madison

Today's contemporary home on Lake Monona in Wisconsin has perfect views of the Madison skyline. The modern angular home has 70 feet of lake frontage. The newer three-bedroom home has a Snaidero kitchen with granite countertops and custom cabinetry. The open floor plan has massive windows facing the lake. The master suite has a deck with a view and a bathroom with colorful curving tile and a huge tub. Other features include a theatre room, exercise room and a lower level with sliding glass doors. The home comes with sound, security and window cover retraction systems in place. This home is listed at $1.85 million.

Eterna watches really are a solid choice for mechanical timepiece nerds like myself. Fans know the brand was responsible for starting the most important Swiss watch movement maker ETA (now owned by the Swatch Group), and their range of other technical additions to the watch world such as adding ball bearings to automatic movements. A reminder of this in in their brand logo, which represents the five ball bearings you'd find in the automatic rotor attachment point. Their newest achievement is the Spherodrive - a cool name for an improvement on the mainspring barrel that was introduced last year. I am not going to go into much detail on what Spherodrive is here, though I did explain it at length (with images) in this article I wrote last year. The complication was introduced in a Madison watch, and this year Eterna will release another Madison watch with an 8 day power reserve as well as a Spherodrive complication. This is going to be one long lasting and reliable mechanical timepieces.

The new Eterna Madison Eight Days Spherodrive watch is in steel at 53mm tall and 38mm wide. Case is water resistant to 30 meters and the crystal is sapphire. Unlike the original Madison Spherodrive watch from last year, the mainspring barrel isn't visible on the dial. Though you do have the time, big date, and disc under window style power reserve indicator. I like how Eterna could have placed its fancy new technology in a futuristic watch, but kept with a nice classic style. The dial is available in silvered, gray, or black. Inside the watch is a new movement, the Eterna manually wound Caliber 3510. Price won't be too crazy (several thousand most likely), and for the money you get a very solidly made watch, with a very good movement, and a traditional style. Look for it soon.

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

NeighborhoodScout.com has used their matching function to find neighborhoods that are "discount equivalents" of some of the hot and pricey communities we recently covered in our Most Expensive Zip Codes estates.

The Neighborhood Scout deems that the town of Madison, Connecticut is a good equivalent for Malibu, the expensive celebrity-filled beach area north of Los Angeles. Malibu has a median price of $2.93 million but Madison has a far more reasonable median price of $649.344. Madison also has a much longer history than Malibu, it was first settled in 1641. Madison is also a beach community on the Connecticut shoreline. Hammonasset State Park in Madison boasts the state's longest public beach and like Malibu it gets crazy crowded in the summer.

In Malibu, especially in the elite Carbon Beach area where it is rumored that a sale in the $65 million range recently took place, you have to be prepared to pay a lot. Also even some of the most striking homes such as one of my favorite estate of the day properties, special effects master Stan Winston's Malibu home are in tight proximity to one another. In Madison, prices are for more reasonable. Today's home has a great setting on Long Island Sound with a front yard that leads to a double tiered sandy beach. The 5000 square-foot home has been renovated and includes a great room with floor to ceiling stone fireplace, a gourmet eat-in kitchen and six bedrooms total. The master bedroom has a private balcony overlooking the water and a spacious master bath. This home is listed at $4.9 million.

This latest blockbuster piece of real estate to hit the market in New York City is located on upper Madison. The seven-story 12,000+/- sq. ft. townhouse has its original architectural details. Inside there is a large central staircase and elevator. The home has investment and retail potential. It has been home to a high-end rug shop and an art galley. This amazing property is listed at $48 million. After the jump, just a tease of the grand scale of this home.