh Evans at the Australia 2020 Summit, which was a conference about ideas that the Prime Minister held," Hugh Jackman, far right, who hosted the fete with his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, told RSVIP.

"He was so young I thought he was one of the waiters," continued Jackman, who said he had waved Evans over, hoping to get a drink. "Two hours later, he was still telling me all of these ideas. This young guy was so switched on. . . ."

"The look tonight," explained Van Wyck, while scruffy actor Gerard Butler wandered in wearing frayed jeans and a biker jacket, "is pared-down chic."

"It's really about the message," says Van Wyck, who hails from Arkansas. "It's about the cause. Everything went toward getting the people here. I'm donating my time and even the red carpet. I believe in what they're doing."

Several of Jackman's famous friends pitched in unique auction items, including a lunch with Rupert Murdoch, which was already going for $7,000 on http://www.charitybuzz.com/gpp. And it wasn't just a friendly lunch; the winner of this lot is invited to pitch the billionaire media mogul business ideas at the table. Murdoch's wife, Wendi, explained that not even she has full access to her husband's hectic lunch agenda.

"He's always busy," she said. In fact, the couple rarely meet for lunch, "as I also have no time," she indicated with a laugh.

We've already covered a variety of stars donating money to help the victims of the Haiti quake and now stars are holding auctions to raise money. Meryl Streep, Gerard Butler, Amy Poehler and Olivia Wilde are donating their outfits worn at the 67th Golden Globes. The outfits will be auctioned off by Artists for Peace and Justice and sold to the public on eBay.

In other auction news, Serena Williams has set herself the goal of raising $92,000 in 92 days through an online auction of her personal clothing and memorabilia to raise money for Haiti earthquake victims, as well as schools and charities. Her eBay auction began Monday with items and includes so far tennis outfits, sneakers and a Phoenix Suns jersey signed by Steve Nash. She plans to put up new items each week.

Friday's "Hope for Haiti" telethon will be hosted by George Clooney, Wyclef Jean and Anderson Cooper. Christina Aguilera, Bono, Alicia Keys, Sting and Justin Timberlake have signed on to perform and Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts have signed up to answer phones.