// BLOG
Liz Taylor’s jewelry collection sells for $183 Million at auction
February 9, 2012
Would you ever consider selling a fine jewelry collection like this any other way than at auction? Fine jewelry, priceless paintings, rare collector cars and wine – they all are sold at auction. So are premier homes!
From Associated Press, February 9, 2012
Paintings, jewelry and fashions belonging to the late Elizabeth Taylor have sold for more than $183 million, with all of the more than 1,800 items on offer snapped up, Christie’s auction house said Thursday.
Christie’s said 1,817 lots were sold at a series of auctions in New York and London, some at 50 times their pre-sale estimates.
The most expensive was Vincent van Gogh’s landscape “Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle de Remy,” which once hung in the living room of Taylor’s Bel Air home. It sold for 10.1 million pounds ($16 million), including the buyer’s premium. The daughter of a London art dealer, Taylor amassed a substantial collection of 19th and 20th century art, including works by Edgar Degas and Auguste Renoir. Read more here.
Hunting for windows in a house by Frank Lloyd Wright
July 8, 2011
Biff Henrich/Martin House Restoration Corp
By Eve M. Kahn, Published in The New York Times on July 7, 2011
Darwin D. Martin, a soap-factory executive in Buffalo, was a serial client of Frank Lloyd Wright. Between 1903 and 1928, the charismatic architect designed a half-dozen buildings for Martin’s family, including a carriage house and a mausoleum. Wright referred to his shy, bookish patron as “my best friend,” borrowed $70,000 from him over the years and never repaid the loans.
By the 1930s the Martins were largely broke, and they had to abandon their sprawling main house on a leafy side street. About half of its 394 windows, with stained-glass squares and polygons in iridescent golds and greens, were removed; they have been scattered across private collections and museums or are presumed lost.
The property, now a museum called the Martin House Complex, has been undergoing tens of millions of dollars in restoration, including replication of missing windows. A few original panes have turned up: this spring William Clarkson, a retired printing-company executive in Buffalo, and his wife, Nan, gave back a grid-pattern window from the brick carriage house.
Click here to read the entire article.
Diane Keaton gets into the design game
June 23, 2011
By Steven Kurutz, Published June 23, 2011 in The New York Times
Diane Keaton still maintains a busy schedule as an actress, but in recent years the Oscar-winner has devoted considerable time to another area of interest: architecture and design. A serial house flipper, Ms. Keaton, 65, has bought several homes in her native Southern California and painstakingly renovated them before getting the itch to move on and repeat the process. The actress is also actively involved in architectural preservation (she is on the board of the Los Angeles Conservancy), and in 2007, she co-wrote “California Romantica” (Rizzoli), a book celebrating the Spanish and Mission-style architecture she loves.
Now Ms. Keaton is getting into the design game herself, with a tabletop collection called K by Keaton that she created for Bed, Bath & Beyond. The stoneware cups, bowls and plates, which are available online and in some stores now, have her trademark whimsy (some are stamped with the words “eat” or “bite”) and lack of pretension (prices start at about $5). But they also reflect Ms. Keaton’s latest obsession: the heartland. The “farm-y, landscape colors” she used, she told a reporter, were inspired by wheat, grass and bark.
Why did you decide to partner with Bed, Bath & Beyond?
Well, they were interested. Which is also pretty remarkable. As you know, I’m more of an entertainment person, but I have a real passion for design. It means a lot to me to have the opportunity to even try this.
Is the dishware inspired by anything in your own life?
I have a daughter who’s 15 and a son who’s 10. My life is such that I have these old dishes that I eat off with my kids. I’ve broken them, and all that.
What’s come of all this is I like sturdy. I want something I feel will last and has some weight to it and is very simple. Like, for example, I don’t understand why we don’t eat more food out of bowls. I could eat all of my meals out of bowls.
Click here to read the entire article.
Own a piece of architectural history
June 13, 2011
The Andrew B. & Maude Cooke House, a "hemicycle" beach house in Virginia Beach, Va., is one of 17 Frank Lloyd Wright designs currently on the market featured on SaveWright.org.
By Mary Umberger, Published in Inman News, June 6, 2011
The work of Frank Lloyd Wright tends to inspire almost slavish devotion from his admirers, many of whom undoubtedly dream of owning a home designed by the iconic architect.
Turns out, opportunities to buy Wright-designed homes are more plentiful than one might think, according to Janet Halstead, executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy in Chicago, a nonprofit that works to protect his designs from demolition.
One way to achieve that goal is to help sellers of Wright properties find buyers who will appreciate them and maintain and restore them, Halstead said. Toward that end, the conservancy has developed a service to help owners and their real estate agents market the properties through a page on its Web site,SaveWright.org.
At the moment, the conservancy’s “Wright on the Market” page has 17 Wright-designed properties listed (including one gasoline station). Read the entire article here.
Maui Luxury Home Auction Scheduled
May 5, 2011
By Melissa Tanji, Maui News, Published May 3, 2011
A Kahana home previously listed for $15.9 million will be sold at what’s believed to be Maui’s first super-luxury real estate auction on May 12. Yes, $15.9 million. It’s something average Mauians could never afford – and may not even have imagined existed in their own backyard.
Island Realtors said the price is actually not unusual, but some who have toured the “Jewel of Kahana” say it’s one of the more spectacular properties they’ve seen on an island with no shortage of opulent homes. The house has more than 275 feet of lineal oceanfront views, eight oceanfront master suites and an open-air living area with ground-to-ceiling views of the Pacific. The 9,800-square-foot Kahana home can accommodate up to 16 guests and comes fully furnished with top-of-the-line custom wood cabinetry and stone features, flat-screen televisions, vessel sinks that resemble seashells, and fixtures and furnishings that wouldn’t be out of place at a five-star hotel. The main house and ohana are connected under the same roof. Beach access is right next door. The only thing not included in the sale is the artwork.
Fitch brought on Concierge Auctions to handle the sale after she was impressed by the company’s success on the Big Island and Kauai. It was Concierge that sold Cher’s Hualalai Resort home at auction in January for a winning bid of $8.72 million, said Laura Brady, Concierge’s vice president of marketing. Fitch said that she worked with Concierge for several months to determine which property would be appropriate for this type of auction, noting that Concierge had the resources to find potential buyers that she would not be able to reach on her own. Concierge is suggesting $7.5 million as the opening bid. “This is not a suggestion of the home’s value, but rather a point that we feel all bidders should be prepared to begin their bidding,” Brady said in a later email. “The ultimate sale price is not up to us or the seller, but rather to the bidders.”