Monday, November 4, 2013

Monday Mash Up

Ever wonder what the inside of pixieish fashion designer (and season four Project Runway winner) Christian Siriano's New York City walk-up nest looks like? Well, kiddies, wonder no more.  (New York Times)

::::::::

Everybody knows by now that Madonna recently sold her Beverly Hills residence to a Wall Street tycoon but did y'all know that the buyer—at least according to Your Mama's well-connected informants—ever-so-briefly owned and recently sold Tyler Perry's former über-modern mansion at the tippy-top of the Bird Streets 'hood? As was quipped by real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak: "From Madea's house to Madonna's"

In other Madonna-related real estate news, the middle-aged Material Girl is full steam ahead with the custom-construction of an 8 bedroom mansion in Da Hamptons. (New York Post)

::::::::

New York City real estate honcho Howard Lorber—he's the chairman of the sprawling Douglas Elliman real estate brokerage—listed his seven-bedroom mansion in Southampton with an asking price of $18.5 million. Meanwhile, his real estate broker son, Michael, who appeared for one season on Million Dollar Listing (New York) recently unloaded his own sixth-floor condo-crib at the Grand Beekman building in Midtown Manhattan for an (as yet) undisclosed amount. The apartment had been listed for $2.79 million. (The Real Deal)

::::::::

Two-time Oscar-nominated Tinseltowner Mark Wahlberg recently completed construction on a 30,000 square foot faux-chateau in the guard-gated Beverly Park community that, despite its home theater, wine cellar and double-height paneled library, its architect, mega-mansion specialist Richard Landry, described as '"a good traditional family house with no craziness to it.'" No offense, but beotch, pleeze. (The Hollywood Reporter)

::::::::

Conservative pundit and blogger Matt Drudge of the eponymous and popular Drudge Report sold house on Rivo Alto Island in Miami Beach for $1.575 million a FedEx executive. Mister Drudge owns a nearly 10-acre, two-parcel spread about 35 miles from South Beach. (exMiami via The Real Deal)

::::::::

The asking price of Casa de Shenandoah, Las Vegas crooner Wayne Newton's former Sin City ranch, was dramatically slashed from its original and wildly optimistic $70 million to a still sky-high $48 million. (Realtor.com)

::::::::

High-tech billionaire Elon Musk—he's the co-founder of Tesla Motors and Pay Pal—paid $6.75 million for a fixer-upper ranch house perched above the Bel Air Country Club in Los Angeles. The house was once the long-time home of two-time Oscar-nominated actor Gene Wilder and happens to be right across the street from the much more grand 20,000+ square foot mansion Mister Musk purchased earlier this year for $17,000,000. (Trulia Luxe Living)

::::::::

A large estate in L.A.'s rustically swank Mandeville Canyon that was leased by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2009 and later rented by media tycoon Peter Chernin while his Santa Monica residence was being remodeled recently and quietly sold for $12.9 million. The buyers, swears Yolanda Yakketyyak, are hedge fund founder Sean Fahey and wife Robin Luce. Mister Fahey and Miz Luce are well known to L.A.-oriented architecture buffs and real estate-o-philes as the couple who, in 2010, paid $6.2 million for the avant-garde Bart Prince-designed Lever/Morgenthaler House in Malibu that they hoped to raze and replace with much more conventional mock-Med mini-mansion. (After much protestation and petition signing by a number of high-profile Malibu residents the Fahey-Luces decided to remodel the house to better suit the needs of their family.) Anyways...

The seller of the Mandeville Canyon estate, we've been told by several sources, was Seattle-based billionaire John McCaw, Jr. who purchased the 5.3-ish acre, horse-friendly spread and its 1930s Monterey Colonial mansion in 2003 for, according to Our Fairy Godmother in Bel Air, about $16 million. Mister McCaw Jr. had the estate on and off the market since at least the summer of 2008 at a variety of prices that went as high as $28.5 million but, in the end, took a punishing $3+ million loss, not counting carrying costs, upkeep, improvements and real estate fees. Yolanda also swears that she has it on "unimpeachable top-notch authority" that the couple plan to "bulldoze the old beotch" and build anew.

::::::::

And, finally, just for shits and giggles, The Telegraph takes a fun look at the declining desirability of The Bishops Avenue, a storied, mile-long street in North London lined with largely unoccupied mega-mansions owned by a long-list of (nouveau riche) international billionaires with insatiable taste for excessive residential luxuries.

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your Mama, you have access to Pacific Coast News / Celebrity Home Photos, do you perhaps know have they added Mark Wahlberg's house to their photographic database?

I have no idea why that house hasn't hit the papers yet.

We did see a mountain of images of Gisele's house from every single phase of construction...

Now only that other French château in Beverly Park needs to be finished, owned by an Indonesian businessman, it seems.

I wonder why it takes so long.

Anonymous said...

What other French chateau?
The one next to denzels? That's been done...
There are updated pics on a landscapers website

Anonymous said...

Yes, that one.

Where can I find the pics?

I was looking at Google's satellite pic, not the 45° image, and it showed Marc's house almost done, but still a lot of bare soil and an unfinished pool around the Indonesian's house.

And something for Lil’:

http://www.mitarh.rs/index.php?p=project&project_id=184

Anonymous said...

Found it!

Thank you!

Now I'll take a more detailed look.

Anonymous said...

Who is building those two houses surrounding the now Elon Musk estate, ex-Gene Wilder ranch?

The one on the left is featured on Robert A. Sinclair's website.

If someone know where to find the left one, let me know.

Anonymous said...

@2:31
The maps only updated a tiny portion of Beverly Hills, and only a few houses in Beverly Park.
If you've got apple maps you can see the whole neighborhood is in a somewhat advanced stage of construction, with lots of remodels going on all around Beverly Park

Anonymous said...

Feel bad for the poor chump who bought Madonna's house. Doesn't he know he'll have to spend another couple million on fumigation expenses?

Anonymous said...

Wow, that 43 Beverly Park Circle house looks bad... It reminds me of The Manor, as in – not in style, which is Châteauesque, but the colour of the limestone, the tiles, the back-facade avant-corps, the cavernous loggia with arched openings...

The asymmetry is baffling.

Windows up close remind me of something Richardson Robertson III would do.

It looked much better in the drawing on the architect's website.

Oh, well.

As for Landry, to bad we don't get to see that 250,000 sq. ft. contemporary compound in Riyadh. That must be something. Ahaha...

Anonymous said...

I think it might be marble, not limestone

Anonymous said...

French Neoclassical mansions usually have a limestone facade, such as what you see on The Manor, Kirkeby estate, Fleur de Lys...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, looking at it now I think the sunlight tricked me into thinking it was white.
It could also be stucco, ala 18 Beverly Park (and many others)
How bout that flower in the pool?!
Can you say chic? Lol

Anonymous said...

Oh, the flower! LMAO! WHat is that thing doing in there?

18 Terrace or Circle?

Anonymous said...

Uh...18 BP Street, near the gatehouse and above Jami Gertzs house.
On Manions website you can see exterior pics. Kinda icky

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what the exterior is made of. The image seems old, which it probably is, and also as if it was scanned. Who knows.

Sandpiper said...


Adorable Christian's apartment is a wide berth for his decor imagination, including $2k+ chair and other spatterings from Restoration Hardware. Laugh if you will but I like that store.

About Whalberg's new Landry-fied place, I have no idea as to the accuracy of these interior "renderings".

Here's my paltry 2-cents on the limestone/granite thing. My hunch has always been that any architectural finish or otherwise decorative accent
can fool the eye in the wacky world of precast concrete and reinforced plastic -- inside or out!

I get a kick out of Mama's relentless entertainment about The Bishop's Avenue.

Sandpiper said...

Oh damn, I screwed up the faux granite/limestone link. Here it is to paste:

http://www.sandstonedesigns.com/Precast_Concrete/Project_Photos/Custom_Residential/custom_residential_photos.html

Anonymous said...

But these people have so much money, I doubt it that they're saving on exterior finishes.

The only thing that I don't know how to find a thing about is how does it work: home is framed in wood, usually, which is one of the most baffling things, a 60,000 sq. ft. made of wood, like that Stone Canyon behemoth, but how do you glue limestone onto it? What is between the wood panels and the stone facade? How do they deliver the stone?

lil' gay boy said...

Lots to cover:

Siriano -- just so Christian;

Madge -- liked it when it was Sela's; as for the Hamptons, well, it will be a Farrell (Farrellization is becoming quite the epithet on the East End);

Lorber -- one would think a "real estate honcho" would necessarily have more taste;

Wahlberg -- "My goal always has to go with finding the right proportions. It is not about building bigger and bigger homes," says Landry. -- Seriously? The man is either legally insane or willfully stupid;

Drudge -- *yawn*

Newton -- *yawn*

Musk -- teardown;

Fahey -- Bart Prince is an acquired taste, & this is not his best;

Bishops -- hahahahahahahahaha...

Anon 2:20 thx -- wish I spoke a Slavic language...intriguing wedge.

Anonymous said...

Not sure about limestone glue. They're sometimes large pre-assembled panels that cover doorways and windows only.
Platt design is a pretty locally famous pre cast place. Lots of Bev Park homes in their portfolio.
Wood framing usually gets stuccoed.

Anonymous said...

“Anon 2:20 thx -- wish I spoke a Slavic language...intriguing wedge.”

You can visit www.mitarh.rs and choose English.

Make sure you click on the first image of the project to see more renderings.

The house is finished.

Anonymous said...


Hi 9:02 ... yikes.

http://www.americanlimestone.com/residential/alcsolution/minstallation.php

http://www.americanlimestone.com/alcsolutionmanual/

s


Anonymous said...

Why "yikes"?

:-D

I shouldn't have visited that Plat Design, Inc. website and Flickr page, suddenly the Avi Arad house seems so cheap.

Anonymous said...

Lil', that house is spectacular and truly an architectural masterpeace. The reasons are many, two of which are that impossible parcel, with its sharpest angle having only 32°, and bureaucratic restrictions on square footage or, better, square meters, which is why that atrium spans the entire three storeys.

lil' gay boy said...

Thanks, Anon; should have thought of the home page first -- duh.

Like the residential stuff, although many might find the combination of post modernism & brutalism rather undomestic. Quite sculptural.

From the other side of the world, my favorite New Zealand architects, Feardon Hay; love the Cliff House...

Anonymous said...

Your words are prophetic, you have nailed it, that is exactly what the house is: a sculpture. Another commentator noted it, it is not just four walls and a roof. And yet another one that the facade is a canvas. Nothing surprising, since the author wanted to become a painter and his art teacher in high school was a famous and respected one, he ended ar the School of Architecture almost by accident, where he now teaches.

I knew you Cliff House would be your favourite house. I googled the name before getting to the end of your line, scanned the projects, saw the Cliff House and knew it was the one. Then I re-read your comment, and there it was. :) Both a welome refreshment from Platt Design, Inc. cast-stone mcmanses.

Anonymous said...

Lil, what would you say is brutalist and what postmodern about that house?

lil' gay boy said...

The Beograd gem shows little in the way of brutalism (even the exposed structural columns bear a finish -- almost a cross between the dreaded "popcorn" of motel ceilings & pebble-dash stucco -- but an absolute win here); my comment was in reference to some of the other residential designs as well, particularly the house in Belgrade -- exposed poured concrete walls, some polished, some not.

As for all these projects, especially the Beograd wedge, the fenestration is what strikes me most as postmodern; particularly in Beograd over the stairwell, where the glass roof waterfalls down the atrium façade.

Exquisite.

Sandpiper said...

Hi 9:02/10:59,

Hope I didn't hurt your feelings with my precast concrete info. Looks pretty, doesn't it, but in reality seems only the manufacturers, architects and builders really know the truth (i.e. cost benefits). Us consumers, realtors, pubs, home buyers are downstream --misinformed/mislead/uninformed, IMHO.

It's not all precast, sure you agree. I only learned this fact while industry analyst (yawn) for construction products; incl. studies on cladding options in precast via concrete, plastic, blah-blah-blah.

Anonymous said...

No, no, you haven't. I'm glad you brought it up! I knew it before, but seeing it in Platt's Flickr galleries, I'm really appalled what people are paying for - I don't think I'd ever go house-hunting without an architect.

But then again, I'd have to research this cast-stone technology and see how valuable it is and how does it compare to natural materials. You see people like John Finton saying they trot the globe for stones and then see something like this.

Ronald Tutor's house just went really down the drain. It was awful previously, and it ruined such a spectacular lot, but seeing how it was built - no comment:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29356266@N04/sets/72157606594784512/

Anonymous said...

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I was just wondering where was brutalism in the project.

I'm so happy you love it!

I love that waterfall metaphor.

Here is the location:

http://goo.gl/maps/XBrIa

Google has been photographing the city for Street View, which will be available next year. They won't shoot during winter.

Anonymous said...

http://www.landrydesigngroup.com/New%20Classic/4/1.htm

Sandpiper said...

Hi again, 11:21,

Ya, I read the Finton stuff too. Sounds like he’s logging big time international air time/frequent flyer miles in search of slab-alicious quarries, provenance columns, steps, fireplace surrounds and everything else that discerning estate owners expect and can easily afford. Where is Mr.Finton's portfolio of completed projects using all those authentic freight intensive global conquest goodies. So curious :) Known he builds his fair share of limestone “inspired” estates too. Those are a cinch to find, usually on precast supplier sites, project galleries pics.

I do find this all to be very interesting! Tuckered out now. Meow.

Sandpiper said...

Hi again, 11:21.

Ya, I read the Finton stuff too. Sounds like he’s logging big time international air miles in search of slab-alicious mines, provenance columns, steps, fireplace and entry surrounds and everything else the discerning estate owner can globally afford. Would love to see Mr. Finton’s portfolio of completed projects using only his freight intensive global conquests. Known he builds precast “inspired” estates too. Those pics are all over the net; easiest to find in precast supplier project galleries.

Interesting stuff. Meow.

Anonymous said...

Ha-ha!

Well, after seein Avi Arad's house in those galleries, I want to see Finton's projects from “freight-intensive global conquests”!

If you know other pre-cast-stone suppliers, let us know!