Rapper Ja Rule is serving a two-year sentence for attempted criminal possession of a firearm (a loaded .40 was found in his car in 2007 )—plus another four months for tax evasion —and he seems pretty upbeat. At least, that what this exclusive interview and video from the Daily News suggest: “The Queens-raised rap star says disgraced pol Alan Hevesi and corporate greed poster-boy Dennis Kozlowski took him under their wings. From Kozlowski, he got stock tips. From Hevesi, he heard about the perennial impasse in Albany. They watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert together.” Ja Rule said, ” Outside, you don’t meet guys like this every day. This place is amazing. ” [ more › ]
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Ja Rule: Prison An "Amazing" Place To Meet White Collar Criminals, Crooked Pols
Betty White’s team of senior pranksters have been spotted in Park Slope. The 90-year-old actress has a new show called Off Their Rockers , which is basically Punk’d but with White instead of Ashton Kutcher. FIPS noticed that in a recent episode of the hidden-camera prank show (which airs on NBC ) takes place in Park Slope! Even though it’s mostly filmed in Los Angeles. [ more › ]
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Betty White’s Prank Show Spotted In Park Slope
Click here to view the full photogallery. While it’s true that big-name celebs tend to congregate on the coasts, a smattering seek refuge from the fameball-saturated beaches of Malibu or the crowded streets of Manhattan in ski communities in the Mountain Time Zone. Take acerbic funnyman Jerry Seinfeld. In July, the comedian and former sitcom star listed his imposing Telluride, Colo. estate, which boasts a 14,200-square-foot main house with 11 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and a 5,500-square-foot deck, not to mention a heated garage with space for four cars. Nice place—and on 26 acres, no less—but few would chuckle at the price: Seinfeld originally wanted $18.3M. Suspiciously, the listing has since disappeared. ↑ Jon Huntsman isn’t the only GOP face to find refuge in the mountains. In 1999, Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney purchased a winter home in Park City, Utah, which he promptly sold for roughly $5.2M a decade or so later. What the lucky new homeowner got: seven bedrooms and 9.5. baths over 9,500 square feet, plus the name recognition, of course. Click the image above to view the full photogallery. ↑ Here’s a property that was made famous on a relatively recent episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: the massive Avon, Colo. ski getaway where actor Kelsey Grammar and his ex-wife Camille enjoyed their happier times. The duo dropped $5.35M on the 8,500-square-foot house in 2002, listed it for $7.9M, and have since PriceChopped the six-bedroom home to $7.3M. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Meeker, Colo.’s Seven Lakes Ranch is golfer Greg Norman’s truly epic mega compound that’s surrounded by the White River National Forest. Included on hundreds of acres: a 13,900-square-foot fully furnished “luxury lodge,” guest and staff cabins, a fitness center, a “sportsmans lodge,” stables, more than two miles of river frontage, private hunting, movie theater, and a boatload more. Expectedly, the place is dizzying: $55M. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ While it’s not wise to call the above property a “chalet,” it is located in ski-chic Aspen and it does have a celebrity name attached: Charlie Sheen, who once rented the five-bedroom house with ex Brooke Mueller and actually, as it turns out, beat her up in it. The home sold for $6.125M in Sept. 2010. · Television Funnyman Jerry Seinfeld Lists $18.5M Telluride Estate [Curbed National] · Kelsey Grammar Divorces Ski Home For Everything It’s Worth [Curbed National] · Mitt Romney’s 6 Homes [Zillow Blog] · 7 Lakes Ranch [SDS Real Estate] · 320 W. Hallam St., Aspen, Colo. [Zillow] · Charlie Sheen’s Christmas 2009 Aspen Vacation Home [Celebrity Real Estate News]
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Ski Chalet Week: Five Celebrities Who Have Embraced the Ski Chalet Lifestyle
Photo: Architizer SAN DIEGO, CALIF. —A work by the Korean artist Do Ho Suh has been installed on the roof of UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering in a process that looks like a behind-the-scenes pic from the movie Up! That’s because the artwork, dubbed “Fallen Star,” is, in fact, a house and accompanying yard tilted at a ten degree angle. [Architizer] NEW YORK, N.Y. —Jimmy McMillan, the maniac mayoral candidate at the head of the now nationally-known “Rent Is 2 Damn High” party, is suing the New York Board of Elections for trying to keep the word “damn” off the ballot. He’s also concerned that the party suffered from an inaccurate vote count in the last go-around and is “confident we received more than the 41,000 votes reported.” [The Real Deal] NEW YORK, N.Y. —After passing up many pricier townhouse options, acting duo Naomi Watts and Liev Schrieber have settled on a sprawling Tribeca loft as their new Manhattan home. The couple paid $3.95M for a pair of units that are set to be combined to form a 4,300-square-foot mega-loft with 13 windows and a flexible floor plan. [The Real Estalker]
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CurbedWire: Art House on Rooftop; Rent Too Damn High to Not Sue; Celebs
Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul has accumulated an impressively eclectic mix of followers, including Kelly Clarkson , racists , Oliver Stone , Nevada brothels , 9/11 conspiracy nuts , and fervent Gothamist readers. And although it doesn’t seem like Paul has a chance in hell of becoming involved in the Republican nomination battle to the death between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, the Ron Paul Nation can whet its White House appetite for only $102.45 with the “Commander-In-Chief” Ron Paul Talking Action Figure ! [ more › ]
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Ron Paul Action Figure Conundrum: "Commander-In-Chief" Or "Super Hero"?
Click here to view the full photogallery. It’s not a job that everyone is going to want—remember when the Secret Service was crawling all over the Obama’s neighborhood back in 2008?—but for the adventurous and politically-minded, here are six houses from the very possibly presidential neighborhoods tracked down by Zillow. We’ve already been over the $12.5M beachfront listing a few doors down from Mitt Romney’s La Jolla, Calif. home, but the man’s so rich that even his vacation house bear mention. Romney keeps a lake house in the summer resort town of Wolfboro, N.H. and the wood-and-stone structure is valued at close to $10M. This similarly-situated shingled house is also on Lake Winnipesaukee, but in the nearby town of Meredith, N.H., and is nearly a tenth the cost, $1.2M. Of course, this is a much more rustic form of living, but who could want much more in a lake house. It’s got four acres, four bedrooms, two baths, and a casual, worn look that won’t get the buyer accused of being too rich. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ By contrast to the modest New Hampshire lake house, this brick mansion in Great Falls, Va., is a study in extravagance and is located just a couple blocks from Rick Santorum’s suburban D.C. digs. Listed for $2.7M, the 11,000-square-foot home boasts five bedrooms, eight baths, five acres, a pool, spa, sports court, billiards room, media room, playroom and gym. The master bedroom takes up an entire wing, just like in the White House. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Also located just outside of D.C., in McLean, Va., this as-yet-unbuilt mansion lies just a block from Newt Gingrich’s cul-de-sac home. Listed for $1.7M, the house will have six beds and six baths on a half acre once complete and should look vaguely similar to the house pictured (one strange marketing strategy). Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ In D.C. proper, Jon Huntsman has kept a mansion in the Kalorama district during his career as an international civil servant. This place around the corner isn’t nearly as large, but the price is drastically reduced too. Asking $2M, the townhouse was recently renovated and features six bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, and a charming, if cramped, backyard. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Now, on to Texas, which two of the GOP candidates call home. Rick Perry is currently the governor of the Lone Star state, so he occupies the executive mansion, but during a renovation to his government accommodations, Perry and his family rented a house in Austin, down the road from this $1.4M estate. The listing lacks many pictures, but bargain hunters should be satisfied with a recent $100K price chop to this five bed, six bath, 6,100-square-foot manse. Click here to view the full photogallery. ↑ Ron Paul’s modest house in Lake Jackson, Tex. literally backs up on this low-slung ranch, currently listed for $123K. That means not only is this the closest one could get to a potential vacation White House, but it’s also the cheapest on our list. For that sum, the buyer receives three beds, two baths, but, sadly, no pool like the one in Paul’s backyard. · GOP Candidates Look to Trade These Homes for White House [Zillow Blog] · 38 Lovejoy Lane [Sotheby's] · 10707 Milkweed Dr [Zillow] · 1347 Windy Hill Road [Realtor.com] · 2158 California St NW [Zillow] · 8105 Hickory Creek [Zillow] · 131 Blossom St [Zillow] · Live a Few Doors Down From Mitt Romney on the SoCal Coast [Curbed National]
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On the Market: A Chance to Live Next Door to the GOP Presidential Candidates
Welcome back to Why This Works, a new Curbed column in which decorator and former shelter-magazine editor Alexa Stevenson looks point-blank at professionally decorated rooms and breaks down the elements that make them work. Have a suggestion for someone whose work should be showcased? Do let us know. Photo by Oleg March/Courtesy of Eddie Lee Inc. The point of a decorator show house, of course, is to give participants the chance to show their stuff, and Manhattan-based designer Eddie Lee did just that in a suite in last year’s Hampton Designer Showhouse. The room demonstrates Lee’s talent for turning an uninteresting space into a sophisticated, yet not too serious, living room off a guest room where antiques and modern pieces coexist. (By the way, the Bridgehampton house just sold for $5.3M after lingering on the market for seven months.) Anyway, please find Lee’s tips below. 1. By covering the ceiling in a sea foam-colored sea grass that mirrors the shag rug, Lee provides symmetry in an unexpected way. “I bookended the white vinyl walls, which gives this space an unconventional touch of balance,” he says. With 10.5-foot ceilings, a ceiling treatment also draws the eye up. 2. “A lot of people think ‘Hamptons’ and think lots of cushions and Shabby Chic,” says Lee, “but this is a beach house, and I wanted the least fuss possible. A tufted sofa is perfect—it requires no fluffing and looks exactly the same once you get off of it.” In addition, clean lines add a touch of formality, while a white painted platform tones down the heaviness of the sofas: “I wanted them to look as they were floating over the room.” 3. The room’s Venini chandelier is massive: “When in doubt, go big. If a client thinks a lighting fixture may be too big, that’s when I know it’ll work,” Lee says. “Always err on the larger side. Chandeliers that are too small always look out of place, and ceiling fixtures give interest to rooms that aren’t architecturally interesting.” 4. The 1970s coffee table with a glass top and an acrylic base grounds the room without weighing it down. “I like to place vertical elements diagonal of each other—in this case, a tall orchid with candlesticks—and horizontal elements on the opposite diagonal,” he says. “A stack of books is just too easy, so I like to mix it up.” Here, he found a piece of agate that ties in with the room’s color scheme. 5. Lee used Lucite curtain rods as a juxtaposition to the many antique white and gilt pieces (including the window treatment hardware) dotting the room: “They give the room a playful touch and keep it from being too stuffy.” · Eddie Lee Incorporated [official site] · All Why This Works columns [Curbed National] · 2011′s Hampton Designer Showcase House Sells For $3.5M [Curbed Hamptons]
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Why This Works: Eddie Lee’s Guest Suite in the Hampton Decorator Showhouse
President Obama’s chief of staff, Bill Daley, announced that he would resign his post at the end of the month. Sources in the White House tell the AP that Daley’s letter of resignation, which he submitted last week, took president Obama by surprise. “I have been honored to be in your Muppet Movie a small part of your administration,” Daley’s letter read. In a brief press conference today, the president said, “There’s no question I will deeply miss having Bill by my side at the White House, ” and stated that OMB director Jack Lew will take the reins. [ more › ]
Photo by Jean-Francois De Witte via Buzz Feed · Buy a Palm Springs getaway from a cofounder of the Ace Hotel. [Curbed LA] · A look at a really schmancy place in Pacific Heights. [Curbed SF] · Romney’s Hub home: fewer bathrooms than the White House. [Curbed Boston] · Buy the home of one of Sag Harbor’s original benefactors. [Curbed Hamptons] · Perhaps a $1,500 changing table would suit Beyonce’s new baby? [Racked NY] · Own part of a vineyard, reap the benefits. [WSJ] · Amazing time lapse of 30-story building being built in two weeks. [Gizmodo] · Clever art made of dishes by Jean-Francoise De Witte. [Buzz Feed]
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Linkage: A Palm Springs House With an Ace Hotel Connection; More!
Designed by McKim, Mead, & White graduate Grosvenor Atterbury in 1902 and recently renovated by Hamptons-based architect Francis Fleetwood, this 12-bedroom Southampton, N.Y., estate hit the market for $59.5M in 2008, was PriceChopped by $10M a year later, was PriceUpped to its original ask last June, and, on Saturday, was PriceChopped again down to $49M. Whew! All that activity probably makes you yearn for a nice, long dip in a private indoor pool. Luckily, this 18,000-square-foot mansion, owned by a former Esprit exec, has one of those, along with a fun-looking slide contraption. Curbed Hamptons has additional photos of the property—but really, can it get any better than this? · Southampton’s 160 Ox Pasture Road Gets A $10M Pricechop [Curbed Hamptons]
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On the Market: Inside the Hamptons’ Most Spectacularly Great Indoor Pool