Princess Margaret of Denmark’s French Fortress Goes to Auction, Matt Stone’s Former Venice Pad Lists, and More Real Estate News

From the homes of celebrities like Matt Stone and Princess Margaret to new developments in Miami and beyond, there is always something new happening in the world of real estate. In this roundup, AD PRO has everything you need to know. 

On the Market

South Park creator’s former home lists for $6.5 million 

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A Venice, California, home once owned by South Park cocreator Matt Stone just hit the market for $6.5 million. 

The recently remodeled Danish Modern–style home sits on an enviable corner lot in Venice’s southernmost Silver Triangle, offering three bedrooms and four and a half baths. Highlights include stained concrete floors, handmade tiles from ceramicist MaryMar Keenan, and mahogany doors and windows from Tischler und Sohn. The garden is a collaboration between Stephen Scanniello, rose curator at the New York Botanical Gardens, and Tom Carruth, who holds the same post at The Huntington in San Marino, California.

There’s also a standalone structure that currently serves as a three-car garage but could be adapted into an art studio, office, or guest house. Billy Rose of The Agency has the listing. 

L.A. Reid selling ultramodern Bel Air mansion for $21.5 million

Superstar producer L.A. Reid has put his secluded Bel Air mansion up for sale for $21.5 million. Reid, whose collaborators have included Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Jennifer Lopez, bought the seven-bedroom estate in 2016, shortly after construction was completed. Tomer Fridman of Compass and Chantel Mehrabanian of Sotheby’s International Realty-Beverly Hills Brokerage share the listing.

The three-story stucco-and-stone structure boasts more than 11,200 square feet of living space—accessible via elevator or floating staircase—and an underground garage that can accommodate four vehicles. There’s also an astounding 10 bathrooms—including a spa-like lavatory with a walk-in infrared sauna and red-light therapy machine.  

“We saw many homes, but none as magical as this and with the support of such an alluring backdrop as this,” said Reid’s wife, Erica Reid, who was very hands-on with design choices. 

Some of the furnishings are from midcentury-modern designers Vladimir Kagan and Christian Liaigre, and the Reids are open to selling many of the items with the home. 

The couple didn’t renovate much, though they did add a scarlet red home theater inspired by the Art Deco interior of Paris’s Hotel Costes. They first listed the property back in 2019 for $22.9 million, and it’s gone on and off the market several times since then—most recently in 2022, when it was listed for $21.95 million.

Princess Margaret of Denmark’s French fortress goes to auction 

The French Riviera estate where Princess Margaret of Denmark lived for decades is going up for auction. The six-bedroom manor known as “La Carriere” is located in Villefranche-sur-Mer, nestled between Monaco and Nice. It was actually built into the stone walls of an existing fortress in the 1920s, offering the ultimate in regal privacy.

Margaret, a cousin to England’s Queen Elizabeth, resided mostly in France with her husband, Prince René of Bourbon-Parma, until her death in 1992 at age 97. (The family was forced to flee La Carriere during World War II, temporarily taking up residence in New York.)

La Carriere’s historic character is underscored by its arched windows, antique high-beamed ceilings, and expansive fireplace. If the new owners feel hemmed in, though, incomparable views of the Mediterranean are available from multiple terraces and a rooftop jacuzzi. 

There is no reserve, but the property was previously listed for $13.1 million. Bidding opened yesterday with Concierge Auctions.

Then and now in Larchmont

A lot has changed in the quarter-century since 61 and 65 Woodbine Avenue appeared in the pages of Architectural Digest. The two homes, which make up a single estate in Larchmont, New York, were the work of architect Elliott Rosenblum, known for designing stores for Barneys, Calvin Klein, and Saks Fifth Avenue.

His client was a Westchester County psychotherapist who was relocating and wanted a space that was “snug enough for two but able to accommodate her and her husband’s extended friends and family,” according to the original article from 1997.

Rosenblum’s solution was a pair of Shingle-style houses that would be right at home in Nantucket: A 13-room, 7,500-square-foot main house where the pair could spend the warm-weather months, and a 10-room 4,000-square-foot “cottage” where they could winter. 

The original structures on the property, which date to 1907, were stripped down to their foundations to make way for Rosenblum’s expansive design. Now both residences are on the market for the first time, listed for $6.8 million with Carey Federspiel of Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty. 

A comparison of the original shots from the 1997 spread and new photos from this year show that, while the world outside is very different, these homes are much the same.

“The eyebrows, the cupolas, the antique wood floors, and cabinetry are all there and beautiful,” says Federspiel. “The wood in the home hasn’t been whitewashed or painted gray like so many homes in the past decade.”

In fact, the only things that have grayed are the cedar shingles, which have naturally weathered from their original brown.  

Style

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation steps into footwear 

Maybe you can’t afford a Frank Lloyd Wright house, but you can walk a mile in his shoes—literally. In April, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation partnered with fashion brand Kith on a capsule collection. The New Balance Made in USA 998 sneaker is offered in two colorways, incorporating creamy white and the brick red, apricot, and olive green hues of Broadacre City, Wright’s unbuilt futuristic city concept. 

Priced at $220 a pair, the shoes quickly sold out almost instantly, Fast Company reported, and have popped up on eBay for as much as $750. 

Kith also designed two T-shirts, one with a Wright-inspired sketch on the front and another with the foundation’s logo. The collection’s promotional campaign was shot on location at Taliesin West, Wright’s studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, and features site staff members as models.

News

Rents are coming back down to earth

A record number of new rentals came onto the market in April 2023, according to a report from housing site Zumper that also indicates rent prices are starting to normalize. At $1,495, the nationwide median rent for a one-bedroom apartment remained static from March and is up just 6% from one year ago. That’s a far different picture than the double-digit increases witnessed throughout 2021 and 2022. The $1,842 median for a two-bedroom unit, meanwhile, is only a half a percentage point higher than last month.

April actually marked the sixth consecutive month of modest fluctuations, with the median rent for one-bedrooms going down in 39 of the top 100 markets. “The roller-coaster days of the pandemic, with wildly unpredictable price changes tied to mass migrations, are behind us,” says the report. 

Of course, some things remain the same: New York topped the list of the most expensive US cities, with a median rent of $3,570. Less expected is Jersey City tying with San Francisco for second place, with a median rent of $3,000 for a one-bedroom unit. 

Miami came in fourth place, with a median one-bedroom rent of $2,840. That’s just a 6% increase from March, but a whopping 61% spike from January 2020, when the median rent for a one-bedroom was just $1,760.