Luxist

Today's home, an idyllic Maine retreat is the property of Bob Metcalfe. Metcalfe co-invented Ethernet, founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's Law, a telecommunications guideline which states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users. The law explains many of the network effects of communication technologies and networks such as the Internet, social networking, and the World Wide Web.

When he's not knee-deep in technology Metcalfe heads up to Kelmscott Farm, a pastoral home on around 150 acres in Lincolnville, Maine. The home is surrounded by hills and has views of Ducktrap Mountain. The expansive farm features open pastures, stone walls, woods, expertly designed gardens, and frontage on Pitcher Pond.

The farm has a historic main house that has been completely renovated and expanded with an eye toward classic New England style. Exposed wood beams offer a rustic touch and large windows take advantage of the enviably private setting. The property also includes two additional barns and a three-story bunkhouse with offices and living quarters all for just $2.5 million.

[Thanks, Chris!]

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Gift cards are popular this time of year and luxury hotel chain Four Seasons is taking an active role in selling their cards and doing some good at the same time. For every Four Seasons Gift Card sold between December 1 and December 10, 2009, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is committed to donating the cost of one "bedkit" to Canada-based charity Sleeping Children Around the World. The not-for-profit organization was founded on the belief that it is the basic right of every child to have a comfortable night's sleep. It delivers bedkits that included treated mosquito nets for those in areas prone to malaria, along with fundamental necessities such as a mat, sheets, blankets, clothing and more. In 2009, Sleeping Children Around the World delivered its one millionth bedkit.

Four Seasons Gift Cards are available online in any denomination ranging from US $100 to US $5,000 and can be used at any Four Seasons resort worldwide. You can contact Four Seasons hotels and resorts worldwide to order gift cards in any amount up to $100,000.

To raise interest in the campaign Four Seasons has given us ten gift cards to give away over ten days. Leave a comment on this post and at the end of the day one winner will be chosen to win a $100 Four Seasons gift card.

Some other important details:
* To enter, leave a confirmed comment below.
* The comment must be left and confirmed on December 1, 2009 at 5:00PM Eastern Time.
* You may only enter once.
* One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
* One winner will receive a Four Seasons gift card valued at $100.
* Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia.

See complete contest rules here.

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Las Vegas seems to have a surfeit of hotel suites lately but that hasn't stopped the big names from bringing out new offerings. The Hard Rock Hotel has unveiled the HRH Tower Suites. The HRH Tower is an all-suite tower set to open on December 28. HRH Tower includes 359 "standard" suites, eight spa villas opening directly to the pool areas, and seven penthouse suites on the 16th floor. Guests in the new towers will have their own VIP entrance and check-in, direct access to the new casino space, luxury Reliquary spa; and Vanity nightclub.

The suites include an integrated wet bar, sitting area, and suite bathroom with cast iron tubs. Each suite in the Tower includes an AMX 12" Touch Panel music system with iPod dock with over 2,000 HRH owned songs and playlists as well as two 40" Sony Bravia LCD TV with DVD players. The seven penthouse suites include: Infinity, Nirvana, Provocateur, Platinum, Ultra Lounge, Stones, and Sex & Pistols. Bathrooms include Grohe bath fixtures with rain showerheads and six handheld shower sprays. The Nirvana Suite (rendering shown above) comes with an outside beach area with a private plunge pool and two enormous four poster draped daybeds.

The Vanity nightclub is lit by a multi-million dollar chandelier that can change color and even broadcast images and the club has two marble bars, a sunken dance floor, 50 VIP booths, an outdoor terrace including five cabanas with direct access to a sky bar and a ladies' lounge with six individual vanity stations and a full length three-way mirror with staff on-hand to fix broken nails, style hair and spruce up makeup. The Reliquary Spa has a Roman Bath, 21 treatment rooms, a private studio for pole dancing lessons and a fitness center. Rates at the tower start at $119.

Las Vegas' big gamble, the massive CityCenter is finally starting to be open to the public. The Vdara Hotel and Spa is partnering with Vanity Fair to co-host a grand opening gala hosted by Sebastian Copeland with Orlando Bloom and Rosario Dawson on Tuesday in support of the Sebastian Copeland Foundation, a new foundation to explore climate change. Entertainment will be provided by DJs Donovan Leitch and Mathieu Schreyer and guests will dine on food from Martin Heierling, executive chef of Vdara and the hotel's contemporary Mediterranean restaurant, Silk Road.

Vdara is a non-gaming, smoke-free environment which is physically connected to Bellagio and adjacent to the ARIA resort. The LEED Gold certified project includes the 18,000-square-foot, two-level wellness spa, Vdara Health and Beauty. The hotel features a variety of stay options the most lavish of which are the two-bedroom penthouse suites which each have a full kitchen, a washer and dryer, flatscreen televisions and a bathroom with a soaking tub.

The 4,004-room Aria Resort & Casino will open on December 16. Many are concerned about how eager people will be to check out the new hotel considering that room prices are lower across the Strip and tourism is still down. The AP reports that including condominiums, CityCenter will have nearly 6,800 units open early next year. Rates at Vdara start at $129, $149 at anchor resort Aria and $345 at the Mandarin Oriental.

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.