Here at Curbed celebrity real estate is a dime a dozen, from tales of woe, to multimillion-dollar transactions, to sports stars trading one massive mansion for another. How can one make sense of all these famous people buying and selling properties? Enter the Celebrity Real Estate Heat Map. Below, please find the 20 hottest stories from the past few months, taking place as close as Connecticut and as far away as Hawaii. Of course, NYC and Los Angeles are veritable epicenters of celebrity real estate madness, so be sure to zoom in on those cities closely. See someone missing? Leave 'em in the comments.
If you just can't get enough of Curbed in the burgeoning universe of social media, a reminder that Curbed is now on Pinterest and Google+. On both these accounts, expect to find a carefully curated selection of gorgeous images and top stories. Don't be shy. This will be fun. [The Management]
NYC—New York Social Diary photographs furniture maker Tucker Robbins' home for its weekly House column. Given Robbins' signature organic style, it's no surprise that "the walls of the front hallway are lined with wedding carpets out of river stick and goat skin that once belonged to the Tuareg tribe, nomads of the Sahara." [NYSD House]
BEVERLY HILLS—Guess jeans founder Georges Marciano has put his seven-bedroom estate on the market for $24.5M. The mansion has attracted lookie loos in droves: usually 10 Ferraris are parked out front. [Trulia Luxe Living]
THE INTERNET—The Huffington Post has released its list of 10 design Twitter handles to follow right now, and it includes @johnmaeda, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, @designsponge (of course), and Dwell magazine deputy editor @jamiegillin. [Huffington Post]
Celine Dion has listed her 24,000-square-foot private island estate, located some 15 minutes from Montreal, for 29.3M, and one really has to wonder: what would the 24,000-square-foot private island estate of a Vegas headliner who wore a "seven-pound tiara composed of 2,000 Austrian crystals" for her wedding and was once fined for using 6.5M gallons of water a year to fill her pool at her Florida compound actually look like?
Have a nomination for a jaw-dropping listing that would make a mighty fine House of the Day? Get thee to the tipline and send us your suggestions. We'd love to see what you've got.
Location: Greenwich, Conn. Price: $33,000,000 The Skinny: A-lister and recent controversy magnet Mel Gibson sold this 75-acre Greenwich estate back in April 2010 for a little less than $24M. That was a discount of over $5M off the final asking price, which had been chopped down from jaw-unhinging $39.5M. Now that very same property, dubbed Old Mill Farm, has returned to market for $33M. According to the brokerbabble, the 15,800-square-foot main house has just undergone a "new restoration/renovation," but there's little evidence of it, what with the aging furniture and worn carpets. If the interiors are a bit underwhelming, the grounds are utterly amazing, with formal gardens, a giant chess set, a swimming pool, tennis court with picturesque stone hut, and even a hedge maze. For those not afraid to spend upwards of $30M on a fixer-upper, this is just the ticket, one of Greenwich's last remaining grand estates.
· Old Mill Farm [Sotheby's]
Someone in Winona, Minn., is selling the "worst chair ever" for $100. "Elegantly designed to have zero lumbar support," the "ergonomically challenged" seat hurts "like a drunk clown at your 6th birthday who pissed in the punch and defiled your mother like all of your uncles did." Trades for "any other ugly throne" accepted. [Craigslist via Lovely Listing]
Welcome to Friday Open Threads, wherein Curbed passes the mic to readers: let thy voices be heard in the comments section—and, please folks, fight fair. Have something you want discussed next week? Send it this way.
It's official: an earthly being has dropped a record $90M to $100M on the 10,923-square-foot duplex penthouse of One57, a glassy midtown condo building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc. (The building is still under construction, but view the floorplan and finishes over here.) Said mysterious buyers will not only inhabit the highest residential space in the city—the unit occupies the 89th and 90th floors—but according to the developer they're also "a very nice family" and "someone that people would recognize."
Generally speaking, now, homes in the $90M to $100M price range are under the jurisdiction of a different stratosphere of the wealthy, like Russian venture capitalists or the god-blessed offspring of billionaires (Petra Ecclestone,Ekaterina Rybolovleva). Even Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison hovers in the $40M range, and the record that Rupert Murdoch set in 2005 when he dropped $44M on a triplex penthouse in Manhattan seems like peanuts now. So while one commenter over on Curbed NY postulates that the unnamed new owner of the One57 penthouse is the Beckham family, the claim seems dubious. (Although wouldn't that be something!) Got guesses? Leave them in the comments.
Jeff Andrews, the Los Angeles-based interior designer who counts Michael C. Hall, America Ferrera, and the Kardashians among his clients, has put his 1924 Spanish-style property on the market for $549K.Featured a few years ago in Elle Decor, the 1,600-square-foot two-bedroom is painted in dark colors—it "has no boundaries to it; it's less space-defining, which makes a room appear larger"—and has cove ceilings, wrought-iron railings, a 27-foot-long living room, a bathroom remodeled by Andrews himself, an eat-in kitchen with a vintage Wedgewood range, wood and concrete-slab floors, and views over the treetops of the lush, hilly Mt. Washington neighborhood. The cute, charming home is a far cry from the glitzier projects of Andrews' A-list clientele: next up, perhaps, is Ryan Seacrest's new compound?
With Facebook shares set to begin trading, well, right around now, it only makes sense to take a look around Silicon Valley, where Facebook's IPO is set to ignite the real estate market. According to recent reports, sellers in the Palo Alto area have been anxiously anticipating the flood of newly minted millionaires and speculators have already driven prices up by 10 percent. For all the conjecture, only now will we find out if these Facebook kids have a taste for luxury real estate. To make things a little easier on them, we've picked out five of Silicon Valley's finest—or at least most expensive—properties, starting with this, the Buck Estate. Built in 1934 for a wealthy San Francisco industrialist as a summer retreat, the English country-style residence lies less than eight miles from Facebook headquarters and features the sort of old world finishes that are hard to come by, even for the super wealthy. Currently listed for almost $11M, the 16,900-square-foot, six-bedroom mansion could use some (presumably expensive) TLC on the inside, but otherwise looks fit for a king, as well it should, because the Buck Estate was modeled after "Hampton Court in Middlesex, England, a 16th century royal family residence."
Created by the Singapore-based firm MAPS Design, the Residences at the W Koh Samui are some of the most attractive beachside villas in the world. With more than a half mile of white sand beach, only 19 residences, and a remote location, there's little chance of a crowd forming to spoil the paradise. The two- and three-bedroom homes are priced from 65M thai baht, or $2.07M, but there's little sense in converting the prices to dollars. According to the official W website: "The residential units are not offered to individuals who reside in the United States, entities organized under the law of the United States, nor to persons or entities located in the United States." It's not quite clear why this is, but perhaps it explains why Facebook's Eduardo Saverin, a Singapore resident, is looking to renounce his American citizenship.
· The Residences [W Koh Samui]
Loading comment form...
If you just can't get enough of Curbed in the burgeoning universe of social media, a reminder that Curbed is now on 
Duh: heirs of billionaires 
