palace

$700,000 Austrian Emperor's Chimney Piece Heads Sotheby's Sale

Looking for a unique item to add a regal flourish to your interior decor? An extremely rare, important and well-preserved neo-Gothic terracotta chimney piece commissioned for Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia and King of Hungary, in the late 19th century, is being offered for sale during Sotheby's' Origines, Architecture & Heritage, Decoration and Garden Statuary auction in Paris on March 31. The incredible 8.5-ft. tall piece, built to surround a kingly fireplace at one of the imperial Hapsburg family palaces and bearing the emperor's coat of arms, is expected to fetch up to $700,000. Two knights standing on Corinthian columns flank the mantelpiece, which also bears the Emperor's motto Viribus Unitis, "With united forces."

Tags: antiques, antiquities, architecture, Austria, bohemia, chimney piece, emperor, fireplace, franz Joseph I, Hapsburg, hungary, palace, royalty, Sothebys, sothebys auction paris, terracotta

Live in a Castle Like Royalty, with Royalty

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

So what if you didn't just go visit a castle somewhere, or even just stayed in a castle-turned-hotel somewhere, but actually stayed in a castle with the royalty who owned it? Now that would be an experience. It's basically a different spin on the "bed and breakfast" idea, where you get to stay in a real castle with servants and butlers, walk in the gardens, eat in the main hall, admire the ancient portraits of royals gone before, and then on top you get to have tea and visit with the lord, knight, or princess that happens to live there too.

The only part that bothers me about all this is the idea that most of these people are opening their homes not because they want to share their history, or because they enjoy mingling with "commoners," (although maybe they do) but mostly because it just costs so much to keep those massive castles running. Maybe that makes the experience that much more genuine though -- amidst the luxury and royal treatment an underlying air of haughtiness from the nobles would definitely fit in with history!

(Ahem, I'm sure they're all very nice, really).

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Tags: bed and breakfast, BedAndBreakfast, castle, castles, hotel, palace, royalty, travel

The Golden House

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates

The Golden House is a new tourist attraction in Hong Kong. Apparently, it is modeled after an ancient palace, or perhaps is meant to be a composite of a variety of estates, but the most notable thing about it is that it was built from 2 tons of gold. The structure is gilded from its high ceilings and door frames right down to tableware and toilet seats. It cost about $38 million dollars to construct and is also available to be used for weddings.

Click past the jump for more photos.

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Tags: gold, gold house, golden, golden house, house, palace

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Pink Palace For Jordan

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Jordan, a.k.a Katie Price, is getting a mansion. Her husband, Peter Andre, just paid £3.5 million to have a palace built for his wife on the island of Cyprus, where his family is originally from. The holiday house will be pink, both inside and out , just like their wedding was last year. The couple met on the reality show "I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here."

Parallels were drawn between Jordan and Barbie at her wedding, so the mansion is likely to be tagged as the real-life Barbie Dream House when it is complete.

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Tags: cyprus, house, jordan, katie price, mansion, palace, peter andre, pink, wedding

Shrubland Park, Estate of the Day

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates

Shrubland Park, a palatial estate in East Anglia, England, is up for sale with an asking price of £23 million , or approximately $40 million. The Park was established in the sixteenth century, though there is evidence that the area was populated long before then, and the main buildings were designed by James Paine for a wealthy clergyman, John Bacon. It sits on 1,300 acres and, in addition to the 8-bedroom main house, the property has 42 cottages and houses, formal gardens, a pool, stables, a tennis court and shooting areas. The land agent, Hector Wykes-Sneyd, said "It's such a special place - not only in terms of Suffolk, it is a remarkable place in terms of anything in the country.... It needs a very rich person to afford to run it and keep it up." The property is one of a few of its size in the country, and really the only one in Suffolk, so the agent says that he expects a great deal of interest in it. If it is not sold as a whole, the property may be sold in 200 separate lots, with the main house on one of the largest parcels and individual homes on some of the smaller ones.

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Tags: $40 million, 23 million, cottages, east anglia, england, estate of the day, estates, formal gardens, mansion, palace, park, shrubland, shrubland park, suffolk