FSBO - news blog

Filed under: Estates

The name is the Almost Idaho Ranch for obvious reasons, it is right near the Washington/Idaho border (although it is in Washington). The home offers your own private 49-acre lake which is surrounded by mountains. There are 497 acres total which border the Kaniksu National Forest. The ranch has three homes including the 6634 sq. ft. main home. There is also a log guest home, an outdoor entertainment porch, a miner's cabin, barns, corrals, sheds and more. It is listed at $10.8 million. After the jump,your own private lake, it makes you feel tranquil just looking at it.

Continue reading Almost Idaho Ranch, Estate of the Day

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Meandering over 300 acres of rolling hills in the White Mountains in Show Low, Arizona, Bison Crossing features the renovated Bison Golf & Country Club lined with a variety of housing options from which to choose. This master planned development offers a picturesque blend of pine trees and mountain meadows.

Filed under: Dining, Estates, Journeys, Spas

The Regent Boston at Battery Wharf is the latest luxury project planned for Boston Harbor. The 150-room hotel, which is under construction, is part of a mixed-use development that includes 104 condo units, a marina and a Coast Guard Museum. The hotel will also be home to a restaurant by three-star Michelin chef Guy Martin, and an 18,000-square-foot Guerlain spa. The 80-seat restaurant, which opening in late 2007, is a partnership between Martin, Battery Wharf and Regent Hotels & Resorts and is his first project in North America. The residences will range in size from approximately 900- 2,500 square feet and start at $1.15 million. Occupancy is planned for December 2007. Wow, and I can remember when that part of town was where you could find the cheaper rent. The hotel is just one of a series of hotel projects going up in Boston including the Liberty Hotel and the Mandarin Oriental.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Estates

I am a sucker for a good real estate story and today's estate definitely has one. The McCune mansion which was built in the 1960s by an oil tycoon, Walker McCune, has 53,000 square feet of space and sits on six hilltop acres. The home was most recently owned by the eccentric Geordie Hormel, heir to the Hormel Foods fortune. Hormel who died last year, was a successful music producer in Los Angeles and also owned the Wrigley Mansion in Chicago. The home has a ballroom with a giant crystal chandelier, multiple kitchens, an ice-skating rink, 150-seat theater, dark room, beauty salon and more. The home was originally listed at $25 million. It sits now at $20 million but I bet it might go much lower. Especially since the home is said to be in fixer-upper shape. After the jump, what can be done with this massive home?

Continue reading The McCune Mansion, Estate Of The Day

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Bison Cove, located in Payson, Arizona, features 370 luxurious country style condominium homes with varied two bedroom/two bath floor plans and prices from the low $200s. Just 90 minutes from Phoenix, the Cove offers a cool getaway and serves as a convenient home base for exploring Arizona's Rim Country.

Filed under: Estates

Norfolk, Virginia is the latest town to show up on my condo radar with the announcement that construction has begun at Granby Tower, Norfolk's new condominium/townhouse project that will, at 34 stories, become one of the tallest buildings in the city. The 300-unit building will include office space and retail space as well as condos which start as low as $270,000 and go up to $2.6 million for the penthouses all of which have already been sold. The project is set to be completed in November 2009.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

When it comes to the world of Britney Spears you just never know. The gossip game of did she or didn't she surrounds this girl on a multitude of levels. One of those levels is definitely real estate. It has been widely reported this week that Britney checked out today's estate in Pacific Palisades not once but twice. They even report she flushed all the toilets and took a swim in the pool during his visit to the pad. Now the Real Estalker says she hears it's not a go and I trust her judgment but I'm taking a look at this house anyway mainly because I just like to imagine what Britters might have though as she went flouncing through here.

The home has five bedrooms and is located on a nice three acre chunk of land which has been landscaped with waterfalls, koi ponds and fruit trees. Lovely stuff but perhaps a little tranquil sounding for a nightlife-loving young girl. Britney seems to like the Tuscan look as evidenced by her last real estate adventure in Beverly Hills. And it does have a celebrity pedigree. As Mr. Big Time reports, it was owned by Ray Liotta from 1995 to 2003 (he bought it for $2.25 million).

This home was built in the early 1990s and it's got a smidgen more character on the interior than other homes we have seen with this look. The current owners certainly have some interesting taste in art which must have captivated Brit and the entourage. And I am not quite sure what to make of the massive room with the huge bed, the foosball table and the pool table in it. The two marble master bathrooms seem to be a pop princess's dream (if a bit of an unsafe place to give the kiddies a bath). It is listed at $6.65 million.

Continue reading Monte Hermoso, Estate of the Day

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Christie Brinkley has found a new home in the Hamptons, picking up a waterfront estate in North Haven which had a $10.995 million price tag. Her ex-husband, Peter Cook has also bought a place in North Haven for close to $1.2 million.
--Broadway producer Jeffrey Finn has purchased a one-bedroom pied-a-terre at the Platinum condo complex for just over $1.4 million.
--Rachel Hunter is looking for a fixer upper in the Hamptons. Good luck with that.
--Hotel developer Robert Burns wins the dubious distinction of spending the most money on a Hamptons rental. He is renting an oceanfront Southampton home for a record $1.2 million for the year. He is currently working on building a new mansion in the area.

Bonus from the NY Post:
--Is Alex Rodriguez of the NY Yankees looking to buy the Lake Carrington Estate? The home in Greenwich, Connecticut is billed a "couture-ready" mansion, a nine-acre lakefront property dominated by a Georgian-style stone mansion spanning 35,000 square feet. The listing is here.

From The Real Estalker:
--Scarlett Johansson has picked up a home in the Hollywood Hills for around $8 million.
--Ricky Martin has listed his Miami mansion, shown above, for $16.9 million. No interior pics but the listing is here (that's one deep blue pool).
--Keyshawn Johnson's condo at The Californian in Los Angeles is for sale for $3.595 million.
--Rumor has it that Britney Spears may have sold her Malibu mansion.
--It was nearly two years ago that we first learned Kathleen Turner was set to put her Amagansett home on the market for $7.95 million, now we finally have the listing which is for $6.995 million. Check out the charming beach home here.
--Real estate goddess Ellen Degeneres is at it again putting another tempting home on the market. This Hollywood home is listed for $1.995 million. Ellen and her team do some mighty fine renovating. Check out the calm white splendor at the property website.
--Numerous websites are reporting that Britney Spears may be buying Ray Liotta's old nest in the Pacific Palisades. We'll be checking out this home later as out estate of the day.

From Celebrity Babylon:
--Rumor has it Tom Cruise has picked up a plot in Montecito from Rob Lowe and his wife and may be building a getaway house.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Trusts and partnerships linked to billionaire hedge-fund manager Bruce Kovner paid about $70 million earlier this year for a bunch of oceanfront properties in California's Santa Barbara County. The Kovner-related entities paid $35 million for a three-acre lot with a large Tuscan-style home, $20 million for a four-bedroom house on three acres and then $15 million for six acres.
--New York attorney and real-estate investor Alan Schnurman has just gotten approval to sell eight lots in a Hamptons subdivision, 41 acres in all, for $64.5 million. He bought the land in 2005 for around $25 million. Schnurman's got some success behind him, he recently sold six lots in Bridgehampton for $37.5 million that he bought in 2005 for $12 million. That buyer in turn has put the lots on the market for almost $50 million. The listing is here.
--As we already knew, Anne Heche's home is on the market for $3.795 million.
--As the Real Estalker predicted weeks ago, Paris Hilton has put her home on the market. The price is $4.25 million. She bought in 2004 for around $2.9 million. The listing is here and warns that there is "a pre-screening process" for getting your look at the place. Also, The Gilded Moose has a great commentary on the interior.
--Basketball player Rasheed Wallace has listed his nearly 10,000-square-foot residence in Portland, Oregon for $5.2 million, making it one of the most expensive listings in the area. Rather bland for a sports star's house, you can check it out here.

From TMZ:
--Johnny Depp has picked up a penthouse in the Eastern Columbia building in downtown Los Angeles for about $2 million. The striking turquoise Art Deco building is an LA landmark but the neighborhood is still in transition.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Jazz singer Lalah Hathaway has sold her Los Angeles home for $848,000 to yoga instructor and model Rainbeau Harmony Mars.
--Michael Jordan's ex-wife has paid $4,720,500 for a mansion in Chicago's River North neighborhood.
--The hunt is on, which house is the house Orlando Bloom bought in the Hollywood Hills for $2.8 million.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Howard and Yvonne Tsao, who graduated from the NYU Stern School of Business barely a year ago, just paid $11.75 million in cash for a 58th-floor spread at the Park Imperial on West 56th Street.
--More news from the infamous 30 Crosby Street, home to Lenny Kravitz and formerly infamously, Courtney Love. Trader Richard Barabino, who sold his second-floor loft there for $6.5 million, will really miss the show-off factor of the apartment and also the help which he refers to has being "like little puppies wagging their tails eager to do something to help you out."
--Steven Kessner, a real estate magnate named by The Village Voice in June 2006 as one of "NYC's 10 Worst Landlords," has bought his son Robert a $1.395 million apartment at 300 East 85th Street, a tower called the America.
--Jeweler-craftsman John Landrum Bryant and his heiress wife, Patricia Bauman, have paid $7.1 million for a four-bedroom apartment in the Beekman that includes a garden, wine cellar, two wet bars and a master bedroom with a kitchenette and fireplace. They plan to put in a jade stone fireplace.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Mel Gibson has sold his Malibu beachfront home for nearly $30 million. He bought the home in the fall of 2005 for $24 million. Also, in May, he bought a 400-plus-acre agricultural and cattle ranch in Costa Rica for $25.8 million, according to La Nación, a Costa Rican publication.
--Former Dodger and Angel center fielder Steve Finley and his wife, Amy, have listed their Rancho Santa Fe estate at $20.5 million. The home has 12,000 square feet and is on seven acres. You can find the listing on the Barry Estates website.
--The Malibu home of the late Daniel Jacoby, an Internet banking pioneer, has been sold for about $12 million.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Estates, Water

An odd casualty of the subprime market is this 142-foot yacht Trinity yacht, optimistically named Postive Carry. The Street.com writes that John Devaney, United Capital's chief executive and a one-time master of the mortgage market has put this yacht up for sale for $23.5 million.

Devaney is also the owner of the Sardy House, a Victorian home which we profiled in 2005 when it was for sale for $20 million. Sardy bought the house which is famous for having a 90-foot-tall living Christmas tree out front, for $16.5 million and is now listing it at $21.5 million. He did after all, put in new LED lights for the Christmas tree.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Estates

We are back in Wyoming with a look at another huge log home fronting the Snake River. This one has 8068 square feet of living space and also has a two-bedroom guest house. The creeks offer fishing and there are 37 acres to roam around on. The home has five-bedrooms, a media room, exercise room, workshop and more, all in a home that, only built ten years ago, still has a bit of an old-fashioned look to it. It is listed at $28.5 million. After the jump, one fabulously rustic library.

Continue reading Wilson, Wyoming, Estate of the Day

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments