Luxist

Today's home has quite a bit of celebrity provenance. The two-bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills was once part of Ellen DeGeneres's extensive real estate portfolio. Later it was owned by Heath Ledger. Leder's estate put the home on the market last year and it sold for $2.5 million. Now it's up for sale once again for $3.695 million.

This beautiful home does have a treehouse feel because it is surrounded by trees. It has a large deck with outdoor screening room, grill and fire pit. The post-and-beam home was built in 1951 and over 2,000 square feet of space. The bathrooms and kitchens have had a modern renovation but the brick fireplace, beamed ceilings and decks give the home a retro appeal. Check out more gorgeous images at the property website shot by Everett Fenton Gidley.

[via Move Trends]

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Not too many weddings have a red carpet and a guest host. The Australian wedding of Brynne Gordon and Geoffrey Edelsten displayed luxury on a grand scale. It is rumored to be Australia's most extravagant wedding and included the services of Fran Drescher and Jason Alexander serving as masters of ceremony.

The young blonde bride wore over $500,000 in diamonds and an ivory gown that took five people to carry. The members of the wedding party arrived in Rolls Royces, at least one bearing "Brynne" numberplates. The Herald-Sun reports that guests were served a seven-course dinner. Drescher had met the couple only a week before the ceremony and praised them for asking for donations to charity in lieu of wedding gifts.

Last year was a bad one for former NBA star Latrell Sprewell who saw his yacht, the 70-foot "Milwaukee's Best" repossessed and his $405,000 home in River Hills, Wisconsin facing foreclosure (Sprewell later settled this debt). This year doesn't seem to be bringing Sprewell much more luck. His Purchase, New York home is scheduled for a sheriff's sale at the Westchester County Courthouse on January 7, 2010.

LoHud.com reports that Sprewell purchased the 3.3-acre property in January 2000 for $2.3 million. He got a 30-year mortgage from Washington Mutual Bank for $1.612 million in 2004 and first failed to make payments starting in April 2008, around the time his other financial troubles began. The home was the site of an alleged domestic dispute in 2006. Sprewell was accused of attacking his girlfriend, Candace Cabbil, in front of their four children but prosecutors agreed in 2008 to drop the charges if Sprewell stayed out of trouble for a year.

A listing on Sotheby's Realty has the house at $3.8 million. It has seven bedrooms, a complete gym, pool and spa, basketball court, four-car garage and a recording studio. Listing pictures reveal large televisions, spiky metal sculptures and large open spaces.

Actress Halle Berry is another of Hollywood's busy real estate buyers. She has bought and sold a variety of homes in Los Angeles and the Real Estalker reports that she owns a home in Malibu, Frankie Muniz's former Beverly Hills home, a getaway in Canada and this place in Beverly Hills which is now on the market. It's yet another Southern California Mediterranean but this one has a more rustic and distinctive look than most due mainly to its rough stone walls. The two-bedroom home is on 1.3 acres in the hills.

The home was built in 1948 but has been heavily modernized but has details like wide plank wood floors, wood-beamed vaulted ceilings, antique wooden doors and wrought iron banisters. The chandeliers and wood cabinets give the home a vaguely Medieval look. The master bedroom has a fireplace and glass doors out onto a terrace. The master bathroom includes a large stone bathtub and crystal chandelier. Outside the grounds include gardens, a dining and seating area, fire pit and a stone spa set up against the hillside. This home is listed at $5 million.

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From the Real Estalker:
--Actor Oliver Hudson has listed his West Hollywood home, shown above, at $1.035 million. The listing is here.
--Singer Leona Lewis has picked up a Hollywood home for $1.85 million.
--Christina Ricci has listed a two-bedroom home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The listing is here.
From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Movie executive Peter Guber has sold his Kauai home for $28 million.
--Tennis player Mats Wilander has dropped the price of his home in Sun Valley, Idaho to $5.95 million. It was listed at $7.9 million when we checked it out as an estate of the day.

--Retired New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan has listed his loft in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood for $1.5 million. The listing is here.

From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--The Soho loft that Josh Hartnett lived in until recently has been sold for $2.030 million.
--via the NY Observer, Samuel I. Newhouse IV, the grandson of Condé Nast chief Si Newhouse is moving to Tribeca and paid $2.465 million for a loft.
--via Curbed, Hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman has found a buyer for his 3,000-square-foot co-op at the Majestic. The three-bedroom apartment, which went on the market for $10 million in April, was listed for $7.9 million when it went into contract earlier this month.
--Beverly Kerzner, the daughter of South African gambling magnate Sol Kerzner, has dropped the price of her triplex at 213 West 23rd Street.It was listed at $15 million but is now for sale for $9.495 million.
--via the NY Post, Samuel L. Jackson is reportedly the mystery buyer behind the purchase of a condo at 76 Crosby Street. The second-floor apartment was most recently listed for $4.35 million but Jackson is reportedly picking it up for just under $4.1 million. Check out the listing here.
--Joseph Betesh, president of the Dr. Jay's chain of clothing stores, has put his 28th-floor condo at 15 Central Park West on the market for $12.9 million. The listing is here.
--via Newsday, billionaire tycoon Ira Rennert is about to get a new neighbor. The 5,000-square-foot mansion next door to Rennert's estate in Sagaponack has gone into contract to sell, less than two months after it went on the market for $11.5 million.
--via Curbed, music video director Ed Steinberg has put his duplex at 60 Broadway in South Williamsburg on the market for $1.3495 million. The listing is here.
--via Curbed, art historian Hugh Crean has put his Victorian townhouse on the market for $1.595 million. The listing is here.
--via the NY Observer, Dr. Hilel Lewis, an ophthalmologist and the former head of the Cleveland Clinic's Cole Eye Institute, has put his three-bedroom condo at the Time Warner Center on the market for $14.9 million, $8.9 million more than he paid for it in 2007. The listing is here.
--via the NY Observer, Harper's Bazaar publisher Valerie Salembier and her husband, former Revlon president Paul Block, have paid $2.55 million for a three-bedroom apartment at 860 United National Plaza.
--Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his wife Laura have cut the price on their five-bedroom co-op at 941 Park Avenue to $13.5 million. The listing is here.

From Homes and Property UK:
--Comedian and novelist Ben Elton won't be selling his £4 million London home even thouse he is moving to Australia.
--Film producer and former BAFTA chairman Simon Relph is selling The Old Malthouse, his eight-bedroom Wiltshire home near Bath, for £1.25 million through Savills. The listing is here.
--Gardener Clare Cooke is selling Little West Barn Farm, her Grade-II listed, six-bedroom Georgian home in Somerset, for £2.75 million. The listing is here.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Actor Robert Conrad and his wife, LaVelda, have listed their equestrian property in Thousand Oaks for $2.25 million. The listing is here.
--Film and TV producer David Niven Jr. has sold his Sunset Strip-area home for $5 million.

We've seen a lot of chandeliers using unusual materials over the years. Sunglasses, wine glasses, pearls, rubber and more but none of these will likely provoke the same response as the Hypolux chandelier from Bughouse. The chandelier is made of plexiglass plates, commercial syringes and a ballchain suspension. It sells for $395. Bughouse has also created a variety of rock and roll themed pieces including a table that looks like an old record collection and a lamp embellished with dangerous looking spikes.

Today's estate is as much fun to look at for the art itself as for the home. This home on San Marino island in Miami Beach was built in 1930 but has been glammed up and reinvented. I don't see the word eclectic used in a listing too often but it suits this six-bedroom home. The home is on 13,000 square feet with 80 feet of water frontage and has views of the Miami skyline over its infinity pool, jacuzzi and dock. In addition to having a taste for contemporary art the current owner must have a taste for Bali. The master suite is entirely outfitted in teak from there, giving the room a very exotic feel. This home is listed at $5.495 million.

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Last November, Greenpeace activists dumped tuna heads in front of French Agriculture ministry calling for a ban of tuna fishing and the protection of the species. This November has seen top French chefs make the pledge to keep bluefin tuna and other threatened fish species off the menu. One of the country's greatest chefs, Olivier Roellinger took bluefin tuna off his menus five years ago. He is the deputy president of the flobal luxury hotel network Relais and Chateaux and 60 percent of its members have agreed to stop serving bluefin tuna. Many French restaurants have agreed to stop serving bluefin tuna.

Bluefin tuna faces the threat of extinction because of zealous overfishing. Over the past few years there has been more and more attention paid to the subject. An international commission met early this month in Brazil and agreed to cut the allowable bluefin tuna catch in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean by 40 percent next year, a move that some said was not enough. Japan remains the biggest consumer of the tuna which is used in sushi and is considered a delicacy.

Greenpeace publishes a "red list" which lists fish that have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries or unsustainable aquaculture operations. To look at what fish you should eat check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's regularly updated Super Green list.

Back in May, we speculated that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's wandering eye might cost him millions but the news of just how much money his estranged wife, Veronica Lario, wants is still shocking. The former actress is seeking 43 million euros (around $65 million) each year in alimony.

Lario, who is 20 years his junior, put up with Berlusconi's indiscretion for many years but earlier this year Berlusconi's attendance at an 18-year-old girl's birthday party seems to have been the final straw. The pair have lived separate lives for many years. In fact to find a picture of them in public archives you have to go back several years. In 2007, she was so angry about Berlusconi's overtures to MP Mara Carfagna that she wrote a letter to the newspaper La Repubblica. The couple met in 1980 and married in 1990 and have three children.

Berlusconi has a $6.5 billion fortune and owns Italy's three biggest private TV networks and a host of other businesses. He has five children total and his son and daughter from his first marriage are involved in two of his businesses and his children with Lario, who are all in their early 20s, own stakes in his holding company Fininvest.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, has said that Berlusconi, Italy's second-richest man, made a counteroffer of 200,000 euros a month but might go up to 300,000 euros. That's a far cry from the nearly 3.5 million euros a month Lario is seeking.

The other day we were discussing the many careers of Shaquille O'Neal (his most recent adventure has him curating an art show) but basketball star Shaquille O'Neal is also known for his big heart. He was reportedly so touched by the terrible story of five-year-old Shaniya Davis, a child who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in North Carolina, that he paid for the little girl's funeral. It was announced through a spokesperson for the Cleveland Cavaliers that O'Neal had gotten in touch with the family to see what he could do to help. The story of Shaniya Davis was also shown on the Oprah show recently.

The Fayetteville Observer reports that more than 2,000 people attended the funeral at Manna Church on Sunday. She was buried at Fayetteville Memorial Cemetery. The funeral home did not reveal the cost of the service but Corey Breece, of Rogers and Breece Funeral Home, did say that a child's funeral "averages around $4,500."

The child's mother, Antoinette Davis has been charged with human trafficking and other charges and Mario McNeill has been charged with first degree kidnapping, murder and rape in the case.

O'Neal is known for his charity work and recently took part in a toy drive for children.

[via CNN]