real estate news

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Leonard Bernstein's apartment in the Dakota is on the market again for $25.5 million. The listing is here.
--The apartment belonging to late author Rona Jaffe has sold for $1.72 million.
--Judd Hirsch has bought a two-bedroom apartment on the East Side for $925,000.
--A townhouse once rented by Will Smith is on the market for $12.5 million. The listing for this gorgeous home is here.
--The seller of Susan Soros' Philippe Starck-designed duplex, David Mimran, is paying $65,000 a month in rent at Trump Park Avenue.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Robert F. Fairchild, a Burgundy expert, has paid $2.95 million for a high-floor apartment on West 56th Street condo.
--Recently on-trial Washington, D.C., developer Norman Jemal has closed on a six and-a-half-room apartment at Trump Palace for $3.25 million. The apartment is for his parents.
--The Silk Building, which has been home to Keith Richards and Britney Spears, is now home to a member of a Japanese fashion dynasty. Adam Taki, part of a dynasty that founded the textile and retail group Takihyo back in 1751 and more recently owned the Anne Klein label, has bought a 1,831-square-foot duplex for $2.1 million.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties
--Johnny Damon and his wife, Michelle, have agreed to sell their Boston-area home for more than $5 million. The Damons paid $4.75 million for the six-bedroom house in late 2004. Former Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez recently cut the asking price for his Brookline house for the second time and former Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra has yet to find a buyer for his two-bedroom Boston-waterfront condo.
--San Francisco Giants outfielder Moisés Alou and his wife, Austria, have put their San Francisco home on the market for $1.949 million. The home was rebuilt in 2005 and is our estate of the day later today.
--Democratic activist and businesswoman Bren Simon, wife of shopping-mall magnate and Indiana Pacers co-owner Melvin Simon, is looking to sell a mansion in Los Angeles's Bel-Air neighborhood for $17.5 million, a whopping $4.5 million more than she paid for it last year. The listing for the 18,000-square-foot home which was modeled after the Petit Trianon at Versailles, is here.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Producer Brian Grazer and his wife, novelist Gigi Levangie Grazer listed their 8,800-square-foot Pacific Palisades home of nine years at $27.5 million. It was unlisted last week. The listing still seems to be up here.
--More Manhattan Beach sports real estate. L.A. Clippers forward Yaroslav Korolev is the latest athlete who has lived in this five-bedroom, Mediterranean-style home in Manhattan Beach.
--Kenneth Brown, the decorator who is host of HGTV's "reDesign," has sold his loft in West Hollywood for slightly more than $1 million.
--Five years ago, former KTLA and KCBS anchor Terry Anzur put her Pasadena home on the market for $600,000 and went to Florida. She's now returning and has put her West Palm Beach home on the market. The listing for the four bedroom home is here.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Fashion guru Elie Tahari has sold his penthouse apartment to Gregory Olsen. The four-bedroom condo at Trump International has sold for $13.05 million.
-- TV reporter Penny Crone has paid $2 million for an apartment in Midtown.
-- Susan Allen has sold her six bedroom Southampton guest house for more than $20 million.
--Leonard Stern better finish up his Southampton home now, he has sold his other home in Bridgehampton.
--It turns out that Susan Soros paid exactly $25 million for her Starck-designed home at 115 Central Park West.
--Looks Len Blavatnik won't get his co-op after all. He was denied at 998 Fifth Ave. even though he was all set to pay $27.5 million.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren and her husband, John Coale, paid $2.57 million for a 1,582-square-foot apartment on the site of the former Studebaker Building on Broadway at 48th Street
--The Rev. Dr. Robert Stephanopoulos, a leader of the country's Greek Orthodox community and father of George Stephanopoulos has bought a $1.08 million co-op at 399 East 72nd Street.
--The neo-Georgian townhouse at 22 West 74th Street, that was the 42-year home of the Stephen Gaynor School, has been sold for $9.1 million to a hedge-fund manager and his wife.
--Albert Hoser, the founder of the Siemens Foundation, has sold his penthouse at the Park Belvedere for $3.97 million.

From the NY Times Big Deal:
--Alexis Stewart will be combining three units into a triplex apartment at a Richard Meier-designed building on West Street. The combined units which measure around 6,900 square feet cost about $19 million.
-- William A. Ackman, a hedge fund founder paid $26 million in late May for a three-bedroom duplex at the Beresford.
--Sanjiv S. Sidhu, a dot-com boom and bust and boom again story has paid $2.85 million for a two-bedroom, 1,600-square-foot apartment at the Grand Millennium, shown above.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go' s has listed her San Fernando Valley home for $2.199 million because she is moving to Austin, Texas. The home in the Longridge Estates area of Studio City has five bedrooms and a grotto pool and spa. The listing is here.
--Lauryn Hill is renting space in a loft in a 1920s for $3,000 a month.
--Bruce Davison is selling a Sherman Oaks home that he worked on for 20 years. The asking price is close to $2.3 million.
--The longtime Beverly Hills home of Hollywood personal manager Jay Bernstein is in escrow at just under $3.5 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--We've heard about this for a while but now it's official Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams are living in the Treehouse, a 2,000 square-foot post-and-beam house that was once the home of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi.
--Rodeo cowboy Todd Tee Tramp is selling his five-acre Lancaster ranch and moving to Missouri. The ranch is listed at $719,900.
--The Beverly Hills home of actor Jimmy Stewart was torn down in 2000 and now a mansion built on the site of his house and garden has been sold for its $25-million asking price.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Star Jones has pulled her apartment off the market.
--Russian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik has finally found his co-op in New York. He bought a full-floor apartment belonging to investment banker Peter Schoenfeld for its asking price of $27.5 million. Blavatnik had been turned down when he tried to buy Mary Tyler Moore's apartment at 927 Fifth Ave.
-- Stone Phillips has sold is apartment for $4.45 million.
--What price nostalgia? Garrison Keillor has bought the same apartment in the El Dorado he sold back in the 1990s for around $760,000 for the price of $3.6 million.
-- Solaria, the new 20-story building in Riverdale has constructed a white dome-shaped observatory on the rooftop equipped with a Meade telescope. All residents will get stargazing lessons as well as a free one-year membership to the Museum of Natural History, home of the Rose Center Planetarium.
--Mary Tyler Moore has sold a co-op appointment she has owned in the San Remo for $6.6 million.


From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Dan Abrams is buyingg the Greenwich Village apartment he has been renting for $2.17 million .
--Republican fundraiser Mallory Factor sold his townhouse to Perry Dean Rogers president Steven Foote.
--You can live under Barbara Walters for $18.9 million. It's our estate of the day later today. The estate belongs to the Lindemann family. Adam Lindemann recently sold an apartment that was listed at $21 million.
--A "green" townhouse on Reade Street in Tribeca has been sold for $7.7 million. The home has geothermal heating and cooling systems.
--Jonathan Grayer, the chairman and C.E.O. of test-prep company Kaplan, has sold his Upper West Side condo for $7.195 million.

A quick update on a story we have been following. Don Johnson's  real estate woes are becoming more solidified. Unless the actor manages to find a quick $14.3 million, his Woody Creek estate in Colorado will be sold by the Pitkin County public trustee. Lenders filed a motion to let the force the sale and a magistrate has ordered the sale because Johnson hasn't been paying off a  $10.6 million note. Johnson's main estate is to be sold April 26 and an adjacent property with a guest house will be sold May 10. Johnson managed to get himself out of a similar scrape in 2004 when he obtained new financing for the house and his publicist has said that this will happen again.

From the New York Post's Gimme Shelter

--Modelizer and international gadabout Flavio Briatore is buying a $25 million apartment in the soon-to-be-refurbished Plaza hotel. He bought an apartment in One Beacon Court last year for $11 million.
--That $27.5 million two-bedroom Haupt apartment might end up being a packed house. Word is a couple with four children are buying  which might cause a fracas with the coop board.
--Lovely Lands End may be no more. The mansion in Sands Point, Long Island may end up being razed in favor of a small development of five luxury houses. 


From the LA Times Hot Property:

--Dr. McDreamy, Patrick Dempsey has just sold his Hollywood Hills home for $2.5 million.
--Doris Day's  Beverly Hills home is on the market for $5.25 million. The listing for the classic home can be found here.
--Don't go feeling sorry for soon-to-be-divorced Nick Lachey,he closed escrow last week on the Bel-Air home of Seal and Heidi Klum.  Lachey's "Newlyweds" home was a Mediterranean McMansion whereas his new home is a spare four-bedroom contemporary. Lachey paid around $5 million for the home.


From the Toronto Star:

Singer Avril Lavigne is selling her Toronto home. The two-bedroom home has over 2,400 square feet of space including a master suite with a Jacuzzi tub. The house has been on the market a little less than two months and the price has already been dropped to $599,000 from $618,000.

From the National Ledger:
The UK paper The Sun reports that Britney Spears has purchased a $5.1 million mansion in Hawaii.