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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: David Bowie’s $17 Million NYC Apartment Sold After Just One Month on the Market
Ground Control to Major Tom: rock star David Bowie’s longtime New York City digs have sold. The revered singer-songwriter originally purchased the Nolita condo for $3.8 million in 1999; it was most recently for sale for $16.8 million. For fans of Bowie, the listing presented a rare opportunity, as it was the first time that the unit had been on the market since his death in 2016.
The 5,000-square-foot residence is located at 285 Lafayette Street, a spot that’s over the years drawn celebrity buyers like Courtney Love and Saul Rubinek. The 30-unit building dates back to 1885, when it was the site of a Hawley & Hoops candy factory. It’s been thoroughly reimagined since, with amenities including an expansive rooftop deck and garden.
The great room.
Photo: MW Studio/Michael Weinstein for The Corcoran Group
Bowie had a soft spot for the neighborhood, where, according to the book Forever Stardust: David Bowie Across the Universe, he “felt at home, semi-anonymous, among New Yorkers too cool to act star-struck at celebrity sightings.” The property was listed for sale by a trust linked to the estate, per the Wall Street Journal.
But the residence has more going for it than just star power. In addition to its indoor areas, there are three outdoor terraces where friends and family can enjoy dining al fresco; these balcony spaces are 1,000 square feet altogether. There are four bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms in the unit, plus a library or home office for the WFH set. The primary bedroom is 1,000 square feet all on its own, and includes a fireplace, dressing room and private outdoor lounge.The library.
Photo: MW Studio/Michael Weinstein for The Corcoran Group
Other Bowie properties include an apartment at the JW Marriott Essex House by Central Park, which sold earlier this year, and his famous estate on the island of Mustique in the Caribbean, which you can rent for about $57,000 per week. The Nolita home is on the seventh floor, so the buyer will have great views of downtown–just a slight step down from the “far above the moon” vantage point Bowie so famously crooned about. More
- in Luxury
NFL Star Clay Matthews’s $30 Million California Home Comes With an 800-Gallon Aquarium
After a brief stint with the Los Angeles Rams, linebacker Clay Matthews is leaving the City of Angels behind for good—though he’ll have to offload some square footage first. The former Green Bay Packers star is listing the sprawling mansion that he once considered his forever home. He and his partner, HGTV star Casey Noble, built the home from scratch, and are now decamping to Nashville to be closer to family, as Matthews is currently a free agent. Their carefully constructed digs could be yours, then, if you’ve got a spare $30 million sitting around.
Matthews bought the land that he eventually built on for $2.6 million back in 2013. It’s located in the Oaks of Calabasas, a gated enclave that’s over the years attracted celebrities like Justin Bieber and the Kardashians. Matthews’s residence sits on 1.65 acres all its own.
The living room
Simon Berlyn
The home was designed in a French Provincial style, combining big stately arches with more rustic elements like salvaged wood ceiling beams. One of the most notable features of the 14,000-square-foot home is a massive, 800-gallon aquarium in the library. It was first installed as part of an episode of Tanked on Animal Planet. According to The Wall Street Journal, Matthews’s fish collection includes clownfish, triggerfish and eels from far-flung locales such as Australia, Indonesia and Hawaii. They can be purchased separately from the property. Also in the library is a secret room hidden behind a bookshelf, which Matthews and Noble used for a safe. It can double as a panic room or additional storage.
The basement houses a suite of amenities, including a 15-seat theater, a wine cellar and an expansive garage that can hold about 10 autos and can be accessed from the street. It’s an 11-bed, eight-bath parcel altogether, with a primary suite that overlooks the grounds from a private balcony.The library, which houses an 800-gallon fish tank
Simon Berlyn
Outside, there’s a pool and spa, a sports court, garden, goldfish pond and space to entertain alfresco around a fire pit. Since Matthews picked out such a big piece of land, there’s room to add even more to the outdoor space—though not enough for a full football field.
The home is co-listed with Branden and Rayni Williams and Shana Tavangarian of the Beverly Hills Estates and Nima Fathi of HBC Realty.
Check out more photo of the pro linebacker’s digs below:The game room
Simon Berlyn
The kitchen
Simon Berlyn
The movie theater
Simon Berlyn
The pool
Simon Berlyn
The garage
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- in Luxury
Michelle Pfeiffer and David E. Kelley’s Pacific Palisades Mansion Could Be Yours for $25 Million
Michelle Pfeiffer and David E. Kelley appear to have caught a prototypical case of Celebrity Real Estate Fickle. It was only last year the busy-as-beavers Tinseltown power couple dropped a mogul-worthy $22.3 million in a clandestine off-market deal for a then brand-spanking-new Mediterranean villa along one of the more coveted and expensive streets in L.A.’s low-key and hyper-gentrified Pacific Palisades community. Nineteen months later, the now all-but-brand-new mansion has popped back up for sale with a notably profitable $25 million price tag.
Set to appear on the silver screen opposite Annette Benning in the upcoming psychological thriller “Turn of the Mind,” Pfeiffer, a three-time Oscar nominated head-turner—also nominated for an Emmy for the 2017 mini-series “The Wizard of Lies,” will co-star on the densely star-packed upcoming Showtime anthology series “The First Lady.” As for Kelley, a serial TV creator with the Midas touch and eleven Emmys to prove it, he created the hit series “Chicago Hope,” “Ally McBeal” and, more recently, the acclaimed “Pretty Little Lies.” He currently has an impressive number of promising irons in the fire including writing and/or producing the TV series “The Lincoln Lawyer,” “Goliath” and “Big Sky,” all of which he had a hand in creating.
Realtor.com
Along with all their myriad professional commitments, the Pfeiffer-Kelleys also wish to unload their luxuriously understated Pacific Palisades mansion, though it’s not clear if they ever even fully moved into the more than 10,300-square-foot home that has been expensively staged with several truckloads of neutral furniture and inoffensively generic décor for the selling process. Set on a low bluff of just over one-third of an acre with verdant views across the fastidiously manicured and, despite the drought, copiously irrigated greens and fairways of the posh and private Riviera Country Club, the mansion has a total of seven bedrooms and 10.5 bathrooms over three finely finished floors, plus a semi-subterranean art studio with outside entrance.
The property is available through Cindy Ambuehl at Compass.
All but hidden behind a high hedge and surrounded by relaxed gardens, the stately rough-cut stone and stucco home home was designed by architect Steve Giannetti, according to marketing materials, to reflect “Old world charm interwoven with modern sensibility.”Realtor.com
A groin-vaulted ceiling adds historic architectural interest in the otherwise fairly spare foyer and stair gallery, while slender antique wood beams provide the baronially proportioned living room a dash of rustic appeal. A vast wall of full-height windows vanish into the walls and open the room the backyard.
An antique carved stone fireplace against a vertically paneled wall is showcased in the library/office, while the dining room comfortably seats eight or ten beneath a delicate crystal chandelier.
Equipped with high-quality culinary equipment, including a gigantic, imported range, fitted with bespoke furniture-grade cabinetry and configured around two large islands, one topped in black granite, the kitchen spills over into a cozy lounge and dining space where a second wall of windows disappears into the walls to create a seamless transition to the backyard.Realtor.com
Grounded by another carved stone fireplace that might just as well be in a French chateau, the mansion’s homeowner suite spills out though floor-to-ceiling French doors to a glass-railed patio with unobstructed golf course view.
The homeowner’s suite includes two bathrooms, the larger with a dedicated hair and makeup vanity and a deep, trough-like soaking tub set against a full-height picture window.
The basement level is finished to the same quality as the upper floors and include a climate-controlled wine cellar, a tasting area, a comfortably plush state-of-the-art screening room and two spacious bedroom suites for staff or guests.
The one-third-acre parcel doesn’t allow for a particularly large backyard. However, the pancake flat alfresco living and entertaining areas include spacious patios, an infinity-edge swimming pool andRealtor.com
Secretly tucked underneath the backyard’s lawn, a loft-life art studio is flooded with southeastern light thanks to huge banks of floor-to-ceiling windows.
The Pfeiffer-Kelleys are certainly no strangers to the high-end property gossip columns. Back in 2016, the couple coughed up almost $8.2 million for a 3,200-square-foot contemporary home in Pacific Palisades, and in 2018 they ponied up another $7.7 million for the fixer-upper next door. They sold the first property in late 2019 for $9.1 million, and the second property is currently for sale at $7.3 million, a hefty $400,000 loss, not counting carrying costs and real estate fees, after it was first listed in late 2019 at $8.35 million.
Several years ago came word from Canada that a fairly remote 340-acre compound linked to the couple had been set out for sale with an asking price of CAD$28.8 million—it is still listed at that same price, and in late 2019, nearly a year after they scooped up the almost brand new Pacific Palisades mansion they no longer want, they sold a more than 8.5-acre equestrian compound in California’s Silicon Valley in an all-cash deal valued at $22 million.
Check out more images of the property below.Realtor.com
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- in Luxury
The House That ‘Grey’s’ Built: Shonda Rhimes Lists Her Los Angeles Mansion for $25 Million
It was only 2.5 years ago, after an exhaustive and exhausting five-year renovation and restoration, that television titan Shonda Rhimes wrote in Architectural Digest that her three young daughters “will grow up” and “become women” while living in the Los Angeles mansion she scooped up in early 2014 for $8.8 million from sitcom star Patricia Heaton. Indeed, she said loved the house.
Ms. Rhimes, who just inked a new five-year deal with Netflix — it’s reportedly valued at about $150 million with built-in bonuses that could push her haul into the $300 million-400 million range, has since developed other plans because the designer-done mansion, sitting on nearly 1.25-acres along on one of the most prestigious streets in the tony Hancock Park neighborhood, has come for sale with a price tag of $25 million. Should the “Private Practice,” “Scandal” and “Bridgerton” creator get anywhere near her sky-high asking price — and it this white-hot ultra-luxury market it just might, it will obliterate the current neighborhood record for the highest price ever paid for a single-family home set last year when Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins’ lavish spread traded in a covert off-market deal valued at $19 million.
According to Rhimes in A.D., she didn’t even particularly like the 1923 Elmer Grey-designed mansion when she first looked at it. In fact, she called it “an ugly, wrong house” with a wonky “Santa Barbara mission façade” and a “distinctly Italian” backside. She bought it anyways. She soon engaged the services of architect Bill Baldwin, who discovered photos of the original exterior that revealed the front façade was originally, like the rear, designed by Grey as an elegant Italianate villa. With the necessary approvals of the Office of Historic Resources — the estate is in a Historic Preservation Zone, a Chicago stonemason was brought into re-create “every detail of the original front exterior.” The results are undeniably flawless.
White House decorator Michael S. Smith was tapped to do up the interiors in his signature style that Rhimes described as “classic California—if a little bit romantic.” Listings held by Ed Solorzano at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California show the nearly 12,000-square-foot estate offers a total of seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms, plus four powder rooms.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
The effervescence of the bougainvillea that balloons over the estate’s low perimeter wall is in contrast to the foyer’s elegantly understated — and heated! — gray-and-white checkerboard marble floor. Like the stonework on the front of the house, the honeycomb coffered ceiling in the living room was painstakingly re-created from original photos of the house.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Several more gathering spaces on the main floor include a library with corner fireplace — Rhimes stores her vintage record collection (as well as an Emmy) in there — and an airy and light-filled double-height salon that spills out to the backyard through a series of arched French doors embellished with curlicued iron filigree.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Gilded Chinese lanterns hang over the lustrously polished table in the formal dining room that comfortably seats fourteen, while the spacious eat-in kitchen, which Rhimes called her “dream kitchen” in A.D., is configured around a huge center island with white marble counters, a gigantic 60-inch range and black-and-white custom floor tiles. Extensive service quarters include a deluxe laundry room and a home office/crafts room.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Just off the kitchen there’s a comfortably appointed family room and, in the basement, there’s a children’s playroom and a professional home theater with plush seating and snack bar.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Five guest and family bedrooms, each with a private bath, are joined on the second floor by a homeowner’s retreat that comprises a bedroom with vaulted ceiling, fireplace and sitting area, as well as a boutique-style dressing room and an over-sized bathroom.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
A courtyard enveloped in greenery separates the main house from a detached three-car garage topped by additional living space decked out as a private hair and makeup salon…perfect for someone who’s always walking red carpets and having her picture taken for magazines.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Stone terraces give way to great sweeps of lawn bordered by lush and carefully clipped foliage.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
The grounds additionally include a swimming pool with poolside cabana, a pickle ball court, a kitchen garden for growing herbs and vegetables, and a secret, boxwood-lined parterre garden with a fountain at its center.
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Cameron Carothers / Carothers Photo
Rhimes, who 3.5-years ago paid $11.75 million for a two-bedroom penthouse pied-a-terre on New York City’s Park Avenue, has long made her home in and around Hancock Park where at one point she owned four homes.
In 2010 she paid innovative indie musician Beck (Hansen) $5.6 million for an 8,200-square-foot manse she sold in 2019 for not quite $7.17 million to top L.A. real estate agent Matthew Altman, who now has the property for sale at a sliver under $9.2 million.
Her neighborhood holdings still include a duplex she acquired 14 years ago for $1.66 million and a nearly 5,000-square-foot English Country manor house she scooped up in 2017 for a touch under $4.6 million. More
