Archive for 2013-01-20
Big Time Banker John J. Mack Lists Duplex Penthouse
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $22,500,000
SIZE: 3,650 square feet, 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms (plus a staff suite)
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in the fall of 2009, former Morgan Stanley CEO John J. Mack and his wife Christy (reportedly and allegedly) coughed up $13,500,000 for a tired but still stunning 33-foot wide Beaux Arts style carriage house with private garage on the Upper East Side owned by high society horticulturist Bunny Mellon who used the 100-plus year old building as a storage facility for her pricey gew-gaws and doo-dads.
Whatever upgrades and renovations Westchester County-based Mister and Missus Mack made to the comely carriage house must be complete—or nearly complete—because they've recently tossed their duplex penthouse pied-a-terre atop an historic pre-war condo building on East 63rd Street on the market with an asking price of $22,500,000.*
The floor plan included with online marketing materials shows the approximately 3,650 square foot penthouse has four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, plus a prison cell-sized staff room with attached bathroom.
The main living spaces are on the lower level and include a 26-foot long room with fireplace that Mister and Missus Mack use as a living/dining room combination. The original dining room is set up in listing photos as a library/den that connects directly through to narrow but recently renovated kitchen.
A long corridor off the entrance hall connects to a small guest/family bedroom with large private bathroom and a large master bedroom with decorative fireplace, three closets and a bidet-equipped bathroom.
Upstairs there are two more guest/family bedrooms, both with two closets and private—not to mention properly windowed—en suite bathrooms. Also upstairs are laundry facilities, a 27-plus foot long all-glass solarium with city views and built-in wet bar and an approximately 625 square foot private terrace furnished with what appears to be a whole lotta high-priced patio furniture designed by Richard Schultz.
Listing information suggests the Mack's duplex spread was decorated "in the spirit of" the very proper and 5-star Dorchester Hotel in London. As far as we can tell that means it's all a bit frou-frou, decidedly traditional and a wee bit stuffy but very correct if not exactly exciting.
Property records show Mister and Missus Mack's property portfolio also includes an 8,512 square foot house on 3-plus acres in Rye, NY, at least five bay and ocean properties—three with houses, two vacant—in the upscale seaside community of Wilmington, NC.
*For the record, property records show this penthouse owned by a corporate entity that links directly back to a residential address in Rye, NY owned, according to property records, by Mister and Missus Mack.
exterior photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
(interior) listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty
Texas Businessman Tom Hicks Puts $135M Price Tag on Vast Dallas Estate
SELLER: Tom and Cinda Hicks
LOCATION: Dallas, TX
PRICE: $135,000,000
SIZE: 28,996 square feet
NOTE: For heaps and piles of photos of every corner of this house, guesthouse, pool house and grounds, head on over here.
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: They say everything is bigger in Texas and when it comes to the sprawling estate owned by financier turned professional sport team titan Tom Hicks and his wife Cinda the adage certainly holds true, especially when it comes to the gargantuan $135,000,000 asking price they're rumored and reported by Candy Evans at Candy's DIrt to have quietly slapped on their epic, 25 acre estate in the fancy-schmancy Mayflower Estates 'hood in Dallas.
Mister Hicks made a mountain of money in the leveraged buy out and private equity industries before he started buying up professional sports teams. At various times he's owned the Mesquite Championship Rodeo, fifty-percent of the Liverpool FC (soccer), the Dallas Stars (hockey) and the Texas Rangers (baseball), which he sold in 2010 for around $590 million. Many reports indicate Mister Hicks has lost a significant amount of his net worth over the last few years but make no mistake he and the missus remain filthy rich and financially able to live in whatever manner they choose. Their decision to sell their vast Dallas estate likely has less to do with their declining but still substantial wealth and far more to do with the fact that they're empty nesters rambling around in a house more than ten times the size of the average American home.
According to Miz Evans' thorough discussion, the Hicks' humongous, compound-like estate includes a titanic, chateau-style 28,996 square foot main house, a matching 6,300 square foot guest house and a 7,200 square foot pool house, plus additional outbuildings.
The stately and downright imposing main manse was originally designed in 1939 for Italian count Pio Crespi and his American wife Florence by distinguished high society architect Maurice Fatio and acquired by Mister and Missus Hicks about 16 years ago for an unknown amount of dough. The Hicks spent 5-10 years and—according to Candy's canaries—close to $100,000,000 on a soup-to-nuts renovation, restoration and expansion headed up by motorcycle riding and leather gear loving New York City-based architect Peter Marino.
We're not sure exactly how many bedrooms and bathrooms are in the main house and/or on the property but Your Mama thinks it's probably safe to say there's plenty to room to comfortably house several families.
The grounds are a studied mix of manicured and rustic and include meadow-like rolling lawns, long allees of mature trees, a spring-fed creek criss-crossed by stone bridges, rose and vegetable gardens, several ponds and water features and dense forests woven with quiet pathways. There's also a resort-scaled swimming pool, and adjacent a pool house with recreation facilities and movie theater, a tennis court and second guest house.
The next owner of the Hicks' estate may want to know that maintaining the vast estate will require an astonishing amount of water. Even with a private well Mister and Missus Hicks consistently rank among the highest users of water in a state regularly racked by drought. In August 2011 reports numerous multiple media outlets in the Dallas/Houston/Fort Worth area reported that Mister and Missus Hicks used 1.35 million gallons of public water for the month of June alone and in July 2012 the Dallas Morning News reported they consumed a total of 12,315,020 gallons of public water in 2011.
Like we usually do when it comes to dissin' and discussin' high-priced real estate in Dallas Your Mama gave the deliciously dishy Dallas-based property gossip Candy Evans a ringy-dingy and asked if she thought there was much of a market for a $135,000,000 house in Dallas. She told us, "It is likely there is not a market in Dallas for a $135 million estate but I have no doubt there will be offers because where else can you have 25 acres and horses and be 8 miles from downtown? But then, never underestimate the power of oil money. One local tyke owns a home on Turtle Creek Blvd. plus a home in nearby Highland Park just because he likes to have Sunday picnics on the creek. Rich people are nine kinds of odd ducks so maybe some billionaire oil tyke will indeed thinks it's worth it to cough up $100 million plus for 25 acres to ramble around in?" Well, stranger things have happened, haven't they?
A Very Big Deal Goes Quietly Down in the Bay Area
Thanks to the fine folks at SF Luxe, Your Mama has learned that a sprawling Silicon Valley estate in hoity-toity Woodside, CA just sold for—buckle your real estate safety belts, butter beans—a mind-numbing and record-breaking $117,500,000.
The seller, according to previous reports and property records we peeped, was San Francisco-based financier Tully Friedman. The deep-pocketed buyer, shielded behind a mysterious limited liability company, has yet to be revealed but Your Mama hears through the Silicon Valley real estate gossip grapevine that the buyer might be a Korean banker who—so the story goes—bought the property as a summer getaway for his wife—or maybe his mistress—who may want to embark on some sort of remodel.
Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?
The Neoclassical main mansion, according to noted classical architect Allen Greenberg's website, occupies "an elaborate hilltop garden" and reflects a "strong Palladian tradition" that's " planned around hyphens and dependencies and features a double volume, elliptical garden room." We don't really know what an architectural hyphen or dependency is but it certainly sounds high fallutin' don't it? The San Mateo County Tax Man shows the house measures 8,930 square feet and contains just four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms but we really can't vouch for the accuracy of those numbers.
The nearly nine acre gated estate also includes acres of elaborate and meticulously maintained formal gardens, at least one reflecting pool, broad expanses of painstakingly manicured lawns, lots and lots of parking and a swimming pool complex with spa and a pool house Your Mama would bet is twice the size of our own house.
The super-sized transaction, which went down very quietly in late November (2012), makes it the most expensive private residence in California and it's likely to be the second or third highest price ever paid for a private home in the United States. Chicago hedge fund fat cat Ken Griffin and wife Anne Dias-Griffin allegedly and possibly coughed up $130 million for a quartet of contiguous properties in Palm Beach late in 2012 and the 124,000 acre Broken O Ranch in Montana—last listed for $132,500,000—was acquired late last year by multi-billionaire businessman Stan Kroenke and wife Ann for an undisclosed amount believed to be in the nine figures. Ann (Walton) Kroenke, for the record, is the daughter of Wal-Mart co-founder Bud Walton.
The wily SF Luxe folks dug up a small cache photos of the property and is it ever a doozy worth having a look-see at. Run don't walk before they're forced by an angry army of attorneys to take them down!
NOTE FROM YOUR MAMA (01-01-13): The Los Angeles Times subsequently suggested the buyer may be Masayoshi San, the CEO of SoftBank and one of Japan's richest men with a fortune in the eight billion dollar range.
aerial images: Google
Hollywood Hot Shot Barry Levinson Shakes Up East Coast Property Portfolio
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $5,650,000
SIZE: 3,049 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Looks like Emmy and Oscar winning screenwriter, director, producer and occasional actor Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Oz, Diner, Toys, Sleepers, Good Morning, Vietnam) is in the mood to shake up his real estate portfolio, selling in Connecticut and buying in New York City.
Last September Your Mama discussed Mister Levinson's sprawling, compound in upscale and semi-rural Redding, CT that was, at the time, listed on the open market with an asking price of $12,900,000. Property records reveal that the 40-plus acre spread with it's 17-room shingled mansion was sold last December to an unknown buyer for a total of $11,850,000, slightly more than the $11,250,000 he and The Missus paid for the place in the early Aughts.
Now comes word via the New York Post that Mister and Missus Levinson have spent $5,650,000 to scoop up a classic loft condo-loft in a quintessential late 19th century cast iron building designed by highly regarded architects Theodore De Lemos and A.W. Cordes in the geographical heart of the SoHo shopping district in New York City.
Listing information shows the 3,049 square foot loft has direct access through a key-lock elevator, soaring 13-foot ceilings, over-sized 10-foot tall windows with custom fitted wood shutters, wood floors and exposed wood beams and cast iron columns.
The open-concept main living area measures more than 30 feet wide and almost 39 feet long with a gas fireplace and an all-white kitchen with commercial-style stainless steel appliances, slab counter tops of unknown but unquestionably high quality material, shimmery stainless steel back splashes, an over-sized pantry area and a bulky center work island with breakfast bar. The Ingo Maurer paper chandelier is icing on the style cake and we can only hope Mister and Missus Levinson negotiated that fine fixture into the deal. An unusually spacious and separate laundry room with slop sink completes the service areas.
The three bedrooms all open off a zig-zagging corridor behind the kitchen. The two guest/family bedrooms share a pair of hall bathrooms and the master suite is complete with three closets, a nearly 20-foot square bedroom with two east facing windows and an attached (windowless) bathroom fitted with twin sinks, soaking tub and separate shower and finished with a lot of mirrors and stone tile work.
The $4,209 per month real estate taxes and common charges help pay for the boutique-sized building's doorman services and downstairs storage room.
As far as Your Mama knows Mister and Missus Levinson's property portfolio still includes a 1,887 square foot pied-a-terre in the Westwood area of Los Angeles and a three-story creek-front residence in Annapolis, MD purchased—as far as we can tell—way back in February 2002 for $2,262,500.
exterior photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
listing photos and floor plan: Citi-Habitats
Ethan Hawke Lists Multi-Colored Two-Family Manhattan Townhouse
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $6,250,000
SIZE: 3,500 square feet (approx.), 6 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms (total in two units)
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen chickens, Your Mama is in dental hell so we just have a few minutes today to drop a nice celebrity real estate morsel in the form of a two-family New York City townhouse recently pushed on the open market with an asking price of $6,250,000 and owned, according to property records, by scruffy-faced Oscar-nominated actor and writer Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Gattaca, Dead Poet's Society, New York, I Love You).
Texas-born and New Jersey-raised Mister Hawke is a scruffy-faced movie star more than anything else but he once said, according to the Internet Movie Data Base, that "most people are good at more things than the world gives them the opportunity to do" and he himself refuses to be hemmed in by his movie star status in good standing. Not only is one of his two Academy Award nominations for best adapted screenplay (Before Sunset) he's also written a couple of novels (The Hottest State and Ash Wednesday) and earned a Tony nomination for his spin across the boards in the star-studded Tom Stoppard-written play The Coast of Utopia.
Along the way he married, made two children with and divorced arty-farty Oscar-nominated actress Uma Thurman and subsequently made two more children with his current wife Ryan who, scandalously, once worked as a nanny for Mister Hawke and Miz Thurman.
Property records show that Mister Hawke acquired his fairly non-descript four-floor townhouse in the heart of Manhattan's art gallery filled Chelsea district in April 2005 for an even-steven $3,000,000. The 21-foot wide townhouse, located just around the corner from the perennially-popular Billy's Bakery on Ninth Avenue, contains two units with a total of six bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, according to listing information and the floor plan included with online marketing materials.
The well-organized ground floor apartment has a private entrance, a 14-foot(ish) square living room with wood burning fireplace surmounted by a large flat screen t.v., a compact but efficient U-shaped kitchen, two small bedrooms, one (windowless) bathroom and two surprisingly large walk-in closets. One of the bedrooms opens directly to a terrace and deep garden that—unfortunately—is in full view of a large apartment building to the north.
The triplex owners unit is entered on the parlor floor through a private entry and stair hall with a half bathroom that is both convenient and perfectly located for privacy. Double pocket doors connect through to the main living area that includes a south-facing living room with fireplace (that may or may not be in working order) and a built-in bookshelf lacquered a deep grass green and filled with actual books. The day-core is quite colorful, multi-patterned and suitably actor-bohemian with a funky patchwork rug on top of what looks to be original wood floors, an upright piano and a fairly spare collection of comfortably mis-matched upholstered pieces.
The well-worn but nicely preserved wood floors in the living room extend into the retro-modern kitchen that includes sunshine yellow cabinetry, white subway tile back splash, and high-grade appliances including a funky Old-Timey tomato red refrigerator. In addition to a built-in breakfast banquette in the kitchen area there's a small dining room at the rear of the parlor floor with a giant casement-style window that looks out over the back garden and a door that opens to a small balcony and stairs that lead down to the lower level garden area.
Up on the second floor there are three bedrooms—one quite large the other too somewhat small—that share a pair of hall bathrooms the sit on either side of a laundry room. The master suite consumes the entire top floor with an L-shaped bedroom painted royal blue, a small adjoining den/dressing room, a couple of small clothes closets, a vintage style bathroom with claw-footed tub—and towel heating rack—and a good-sized north-facing private terrace.
At one point Mister Hawke owned a small private island with a couple of small cottages in Nova Scotia that he bought when married to Uma Thurman but to be honest, children, we're not sure if he/they still own it or not.
exterior photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
listing photos: Corcoran
Your Mama Hears...
The well-educated, classically-trained and recently engaged Mister Yeoman currently stars in The Mentalist and previously appeared on the boob-toob programs Generation Kill, The Nine and Kitchen Confidential.
Your Mama and just about every other celebrity property gossip dissed and discussed the 3,071 square foot, three story hillside residence in the shadow of the famed Hollywood sign with its professionally designed recording studio back in March 2012 when Mister Cook listed it with an asking price of $1,495,000.
Is Lindsey Buckingham Downsizing?
LOCATION: Los Angeles (Brentwood), CA
PRICE: $5,800,000
SIZE: 2,958 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Looks like former Fleetwood Mac front man Lindsey Buckingham might be downsizing in Tinseltown. Although the Grammy winning singer and guitar-picking legend owns a fairly grand and gated estate with an 8,000-plus square foot main mansion in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles that he picked up in late 2004 for $6,600,000,000, according to both Yolanda Yakketyyak and at least one property record data base Your Mama consulted the sixty-something year old rock-n-roll veteran recently scooped up another but much smaller new house just 1.2 miles away for $5,800,000.*
Listing information shows the .82 acre spread sits desirably on a picturesque and prime, star-lined north of Sunset Boulevard street in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Some of the other high-profile residents of the narrow, tree-lined street include Maria Shriver, Betty White, Ricky Lake and Arianna Huffington. Way back in 2008 Spiderman actor Tobey Maguire and his jewelry designer wife Jennifer Meyer Maguire dropped ten million big ones on a vacant lot that—as far as Your Mama knows—remains vacant and unimproved.
Anyhoo, the existing residence acquired by Mister Buckingham and his long-time wife Kristen is described in marketing materials as a five bedroom and three bathroom 1920s Spanish with just 2,958 square feet. The house must be a little down on its heels since no interior photos were used in the marketing of the property and listing information billed it as a "rare opportunity to build a magnificent estate." In case some of the children aren't able to interpret that, it's real estate speak for "this old girl is a tear down."**
Beyond the house and garage there are a series of outdoor rooms defined by mature hedges and shrubbery, low red-brick walls and rows of probably near-ancient rose bushes. A classic, kidney-shaped swimming pool is sent into a flat grass pad and if we were the wagering type—and we're not—we'd bet both our long-bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, that the Buckingham's plan to replace that pool with something more modern and with a built-in spa situation. But then again, what do we know? Nuthin', that's what.
As far as Your Mama's entirely unscientific research reveals, the Buckingham's current residence just over a mile away—a great big turreted affair on 1.16 acres and built in 2007 with six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a swimming pool and a tennis court according to the L.A. Tax Man—is not on the open market.
*As it turns out, this isn't the first time Mister Buckingham has downsized his real estate circumstances in Los Angeles. In June 2005 he sold a 1.25 acre estate in a particularly posh section of Bel Air—directly across the street from Jennifer Anniston's current crib—for $19,500,000 to a non-celebrity but clearly very rich couple.
**Your Mama has no idea what plans Mister and Missus Buckingham may or may not have for this property. For all we know they plan to restore the house to its original, modestly scaled 1920s glory.
listing photos: Prudential California
Serena Williams Sells L.A. Condo
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,850,000
SIZE: 2,403 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While tennis titaness Serena Williams serves, smacks and slams her way toward the finals in Melbourne at the Australian Open her people back in Los Angeles have just about sold a high-floor condo she (allegedly) owns along the Wilshire Corridor with an listing price of $1,850,000.
We first heard this from Our Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills who thought the condo in question maybe belonged to Serena's almost as bad ass on the tennis court older sister Venus but according to The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial, the 15th floor spread actually belongs to Serena Williams who picked the place up way back in September 2002 for $1,275,000.
Venus Williams fancies herself a bit of an interior decorator—she has a full-service commercial and residential decoratin' firm called V*Starr based in Jupiter, FL—and presumably she once had a hand in the day-core of her little sister's L.A. condo but listing photos now show a very pared down situation that looks more like Staging Lady in a Pink Toyota has been all up in there working her special brand of generic decorative—ahem—magic.
Anyhoo, the 2,403 square foot condo crib has direct elevator access into a cramped foyer that opens into a decently roomy but hardly huge, sun-splashed living/dining room combination with hardwood floors, a corner (gas) fireplace and two large sets of windows with urban views over the tops of the surrounding condo buildings.
The floors turn to some sort of stone tile in the adjacent kitchen that's a little out-dated looking but well-equipped with a large center work island, honey-colored Shaker-style cabinets, flecked granite counter-tops and higher-grade appliances. There's an unnecessary pass through opening between the kitchen and a small den/family room outfitted with a full wall of custom-built in bookshelves and a large window that looks over the roof top of the building next door towards the the mountains in the distance.
Each of the two bedrooms has direct access to a private marble bathroom and the limestone-floored master suite has two bathrooms—one with separate tub and shower and frosted glass windows for proper pooper privacy—plus at least one custom-fitted walk-in closet.
The 24-story Remington building offers residents full service amenities that include, doorman and concierge services, valet parking, gym facility, swimming pool and spa, wine storage space, a library off the lobby and a residents only recreation room. For all that luxury Miss Williams coughed up, according to listing information, a whopping $2,894.25 per month in home owner's association dues.
As far as we can tell, Serena Williams also owns a tennis court-less mini-estate in the Stone Canyon area of Bel Air that she scooped up in early 2006 for $6,612,000 and as far as we know the grown up Williams sisters still—and strangely—share a sprawling, 11,000 square foot mansion in an upscale golf and sports community in Palm Beach Gardens, FL where a couple years ago, as previously reported by various property gossips, they added on a 4,000-ish square foot two-story wing to house a private training facility for the tennis queens.
listing photos: Gibson International
