Hot Properties Dec15

Hot Properties

Though seven-figure listings may have dominated this year’s luxury real estate, some mega-homes were forced to downgrade their expectations and their list price. At the same time, other properties and projects still in development held out high hopes for wealthy buyers willing to pay any price for their very own slice of paradise. Palaces, manors and landmarks – they were all up for grabs this year! Say Hello to El Fueridis In Brian De Palma’s 1983 film, Scarface, gangster Tony Montana builds a cocaine-fueled empire that soon lands him in a Miami mansion littered with the flotsam and jetsam of his lavish life of crime. With a beautiful wife, a pet tiger, and more illicit drugs than he can apparently handle, Tony eventually become a victim of his own hubris, uttering his famous last words before tumbling off his ornate balcony into a fountain inscribed with the words, “The World Is Yours.” Though the film was set in Florida, the house is actually located on the opposite coast. The 100-year old haunt, known as El Fueridis to friends and neighbors, was designed by LA Public Library architect Bertram Goodhue and has always been hip to the Hollywood scene. Its “Persian-style” gardens and 24-carat gold ceilings once hosted the wedding of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neil. More recently, the 10,000-square-foot mansion has languished on the market for over a year, its ten acres and innumerable fountains unable to coax potential buyers to fulfill the $35 million asking price. A thirty-percent discount seems to have done the trick: the property finally sold for $12.26 million earlier this year. The Largest Log Cabin on Earth Beyond Abe Lincoln’s wildest dreams, this expansive – and expensive – Granot Loma is technically a “log cabin,” but it’s aspirations are...