UPDATE: Shaq's Shack

According to one of Your Mama's favorite Miami blogs, professional basketball player Shaquille O'Neal's Star Island estate, complete with indoor basketball court, natch, has gone into contract.

The super tall Shaq purchased the estate in 2004 for $18,800,000 and almost immediately put it back on the market for $32,000,000. Then the fickle dribbler pulled it off the market, and then put it back on the market for $35,000,000. Remember when Your Mama talked about all that nonsense back in January?

The big question is who bought the 19,940 square foot Italianate pile? South Beach scuttlebutt says it might be the absurdly paid and exceedingly rich baseball player Alex Rodriquez (A-Rod).

UPDATE: Vera Wang

Earlier this week Mister Max Abelson over at the NY Observer reported that uber rich wedding dress designer and budding lifestyle guru Vera Wang purchased her recently deceased father's massive duplex at the absurdly expensive and dee-luxe 740 Park Avenue for $23,100,000. Twenty three mee-lee-on clams people.

One might wonder why Miz Wang would have to purchase an apartment that she inherited upon her father's death. Well, the simple answer is that Miz Wang has a sibling who also inherited the apartment and if Miz Wang desired to move her own family into the palatial duplex, and she clearly did, then she had to buy her brother out for his share of the value of the apartment.

Does that mean the 10th and 11th floor monster duplex would have been priced at $46,200,000 on the open market? Good grief. Your Mama located a floor plan from the same apartment line of Miz Wang's new 740 Park duplex, but children, please understand that the layout shown here is not necessarily the exact same layout as Miz Wang's new digs which were likely tweaked and altered over the years by her parents. But the floor plan should give you an idea of the general size and scale of the very large and very grand apartment.

Lest anyone worry about Miz Wang stretching herself financially to buy daddy's apartment, keep in mind that Miz Wang's previous Park Avenue apartment recently went to contract just weeks after it screamed into the marketplace with an asking price of $35,000,000. So her 740 Park purchase is really quite a bargain for a lady with Miz Wang's vast real estate riches.

Miz Wang's former building at 778 Park Avenue is littered with quietly well to do individuals. But Nothing compares to the list of ridiculously rich neighbors at her new digs which include filthy rich Time Warner widow Courtney Sale Ross, Greek shipping tycoon Spyros Niarchos, money maven Steven Schwarzman, make-up mogul Ron Lauder, Hotel magnate Kent Swig, and hedge fun honcho David Ganek just to name a few.

Death of a Saleswoman

Jeezis, Mary and Joseph.

As many of you may have heard or already read, one of New York's finest celebrity real estate agents was found bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue aerie. Once upon a time Linda Stein managed the proto-punk band The Ramones. Later she became a real estate agent who helped rich and famous luminaries like Steven Spielberg, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, and Calvin Klein find palatial pads in New York City.

Miz Stein was a larger than life presence who could swear like a sailor and counted Sylvester Stallone and Elton John as pals and clients not to mention Demi Moore and Bruce Willis and Andrew Lloyd Weber. Miz Stein, an agent with the Prudential Douglas Elliman juggernaut was the lucky lady who listed artist Peter Beard's $26,000,000 cottage compound in Montauk that Your Mama discussed back in August.

Children, it's very rare for a person to be murdered in their own home on Fifth Avenue. The buildings along that rarefied corridor crawl with doormen, elevator operators, and often the buildings are fitted with a closed circuit television camera security system. Whomever it was that had an axe to grind (or a blunt object to clobber with) is likely to be discovered, revealed and prosecuted to fullest extent of the law.

Your Mama offers our sincere condolences to Miz Stein's family and friends.