halsey minor

More bad news for CNET founder Halsey Minor. We've been watching as he has divested himself of some of his art and real estate and now his long-stalled Landmark Hotel project in Charlottesville, Virginia is in major trouble. Minor Family Hotels, LLC, the official owner of the hotel, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal bankruptcy court.

Minor made around $100 million from the sale of his technology company CNET in 2000 but he has spent quite a bit since then. In 2006 he bought a home in the Bel Air area for $20 million. In 2008 he put the home on the market for just $12.9 million and rumors were that much of the home was in disrepair. He eventually cut down the price to $11.4 million. It appears to be still owned by Minor and is not on the market. In 2007 he bought the Koshland mansion in San Francisco, an eight-bedroom mansion built to resemble Marie Antoinette's Le Petit Trianon and was reported to be spending $15 million to fix it up. Fox Ridge Farm, his 205-acre farm near Charlottesville, Virginia faced foreclosure twice but Minor eventually brought the mortgage current avoiding a second public auction in February 2010. The stalled Landmark Hotel project has remained in a state of partial construction for years.

In a press release Minor Family Hotels stated that it filed Chapter 11 "in order to more quickly resolve the burdensome lawsuits that have prevented it from completing construction and putting people back to work." Minor is fighting off a total of eight lawsuits involving the Landmark Hotel, in Georgia and Virginia courts. In the release, Minor says that he remains committed to seeing the project through.

A trial involving Minor, former Landmark developer Lee Danielson, the FDIC and Specialty Finance Group, the real estate financing company that was supposed to lend Minor $23.6 million for the construction of the hotel in 2008 was scheduled for November. Specialty Finance Group's parent company, Atlanta-based Silverton Bank failed in May of last year and was taken over by the FDIC. The Chapter 11 filing means that the trial is on hold. The loan for the Landmark is divided among multiple banks. Documents in the bankruptcy suit show 20 creditors. Some have criticized the Chapter 11 filing as just a stalling tactic and question whether the 100-room boutique hotel project will ever be completed.

We already covered one auction of CNET founder Halsey Minor's prodigious art collection but he has far more to unload. The first sale with auction house Phillips de Pury brought in $21,049,050. Now Phillips de Pury has announced the highlights from its June 9th New York Design auction which will offer additional works from The Halsey Minor Collection. On May 13, Marc Newson's prototype Lockheed Lounge went for nearly $2.1 million, now the lucky buyer could buy a matching piece, Newson's Pod of Drawers, 1987. The piece, estimated to sell for $300,000-400,000 features riveted aluminum panels on a bombé style chest. Other pieces include several elegant works from architect and decorator Paul Dupré-Lafon. A drop-front writing cabinet, veneered with Macassar ebony and finished in Hermès leather, ca. 1940, is estimated at $100,000-150,000.

It's been a busy few weeks for Minor. As ArtInfo reports, a Manhattan federal judge ruled that Minor owes Sotheby's $6.6 million for paintings that he won at auction and never paid for but a San Francisco jury found that Christie's owes Minor a little more than $8.5 million for delaying the return of Richard Prince paintings that he had consigned to the auction house in 2008. When Minor handed the paintings to Christie's he owed the auction house $12 million for other works he had won at auction. The auction house held onto the paintings, perhaps hoping to use them as leverage. After the art market plummeted, Minor sued Christie's saying the auction house prevented him from getting the maximum profit for his holdings.

CNET founder Halsey Minor is a little closer to paying off some of his debts this week. A sale of his 22 artworks sold for $21,049,050 at Phillips de Pury & Company. Pieces include "Nurse in Hollywood #4" by Richard Prince (sold for $6.5 million) and an aluminum couch by Marc Newson( $2.1 million). The sales will go a long way toward paying off a $21.6 million judgment won by ML Private Finance, a Bank of America affiliate, on a delinquent loan owed by Minor. Bloomberg News reports that fashion designer Marc Jacobs, art dealer Larry Gagosian and jeweler Laurence Graff were in attendance at the auction.

Minor isn't quite out of the financial woods yet. Last month Sotheby's won a $6.6 million judgment against Minor after they sued for breach of contract ($4.4 million to the auction house plus another $2.2 million in interest and related fees). Minor has asserted that the auction house had failed to disclose an ownership interest in one work and he had not gotten a fair deal. He plans to appeal the the judgment. He is also battling Christie's saying that the auction house mishandled a consignment involving art by Prince. Christie's has also sued Minor over default on payments for $13 million worth of art bought at auction.

Every year the California Franchise Tax Board publishes a list no one wants to be on, the list of the state's top 250 tax delinquents. Three of the people on the list have spent a lot of time in the news lately, Halsey Minor, Tim Blixseth and Pamela Anderson. The top of the list happens to be someone we discussed just yesterday, CNet founder Halsey Minor. Minor and his wife, Shannon Minor, owe $13.1 million in personal income taxes to the state.

Also on the list is Tim Blixseth, the founder of the Yellowstone Club. He owes $894,000 in unpaid personal income taxes but according to the AP his attorney, Michael Flynn says Blixseth owes nothing because his ex-wife Edra had agreed to pay his taxes as part of their divorce settlement. Edra, as we know, is in bankruptcy and both she and Tim Blixseth are selling off their global portfolio of properties to raise money. Not in quite so much trouble is Dancing With The Stars beauty Pamela Anderson. She owes $493,144 in personal tax debt.

When you buy a lot of art you also have a lot of bills, especially if you don't bother to pay up. The case of Halsey Minor, the CNET founder and major art spender is fascinating. Some of Minor's most prized pieces from his collection of contemporary art will be sold by Phillips de Pury in New York in May and June of this year.

As Bloomberg reports, the sale is the fallout from a judgement last year on a case brought by ML Private Finance (part of Merryl Lynch). Minor had borrowed $25 million from ML Private Finance in 2007 putting his art up as collateral. Last year ML Private Finance was awarded $21.6 million and the court recently appointed Phillips to sell the art. Phillips has promised to pay ML Finance within 24 hours of receiving payment. The prime collection includes Marc Newson's Lockheed Lounge, shown above, which could fetch $1 million to $1.5 million and one of Richard Prince's nurse paintings, "Nurse in Hollywood#4" which is estimated at between $5 and $7 million.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Actor Christopher Lloyd has put his smaller house in Montecito, shown above, for sale for $3.6 million. The elegant home has two bedrooms, bamboo floors and a raised bamboo pergola overlooking the pool and spa. His other home in the area which was listed in 2007 for $11.27 million and was an estate of the day, has been taken off the market.
--Mark Wahlberg has listed his house in Beverly Hills at $15.9 million. The listing is here.
--Basketball player Elton Brand has sold his Hollywood Hills home for $4.55 million.
--Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon has listed his home in Brentwood. it's our estate of the day later today.
Another "Buffy" and "Angel" veteran, writer David Greenwalt, recently sold his house in the Pacific Palisades for $2.958 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--The asking price for the triplex penthouse at artist Julian Schnabel's, pink Palazzo Chupi building in the West Village has been cut by $5.5 million to $24 million. It was our estate of the day earlier in the year.
--Quarterback Tom Brady has cut the price on his Time Warner Center apartment from $18.29 million to $17.75 million. We'll be checking this one tomorrow.
--Cosmetics mogul Adrien Arpel and her husband, Ronald Newman, have paid $5.9 million for a seven-room co-op at 900 Fifth Ave.
--One of the Hamptons' premier properties, Fordune, will be listed for rent next year. This may be the first time since Henry Ford II owned the 42-acre oceanfront Southampton property. it will rent for $600,000 to use it from August through Labor Day next year and has 12 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a game room, a library, a large formal dining room, staff rooms and a commercial kitchen.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Cher has paid $1,400,000 to purchase a two-bedroom, 1,455-square-foot house in West Hollywood,California. It may be a house for her daughter, Chastity.
--Regis Philbin has put his Greenwich, Connecticut home on the market for $5.4 million. It was our estate of the day on Friday.
--Brad Garrett finally has sold his 10,223-square-foot mansion in Hidden Hills, California. The most recent listing price was $8.35 million.
--Little more than a year after he sold it for $2.9 million, the former house of fashion critic Steven Cojocaru in the Hollywood Hills is back on the market, for $3.695 million. The property website is here.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--The home used to film ABC's "Bachelor" shows is for sale and the price has been dropped to $8.75 million, down from just under $13 million. You can see listing pics from when the home was listed at $11.5 million here.
--Last month, philanthropist Carroll Petrie sold a Palm Beach, Fla., house for $3 million, $500,000 less than she paid less than a year earlier, to investor John D. Firestone, of the tire-manufacturing family. In May, she paid $7.45 million for a 6,700-square-foot, five-bedroom home about a mile farther south.

From Newsday's Real LI:
-- A 4.08-acre property on Meadow Lane in Southampton will be listed soon for $38 million. According to public records, the oceanfront mansion was owned by Virginia Salomon, who died last month. She was married to Citigroup's honorary chairman William R. Salomon (and former managing partner at Salomon Brothers, Inc.) for more than 70 years. The 6,000 square foot house, built in 1992, has six bedrooms and eight baths, with a gunite pool and is located just west of designer Calvin Klein's home.
--Hairspray actress Nikki Blonsky may or may not be leaving Great Neck. Her family's home was recently seen on the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island for $649,000.
--Hilary Duff's longtime boyfriend, New York Islanders center Mike Comrie has purchased a condo in Garden City.


From the Real Estalker:
--Former Green Bay Packer quarterback Brett Favre has listed his Wisconsin home for $475,000. It was our estate of the day on Saturday.
--Technology guru Halsey Minor is not only trying to sell his home in Bel Air, he is said to be spending $15 million to renovate Le Petit Trianon in San Francisco, which he bought in 2007. The home was on the market for a while (I first got wind of it in 2005) and is said to be in some disrepair.
--The listing for the $24 million Goldwyn mansion has been temporary pulled from the market so that it can be renovated.
--Baseball player Tom Glavine and his wife Christine have put their home in Alpharetta, Georgia on the market for $3.75 million. We'll be looking at this one as an estate of the day on Monday.
--Cameron Diaz is said to be house shopping in Beverly Hills.
--More Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner real estate rumors, this time it is said that they have put their home in Brentwood on the market for around $8 million.
--Tae-Bo king Billy Blanks is getting a divorce and has put his Hidden Hills home on the market for $11.5 million. The listing is here.

From The Sun:
--Robbie Williams has picked up a seven-bedroom mansion in the Beverly Park community in Los Angeles for over $20 million.

From ONTD:
--Lauren Conrad of The Hills has been spotted house shopping in her home town of Laguna Beach.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
-- Kurt A. Locher, formerly a Lehman Brothers managing director recently bought a $5.25 million apartment at 500 West End Avenue. His old place on Park Avenue is still on the market for $2.495 million. We discussed this one earlier this week.
--According to numbers prepared for The Observer by research site StreetEasy, the days of easy luxury apartment sales are over. As of Monday, Manhattan had 168 super-luxury listings asking at least $15 million each which is nearly twice the number from autumn 2006.
--Former investment banker Jack Grubman has put his New York City townhouse on the market for $32 million. It was our estate of the day on Thursday.
--Sarah Allentuch, a former assistant to Woody Allen, and her husband, Greg Mottola, who directed Superbad recently bought a $2.6 million apartment at the new One York condo.
----An East River mansion, 7 Sutton Square, has sold for $32.5 million, well above its $25 million asking price. The seller is William F. Reilly, a retired magazine mogul and the buyer is listed anonymously, though a billing address is given care of Wildenstein & Co., which suggests that the house now belongs to the art collector Guy Wildenstein.

From the Daily Mail:
--James Bond star Daniel Craig has picked up a £4million apartment near Regent's Park in London.

From the Real Estalker:
--Pete Sampras and his wife Bridgette cut the price on their Beverly Hills mansion from $25 million to $23 million. It seems to have worked. The home is now listed as "looking for backup."
----Actor Willem Dafoe has put his house in Accord, New York on the market for $850,000. It was our estate of the day on Saturday.
--Kimora Lee Simmons has put her Beverly Hills home on the market for $7.75 million. It is our estate of the day later today.
--Technology guru Halsey Minor, ho bought a Bel Air home for $20 million in 2006 now has put the home on the market for just $12.9 million. Why? Rumor has it that the much of the home as been stripped down and is empty and dirty. The listing is here.
--TV personality Debbie Matenopoulos and music executive Jay Faires have put their home, Wolf's Lair, shown at right, on the market. The Norman-style castle was built in the 1920s and includes a guest house with interiors by architect John Lautner, a heart-shaped pool and eight bedrooms total on the property. The couple reportedly bought in 2002 for $2.9 million and have now listed it at $7.5 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
-- Baseball pitcher Jaret Wright has sold his Dover Shores home in Newport Beach home for $1.67 million.
--Novelist Jackie Collins has eased out a Bel-Air area property she owns for $20,000 a month.
----Looks like Avril Lavigne has finally unloaded her home in the Mulhollland Estates area of Beverly Hills. the home which was first listed in March 2007 for $6.9 million has reportedly received a $5.2 million cash offer.
--Carla J. Christofferson, co-owner of the L.A. Sparks and a partner with the O'Melveny & Myers law firm, has listed her 5,300-square-foot Hollywood Hills home for $5.5 million. The restored 1928 California Spanish-style five-bedroom home includes a THX theater with a 96-inch projection screen. The virtual tour is here.

From Big Time Listings:
--Mr. Big Time takes a look at the real estate doings of Robert Downey Jr. and Hilary Duff.
--Actor and comedian Brad Sherwood has placed his four-bedroom house in Los Angeles' Encino area on the market for $4 million. The listing is here.
--Actor and movie director Michael Apted and his wife, writer Dana Stevens, have paid $1,784,000 for a three-bedroom house in Del Mar, Calif., in San Diego County.
--It's time to play "Which celebrity's house is this?" checking out a six-bedroom house in Brentwood which recently sold after having been on the market for $8,499,000.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Katie Holmes, who is set to appear in a Broadway show in the fall, is on the hunt for a rental on the Upper East Side, she's been spotted cruising apartments with monthly rates over $60,000.
--Entertainment lawyer Paul Schindler has sold his four-story co-op apartment on the Upper East Side for $16.5 million. He and his wife closed on a $13.4 million apartment at the Plaza.
--Ted Koppel has dropped the price of his Potomac, Maryland home. He first listed it in 2005 for $4.1 million and is now asking $1.94 million for the six-bedroom home which as an indoor pool, a gym with a sauna, maid's quarters and a horse barn.
--The Park Avenue apartment of the late socialite and philanthropist Frances Todman has sold for $22 million.
--From Page Six, Philip Seymour Hoffman and his girlfriend Mimi O'Donnell are buying a three-bedroom co-op loft n Manhattan's West Village that had been listed for $4.4 million. Big Time Listings unearthed the listing here.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--The New York State Court of Appeals has said that a shipping heir named Alistair Economakis and his wife, Catherine can proceed with their plans to take over 47 East Third Street, a a 15-unit, 60-room, 11,600-square-foot rent-stabilized tenement building and turn it into a luxury mansion without getting approval from the state's low-income housing agency. They bought the building and have taken over six apartments, which leaves nine units with tenants who've refused to get bought out.
--Nightlife king Simon Hammerstein has bought his first New York apartment, paying $1.27 million for a loft at 265 Water Street.
--Chinese pianist Lang Lang and his parents have picked up a duplex opposite Carnegie Hall, paying $1.895 million last month for a duplex at City Spire on West 56th Street.
--The brother of Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, the only president in Kazakhstan's 17-year post-U.S.S.R. history, Bolat Nazarbayev and his wife have paid around $20 million for a corner unit facing Central Park at the Plaza.
--Joy and Leonard Toboroff, the 74-year-old vice chairman of a Houston-based oil/gas-drilling outfit named Allis-Chalmers Energy are selling their duplex apartment that stretches across two Tribeca buildings, 39 and 41 North Moore Street with a list price of $17.9 million. The listing is here.