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Celebrity Real Estate Round-Up, 2010-- Who's Still On The Market?

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


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.

Mel Gibson Lists Costa Rican Hideaway For $35 Million

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

mel gibsonIs a 500-acre spread in Costa Rica not private enough? That's the reason Mel Gibson is giving for listing his tropical getaway, Hacienda Dorada, for sale. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Gibson's property is up for sale through Engel & Volkers for $35 million because the oceanfront property is no longer private enough and he is plagued by paparazzi when he is there. The estate on the Nicoya Peninsula has a seven-bedroom main house, a pair of two-bedroom homes, each with a private pool. The property is staffed full time. He brought the property in 2007 for $25.8 million.

Gibson may be in for a bit of a wait if he wants to sell this one. Earlier this year he finally sold Old Mill Farm, his 75-acre Greenwich, Connecticut estate. It went for nearly $24 million after spending three years on the market and having a series of price cuts. He bought the property in 1994 for $9.3 million.

His Malibu property, Lavender Hill Farm, where his ex-wife Robyn lived, hit the market earlier this year for $14.5 million is still listed but with a lower price of $12.75 million.

Sunday Real Estate Round-Up, 11/28/10

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


From Homes and Property UK:
--Sienna Miller has dropped the price on her two-bedroom Georgian mews house in Maida Vale. It is now listed at £1.1 million.

From the LA Times:
--Actor Justin Berfield, has sold a Calabasas house he bought for $3.75 million four years ago for $2.1 million. He bought the house in 2006 from Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.
--Director-producer Marcos Siega and his wife, Lisa, have sold their Sunset Strip-area home for $1.635 million.
--Two comedians are among recent buyers of lofts at Dogtown Station in Venice. Dov Davidoff bought a single-story unit that was listed for about $900,000 and Neal Brennan purchased a three-story town house listed at $1,050,000.


From the Chicago Tribune:
--Chicago mayoral candidate and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun has her five-bedroom, Prairie-style town home in Hyde Park on the market for $1.9 million. The listing is here.


From Newsday:
--Kathleen Turner has sold her home on Bluff Road in Amagansett, New York. The sale price was $3.9 million, a little less than half the $8 million price she asked for the property in 2005. She bought the home in 1990 for $488,500.

--A home in Southampton, New York has hit the market for $18.8 million. The 3.4 acre property has approval for a subdivision into two 1.7 acre lots. There is already an 11-room home on the property. The listing is here.

--A home on Gin Lane in Southampton recently sold for $12.85 million.

From the Real Estalker:
--Movie producer Joe Roth has listed his amazing Art Deco Santa Monica, California home for $12.45 million. He bought the home in 2004 for $9 million and decorator Michael Smith redid the interiors. The listing is here.


From NY Observer:
--Mayor Bloomberg's nominee to run the city schools, former Hearst head Cathleen Black sold her former Connecticut home, a five-bedroom antique colonial on 27 acres in Litchfield County for sold for $1.98 million, below the $2.35 million asking price.
--CitiGroup exec Michael Del Giudice spent $5.5 million for two apartments at 36 Gramercy Park East, including a $4.3 million on a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom unit on the ninth floor and a penthouse for $1.24 million.
--One of the 25 apartments at 510 Park Avenue was recently listed for $15.9 million, reduced to $13.9 million, and sold for $11 million. The buyer is Stephanie Hessler, while the sellers are Mitchell and Yonina Davidson.
--Music power agent Peter Mensch has bought his very own West Village townhouse for $7.25 million at 267 West 11th Street. Mr. Mensch's Q Prime talent agency has represented Garbage, Nickel Creek, Snow Patrol and Josh Groban. The seller is Melissa Meyer.
--Kelsey Grammer has traded his $29,000-per-month three-bedroom rental for a $6.5 million four-bedroom apartment which was originally listed at $7.52 million.
--Author Andrew Trees has sold his two-bedroom unit at The Orion for $1.02 million.
--Isaac Mizrahi bought a unit at 59 West 12th Street for $3.5 million.
--Leslie Alexander, owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team sold his two penthouses at the Superior Ink building for $31.5 million.

From the Wall Street Journal:
Jason Lee has sold his home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles home. It was listed at$3.25 million, $100,000 less that Lee bought it for, when we checked it out as an estate of the day and it sold for $3.1 million.

--Norman Zada, the founder of Perfect 10 magazine, has sold his Beverly Park mansion for $16.5 million. It was once listed for $24.5 million.

10 of the Most Expensive Celebrity Homes on the Market that We Love

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


Mirror, mirror on the wall. Whose house is the fairest of them all?

Which celebrities have the most expensive properties on the market right now? Let's apologize up front for not including any pocket listings that we don't know about. (In fact, if you'd be so kind as to let us know about them, we'd be most grateful.)

And sorry, but we aren't counting Candy Spelling's Bel-Air listing at an unrealistic $150 million here -- not because it isn't a super property (if overpriced) but because despite her befriending us on Facebook, we still don't quite consider her a celebrity. We're also not including Dennis Hopper's estate, no disrespect intended toward the recently departed but if we opened the cemetery floodgates, there wouldn't be enough room in cyberspace to list them all. And lastly, we're so sick of athletes who misbehave that we'll pass on considering them celebrities for the moment. Overgrown kids maybe, but not celebrities.

So with those caveats, here's the unofficial Luxist list of 10 of our favorite and most expensive celebrity homes on the market.

1) Billy Joel's Sagaponack Village house for $19.9 million. We love love love this beachfront house in Sagaponack Village South that sits on 145 feet of oceanfront. We even loved it when it was first listed at $22.5 million. Classy, elegant, blends with the surroundings. You half expect a seagull to land on you while you stare at the photos. High beamed ceilings, white-washed, New Englandy without the pretensions. It was renovated in 2009 and clearly is a place where great music could be made -- although apparently not between Billy Joel and his soon-to-be-ex wife Katie Lee Joel. Nothing like a divorce to force the issue of liquidating the real estate. And nothing like a recession to keep things from moving. The piano man and his fourth wife also listed the property next door to this one for $12 million. There are some reports it sold in the $10 million vicinity.



Oak Bar Creates Mel Gibson Cocktail

Filed under: Dining, Spirits


Want a drink that just might be a career-ender? Meet the Mel Gibson. The Plaza Hotels's Oak Bar in the Oak Room, a recent Luxist Awards winner for best hotel bar, has come up with one whopper of a drink. The Mel Gibson is a "bi-polar cocktail" that is a stomach-churning blend of Van Gogh vodka, Bols Genever Gin, Vermouth, club soda, and cocktail onion juice. The drink sells for $19 enough to elicit a rant perhaps from even the most mild-mannered drinker.

[via Black Book]

Mel Gibson's Old Mill Farm Sold For More Than $5 Million Under List Price

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

mel gibsonBack in April we learned that Mel Gibson had sold Old Mill Farm, his 75-acre Greenwich estate. Now the Greenwich Time has news on the price. The home sold for nearly $24 million after spending three years on the market. We first saw this property hit the market in 2007 for $39.5 million. At the sale time the listing price had been carved down to $29.75 million. He bought the property in 1994 for $9.3 million.

According to town records the new buyer is Cosette Property LLC. No information is available on the company but this could be a trust for a buyer who wants to remain hidden. The paper says that the highest-priced residential transaction this year in Greenwich was the $31.4 million sale of a mansion on 22 acres at 30 John St., bought by a company that lists Tommy Hilfiger as its principal. That property was our estate of the day back in April and was listed for $33 million. Hilfiger sold another Greenwich home last fall for $20 million. That one was listed at $27.9 million when it was our estate of the day back in 2008.

Old Mill Farm is a design by architect Charles Lewis Bowman built in 1926 for his horse-loving client, G.L. Ohrstrom. The home is one of the last great manor homes in Greenwich and is significant not just for the architecture but for the fact that it has 77 acres of land. The home itself is an Elizabethan-inspired Tudor mansion of 15,800 square feet and the property has 15 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms total. The jaw-dropping room of the place is the great hall which has a 40-foot cathedral ceiling with a stone minstrel's gallery, walk-in fireplace and leaded glass ceilings. The grounds, which were done by landscape designer James Doyle, include formal gardens and a maze. There is also a terrace pool, tennis court, greenhouse, stable, staff houses, log cabin and a pond on the property.

Gibson's Lavender Hill Farm in Malibu remains on the market at $14.5 million.

Mel Gibson Sells Art At A Loss

Filed under: Auctions, Celebrity Shopping, Art

mel gibson maxfield parrish daybreak
Mel Gibson may be a fan of Maxfield Parrish's art but it's looking like the art wasn't such a good investment for the actor and his soon-to-be ex-wife Robyn. One of their paintings, Maxfield Parrish's famous 1922 "Daybreak" sold for $5.234 million at Christie's in New York, on the lower end of the $4 million to $7 million presale estimate. Bloomberg News reports that Robyn Gibson paid $7.632 million for the painting at Christie's in 2006 setting an auction record for the work of the American artist.

The field of Maxfield Parrish collectors is far smaller than artists like Picasso or Warhol. Parrish's unabashed sentimentality isn't popular with most people. It's no surprise that Michael Jackson was a fine of Parrish's idealized scenes. In fact the video for "You Are Not Alone" was inspired by Daybreak. Jim Halperin, co-chairman of Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, was one of the bidders on Daybreak but lost out to another bidder. He told Bloomberg that the sale was a great deal, a view confirmed by other experts. The piece is the most coveted and famous of Parrish's works.

Another Gibson Parrish, "Sing A Song of Sixpence," a mural which hung at Old Mill Farm in Greenwich, Connecticut, sold for 2.2 million against an estimate of $2.5-$3.5 million. The Art Newspaper reveals that the Gibson consignment brought $10,991,500 against estimates of $9,789,000-$15,657,000.

Faring far better was Andrew Wyeth's Off Shore, 1967, which sold for $6,354,500 against estimates of $1.2 million -$4.8 million.

Mel Gibson Finally Sells Old Mill Farm

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

mel gibsonIt took almost three years but Mel Gibson's Greenwich, Connecticut home, Old Mill Farm, may have finally sold. The Stamford Advocate points out that the contract was reported on the Greenwich Multiple Listing Service Tuesday. No details on the buyer or a selling price are available. When the estate hit the market in 2007 it was listed at $39.5 million but cut the price last year to $29.75 million.

Old Mill Farm is a design by architect Charles Lewis Bowman built in 1926 for his horse-loving client, G.L. Ohrstrom. The home is one of the last great manor homes in Greenwich and is significant not just for the architecture but for the fact that it has 77 acres of land. The home itself is an Elizabethan-inspired Tudor mansion of 15,800 square feet and the property has 15 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms total. The jaw-dropping room of the place is the great hall which has a 40-foot cathedral ceiling with a stone minstrel's gallery, walk-in fireplace and leaded glass ceilings. The grounds, which were done by landscape designer James Doyle, include formal gardens and a maze. There is also a terrace pool, tennis court, greenhouse, stable, staff houses, log cabin and a pond on the property.

One thing that might not be going along with the property is the mural in the dining room. A sharp-eyed commenter recently pointed out that the Maxfield Parrish painting Sing a Song of Six Pence which is shown in the dining room in these listing pictures from Sotheby's Realty is set to be auctioned off for an estimated $2.5-3.5 million next month.

One of Gibson's other properties, his Lavender Hill Farm in Malibu, remains on the market for $14.5 million.

[Thanks, James]

Mel Gibson's Lavender Hill Farm, Estate of the Day

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


The Real Estalker dropped a bit of delicious real estate news on Friday, Mel Gibson is selling another of his Malibu properties. In 2008 he sold off several Malibu properties but held onto his compound in the gated Serra Retreat community. Lavender Hill Farm is a hacienda-style retreat on 2.57 acres. The grounds include fruit orchards, organic gardens, a tennis court, pool and three guest houses. The main house rambles over 5,400 square feet of space and offers the owners privacy in a second floor master suite with a separate sitting room. The remodeled home has six bedrooms total. The living and dining rooms have tiled floors and rough hewn beamed ceilings. Other details include a large country kitchen with tiled counters, breakfast room, library, a media/music room, office, exercise room and sun room. A particularly nice touch is the open entertainment pavilion with a fireplace and built in barbecue center. The Real Estalker says that Mel Gibson's ex-wife Robyn has been in residence at the home. It is listed at $14.5 million. Hopefully it won't stay on the market as long as his Greenwich, Connecticut home which has been listed for 3 years. Check out more images at the property website.

Mel Gibson Chops The Price On His Greenwich Home Again

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


Mel can't sell. The soon-to-be-divorced star can't seem to shake Old Mill Farm, his Greenwich, Connecticut home. Gibson first put the home on the market in the summer of 2007 for $39.5 million. He dropped the price to $35 million last September. But with a divorce in the works and an eighth child on the way with his new girlfriend, he's got bills to pay and a home to get rid of and so now he's pared the price down to under $30 million. Old Mill Farm can be yours for $29.75 million.

Old Mill Farm is a design by architect Charles Lewis Bowman built in 1926 for his horse lover client, G.L. Ohrstrom. The home is one of the last great manor homes in Greenwich and is significant not just for the architecture but for the fact that it has 77 acres of land. The home itself is an Elizabethan-inspired Tudor mansion of 15,800 square feet and the property has 15 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms total. The jaw-dropping room of the place is the great hall which has a 40-foot cathedral ceiling with a stone minstrel's gallery, walk-in fireplace and leaded glass ceilings. The grounds, which were done by landscape designer James Doyle, include formal gardens and a maze. There is also a terrace pool, tennis court, greenhouse, stable, staff houses, log cabin and a pond on the property.

You'd think that this new low price might lead to a sale but in Greenwich, as the NY Times reports, nothing is certain anymore. Greenwich has been home to some of the biggest price drops in the history of residential real estate including the top spot in our recent list of big price cuts, Leona Helmsley's Dunnellen Hall which has dropped in price by $50 million since it first hit the market. One person who seems to have sold in the area is Regis Philbin. His Greenwich home listing has disappeared.


Mel Gibson Drops The Price On Old Mill Farm

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


After reading about the real estate downturn in Greenwich, Connecticut in a recent issue of The New Yorker, I wondered what effect this will have on homes still on the market, in particular, Mel Gibson's Old Mill Farm. A quick look at the listing reveals that Gibson, who has had the property on the market for $39.5 million for over a year now, recently dropped the price to $35 million.

The home is one of Greenwich's treasures. No McMansion, Old Mill Farm is a design by architect Charles Lewis Bowman built in 1926 and is one of the last great manor homes in Greenwich and is significant not just for the architecture but for the fact that it has 77 acres of land which includes formal gardens, a maze, pool tennis court, greenhouse, stable staff houses, log cabin and a pond. The home itself is an Elizabethan-inspired Tudor mansion of 15,800 square feet and the property has 15 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms total. The great hall has a 40-foot cathedral ceiling with a stone minstrel's gallery, walk-in fireplace and leaded glass ceilings. In this real estate climate, will a $4.5 million price cut be enough or does Mel need to lower the price a bit more?

Mel Gibson's Old Mill Farm, Estate of the Day

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


I first mentioned this listing on Sunday. The esteemed Braden Keil of the NY Post broke the story that Mel Gibson has put his Greenwich, Conn. home on the market. The listing with photos just went live today so I wanted to bring you the pictures of why this home just might be worth the $39.5 million asking price. As commenter Spectacular Bid noted on my last post about this house, Old Mill Farm is a design by architect Charles Lewis Bowman built in 1926 for his horse lover client, G.L. Ohrstrom. The home is one of the last great manor homes in Greenwich and is significant not just for the architecture but for the fact that it has 77 acres of land.

The home itself is an Elizabethan-inspired Tudor mansion of 15,800 square feet and the property has 15 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms total. The jaw-dropping room of the place is the great hall which has a 40-foot cathedral ceiling with a stone minstrel's gallery, walk-in fireplace and leaded glass ceilings. The grounds, which were done by landscape designer James Doyle, include formal gardens and a maze. There is also a terrace pool, tennis court, greenhouse, stable, staff houses, log cabin and a pond on the property. For your $39.5 million you really do get a chance to slip into a whole other world. After the jump, imagine the movie Mel could have made here.

Sunday Real Estate Round-Up

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping


From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Mel Gibson has put his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut on the market for $39.5 million for the 28-room Tudor-style mansion on more than 75 acres. Gibson bought the home in 1994 for a reported $9.25 million. It has 15 bedrooms, 12 full bathrooms, a great room with a 40-foot ceiling and a massive fireplace and landscaped grounds that include a maze. The listing is here.
--Christie Brinkley is set to relist her Tower Hill estate in Bridgehampton. It was last on the market for asking price of $26.5 million.
--Fashion designer Tory Burch has just rented a s home in the Hamptons for the next four weeks for around $360,000.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Seagram liquor heir and Warner Music Chairman and C.E.O. Edgar Bronfman Jr. has sold his 31-foot-wide townhouse at 15 East 64th Street. It will become the second townhouse in New York City history to break the $50 million mark. He downsized into 1040 Fifth Avenue which was listed at $19.5 million.
--John Cleese, who recently put his gorgeous California ranch on the market for $28 million, has bought a New York apartment for under $1.5 million.
--A two-bedroom loft at 380 West 12th Street was sold by American socialist leaders Jack Barnes and Mary-Alice Waters for $1,872,500.
--Gregg Hughes of the Opie and Anthony radio show has bought a 40th-floor apartment in the Trump Place complex for $3.35 million.

From the Real Estalker:
--Jamie Kennedy has picked up a modern house in Los Feliz owned by fashion designer Philippe Naouri which was listed at $2.275 million.
-- Salvator Xuereb and his wife writer Nikki Toscano have purchased a home in the Franklin Hills/Los Feliz area for $915,000.
--Michael Madsen's Malibu home has headed for foreclosure is now listed at $7.8 million, a deep discount since it was on the market for $9.95 million just a few months ago. The listing is here.
--Once again a messy divorce equals a house on the market. Anne Heche is splitting from her cameraman hubby Coley Lafoon and their charming Paul Williams English-style Los Angeles home is on the market for $3.795 million. The listing is here.
--Britney Spears has put her Beverly Hills home back on the market, this time for $7.495 million (up a couple million from the last time she listed).
--Rumor has it that Paris Hilton is set to put her house on the market.

From Big Time Listings:
--The official price that Josh Duhamel and Fergie paid for their new house in Brentwood is $4.875 million.
--The official price for Denis Leary's Manhattan apartment is $3.9 million.
--Nicky Hilton's new Hollywood Hills home cost her $2.8 million.
--Richard Gere's Manhattan townhouse sold for $12.8 million.


A tip from a reader, Darlene:
--If Clarence Clemmons ever wants to give up the music business, the legendary sax player could do a fine business in real estate voiceover. Check out his smooth jazz and vocal stylings to sell his home at One City Plaza in West Palm Beach, Florida.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Damon Dash has sold his Benedict Canyon home of five years for $3.6 million.
--Frank Leboeuf, a member of the French national soccer team when it won the World Cup in 1998, has just closed escrow on a Craftsman-style home in L.A.'s Miracle Mile area for $979,000.
--Radio man Todd Leitz has sold his Sherman Oaks home which was listed at $829,000 and bought a larger residence in Studio City for about $1.5 million.
--Gavin MacLeod, captain of "The Love Boat," lived in this '60s-style home from 1976 to 2001, and now it's on the market in Palm Springs at $899,000. The listing is here.

Mel to Sell Malibu Pad

Filed under: Estates

Mel Gibson has just put his Malibu mansion on the market. The house is next door to Britney Spears's home in a gated community and the actor is tired of all the commotion that Brit causes. Apparently, with the paparazzi and fans swarming all over the gates, not to mention the recent visits from the police and child services, Mel fears for the safety of his children.

Gibson bought the beachfront house for $24 million back in October. At 7,000-sq feet, it has six bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a gym, library, an office, elevator, bar, lagoon pool and a cabana. Mel and his family will be moving into a home that the actor already owns in not-too-far-away Santa Monica Mountains, nearer to the Catholic church that he built.  

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