Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
After nearly four years on the market and a few sizable price cuts, a 123-room Holmby Hills mansion known as The Manor has sold for $120 million, making it the most expensive home sold in LA County.
The seller is Formula One racing heiress Petra Ecclestone, who bought The Manor from Candy Spelling in 2011, paying $85 million in cash. She gave the home a flashy makeover, adding a nightclub in the basement and tanks for exotic fish.
— Curbed LA
$120,000,000 is the new record to set in the California real estate market, and the home to beat is the infamous Spelling Manor in Holmby Hills. Outdoor fountain at Spelling Manor. The 56,000 square foot home was originally built in the 1980s for TV producer Aaron Spelling and his wife Candy... View full entry
The mammoth, unfinished mansion on Strada Vecchia Road in Bel-Air has long been at the center of controversy, investigations and legal battles.
Its developer, Mohamed Hadid, pleaded no contest to criminal charges after prosecutors accused him of building a house far bigger than allowed. [...]
And investigators have looked into possible wrongdoing by a city building inspector scrutinizing the house.
— Los Angeles Times
Looks like the legal drama over the gargantuan on-again/off-again under-construction Bel Air megamansion by celebrity developer Mohamed Hadid is entering a new act: Russell Linch, the contested project's former construction manager, has come forward this week and accused a Los Angeles Department... View full entry
Manhattan’s latest crop of new luxury developments continues to attract a steady stream of buyers.
At the ultra-pricey 220 Central Park South in Midtown, the grand limestone skyscraper designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, four more units officially sold, including New York City’s most expensive closing in May: a three-bedroom aerie for nearly $26.5 million.
— The New York Times
The NYT's Vivian Marino provides an update on the biggest recent luxury real estate transactions in New York City with notably pricey purchases at Robert A.M. Stern's 220 Central Park South and 250 West 81st Street towers and also at the newly opened Hudson Yards mammoth development. "Philip... View full entry
The City Council voted to close a zoning loophole that has allowed developers to boost building heights with excessive mechanical spaces—but it’s only the first step in addressing the issue, say lawmakers. — Curbed NY
The zoning amendment will limit the city's notoriously over-sized mechanical spaces to 25-feet in height before additional space begins to eat into a project's allowable buildable area. New York City lawmakers are pushing to close other loopholes, as well, including rules impacting the use... View full entry
As the tech companies Uber, Airbnb, Lyft and Pinterest prepare to go public, thousands more instant millionaires are expected to flood the market in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. All the while, the middle class and working poor are scrambling for shelter. — The Guardian
The high-end condo building at 520 W. 28th St. along the High Line that the company completed roughly two years ago appears so far to be a rare bust.
According to property records, only 16 of the building's 39 units have sold, a roughly 40% sell through that shrinks to an even smaller percentage when measured by square footage. That's because the building's largest and most expensive apartments, including its three penthouse units, all remain unsold.
— Crain's New York Business
How 'bout this one? Nothing? Photo: Hufton+Crow. View full entry
New details and renderings have been released for 35 Hudson Yards, set to be the tallest residential tower in the Hudson Yards neighborhood at over 1,000 feet. The boutique apartments come with a wide array of in-house lifestyle services, some provided by the Equinox Hotel, which is part of the development. David Childs and Skidmore Owings & Merrill are the architects, while interior design is being led by Tony Ingrao. — New York YIMBY
To make 35 Hudson Yards your new home address, be prepared to open the checkbook extra wide — two-bedroom condos start at $5 million, while the average unit of the overall 134 apartments will set you back $11 million ($4,100 per square foot). The three penthouses have yet to be priced, reports... View full entry
On March 15, after 12 years of planning and six of construction, the Related Companies will open the gates to its new $25 billion enclave [...] Besides being big, Hudson Yards represents something fundamentally new to New York. It’s a one-shot, supersized virtual city-state, plugged into a global metropolis but crafted to the specifications of a single boss: Related’s chairman, Stephen Ross — NY Magazine
New York's new Hudson Yards is a preview of what major cities may look like in the next few years. Upon first glance, the new complex oozes a distinct look. Some might call it progressive luxury design, others may think otherwise. However, the 12 year project has several people looking to stake a... View full entry
A state lawmaker is gunning for more aggressive restrictions on the vast mechanical voids developers often abuse to boost their buildings’ heights as a “more robust” solution to the de Blasio administration’s recent zoning amendment. [...]
Current zoning exempts mechanical voids from a building’s floor-area ratio (FAR)—a given property’s square footage—and puts no height limits on those spaces.
— Curbed NY
"Luxury developers often exploit this loophole in residential towers to hike up the price for apartments on higher floors," explains Curbed NY one reasoning behind the newly introduced bill by New York State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal. View full entry
Any visitor to New York over the past few years will have witnessed this curious new breed of pencil-thin tower. Poking up above the Manhattan skyline like etiolated beanpoles, they seem to defy the laws of both gravity and commercial sense. They stand like naked elevator shafts awaiting their floors, raw extrusions of capital piled up until it hits the clouds. — The Guardian
In his latest long-form piece, The Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright shows how the advent of the new 'pencil tower' building type is rapidly transforming New York City's skyline, digs in the history of zoning laws, and explains how "air rights" allow (an abundance of) cash to buy a... View full entry
Hedge funder Ken Griffin has closed on a massive penthouse at 220 Central Park South, paying a record-shattering $238 million, according to sources familiar with the deal.
The Citadel founder has long been rumored as the buyer of the condominium’s most lavish spread — a 23,000-square-foot quadplex encompassing the 50th through 53rd floors of the limestone tower, developed by Vornado Realty Trust and designed by Robert A.M. Stern. The asking price was $250 million.
— The Real Deal
After Ken Griffin dropped a sweet quarter billion on his new NYC digs, he didn't appear entirely penniless and recently secured a few other neat places to crash when traveling to London, Chicago, or Miami. "Earlier this week, he reportedly scooped up a house in London for around $122 million,"... View full entry
As Art Basel kicks off this week in Miami the city has a new listing to boast about that comes with everything you would expect for the highest-priced penthouse in the area right now: a celebrity architect, more square footage than its competitors, ocean views that go on forever and, of course, an unusual luxury amenity... — Forbes
A new report by real estate agency Knight Frank finds that 153 properties in six cities’ “ultra-prime” category sold for a combined total of $6.6 billion in the last year, or an average of $43 million per house.
Hong Kong led the world in sales over $25 million, followed by New York, then London.
— Bloomberg
Market slowdown? What market slowdown? While the real estate sector in the U.S. and certain global regions (looking at you, Brexit-y London) is seeing signs of cooling, including the upper-scale segment, there has been no significant impact on the uppest-scale cream slice of the industry with... View full entry
The limestone clad mansion in Bel Air owned by the late TV executive Jerry Perenchio just got a price cut.
But at $245 million, the commanding French neoclassical residence, which measures 25,000 square feet, is still the most expensive listing on the open market in the U.S.
The property, which came up for sale last year for a staggering $350 million, has long been the cream of the crop among high-end estates.
— Curbed LA
If you happen to have won the $1.6 billion lottery jackpot last week or simply don't know where to stash away all those extra tax-cut savings, here's a sweet dealio for you: the spacious 'Chartwell' Bel Air mansion at 875 Nimes Road was built in 1933 and also appeared in the 1960s TV show The... View full entry
Rafael Viñoly is best known for designing 432 Park, the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere, but he makes time for private homes, too–at least when they have headline-making features like a bullet-proof glass facade. His firm was first tapped to design this Upper East Side townhouse by Argentinian billionaire Eduardo Eurnekian to serve as his home and U.S. headquarters, but it looks like he instead decided to list the finished product for $50 million. — 6sqft