Photo: 1stDibs The Farralone Estate in Chatsworth, Calif., which was featured as a House of the Day last month, is chock full of celebrity history. Frank Sinatra once sublet the place from its original owner, Chase Manhattan Bank heiress Dora Hutchinson, and Hutchinson entertained the likes of Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland and Vicente Minnelli here. The most gripping, and most scandalous, episode in the house’s history is an alleged tryst between Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. Last month, we couldn’t be sure if it were true or not, but 1stDibs has the location narrowed down to the one-bedroom guest house (above) that enjoys use of its own private pool. The sleek little cottage is like a miniature version of the 10,000-foot-main house designed by Pereira & Luckman. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. ↑ Now for a darker scandal, something fit for a Dominick Dunne piece, out of Newport, R.I. This massive mansion, known as Clarendon Court, was the scene of Claus von Bulow’s alleged attack on his wife, Sunny. Mrs. von Bulow ended up in a permanent coma, and Claus was later acquitted of any wrongdoing, but the spectre of guilt still hangs over this place. The spectre of taxes also appears to have been doing a number on the current owners, who don’t seem to have much left over to furnish this seaside palace. That should all change if this house sells for anything close to its $15.8M asking price, down from $17.8M in October 2010. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Back to the more romantic side of things, this suburban Chicago mansion was once the love shack of abdicated British monarch Edward, Duke of Windsor and the twice-divorced socialite Wallis Simpson. In 1941, tragedy again struck the sprawling brick manse as its widower owner, Charles Schweppe, shot himself here. Afterwards, the place wallowed in disrepair before being salvaged by a couple who were later foreclosed upon, this 33,000-square-foot estate is listed for $12M. ↑ While the previous two estates have been sitting on the market for ages now, a couple of other scandalous pads have been snapped up in short order. This one, the famous Dominique Strauss-Kahn townhouse in Manhattan—where the disgraced and later acquitted DSK holed up during the run-up to trial—either leased or sold about two weeks ago. The price was $50K per month or $12.5M, which means someone got a mightily expensive Christmas gift this year. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. ↑ Before Mr. Bernie Madoff came along and dominated the genre, the Tyco scandal was set to be the financial trial of the century. The ringleader of this merry band of fraudsters, Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski, spent millions doing up this seacoast New Hampshire estate in fine nouveau style. Then, when the exec was forced to sell, the next owners came in, tore it all out, and did it all again. Looking for a quick sale, they sent the palatial mansion to auction in 2010, where it sold for $4.1M. · Midcentury Manse with Many, Many Boldface Names Attached [Curbed National] · Farralone Estate [1stDibs] · 626 Bellevue Ave [Libby Kirwin] · Spooky House on a Storied Easy Street [Curbed National] · This Lakefront Mock Brit Once Hosted the Duke of Windsor [Curbed National] · Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Tribeca House Now Just $12.5M [Curbed NY] · 153 Franklin Street [Streeteasy] · Tyco Crook’s Revamped Palace On Auction Block Today [Curbed National]
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Scandals: Five Luxurious Houses With Famously Unseemly Backstories
NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank, the commander of the International Space Station, saw what he described as a “green glowing arc” rising above the earth’s horizon on Wednesday night. What he caught sight of some 240 miles above Tasmania was actually Comet Lovejoy, a “sungrazer” (a comet on a path that takes it near the sun) recently discovered by amateur astronomer, Terry Lovejoy. Burbank was in awe of the sighting, which you can see in a video below; he called it “the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in space.” [ more › ]
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Video: Space Station Captures Incredible Image Of Comet
Click here to view the full photogallery. Photos: Leigh Davis and Zechariah Vincent/ NYMag Jon Sherman, founder and head designer of the wallpaper firm Flavor Paper, packed up and moved himself and his business to the commercial hinterlands of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, he must have known the new place would have to make a splash. The new industrial-looking building, designed by Jeff Kovel of Skylab Architecture, is kitted out on the interior with some of Flavor Paper’s most striking designs. The roof garden is bordered by bright purple paneling, the master bedroom of Sherman’s personal penthouse is done up in faux fur, and the skylit living room features a deeply textured modern fireplace. Quite a showplace for Flavor Paper’s products, enough to keep clients like Lenny Kravitz and Frank Gehry coming across the river. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. Photos: Payton Turner ↑ For sheer craziness, there’s not much that can top this seemingly-innocuous patterned wall treatment. Produced by Brooklyn-based artist Payton Turner, the design is, in fact, artfully-arranged stickers featuring everything from birthday cakes to butterflies to dollar bills. Perfect for a kid’s bedroom, so long as there’s time to carefully apply thousands of tiny stickers in a designated pattern. Photo: Max Kim-Bee/Veranda ↑ Some big-name interior designers have been going out on a limb with the patterned walls. Martyn Lawrence Bullard used monochrome squiggles on the walls and ceiling of the Veranda Concept House. Bullard said he wanted to give the media room a “Studio 54-Halston vibe.” We’re thinking it might give the occupant a headache instead. Photo: Simon Upton/ Elle Decor ↑ Elle Decor ‘s archives offer up some interesting alternatives to the usual paint and wallpaper. This formal dining room has a series of vases on the sideboard, but they’re accented by unusual wall decals depicting vases. None too surprisingly, this is the dining room of formal-meets-subversion fashion designer Donatella Versace. Photo: Eric Boman/ Elle Decor ↑ In an equally playful alternative to a thousand tiny stickers, the entrance hall of a family’s Manhattan roost was done over with the lyrics to the Rolling Stones classic “Loving Cup.” The multi-colored felt letters were the brainchild of Muriel Brandolini, who, by the way, just opened her own Manhattan apartment to the New York Social Diary. · Factory Life [NYMag] · Please Welcome the World’s Craziest Wallpaper to the Dancefloor [Curbed National] · First Look Inside Veranda’s First-Ever Concept House [Curbed National] · Cover Story [Elle Decor] · Cover Story [Elle Decor] · Inside Muriel Brandolini’s Ever-So-Cool Manhattan Apartment [Curbed National]
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Innovation Week 2011: Innovative Wall Treatments Sure to Spice Up Boring Interiors
Click here to view the full photogallery. Photos: Jeffrey Hirsch/ NYSD House One thinks of a lot of things when the name Muriel Brandolini —darling of daring decor—is floated: colorful stair risers, bright, exotic fabrics, and so on. Her own home, as one learns from today’s New York Social Diary House column, features much more neutral tones but loads of touches no one else on Earth would be able to pull off. Case in point: library walls covered in custom gold silk taffeta, a deep-teal modern bed frame in one room and an ornate 17th-century wood-and-brass Portuguese bed frame in another, upholstered ceilings, and dining room walls “covered in white corduroy from Holland and Sherry. They were hand-beaded in Vietnam by Trinh Ly Quynh Kim with a quotation from Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. ” Inspired? Get in line: unfortunately the auction where hundreds of the decorator’s furnishings went on the block has passed. · Muriel Brandolini [NYSD House]
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Designer Homes: Inside Muriel Brandolini’s Ever-So-Cool Manhattan Apartment
Click here to view the full photogallery. Over the years, we’ve found a particular affinity for a certain type of residential conversion, the church-turned-condo. New York City is a metropolis with a time-honored tradition of taking churches, turning them into popular nightclubs, then taking the drug-addled nightclub and making an awkward mall out of it, then finally tearing out the mall and putting in an International House of Pancakes. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the city is also home to churches that have simply been converted into apartments. This one, in a building now known as Novare, has two bedrooms, a glassed-in courtyard, and a modern design that clashes with the few remaining 1860s details. Celebs and models have flocked to the hallowed ground, with Jude Law apparently getting in a spat with some NYU students while renting here. Just be prepare to cough up $2.3M to live like a pious A-lister. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. ↑ For more of the holy feel, this converted Chicago house of god might be just the ticket. The lofty main floor retains the original mezzanine, hardwood floors, and altar. A year ago, this place was asking $749K; now that price is down to $700K without any takers. Maybe the open loft feel isn’t what buyers are looking for in a classic 4,000-square-foot spread. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Out in Colorado, this cute little chapel, revamped for residential use, runs just $475K. Built in 1923, the 3,500-square-foot house has five beds and three baths squeezed under that peaked roof. The expansion has some decidedly uninspired finishes, but the original section of the house has original details to spare. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. ↑ Not all former churches are so thrifty, as a trip back to Chicago will demonstrate. This 1896 Greek Orthodox church, converted into a 10,100-square-foot mansion, is currently asking $3M. That’s down from a high of $4.2M in 2008, but not low enough to induce a sale. The six-bed, four-bath house doesn’t have much in the way of historic detail, but the interiors do have a very unique look about them. ↑ Not ready to commit to living in a house of god? Good thing they pop up on Craigslist too. This awesome Chicago loft, formerly the auditorium of a church, measures 2,700 square feet and comes with huge original arched windows. The rent, considering the floor area and the 14-foot ceilings, is a quite reasonable $1,675 per month. Of course, you’ll have to wait for it to hit Craigslist again, just keep praying the current tenants want to move out. · $2.3M for the 2BR Loft in a Converted Village Church [Curbed NY] · All Limelight coverage [Curbed NY] · 2558 West Cortez Street [Trulia] · Loft Building with Even Loftier Beginnings [Curbed National] · 7933 Louviers Blvd [Zillow] · 1339 W Webster Ave [Zillow] · 2,700-Square-Foot Loft in Converted Church for $1,675/mo [Curbed Chicago]
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On the Market: Converted Churches Turn Holy Places into Luxe Living Spaces
Click the image above to view the full photogallery. In honor of the newly minted Curbed Boston, we’re heading up to The Hub to take a look at the five most expensive properties on the market. Sure, there are plenty of high-dollar houses in the suburbs, but for our purposes, let’s just focus on the exorbitant homes within the city limits. Leading it off is the Ames-Webster Mansion, a 50-room product of 1872 that was designed by the legendary Peabody & Stearns. With gilt ceilings, extensive woodwork, murals, stained glass by John La Farge, and 11,000-square-feet in one of Boston’s most desirable neighborhoods, Back Bay, it’s no wonder the price is set at an astronomical $23M. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ If 11,000-square-feet isn’t quite enough space for your Bostonian aspirations, try this 50-foot-wide, 15,000-square-foot bowfront townhouse, also located in Back Bay. The architecture and stained-glass might not have any famous names attached, but the price is much reduced, to $16M. Plus, it’s not like this New England palace is devoid of historic details, with intricately carved moldings, seven marble fireplaces, and that classic Georgian facade. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Boston’s original bastion of the rich, Beacon Hill, was always going to be somewhere on this list, especially when a townhouse fronting on the Public Garden is up for sale. This six-bed, six-bath restored home is capped with a new swimming pool, but retains historic detail like eight working fireplaces, a vaulted wine cellar, and “palatial double parlors.” The asking price is a cool $15M. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Now, back to the name dropping. This Back Bay limestone stunner has quite the history. It was built in 1905 according to plans by regional architectural notables Little & Browne and was once home to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edwin O’Connor. Okay, so those aren’t terribly big names, but this is a terribly large house. The facade measures 33.5 feet across and behind the limestone there are 11,100 square feet, ten bedrooms, 7.5 baths, and exquisite period detailing. All of this is within a block of the Public Garden and runs $13.5M. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Finally, a pricey apartment for those wealthy folks not into the whole house deal. Situated in the park-front Mandarin Oriental hotel, this amenities-rich condo on the 11th floor boasts views of the Charles River and neighboring Cambridge, while on the inside providing three bedrooms, four bathrooms, two half-baths, and three fireplaces spread over 6,000 square feet. The hotel services and two deeded parking spaces round out this $12.5M offering. · 306 Dartmouth St [Zillow] · 15 Commonwealth [Zillow] · 74 Beacon Street [Zillow] · 10 Marlborough St [Zillow] · 776 Boylston [Landvest]
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On the Market: A Quick Look at Some of Boston’s Most Expensive Listings
Click here to view the full photogallery. Photos: Sam Oberter/ PostGreen Homes With the green building movement in full swing, it’s about time developers turned out some examples that accounted for aesthetics as well as the environment. Then there was the challenge of making an attractive green home that was affordable too. In late 2007, Chad Ludeman, Nic Darling, and Courtney Ludeman founded PostGreen and set out to prove it was possible. By ’09, they had constructed the 100K House (above). The simple modern design, set in the East Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, managed to achieve a LEED Platinum rating while costing less than $100-per-square-foot. While the simple floorplan—devoid of interior walls and doors—might not be everyone’s idea of a livable house, it is a stunning achievement none-the-less. Which is probably why the U.S. Green Building Council named it the 2010 LEED for Homes Project of the Year. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ On the Presidio, San Francisco’s decommissioned military base turned national park, a wave of redevelopment provided a rare opportunity to live within the bounds of a national park with an easy commute to the heart of a major American city. The three-bedroom Presidio Landmark townhouses have been awarded LEED Platinum certification and rent for $6,800-$7,800 per month. Click here to view the full photogallery. Photos: Mariko Reed, Sam Oberter, and Tim McDonald/ ArchDaily ↑ Back in Philly —which seems to be a hotbed of stylish green design—another set of designers has turned a city staple, the rowhouse, on its head. The funky slatted facades belie simple modern interiors and add some distinctive visual interest to the…you guessed it…LEED Platinum certified structure. All nine units in the Thin Flats development have been sold since completion in 2008. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ The whole LEED thing isn’t making such strong headway in NYC, where high land costs and higher standards tend to produce buildings aimed at returning profits instead of reversing climate change. But with the green living trend on the rise, even Manhattanites can be swayed by a green building. One Jackson Square is a rare modern build in the coveted West Village and has been LEED certified. Perhaps that can account for the high prices: this 2,200-square-foot penthouse is asking $6.14M. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. ↑ When price goes out the window altogether, the green home can be quite the palace. Remember the $60M spec house A-Rod was talking up back in February? Well it turns out even that 30,000-square-foot Miami mega-manse has somehow obtained LEED certification, despite power-sapping features like a 3D projection movie theater and fingerprint-secured wine cave. · PostGreen Homes [official site] · Belles Townhouses – Presidio Landmark [official site] · All Presidio Landmark coverage [Curbed SF] · Thin Flats | Onion Flats [ArchDaily] · 122 Greenwich Avenue [Corcoran] · Miami’s Record-Setting Spec House Behemoth Worth a Second Look [Curbed National]
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Green Buildings: Proof that Green Buildings Don’t Have to Be Ugly Or Expensive
Click the image above to view the full photogallery. Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is why, in the wake of the earthquake in Japan, a bunch of people are ready to move to Nebraska. CNN reports that reservations to secure rooms in Vivos’s high-end fallout shelters have risen 1,000 percent since last week out of fear that the end times will arrive in 2012, just as the Mayan calendar has forecasted. The fair Cornhusker State may not come to mind as an ideal place to weather the apocalypse—wouldn’t most people be someplace in the Caribbean?—but currently underway in an undisclosed location is the construction of a concrete-and-steel bunker that Vivos bills as a four-star hotel. Really, the end times don’t seem half-bad! Amenities include swanky lounges, a bakery, deluxe bedrooms, dental facilities, a medical center, pet-pampering services, a fully stocked wine cellar, and even a prison should evacuees become unruly. About the size of a Wal-Mart, the space accommodates 950 people at a rate of $25K a head. · Sales of luxe doomsday bunkers up 1,000% [CNN Money]
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Apocalypsecasting: Swankiest Doomsday Bunker of All Time Being Built in Nebraska
After years of disrepair, the 4,300-square-foot home that Dorothy Turkel commissioned in 1955 is shiny, new, and begging for a Mad Men party. It’s the only two-story Usonian automatic home that Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed and therefore attracts photo-snapping architecture enthusiasts to its lawn with a bit more regularity than its current residents, Norman Silk and Dale Morgan, would like. Curbed reporter Sarah F. Cox sat down with the couple, who are partners in life and a local floral business, to talk about what it’s like to live behind all that glass. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. Photos: Hour Detroit Curbed National: When you saw this house for sale in a state of disrepair, what made you want to take that on? Dale Morgan: We’ve lived in Palmer Woods [the Turkel House’s neighborhood] for 25 years. Most of the houses aren’t modern at all and we’d always lived in a traditional home; we had a beautiful Mediterranean villa. We wanted to do something contemporary because we had redone that house three times so we were looking around for options; at first we didn’t even realize that that this was truly a Frank Lloyd Wright home. Norman Silk: I was driving by one day and saw the “For Sale” sign in the yard and stopped. It was a really sunny day and the light was streaming in; the whole house was empty and everything we have now was here, but badly faded, like the benches and shelves. There was old white upholstery and water-stained wood and the color of everything was butter yellow. You could see the red floors, which are polished concrete, but they still had carpet glue on them and they were dirty. But I saw the bones of the house and I thought that is really an interesting, cool house. CN: It’s pretty amazing that you just stumbled upon a Frank Lloyd Wright home. How was its history so unknown? NS: This house had been in decline for the 25 years we’d lived here; it had never been a vibrant house. It was unkempt and overgrown, no one had ever done much with it, and there wasn’t much conversation in the neighborhood about it being truly a Frank Lloyd Wright. In our minds, we thought it was a student of Wright or just in the style of Wright; once we knew what it really was that piqued our interest. DM: After we bought it everyone said, “Oh I was going to buy that house.” It had been on the market a lot of times over the years and so a lot of people had looked at it. CN: How did you bring your design aesthetic into the home? NS: We wanted it to look like 1955. We didn’t want to change anything. You could do many things with this if it was just a regular midcentury house but we wanted this to be like Mr. Wright intended it. Except for a new bathroom so that we could have some modern amenities. CN: So the design really held up? NS: I would say so. We have an original photograph of the music room being used when Ms. Turkel was here and we’ve had parties just like that. DM: The house was very forward thinking. Wright was the man that understood that American lifestyle was going to be changing and that it was going to be moving into a much more casual way of living. There wasn’t going to be help around and the lady of the house was going to be doing things herself and cocktail parties were becoming en vogue outdoor living was en vogue and he realized that would be a general trend. DM: People say that they would not want to live here because it would feel like living in a fish bowl since there are no window treatments. But you can’t see in! NS: The view in is so distorted by the smaller windows. DM: The views focus you. Each glass is like a film clip so that you really focus on each one of the openings like a series of vignettes, and that’s what you see. We can look out but people cannot see in because the overhangs cast a shadow onto the glass and the glass really serves as a mirror to reflect what is outside, not show what is inside. The only way we can really see into this house is by going right up to the glass and putting your face in it. Like a squirrel. (Curbed Editor’s Note: at this time in the conversation there was, in fact, a squirrel on the glass.) CN: When you came here from a more traditional house did you make an effort to furnish this home in a 1950s style? Did you start over or combine elements of the old home? DM: We got rid of everything. NS: The only thing we brought was some artwork and a few accessories. We did as much research as we could on what was here so we went to the archives and tried to find every picture that we could. We were able to contact one of the granddaughters [of Ms. Turkel] and she sent us pictures. On the blueprint it shows three coffee tables and 12 hassocks so we knew that was what he intended but we did not have a design, so through the photographs and the archives we were able to come up with the design. DM: You know how Americans think they can do everything? They just think their own taste is exquisite. But we are in a style/taste business and we know that we don’t know everything. Once you live in a house like this and experience it you realize there is some logic to it, there is flow, the repitition really does work, and you want it to be simple. This was spot on. So there is no need for me to make changes. My philosophy is that it is a world-renown architect: don’t help.
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Motor City: Call It A Comeback: Restoring Frank Lloyd Wright in Detroit
An anonymous Curbed commenter expressed his annoyance about the estate sale held at Scottie Pippen’s former house in Chicago this weekend, saying, “Very disappointed. The promised memorabilia was not there at this sale.” Today Yahoo offers a glimpse of what was being sold, including boxes of Beanie Babies at $1 each. [ previously; Yahoo via Zillow ]
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Beanie Babies at Scottie Pippen’s Old Place: An anonymous Curbed commenter expressed his…