Today's home in Bal Harbour, Florida has a tropical feel that seems almost more Hawaiian in style. The seven-bedroom home is on over an acre wither bay and ocean views. The home's many features include a billiard room with an exotic fish aquarium, garden room with access to the pool, a chef's kitchen with two pantries an a master suite with his and hers bathrooms and walk-in closets. The outdoor space boasts an infinity pool that overlooks the bay. A Tiki hut has a built-in barbecue, under-counter refrigerator and built-in seating. The property also has a half court basketball court and a two-bedroom, two-car garage guest home, a fully equipped home gym, and a massage room. There is also boat dockage. This home is listed at $17 million.

It might be tempting to think that Scarlett Johansson has it all. She's gorgeous, has a big career, a funny and handsome Hollywood husband in Ryan Reynolds and the world is at her feet. One thing our heroine won't have it seems is a profit on her Los Angeles home. The Real Estalker reveals that while Miss Scarlett bought her home in the Outpost Estates area of Los Angeles for an even $7 million in 2007 she seems willing to take a deep loss on the home. The home is now listed at just $4.995 million with Brett Lawyer of Sotheby's.

The home is a Spanish style estate built in 1931. The gated home has been restored and updated with upgrades that include solar electric. The first floor has rooms that open to a giant center atrium with a glass ceiling and tiled floor. The home's charms include a chef's kitchen with a colorful "period-style" kitchen featuring retro-styled appliances. The home also includes a media room, gym or maids room with full bath, extensive basement areas. It's a gorgeous colorful home with Southern California details like arched windows, beamed ceilings and wood floors. It also has the requisite lap pool and spa with a tranquil hillside view. Hard to say why she's moving on and willing to take such a big price hit but someone should be willing to snap up the home in this celeb-friendly neighborhood, which has been home to Charlize Theron, Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, Orlando Bloom, Ben Stiller and director David Lynch.

The former Mrs. Bundy lives quite well indeed. The Wall Street Journal's Private Properties column led me to the lovely Hollywood Hills home of actress Katey Sagal and her husband writer-actor Kurt Sutter. Sagal is best known as the Peggy Bundy on the sitcom "Married With Children" although a whole new group of people have fallen in love with her for her turn on "Sons of Anarchy."

The couple bought this home in 2005 and spent $1 million renovating and adding the basketball court. The property includes an infinity pool with a view and a guest house with a studio, office and gym. The main four-bedroom home was built in 1937 and has a charming country style enlivened with some very colorful art. The blue and white tiled kitchen complete with fireplace is particularly cute and adds to the home's casual appeal. This home is listed at $4.975 million.

From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--via Curbed, actress/TV producer Polly Draper and her husband Michael Wolff, a jazz pianist and composer who served as the bandleader on the Arsenio Hall Show, have listed their apartment at 43 Fifth Avenue on the market for $25 million.
--via the NY Observer, Texas-based restaurant kingpin Bradley Blum, CEO of Romano's Macaroni Grill, has bought a a pied-à-terre at 141 Fifth Avenue for $3.7 million.
--James P. Marden, the son of pharmacy mogul Bernard Marden, has picked up a townhouse in the West Village for $4.125 million. Bernard Marden father sold his home in Wainscott for $11.2 million last year. And his former wife just recently sold her own penthouse for $11.5 million.
-- Jennifer Scully-Lerner, a Goldman Sachs executive and top Obama fundraiser, and her husband, fellow financial exec Richard, have picked up a new apartment on Fifth Avenue for$3.575 million.
--New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse and his wife, Miriam Reinharth, have paid $1.1 million for a condo at 134 West 93rd Street.
--via the NY Observer, opera star Catherine Malfitano has sold her duplex loft at 79 Laight Street for $2.6 million.
--via Curbed, Courtney Love has been spotted checking out a West Village townhouse at 56 Bank Street that is listed at $5.998 million.
--Carol McFadden has closed on the sale of her penthouse at The Metropolitan on East 90th Street for $6.925 million.
Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner has given up his share in the Upper West Side townhouse that he shared with his ex-wife Jane. Property records show that Jane paid Jann $4 million for his share of the five-story townhouse at 37 West 70th Street.
--Guy Metcalfe, the co-head of Morgan Stanley's real estate investment banking group, and his wife, Lisa paid $6.125 million for a four-bedroom apartment at 90 Riverside Drive.
--via the New York Daily News, photographer Annie Leibovitz is trying to sell her 220-acre compound in Rhinebeck for $11 million. David Bowie and his wife, Iman recently toured the property.
--via the NY Observer, Vicki Rosen-Solomon, the widow of private equity executive Adam Solomon, has closed on the sale of her co-op at 956 Fifth Avenue for $12.5 million to David Herro, a Chicago-based investor.
--Marc Brown, the author and illustrator who created the Arthur series of books as well as the animated PBS show, and his wife Laura have dropped the price of their Tribeca townhouse to $9.995 million. It was once listed as high as $15.85 million.

--Rory Tahari, the wife of fashion mogul Elie Tahari, has sold two-bedroom loft at 72 Mercer Street for $3.2 million.
--David Bizer, a former Lehman Brothers exec, has relisted his 24th-floor apartment at 15 Central Park West for $7.495 million.



From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg has paid $35 million for a house in Beverly Hills, California.
--The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis house in Los Angeles has had a price cut to $10.5 million. It was originally put on the market last June for $15 million.


From the Real Estalker:
--Actress/rapper Eve has listed her Los Angeles home for $2.295 million. The listing is here.

--Celebrity photographer Timothy White has dropped the price on his light-filled loft at 448 West 37th Street. It is now listed for $4.495 million.


From Move Trends:
--Actor Eddie Cibrian has listed his home in Calabasas, California. He is asking $2.349 million but he and soon-to-be ex-wife Brandi Glanville paid $2.5 million in 2008. Check out the listing pictures below, the master bedroom includes a stripper pole.

--John Goodman's former 6 bedroom Los Angeles, CA home is listed for $1,998,000.

From ShelterPop:
Jennifer Aniston is showing off her new home in the pages of Architectural Digest.

Yesterday my colleague Alison Stein Wellner mentioned Miraval as a great place to follow through on those possibly forgotten New Year's resolutions but you can also make your destressing a bit more permanent. Four of 16 two- and three-bedroom villas remain up for sale at the Villas at Miraval, a half hour from Tucson, Arizona. The Villas at Miraval are modern homes with beautiful mountain views but the main selling point is access to the world-renowned Miraval Spa and other world-class amenities and programs. There were 16 villas total but now just four remain available for sale. The first 12 were sold the first year.

Currently for sale are two, two-bedroom villas with 2,729 square feet of interior and 2,281 square feet of outdoor living space and two, three-bedroom villas, spanning 3,095 square feet of interior living and 3,187 square feet of outdoor living space. Prices range from $2.25 million to $3.4 million. Each villa is LEED Silver-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. The villas use naturally gorgeous materials like stone, cedar and hickory wood. Each villa has a water-featured private courtyard, fireplace, hot tub, Viking 41 grill, single-family-sized spa pool and steam shower. Interiors have floor-to-ceiling windows, gourmet kitchens with Sub Zero under-counter wine storage, Thermador Freedom refrigerators and dishwashers, and master bathrooms with steam showers. The villas are meant to be turnkey second homes and are furnished including local artwork, special window treatments, facades, appliances and fixtures selected by New York-based award-winning spa designer Clodagh Design.

Each villa owner pays an annual fee for unlimited access to all resort programs and amenities, common area maintenance and property management, housekeeping service, roundtrip transportation to and from Tucson International Airport and a 20 percent discount on spa services, meals and retail purchases. A dedicated villas manager and concierge staff are available to assist homeowners with all their needs and requests for a total no-stress experience.

A reader sent me the link for this lavish estate in Lake Norman, North Carolina. It has an outrageous price, $15 million, and a fancy name, Chateau Lyon. The owners of this estate traveled to Europe, collected fine antiques and accouterments and built their modern 21st century home incorporating these artifacts. Their travels led them to the flea-markets of Paris as well as the smaller towns in the French countryside. Their most important find - a set of French paneling taken from a private home in the city of Lyon, gave the home its name. The look of the home was inspired by French villas but incorporates modern details like home automation, an elevator and heated floors.

The five bedroom home has French limestone walls and hand-carved Mexican pinon stone surrounding all exterior windows/doors. The upper level flooring is of 250 year old heart pine and the home is topped with European roof tiles. Centuries-old hand carved restored doors an an original iron balcony grill from the 1880s all add to the antique-meets-modern pastiche.


[Thanks, Billy]

James Franco seems to have been everywhere lately, Sundance, a soap opera, Saturday Night Live. One place we won't be seeing the popular actor is in his Sunset-Strip area home. Franco has sold the home which was listed last October for $3.695 million. The Spanish-style villa located very near eternal Hollywood hotspot Chateau Marmont was built in 1923 and has three bedrooms. The home, which has vaulted and beamed ceilings and an open floor plan, has had a major renovation. The home was bought through a trust in 2006 for $2.325 million. The MLS shows that the home sold for $3.3 million.

England's great tradition of country houses spans 700 years, but reached its magnificent apex in the 19th century, Michael Hall demonstrates in his beautiful new book Lasting Elegance: English Country Houses 1830 - 1900 from Monacelli. The houses, designed by the most eminent architects of the age, were bigger, more elaborate, and more lavishly furnished than ever before, Hall notes. The English country house became a byword throughout Europe and in America for luxury, technological innovation, and convenience. Hall's opulently illustrated survey draws on the vast archive of the great British magazine Country Life to present the fullest visual record yet published of the Victorian-era country house in England and Wales. The photographs contained in the book are in many cases the only record of great houses in their heyday, such as Orchardleigh in Somerset, Hewell Grange in Worcestershire, Thoresby Hall in Nottinghamshire, and Stokesay Court in Shropshire - featured in the 2007 award-winning film Atonement - all sold in the 20th century and their contents dispersed.

One of the most popular icon images of San Francisco, after the Golden Gate Bridge of course, is the row of Victorian homes in the Alamo Square neighborhood. The Victorian houses along Steiner Street have been photographed so widely that they are known as "Postcard Row" -- and the centerpiece of that postcard just came on the market at $3,999,999.

The four-story view home at 722 Steiner St. has been called the second-most photographed home in the country after the White House and been featured in more than 70 movies and TV shows.

The home was built in 1892 as his personal residence by carpenter-builder Matthew Kavanaugh, who constructed all of Postcard Row. The stained glass window in the living room is a pastoral scene from Kavanaugh's birthplace in Ireland; his daughters were wed in the house. The house has been completely restored and features working gas light features, wood-burning fireplaces; the kitchen, while modernized with Dacor, LG and Bosch appliances, has retained the Victorian-era look with redwood and glass-fronted cabinets and Bradbury and Bradbury period wall paper. There are ruby red granite counter tops.

The second-story living area includes a double parlor with fireplace and turret window, a formal dining room with a large Irish castle replica stone fireplace and framed views of the city. The three bedrooms, two with working fireplaces, are located on the third floor. The master suite has a large walk-in closet and a master bathroom with a jet tub and two-headed steam room-shower. The fourth level attic is finished and may be used as a second master suite or family entertainment room. The home has period moldings and hardwood floors throughout.

Bonnie Spindler has the listing.

[via On The Block]

The comedian Sinbad, who has been in the news for his financial failings recently, is giving up his luxury home. In December, we picked up on a story our sister blog Walletpop wrote about the comedian Sinbad who had filed for bankruptcy after the IRS filed $8.15 million in tax liens. His Chapter 7 bankruptcy claim listed $10 million and $50 million in liabilities but less than $50,000 in assets even though he had a $1.5 million home in the celebrity-friendly enclave of Hidden Hills. The home was reporedly owned by his brother, Michael Adkins. But court documents seeking seizure of the house alleged that the arrangement was a sham pointing out that Michael Adkins works for his brother's production company and that the expenses for the property including mortgage payments were paid from the production company account.

Now the LA Times Hot Property column reports that the home has hit the market for $3 million. The home was bought in 2007 for $1.5 million. The five-bedroom home sits on 2.4 acres that include a guest house, recording studio, pool and a barn. Listing pictures show a home with plenty of space but the look of a place that has not been happily inhabited for a while. The property website from Teles Properties is here.

The upcoming Super Bowl had me curious about the real estate doings of New Orleans Saints star Reggie Bush and his main squeeze Kim Kardashian. Last time we checked in with the on-again, off-again couple both had their homes on the market. Perhaps it is time they move into together because they may have both sold their homes. Bush's Hollywood Hills home, which was listed for $5.099 million has disappeared off the MLS. Property records don't indicate a sale however so I'm not sure if maybe he didn't just change his mind.

Kardashian on the other hand, has managed to unload her three-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood. The reality star's glamour girl inspired beige apartment was once listed at $1.099 million but appears to have sold for just $885,000, a number that she said was more than she bought it for. The main Kardashian clan home in Hidden Hills which has lingered on the market for over a year is still listed at $2.995 million.

The always hilarious Tracey Ullman and her husband Allan McKeown might be downsizing. The pair have listed their classic 1920s Mediterranean home in the Pacific Palisades area of Southern California. The Real Estalker reveals that they bought the home for a pricey $1.8 million way back in 1988. The home has five bedrooms and is located in the Riviera section of Pacific Palisades which is home to the Riviera Country Club, a very nice part of town to be in.

The home opens with a grand foyer and a small rotunda but the large arched window is unfortunately blocked by the huge split staircase. The large white eat-in kitchen includes a center island with chairs. The bedrooms are relatively small but charming and the master bedroom has many windows and lots of wide open space. Like the Real Estalker Mama, I'm charmed by the vintage bathroom tiles in the bathrooms. Outside there is a swimming pool with a guesthouse and and indoor spa room with a lounger and window-surrounded spa. The property is walled and gated for added security. This home is listed at $5.35 million. See more at the property website.

Take a large historic plantation in South Carolina, add a couple newer homes and you've got the Weehaw Plantation just outside of Georgetown, South Carolina on the Black River. The 650-acre plantation has two beautiful homes (circa 1991 and 1997) and overlooks a 35 acre controlled rice field impoundment. Weehaw was one of the earliest successful rice plantations in the area. The main house was built in 1997 but has the look of an older home. Stroll down the road and you are at the Lodge which also has a great view of old ricefields and rivers. This home has a more casual low country style with a wide porch. This secluded, protected property is listed at $4.5 million.

I had to show you this estate, it's a great example of a Hollywood restoration, taking a fairly standard Southern California home and turning it into something extraordinary. The LA Times Hot Property column reports that the home belongs to producer-composer-musician Tom Rothrock and his wife, Monique who bought the property in 2002 for $1.475 million. I'd love to see a before because the after is amazing. The couple spent the last seven years working on the four-bedroom home which is situation on around a third of an acre at the crown of Lake Hollywood. The fully updated home has large windows and doors opening to the outside.

The oversized living room has 18-foot ceilings and walls of glass offering sparkling views. The two-story master suite has its own sitting room. Another unique space is the eat-in kitchen which opens directly out to the pool area. The attached guest suite has its own entrance. The home is listed at $7.749 million.

Today's estate belongs to Diandra Douglas, the former wife of Michael Douglas. The former Mrs. Douglas owns an enviable spread in Montecito, the ultra-pricey enclave that is home to Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and others. The Tuscan villa is on over seven acres which is actually divided into two lots. It is rumored that she got a $45 million settlement in the divorce as well as the home that is our estate of the day.

The Real Estalker says that the home was purchased way back in 1979 by the Douglases for just $275,000. This is way before Montecito became the fashionable area it is today. The 1920s Mediterranean has large iron gates and a motor court leading up to the grand home. The home has been recently updated and has a 75' pool, guesthouse, tennis court, Japanese water garden and green lawns from which to take in the ocean views. Tile floors, dark wood beams, vaulted ceilings and arched French doors all add to the feeling of classic Californian Mediterranean style. The pool/guest house offers another living room and kitchen. The home is listed at $29 million, hugely expensive but par for the course in Montecito.