The Bella Cottage Giveaway–FIVE Winners!!!!

 

One of Cote de Texas sponsors is The Bella Cottage.   This online company is like one stop shopping for home décor.  They have everything from antiques to reproductions, pillows to sofas, rugs to cute dog bowls!  You name your favorite item for the home and they probably sell it. 

 

I particularly love the antique shutters they sell – and the repro putti.

 

The Bella Cottage sells trendy items like burlap pillows and linen slip covers. 

 

And they sell non-trendy items, like classic antique gilt chairs. 

 

They sell items from popular companies – such as Dash and Albert and the Pom Pom Collection.

 

Tara Shaw Maison:  A wonderful daybed, available at The Bella Cottage

 

But, I was stunned and so pleasantly surprised to see what line The Bella Cottage is now carrying: 

Tara Shaw Maison!

Tara Shaw, from New Orleans and Houston, is known for her wonderful antiques that she hand picks in Europe.  For the past five years, Tara has been quietly developing her own reproduction line – using antiques from her own collection as inspiration.  There are so many pieces – from large bookcases to quite small pieces like tassels and crowns. 

 

My mom loves this piece from Tara Shaw Maison.  I do too!

 

These two murals are new to the collection – and wow!  They are fabulous. 

 

So, what’s the giveaway?   In celebration of the new collaboration between The Bella Cottage and Tara Shaw Maison – we are offering FIVE giveaways from the Tara Shaw Maison collection:

 

These pieces are from her hotel silver collection and we will be giving away each piece!!!!  YES!!!!

 

You might win the oval platter or the small engraved cloche – matte finish.

 

Or you might win the large cloche, matte finish!

 

You could win the matte finish champagne bucket!

 

Or, you might win the large platter, matte!

 

All these pieces from the Hotel Silver collection by Tara Shaw Maison are made from real vintage silver – even the engravings have been reproduced.  The collection was inspired by pieces Tara has herself.   The pieces come both in a polished and matte  finish – but for the giveaway, all pieces are in the matte finish.  The Bella Cottage is thrilled to be offering five pieces from the collection to five winners.  First place is the large cloche.  Second place is the small cloche.  Third place is the champagne bucket.  Fourth place is the large platter and Fifth place is the small platter.  WHEW!!!!!!!

 

 

 

I have never had a giveaway with so many prizes, I hope y’all like it!

 

OK – how to win:

1.  Go to The Bella Cottage web site HERE and look around.  Pick out your favorite item that they carry. 

2.  Come back here, to the blog, and leave a comment telling me your favorite item from The Bella Cottage – and why!

3.   That’s all!!!

4.  If you post anonymously, be sure to leave your name and email address or you won’t win.

5.  Contest runs until this SATURDAY night at 11:59 p.m.

 

HAVE FUN!!!!     Also, you might want to visit the Facebook page of The Bella Cottage HERE.  If you visit the web page, be sure to “like them” by hitting that button.

 

A HUGE thank you to The Bella Cottage!!!!!

 

Fertilizer Billionaire Alexander Rovt's Townhouse Shuffle

SELLER: Alexander Rovt
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $27,000,000
SIZE: 11,400 square feet

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The extreme upper end of the real estate market in Los Angeles has unquestionably kicked into high gear the last few months: Financial services widow Iris Cantor's sold her behemoth pile La Belle Vie in Bel Air in April for $40,000,000–in cash–to Goldman Sachs bigwig Gene Sykes; Rom-com queen Jennifer Aniston unloaded her recently rehabbed Bev Hills mansion for around $37,000,000 to Orange County mutual fund manager Bill Gross; And showbiz widda Candy Spelling's monster mansion in the Holmby Hills has widely been reported to be in the process of being sold for around $80,000,000. Most reports say The Manor is being acquired by London-based heiress Petra Ecclestone but a couple of Your Mama's sources have suggested the buyer may actually be Indian multi-billionaire Mukesh Ambani. We shall see...

Anyhoo, the demand for sprawling apartments and titanic townhouses in New York City with astonishingly high prices seems to be equally if not more electric than out on Tinseltown. Last summer Mexican telecom bazillionaire Carlos Slim Helú–said to be worth more than seventy billion bucks–acquired the gloriously gaudy Beaux Arts-style Duke Semans Mansion on Fifth Avenue for $44,000,000 and just last month the big spender spent another $15,500,000–in cash–for a Midtown Manhattan townhouse where Elizabeth Taylor reportedly once lived with third hubby Mike Todd and has more recently housed Felissimo Design House. In early in 2011 Columbus, OH-based retail magnate Leslie Wexner sold his 16-room Thierry Despont-designed digs at the inhumanly swank 834 Fifth Avenue to real estate tycoon Larry Heyman for $36,000,000;

As shocking as a $36,000,000 co-operative apartment sounds to our frugal ear, Russian composer Igor Krutoy and Band-Aid heiress Libet Johnson both make Moneybags Heyman look like a real estate cheapskate: He shelled out $48,000,000 for a condo at the Plaza Hotel Residences in March (2011) and she is said to be in the process of forking over $48,000,000 for a 33-foot wide townhouse on East 69th Street owned by Beauty.com founder Roger Barnett and his telecommunications heiress wife Sloan Lindemann Barnett.

The latest bone-chilling deal in New York City went down a couple weeks ago when a Ukrainian-born former jewelry salesman turned fertilizer magnate named Alexander Rovt coughed up $33,000,000 for a hulking fixer-upper on East 68th Street known as the Sloane Mansion. The fetching 36-foot wide Beaux Arts-style mansion, designed by high-society architect C.P.H. Gilbert, was built in 1905 for Henry T. Sloane, heir to a high-end furniture and upholstery fortune. The seven floor residence has an ornate carved limestone façade, encompasses more than 18,267 square feet of interior space and–as per at least one previous report–includes 15 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, 7 fireplaces, a grand marble staircase (plus a modern-day elevator), a stained glass sky light, and a paneled ballroom with herringbone pattern wood floor and original oil paintings. At some point in its history, the humongous house was divvied up into 11 small apartments with dazzling original architectural details.

Property records are somewhat confusing but as best as we can tell the property came to be owned by prolific theater director Peter Glenville and his long-time man-companion Hardy Smith. Mister Glenville went to meet the Great Director in the Sky in the mid-1990s and in 2003, the Sloane Mansion was sold for $7,600,000 to a group of investors named in the New York Observer as Dominion Management.

In May 2007 the property was sold again, this time for around $20,000,000, to another group of investors who included bankers Joseh Ingrassia and John Rice III, and real estate executive Stephen Zoukis. The investors famously bought out the rental residents–who included haute society columnist Aileen Mehle (a.k.a. Suzy Knickerbocker)–and flipped the house back on the market in early 2008 as a single family home with an optimistic asking price of $64,000,000. Almost a year later, with no serious buyers on the horizon, the price tag plummeted to $54,000,000. In November 2009 the gloriously decadent white elephant was re-listed with a fancy new broker with a substantially reduced asking price of $39,000,000, a number that later dropped to $37,900,000.

The investors appear to have run into some financial difficulties because by the time Mister Rovt appeared on the real estate scene in early 2011, the property was in default and slipping into foreclosure. Clever Mister Rovt figured out an unorthodox and ass-backwards method of buying the mansion, the details of which are well explained in a recent article in Forbes. He reportedly plans to convert the structure back to a single family house for use as his private residence.

As it turns out, Mister Rovt is no New York City townhouse virgin. In September 2005 the mustachioed billionaire paid $4,700,000 for a 25-foot wide red-brick Georgian townhouse on East 63rd Street that he bought from Benihana restaurant chain founder Rocky Aoki. He spent the next five years on an extensive and expensive renovation of the townhouse that now drips in peacocky architectural frippery. The house was put on the market in mid-May 2011 with an asking price of of $27,000,000. It is also for lease at $65,000 per month.

Listing information for the flamboyant townhouse–dwarfed by banal white-brick post-war apartment towers and located too far east to be considered chic–shows it measures 11,400 square feet and includes 5 bedrooms and 8 full and 5 half bathrooms. Your Mama, however, counts 4 family bedrooms with 8 full and 2 half bathrooms plus two additional smaller bedrooms–probably for live-in domestic staff–each with private pooper.

By far the most desirable feature of Mister Rovt's East 63rd Street townhouse is the attached single car garage with direct entry, perfect for someone who wants to squirrel people and/or things into their home that they prefer the nosy neighbors not see. The street-level foyer opens into a showy central stair hall with checked black and white marble floor, gilt-edged pilasters, numerous coat closets, all-marble powder pooper, and a curving staircase with florid gold-gilded wrought iron banister.

At the rear of the ground floor a glitzy mahogany-paneled library/lounge has herringbone patterned cherry wood floors, built in display cases, gilt-edged architectural details, and French doors to a planted garden outfitted with surround sound–bet the neighbors love that–and a built-in gas grill. Floor plans for the house indicate that a staircase in the library/lounge descends to the cellar level that contains the service and mechanical areas, significant storage space, and a spa facility complete with sauna, bathroom, fitness room, and theatrically-tiled indoor swimming pool and whirlpool area with built-in snack counter/wet bar.

The parlor level has a wide stair landing, living room with fireplace, and Clive Christian designed eat-in kitchen with center island, gilt-trimmed cabinetry, granite floor and counter tops, top-grade commercial-style appliances and what appears to be 24-carat gold fixtures, which may in fact be brass for all we know. The areas of the walls not covered in cabinets were treated with a hand-painted floral mural by Mister (Clive) Christian. What the parlor level does not have is an actual formal dining room. Listing photos show an astonishingly long Neoclassical dining table–sans chairs–sitting on the stair landing, a poor substitute for a formal dining room in a $27,000,000 townhouse.

There are two large bedrooms on the next floor, both with private bathrooms and one with two large walk-in closets and semi-circular balcony. Either suite can be used as the master or, as suggested in the marketing materials, they can be combined into one giant suite with sitting room, bedroom, two bathrooms and six closets. The hitch to that plan, according to our rudimentary reading of the floor plan, is that moving from one part of the suite to another–say from the bedroom to the sitting room–would require traversing a public hall. I don't know about the children, but for $27,000,000 we are definitely not interested in one of the household staff accidentally catching us streaking from the bedroom to the bathroom in the squeak of the early morning.

Two more large bedrooms on the fourth floor each have private facilities and generous closet space, one has French doors to a second semi-circular balcony. A smaller room with private bath in between the bedrooms is probably best suited for staff, a nursery, play room, library (as its marked on the floor plan), or the bedroom of a less favored child.

A staff room with private bath on the fifth floor is book-ended by a media room with stepped seating and a cigar lounge with gas fireplace. Both the theater and the cigar lounge have private baths and plenty of closet space so could be easily converted to additional bedrooms.

The elevator does not rise to the roof top level–so it's up the stairs we go–that's blessed with some city views and equipped with outdoor fireplace, surround sound, and a stainless steel cooking/barbecue station.

A quick comb through online property records reveals that in addition to the two townhouses on the Upper East Side, Mister Rovt also owns a modest 1,423 square foot Midtown pied a terre a the Galleria building on East 57th Street that was purchased in June 2004 for $1,050,000. Records also indicate that since at least the mid-1990s Mister Rovt has owned a large but architecturally suspect house in Brooklyn's Mill Basin neighborhood out near The Rockaways. In May 2003, Mister Rovt dropped a very modest for a stinking rich person $370,000 for a condo in Bal Harbour, Fl.

listing photos and floor plan: Leslie J. Garfield & Co.

An NYC Photographer and a Fashion Executive List Upstate Hideway

SELLERS: Diego and April Uchitel
LOCATION: Hurley, NY
PRICE: $2,995,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen, chitlins, the sun is shining, our belly is full of cheap champagne and ebelskivers and we want–nay, need–another lazy afternoon at the beach. Howevuh, have no fear, rather than leave y'all high and dry, we offer up a little real estate pretty quickie in the form of a fully rehabbed 18th-century stone-built house in rural Upstate New York that oozes with historic charm and urbane sophistication.

The house in question, located in the barely there community of Hurley near the tiny town of Stone Ridge (NY), was originally built by one of the Dutch farmers who settled the area in pre-revolutionary America. In the 1920s through the 1950s scenic valley became known as the Borscht Belt because of the high number of summer vacation camps that catered (mostly) to New York City Jews. About two hours north of New York City, Stone Ridge nowadays might better known amongst urbanites and non-Jews for its stunning, sturdy and well-preserved 18th-century stone-built houses and the crush of showbiz types–many of whom have won or been nominated for an Academy Award or two–who own pretty properties in the vicinity.

Some past and present property owners in and around Stone Ridge who have recognizable names include Oscar-nominated Willem Dafoe (High Falls), Oscar-nominated actress Uma Thurman (Stone Ridge), John Leguizamo (Rosendale), David Bowie and Iman (Shokan), Oscar-nominated Vera Farmiga (Mettachonts), Oscar-winner Melissa Leo (Stone Ridge), and Oscar-winner Frances McDormand and her Oscar-winning director husband Joel Cohen (Esopus). Pint-sized moguls Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen rented a house in Accord last year and we hear through the Stone Ridge real estate gossip grapevine that since dumping her Oscar-nominated filmmaker husband Darren Aronofsky in late 2010, Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz has been spending a considerable amount of time at her Marbletown country house with her hunky new hunny-hubby Daniel Craig.

Anyhoo, last week we heard from an informant we'll call Ima B. Anupstatemary, who pointed Your Mama's real estate snoot in the direction of the Captain Newkirk Estate, a 73.5 acre spread on a country lane with a recently redone stone-built residence that dates to the around 1720. The owners, Argentinian-born fashion and celebrity photographer Diego Uchitel and his fashion executive wife April, recently listed the property with an asking price of $2,995,000.

Mister Uchitel takes photographs for a living and frequently snaps images of famous f0lks, including Julianne Moore, Charlize Theron, Bette Midler, David Bowie, and Ahn Duong. Stylish ginger-haired April Uchitel toils as the Executive Vice President of Global Strategy for Diane von Furstenberg.

Property records show Mister and Missus Uchitel purchased the property in August 2007 for $1,650,000. Listing information reveals that the arty-farty and aesthetically-oriented couple spent three years on an extensive renovation and restoration of the property that they subsequently had photographed for the May 2010 issue of Elle Decor.

Listing information shows the almost 300-year old colonial crib measures a very contemporary 4,598 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and 6 fireplaces.

An opening in a split-rail fence marks the entrance to the long driveway that runs besides a babbling brook that cuts through a broad meadow. The driveway swings left at a pair of postcard-perfect antique barns and climbs gently to a parking pad set well away from the house. From there a blue stone pathway meanders across the flat front lawn the runs right up to the home's foundation. The notable lack of landscaping around the house might look bare to some, but we rather love it as it perfectly and dramatically sets the orderly but organic exterior of the house in stark relief against the cleanly-clipped grass and the rugged shade trees that ring the house.

Mister and Missus Uchitel–no relation to Tiger Woods number one extra-marital squeeze Rachel as far as we know–respected the home's original character as evidenced by the wide-plank French white oak wood floors, 12 over 12 sash windows, rough-hewn wood beam ceilings and the chair rails and moldings in the entry and stair hall painted an inspired and rich shade of steel grey. Added modern comforts and luxuries–the kinds of things considered necessities by those with deep pockets–include all-new systems and services including central air, a 4-zone heating system and radiant heated floors in the bathrooms. Having spent a couple winters in Upstate New York–including the turn of the millennium in a tee-pee in the mountains above the Ashokan Reservoir–Your Mama knows well how perfectly wonderful radiant heated floors must be in Upstate New York come the deep freeze of February.

Inside living areas include a front parlor with a pair of well-worn roll-armed club chairs, a generous double-wide living room/family room, dining room with chunky antique trestle table, and swank but cozy center-island kitchen dressed in marble counter tops and white cabinetry with glass fronted uppers. A pair of swoon-worthy industrial-looking antique copper pendant lights hang over the over-scaled work island/snack bar. Your Mama notes with glee that Mister and Missus Uchitel smartly refrained from hanging a Kia-sized pot rack over the island, a decorative temptation that too many are unable to control.

The covered front porch and the screened porch with vaulted ceiling both link the house to the multi-level blue stone entertainment and dining terrace. The lush but austere landscaping that surrounds the house gives way to thick woods criss-crossed by hiking trails that wind around to a natural waterfall that tumbles down to the brook–a kill in local parlance–that meanders through the woods and across the meadow at the front of the estate.

Although the local swimming holes are sweet and nearby Lake Minnewaska is utterly spectacular, the property needs, for our taste and three million clams, a swimming pool for those swampy summer days when you don't feel like jumping in the Jeep and taking a winding drive just to take a dip in some cool water. Nothing fancy, just a rectangle sunk into a wide swathe of grass with a simple blue stone coping would do the trick here.

listing photos: Westwood Metes & Bounds