Raphael Stevens
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The Former London Home of Late Romance Author Dame Barbara Cartland Just Listed for $44 Million
The late and famously prolific English author Dame Barbara Cartland, whose 720-plus novels sold upwards of 750 million copies, was the so-called “Queen of Romance,” so don’t be surprised if you fall in love with her sumptuous former London home. Located in Mayfair, one of the most affluent areas of the British capital, the novelist’s lavish five-story mansion is newly listed for a hefty £35 million (or roughly $44.2 million).
Originally built in 1902 for Liberal politician and stockbroker Sir Cuthbert Quilter, the Edwardian-style abode has played host to its fair share of high-profile residents. The elegant abode was purchased by Cartland in 1936 and is where she raised her daughter, Countess Raine Spencer, better known as the stepmother to Princess Diana. (Despite the connection, Cartland was not invited to Diana’s wedding to Charles in 1981.) In the century-plus since it was erected, the palatial pad also served as the birthplace of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who briefly served as Prime Minister in the mid-1960s.
The former London townhouse of British novelist Dame Barbara Cartland just listed for $44.2 million
Christophe Schaillee
“This remarkable property is widely regarded as the quintessential London mansion. It exudes elegance and sophistication, with its exceptional features and prime location just moments away from Park Lane and Grosvenor Square,” notes the listing, which is held by Michael Holt and Nicole Hay of Compass.
Designed by acclaimed architect Detmar Blow, the 8,500-square-foot property features a stately red-brick exterior adorned with neo-classical cornices. Inside, soaring and embellished ceilings, stone fireplaces, and a sweeping wooden staircase are among the home’s original period features.
For all the historic detailing and traditional finery, there are, however, a notable number of modernizations. For example, the basement has been turned into a full-blown spa, where you’ll find an indoor swimming pool, a sauna, a designated relaxation zone, and even a bar.
The lower level has an indoor pool and spa that opens to a patio.
Christophe Schaillee
No stranger to entertaining, Cartland made good use of the grandly proportioned principal reception areas on the ground and first floors, which combined can accommodate over 100 guests. Elsewhere, the deluxe digs comprise six bedrooms, including a swanky primary suite that occupies the entire second floor. The space is decked out with a projector over the bed, an enormous walk-in closet, an ensuite bath, and its own private terrace.
“Undoubtedly, this truly magnificent home stands as the epitome of luxury living in London,” crows the listing. We concur.
Click here to see all the photos of 28 South Street.
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Enjoy the High Life at This Charles Gwathmey-Designed Pied-à-Terre Atop NYC’s Iconic Sherry-Netherland Hotel
Always wanted to sit back and relax in a professionally coiffed abode overlooking some of the best scenery New York City has to offer—one holding court in a rarefied prewar building with access to ritzy amenities like room service from the famed Harry Cipriani restaurant, for instance?
Well, if you happen to have an extra $4.45 million lying around and are eager to spend it, this luxe four-room apartment on the 20th floor of one of Gotham’s first branded hotel residences just might be the ideal spot to settle down in unique style. After all, The Sherry-Netherland Hotel has been described as “more than a place to live, it is a way of living.”
Records show the co-op premises have long been occupied by billionaire financier Gary Winnick and his wife, artist and author Karen Winnick, who happen to be the very same couple currently shopping around their legendary Casa Encantada estate in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles for a whopping $250 million.
An entrance hallway introduces some of architect Charles Gwathmey’s signature high modernist style.
Sam Czvitkovits
Tailored to suit their personal tastes in the late 1990s by revered high modernist architect Charles Gwathmey, the unit lies on the 20th floor of the exclusive 38-story Schultze & Weaver-designed structure. Developed in 1927 by Louis Sherry and Lucius Boomer, the Fifth Avenue stalwart has been resided in through the years by A-listers the likes of David Bowie, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand, George Burns, Jack Warner and Francis Ford Coppola.
Billed in the listing as “offering an unparalleled level of attention to detail,” the property features two bedrooms and two baths in 2,000 square feet of elegant art-deco living space accented with rich hardwood floors, high ceilings, custom millwork, exotic wood finishes, ample built-ins and designer lighting throughout.
The spacious primary bedroom boasts a dressing room and an onyx-clad bath.
Sam Czvitkovits
Highlights include an entrance hallway that flows to a wet bar-equipped living room displaying a dining solarium that opens to a wraparound terrace facing Fifth Avenue and Central Park, and a galley-style kitchen outfitted with stainless Viking appliances and a curving banquette for casual meals. A spacious primary bedroom boasts a dressing room and an onyx-clad bath, and elsewhere is another en-suite bedroom with bespoke wood paneling that’s been converted into an office space.
The new owner also will have access to a wealth of building amenities courtesy of a substantial $21,616 monthly HOA charge, including a 24-hour doorman and concierge, along with room and housekeeping services, a fitness center and valet parking.
In addition to their NYC apartment, the Winnicks also maintain the aforementioned Casa Encantada estate, formerly owned by the late hotelier Conrad Hilton and billionaire retired Dole Food Products chairman David Murdock. The couple purchased the 1930s property for $94 million back in 2000.
The listing is held by Shawn Elliott and John Carbone of Nest Seekers International.
Click here for more photos of Gary Winnick’s New York City pied-à-terre.
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‘Hacks’ Star Megan Stalter Just Snagged Herself Some Midcentury L.A. Digs
During the past few years, Megan Stalter has transitioned from the Chicago comedy scene to a breakout role as “party fashionista slash silly rich girl” assistant Kayla in the Emmy-nominated HBO Max series Hacks. Most recently, she also landed her first leading film role in Hannah Pearl Utt’s indie comedy-drama Cora Bora.
Now the 32-year-old comedian and actress is putting down roots in the hip Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, having doled out just under $2 million for some midcentury-modern digs with both an architectural and a celebrity pedigree.
Records show Stalter paid slightly over asking price for her recently acquired property, which was originally built and designed by noted University of Southern California-trained architect Ray Otero in the mid-1960s for a member of trumpeter Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass band. Last sold back in 2001 for $515,000, and tastefully updated in the years since, the boxy white structure is notched into a sloped hillside parcel spanning less than a quarter-acre of land, and fronted by a gated driveway that opens to a covered parking area with room for two vehicles.
The living room boasts a wood-burning fireplace and sliding glass doors that open to a balcony providing eye-catching vistas.
Jilbert Daniel
Reached via a steep staircase, the lofty home offers three bedrooms and two baths in almost 1,400 square feet two-level living space adorned throughout with high ceilings, the original wood paneling and even central air-conditioning. Walls of glass offer up picturesque hillside and city lights views, with the open-concept floor plan highlighted by a taupe-hued living room displaying a wood-burning fireplace with a stove-pipe chimney, and sliding glass doors spilling out to a balcony on one side and an enclosed al fresco dining patio on the other.
An adjacent window-lined dining area connects to the galley-style kitchen, which is outfitted with quartz countertops, a light-gray subway tile backsplash and newer stainless appliances, including a Bosch dishwasher. There’s also an inviting primary bedroom sporting a stylish bath equipped with dual vanities and a glassy shower, plus another bedroom that doubles as an office space.
Only helmed as of now by three owners during its nearly 60-year history, the property was listed by Tracy Do and Victor Montecinos of Coldwell Banker Realty. Kerry Kimble of The Agency repped Stalter.
Click here for more photos of Megan Stalter’s new Silver Lake house.
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Meghan Trainor’s L.A. Farmhouse Hits the Market for $2.4 Million
Meghan Trainor is cleaning house yet again. A little over two years after she sold a Toluca Lake estate to Modern Family star Julie Bowen for $6 million, the Grammy-winning singer has decided to offload another one of her Los Angeles property holdings. This time it’s a charming single-story farmhouse in the Valley Village neighborhood, listed for a smidge under $2.4 million.
Purchased by Trainor for just $1.7 million in December 2016—shortly after it was newly built, and before she married Spy Kids actor Daryl Sabara—the single-story home rests on less than a quarter-acre parcel of land protected by security cameras. Inside, four bedrooms and four baths are spread across a little more than 3,400 square feet of open-concept living space boasting high ceilings, European wide-plan oak floors, Lutron lighting and surround sound throughout.
Fronted by a grassy lawn and an attached two-car garage, the white wood-shingled structure is highlighted by a gourmet kitchen accented with custom cabinetry, an eat-in island, stainless appliances and an adjoining dining area, plus a family room displaying a gas fireplace flanked by custom built-in shelving and accordion-style glass doors spilling out to a covered patio.
Elsewhere is a formal living room and luxe primary bedroom sporting a walk-in closet, as well as a spa-inspired bath equipped with dual vanities, a soaking tub and large rainfall shower. Per the listing held by Justin Paul Huchel of Carolwood Estates, the fenced backyard also has a large grassy area with more than enough room for a pool.
Though she’s owned this house for nearly seven years, Trainor reportedly never made it her main residence. She currently lives in the upscale L.A. neighborhood of Encino, where back in 2020 she and Sabara splashed out $6.6 million for a glitzy mansion. More
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Showbiz Couple Joshua Leonard and Alison Pill List Their Revamped New York Home for $4.2 Million
Back in 2021, Joshua Leonard and Alison Pill fell in love with a home in New York’s Hudson Valley that immediately struck them as a “weird, rundown, hodgepodge of styles and eras.”
The married actors—he probably most known for The Blair Witch Project, and she The Newsroom—wound up purchasing the 200-year-old property for a mere $718,900, and subsequently renovated and updated the place to suit “a new generation of tastes”; now, two years later, the couple is putting their fully transformed compound up for sale, asking just over $4.2 million.
“When I first laid eyes on Breezy Hill, none of it really made sense,” says Leonard, who recently retired from a 25-year stint in the film industry to pursue his passion for building. “From the early 19th-century stone house, built with bluestone excavated on site, to the civil war-era post-and-beam barn…to the two 1950s-era boarding houses. It was magical and derelict, but even in its rawest state, I could feel the generations of hands and hearts that had gone into building it.
“It spoke to me—like when you meet a lover who’s weirdest, most hidden parts are what you actually find the most appealing,” he adds. “I knew how epic the property could be with the right stewardship, and believed (for better or worse), that I was the one to do it.”
Much of the stone used in the renovation was excavated on the property.
Morten Smidt
During the construction process, Leonard says protecting the marks of craftsmanship that came before him was just as important as updating the property with his own twist, which included the challenging task of bringing all of the infrastructure and creature comforts up to modern-day standards. Per The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the sale, the multi-seven-figure project encompassed raising the ceilings and exterior stone walls, adding a cupola, reconfiguring the floor plan and building an 1,800-square-foot addition onto the main house.
The result is a stunningly reimagined property sited on a 20-acre parcel of heavily wooded land in the rural community of Accord, about 90 miles north of Manhattan. Included is a 19th-century stone house, plus two newly rebuilt guesthouses—for a total of six bedrooms and an equal number of baths in around 5,000 square feet of living space spotlighted by stone excavated from the property. There also is the aforementioned barn and a detached one-car garage.
Especially standing out in the three-story main house is a sitting room featuring reclaimed wood and the original stone, which opens to a spacious kitchen outfitted with white oak floors, custom cabinetry, an under-lit marble island, a built-in butcher block and top-tier stainless appliances, as well as a window-lined breakfast nook and French doors spilling out to a veranda.
Other highlights include a newly enlarged 1,000-square-foot primary bedroom suite resting behind a sliding wood bar door, and holding French doors leading to a private balcony, a walk-in closet, and spa-inspired bath equipped with radiant-heated floors, dual vanities, a soaking tub and large glass-encased shower.
Perhaps the most special part of the property, though, are the secluded and picturesque grounds, which are laced with rolling hills, a spring-fed pond and streams with seasonal waterfalls. Then there’s the beautifully restored barn, which flaunts the stained-glass windows, along with a hand-chiseled chestnut staircase and massive wrought-iron chandelier salvaged from a circa-1860s hotel in Manhattan.
The teal-hued kitchen sports white oak floors, custom cabinetry, an eat-in island and top-tier stainless appliances.
Morten Smidt
What’s next for Leonard now that he’s completed his first professional renovation? “I’m excited to spend this next chapter of my life building in the Hudson Valley,” he says. “I just contracted myself out to a client for the first time to design and build a house that I think will be very special. I also want to keep building/rebuilding/imagining/reimagining my own projects. I don’t have a specific agenda, but am very excited for all the possibilities that this area and its community have to offer.”
One of the most expensive homes currently on the market in Ulster County, the home is listed by Robert Airhart with the Clement, Brooks & Safier Team of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hudson Valley Properties.
Click here for more images of Joshua Leonard and Alison Pill’s Breezy Hill compound.
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Alfred Hitchcock’s Former L.A. Home Has Been Sold for $8.8 Million to a Dutch Media Mogul
When English filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock moved to Los Angeles to conquer Hollywood in 1939—he made “Rebecca” the following year, which earned him the first of his five Oscar nominations—he and his wife, Alma, and daughter, Pat, initially made their home in a spacious rented apartment on Wilshire Boulevard.
Several years later, after acquiring a 200-acre getaway near Scotts Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the family set down permanent roots in Los Angeles with the purchase of an English-Country-inspired home just up from the West Gate entrance to the tony Bel Air neighborhood.
The Bel Air home, where the “Psycho” filmmaker lived until his death at age 80 in 1980, came up for sale earlier this year for $8.25 million, and though out of step with current decorative trends, the immaculately maintained home drew multiple offers that drove the recorded sale price up to just over $8.8 million.
Tax records show the home had long been owned by a local businessman who made his fortune in the lumber and building supply industries and list the buyer as a foreign corporate entity linked to Dutch media mogul Reinout Oerlemans, founder of the TV production company Eyeworks.
The loggia overlooks the swimming pool and lushly planted grounds.
Mary E. Nichols
Originally created by Carlton Burgess, who also designed and built Jack Benny’s Beverly Hills home, Hitchcock’s former sanctuary was extensively renovated and expanded in 1983. Concealed behind a dense wall of trees and vegetation and situated on almost two-thirds of an acre, the primarily single-story home measures somewhat more than 7,500 square feet and has two (and potentially four) bedrooms and five bathrooms.
Beyond the fountained front entry, the living room features an oversized fireplace and vaulted wood-beamed ceilings; the dining room overlooks flowering gardens; and the eat-in kitchen showcases hand-painted tiles and blue Brazilian granite counters. There are two substantial bedroom suites, one for guests with a white marble bath and the other for the homeowner with dual dressing areas and baths.
There are two more rooms that can be converted to additional bedrooms, according to marketing material, as well as a “hidden upstairs office/guest room with plumbing in place” to add another bathroom.
The grounds offer a gated entry, mature trees and flowering gardens, a spacious courtyard, and a huge loggia with an outdoor fireplace alongside a turquoise swimming pool. There’s also garaging for three cars and parking for many more, as well as a couple of storage buildings.
Snapdragons add color to the edge of the swimming pool.
Mary E. Nichols
Steeped in Hollywood lore and ready for its next close-up, the property was listed with Ginger Glass at Compass, while Oerlemans was represented in the transaction by Rayni Williams and Branden Williams at The Beverly Hills Estates.
If their former homes in Los Angeles are any indication, Oerlemans and his wife Danielle will likely embark on an extensive re-make of the property. The couple previously owned a spectacular, 33,000-square-foot Bel Air mansion—perhaps not coincidentally, it’s directly across the 15th fairway from their new property—that they sold in 2021 for $70 million to The Weeknd, who used the home as the set for his HBO series “The Idol.”
Click here for all the photos of Alfred Hitchcock’s former home at 10957 Bellagio Road.
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Rockstar Energy’s Founder Sells His Sprawling L.A. Estate for $25 Million
After more than three years of it bouncing on and off the market, energy drink mogul Russ Weiner has finally succeeded in unloading his Beverly Park mansion, one of two lavish estates he owns in the famously expensive and star-studded gated community. The 1.2-acre property sold for exactly $25 million to local businessman Tony Safoian, the CEO of Google Cloud-focused technology consultancy SADA Systems, and his longtime wife Lana.
Built in 1999 for a now-deceased Russian businessman and designed by noted architect Richard Landry, the Tuscan-style manor sits behind gates and tall hedges. With 10,575 square feet of main house living space, plus a detached guesthouse, the resort-like place has more than enough room for grand galas and events.
Weiner, 53, bought the house in 2015 for $18.6 million. With brief interruptions, the essentially unchanged property has been on the market since early 2020, with asking prices ranging from a high of $35 million to a low of $27.9 million. When Safoian finally came calling, the house was listed at $30 million.
In addition to eight bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, interior highlights include an enormous foyer with dual staircases, limestone flooring throughout, a gym with an attached sauna and massage room, a chef’s kitchen with commercial-grade appliances and a mahogany library that includes a walk-in safe. Upstairs, the master retreat is itself the size of a small house, and packs in a spa-style bathroom, dual closets, a private office, private balcony and a “hidden” spiral staircase leading down into the library, per the listing.
Outdoors, the grounds include two expansive lawns, one made of AstroTurf and the other containing real grass. There are also pathways traced by manicured boxwood, bright bunches of bougainvillea and olive trees. And al fresco entertaining is made easy with a loggia-covered dining area and a poolside outdoor kitchen with an outdoor fireplace, wet bar and built-in BBQ center.
Safoian, 45, cofounded SADA Systems in 2000. In 2021, the North Hollywood-based tech company surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time; last year, it inked a $2.5 billion partnership deal with Google. Since 2015, Safoian has owned and occupied a two-story house in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood.
As for Weiner, he now primarily resides in Florida but still owns a mansion in Park City, Utah, in addition to another Beverly Park home he’s owned since 2007 and an investment property in the Hollywood Hills.
Beverly Park, long famed as the most expensive gated community in Los Angeles, boasts a number of high-profile residents behind its heavily guarded gates. While turnover has been heavy in recent years, Hollywood figures such as Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Sofia Vergara, Adele, The Rock and Rod Stewart still call the enclave home. More
