Art and Design Writer Sue Hostetler Lists High In Alphabet City

SELLER: Sue Hostetler and Jon Diamond
LOCATION: New York City, NY (East Village)
PRICE: $8,500,000
SIZE: 6,500 (or so) square feet, 3-4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As we have uncountable times in the five years since we began our little online endeavor, today Your Mama brings y'all a discussion about a New York City residence first brought to our attention by dear, sweet Hot Chocolate, one of our unofficial (and unpaid) aide de camps who frequently sends along links to interesting properties—mainly in New York City—that sometimes turn out to be owned by a celebrity, socialite, big business baron or some other sort of deep-pocketed and residentially blessed, high-profile person.

Today we're gonna peep and poke around a substantial, contemporary, townhouse-type condominium in Manhattan's once burned out and drug infested now boho-chic and family friendly East Village. The residence in question, boldly listed at $8,500,000, takes up the first four floors a nearly-new, six-story, two-unit building custom-designed and -built for its current owners writer/editrix extraordinaire Sue Hostetler and husband Jon Diamond, described in at least one print publication as a bi-coastal media CEO and entrepreneur.

Property records show Miz Hostetler and Mister Diamond acquired the downtown property in May 2008 for $3,500,000. At the time of their purchase, the narrow Alphabet City parcel, just a couple doors down from the still-kinda-grungy but terribly-trendy Avenue B, was commercially zoned and occupied by a single story warehouse-type building that housed a construction company.

Miz Hostetler and Mister Diamond did whatever one does in New York City to get the property re-zoned for residential use and quickly erected a two-family structure with a nearly featureless façade and—Huzzah, huzzah, hoo-ray!—a much coveted, private 1-car garage. The lower four floors comprise a townhouse-type residence for Miz H. and Mister D's own use and the upper two floors contain a duplex penthouse reportedly designed by developer/designers Bob and Cortney Novogratz.

The duplex penthouse, with direct elevator access on the sixth floor and 1,200 square foot Ipe wood roof deck, spans (approximately) 2,700 square feet according to listing information from the time of the sale. The penthouse was first put on the open market in March 2010 for $3,750,000 and sold fairly quickly in August of the same year for, according to property records we peeped, $3,027,375. The buyers were Oscar Proust and Colleen Goujjane, owners of famed, candle lit West Village eatery One If By Land, Two If By Sea, frequently referred to in the medias one the most romantic restaurants in New York City.

On the 19th of April, Miz Gould Keil at the New York Post reported in her Gimme Shelter column that house hunting celebrity couple Rachel Weisz and Danial Craig toured Miz Hostetler's four-floor townhouse unit and—lo and behold—the very next day the vertically-oriented condo was officially listed on the open market with its current eye-popping $8,500,000 price tag.

A pair of almsot-identical wood doors flank a wider wood door that lifts open—no doubt with the heralding of angels—to reveal an exceptionally rare for Manhattan single car private garage. The door to the left of the garage acts as a separate (and private) entrance to Miz Hostetler's townhouse unit and the door to the right opens into the building's common lobby with stairs and elevator to access the upper levels of the townhouse as well all the way up to the duplex penthouse on the 5th and 6th floors.

A half flight of stairs descends from the two-chamber, ground floor foyer with its adjacent half pooper into a cavernous, semi-subterranean, 1,000-plus square foot "great room" with Italian Renaissance-style wood-burning fireplace and poured and epoxied concrete floors. The lofty 18-foot ceiling has a coffered wood ceiling adds a vital hint of patina and was custom crafted, according to listing information, by the very same artisan responsible for the mill work at the Gramercy Hotel's celebrity-stocked Rose Bar. Ain't that fain-cee!

A central switchback staircase connects all four floors and divides the parlor floor living spaces in to a street-facing dining room with sleek fireplace and a spacious eat-in kitchen with stainless steel cabinetry, poured concrete slab counter tops, and top-grade integrated appliances including a cappuccino maker. A full wall of floor-to-ceiling wood-framed windows in the kitchen fold back accordion-like to a nearly 1,000 square foot back yard with, according to the floor plan, an outdoor fireplace.

The master suite spreads luxuriously across the entire third floor with entry vestibule, full-width bedroom with tree-top view, and his and her walk-in closets/dressing rooms. The over-sized, spa-style bathroom with sassy, geometric Moroccan tile flooring has dual sinks, soaking tub, over-sized steam shower and separate cubicle for the crapper hidden, as per marketing materials, behind Parisian Art-Deco privacy glass, whatever that is.

The flexi-use fourth floor has a large, full-width bedroom at the front used by the occupant, according to listing information, as an office/den with black and white horizontal striped wall treatment. A sensational suite at the back of the fourth floor encompasses a private corridor, full-width bedroom, separate play room, walk-in closet, and private bathroom sheathed in Bisazza glass tiles. The play room could be converted to a separate bedroom and listing information—the "brokerbabble" as the kids at Curbed call it—states the good-sized laundry room adjacent to the bedroom/office/den could "easily become and additional full bathroom if so desired!"

While Your Mama's opinion ain't nuthin' but hot air, we find the townhouse condo's featured day-core a mite stale and surprisingly flat despite the thick vein of—dare we say—Novogratzian high-glitz whimsy that runs throughout (see dining room and master bathroom).

Then again, what do we know compared to owner Sue Hostetler, an unquestionably beaver busy gal on the professional go with an eye for art, day-core and other pretty and pricey things. She currently sits atop the editorial masthead of the high-gloss Art Basel Miami Beach magazine and she doubles down with a monthly column called The Aesthete for pan-Arab (English language) luxury lifestyle magazine Bespoke. Previously she was the National Shelter & Design Editor of Niche Media (Gotham, LA Confidential, Hamptons, Ocean Drive, at etc.) where she wrote (and wrote and wrote) glowing house porn articles about the glittering homes of the rich and famous. For a brief moment late in the last decade Miz Hostetler hosted a show on Plum Television which showcased extraordinary residences the country and she's authored a trio of coffee table-type books (Majestic Metropolitan Living, Hip Hollywood Homes and Oceans). Is this beotch tryin' to make Your Mama feel inadequate?

Anyhoodles poodles, previous to building the East Village two-family Miz Hostetler and hubby lived in a 3,000 square foot loft in a classic cast-iron building in the heart of SoHo they bought in May 2006 for $3,750,000. They engaged the services of Los Angeles turned New York City- and Paris-based designer Valerie Pasquiou who had previously worked over the L.A. homes of Showbizzers like Lisa Kudrow, Sharon Stone, film producer Mary Parent, motion picture literary agent Bob Bookman, and k.d. lang.

The 3 bedroom and 2 bathroom Hostetler-Diamond loft was photographed in 2007 for the defunct shelter publication Metropolitan Home, now archived with Elle Decor. This was just about the very same time they flipped the newly decorated SoHo loft back on the market with an asking price of $5,100,000. Over the course of a year, the asking price slipped in small increments to $4,750,000. Property records show the loft sold in May 2008 for its full asking price to John Wotowicz, an investment manager or something, and Virginia Lebermann, known in the art world as the co-founder of Texas-based contemporary arts foundation Ballroom Marfa.

We're not sure why Miz Hostetler and Mister Diamond have opted to sell their custom-created townhouse condo in the East Village nor do we know how their enormously successful team of Real Estates arrived at the eight and a half million dollar asking price that puts it at the apex of the East Village real estate food chain. It is, by a double-wide $2,000,000 margin according to our research on Streeteasy, the most expensive East Village residence of any type (condo, co-op, townhouse, multi-family) currently on the open market with the exception of a pair of side-by-side (but not yet joined), mid-19th century era townhouses on East 10th Street that combined come to almost 8,500 square feet and are listed together for $12,950,000.

With that in mind, Your Mama imagines—but does not predict—Miz Hostetler's townhouse condo in still-rough-around-the-edges Alphabet City may (or may not) be a tough sell at the sky-high price of $8,500,000 even with the private one car garage for which Your Mama imagines most street-parking Manhattanites would probably do the most unspeakable things. Trust Your Mama on that, children. We parked and hopscotched an old but trusty Saab 900S on the streets of the East Village for more years than we can count and we know of what we speak about the absolute desirability and value of that-there garage.

 listing photos and floor plan: Town Real Estate

Messes and More Messes

 

This is the usual view of my family room, when it’s all cleaned up.

 

 

This week, this is the view.  EEK!!!!!!   I just hate this!  The curtains have been sent out for a major cleaning.  More major than Nature’s Miracle could take care of.

 

 

Now, I ask you, does anything about these curtains look like grass to you?   I wonder why puppies think curtains are grass?

 

We’re not sure who the culprit is who mistook the curtains for grass.  We do know it’s not these two, Sammie Jo or Georgie.  They know the way to the doggie door in their sleep.

 

The guilty one could be this devil,  my granddog, Miss Lucy-Lu, who came home for Passover Seder two weeks ago.

 

Or, it could be this devil, Mr. Riley or Mr. Popeye as we call him  (notice his crooked mouth on the left side).  Riley is my nephew-puppy who comes to stay when his parents go out of town. 

 

Neither of the King Charles Cavalier puppies are the most house trained dogs in the world, although both their parents claim they are!!!    Actually, the soiled curtains are probably a combination of these two stinkers.   Whatever.   I always say, if Queen Elizabeth is comfortable with seven Corgis living in her palaces, I can surely have a few dogs of my own. 

 

 

 

Here are the cousins meeting for the first time.  Lulu and Riley give each other a little kiss.  Awww.

 

 

And of course, Riley being all male, demands more from Lula, like a little Hello sniff.   Lulu, being the hussy, obliges.

 

 

So, now until Friday, this is what I’m living with.  Things like this make me really nervous.  I can’t stand to have my house all torn up.  I can’t even LOOK at the back windows now.  I’m pretending this doesn’t exist.   Those blinds are driving me crazy.   I wanted the man to just take down the blinds too so I wouldn’t have to look at them.   He thought I was a little deranged when I asked him to that. 

The blinds are really only for show under the curtain panels.  If I was just using the blinds without the curtains, I wouldn’t have hung them this way.  Instead they would be hanging inside the doorframe.   But,  hung like this, they hide that dead space between the ceiling and the window – making it look more clean lined.

 

 

In short, notice how these blinds fit inside the window.  See that dead space between the ceiling and the windows?   That’s what I think, in most cases, should be avoided.   If those blinds were installed at the curtain rod, the look would be so much better.

 

Here, Suzanne Kasler did the correct thing with the blinds in this living room. The blinds are raised up to the curtain rod. There are panels between each window – instead of only at each end.  This way, you have a simpler, much cleaner line.

 

Again, this is so fussy. If this was my window, I would have installed only one blind raised to the curtain rod. And I would probably have four panels of fabric instead of two.

 

 

In my bedroom, there is really only one window.  By placing one long shade under the rod, and adding four panels of fabric (one is out of view on the left)  - the eye is fooled into thinking there are three windows, instead of one, ugly, very long, short one.  It’s a much more elegant look done this way.

 

I wrote a LONG blog post about curtains and blinds a few years ago – HERE – which details my formula for curtains and blinds, if you have more questions.

 

 

 

In other Cote de Texas news, I recently got a new lens for my Nikon D90 camera.  I am totally excited about it.  Here is a picture taken with my old Tokino ultra wide lens.

 

 

And here is my new Nikkor lens 14-24.  Whoa.  (Disregard my purse and the non staging.  I took this photo for my own purposes, not knowing it was going on the blog!)   I can’t get over the difference in clarity and sharpness between the Tokino and the new Nikkor lens.  So, I was pretty thrilled with my purchase.   For a while.   I was hoping to gain added width to my photos, but after doing test shots, I realized the width was pretty much the same.  Which, totally bummed me out.  I’m really aiming to get that huge wide shot that professionals get.

 

A nice wide shot just like this of Mick Jagger’s Paris apartment (which is gorgeous by the way – see the slideshow on Vogue.com. Their new web site is drool worthy.)   So, after buying the new Nikkor ultra wide lens, I’m still denied these ultra wide shots.  Why?

  After spending hours studying the problem on the internet, I finally, after five years, have figured it all out.   Seriously, this issue has vexed me for five years and now I finally know the answer.  To put it simply, the Canon and Nikon digital cameras shoot through a cropped sensor.  Huh?

 

To understand the crop factor,  look at this picture above.  The large picture is what a camera shooting with 35 mm film looks like.  The picture is that wide and big.  Now, where the green line – is how much smaller a photograph using a Canon 1.3x camera looks like, and the red line is the Nikon DX (mine.)  The blue line is the Canon 1.6x.   Notice how much smaller those images in the boxes are compared to the total image outside the boxes.

 

In other words, no matter how ultra wide my lens is, my pictures will always be cropped where the red line is.  This is NOT acceptable for taking interior photos!!!  No wonder my images are always less wide than the professionals take!!!   And, how stupid of me.  It’s taken me YEARS to figure this out. 

 

This image is taken from Ken Rockwell’s web site who does on line reviews of cameras and lenses.  It’s all free, but he does ask for donations, which I did send him for using this tutorial.  If you ever have any questions – check out his web site Kenrockwell.com.  He’s incredible.

 

Look at these two photos to further see the difference in width.  This shot, taken with a Canon Sureshot is much smaller compared with this below:

 

 

Taken by a professional – you can see how much more image you get with a camera that doesn’t have the cropped sensor. Picture of a showhouse by Maria Tracy, furnished by Custom Creations. 

 

So, what to do now?  I’m not going to use 35 mm film.  I love digital and I love the automatic cameras.  Which leaves me this choice – the Nikon FX or Canon Full Frame – both do not have a cropped sensor.  The images from these two camera series is the same size as the 35 mm film.  Got that?  

So, of course, now I want the Nikon D800, the newest FX version.  Sshhh – don’t tell Ben, please.  He’s still having heart palpitations over the cost of my new ultra wide Nikkor lens.   But, if I’m going to take interior pictures for the blog, I need to be able to take them properly.  For you, of course!   It’s all decided and ordered – the only problem is everyone and their brother wants the Nikon D800.  The camera is backordered for months and months.  Unfortunately.  But, at least this will give Ben time to recover from the lens expenditure.   All this isn’t cheap.  The lens and the camera (body only) are both ridiculously expensive compared to the D90. 

Does anyone have the Nikon D800?  I’m wondering if it’s hard to learn how to use.  Let me know if you do. 

 

This is how my week is going – messed up curtains and messed up photos.  How’s it in your world today?

It's Back: Meg Ryan Re-lists Bel Air Mansion

SELLER: Meg RyanLOCATION: Los Angeles, CA (Bel Air)
PRICE: $11,400,000
SIZE: 6,877 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Brace yourselves, butter beans, because Meg Ryan's Los Angeles, CA mansion has popped back up on the open market for the 5th time since 1997 with a new, improved and much lower asking price of $11,400,000.

After first shopping it around off-market to folks like Mister and Missus Ben Affleck and British quasi-expats Mister and Missus Victoria Beckham, Miz Ryan had the drop-dead gorgeous Spanish-style casa on the open market from late-October 2008 until early January 2009 with an optimistic asking price of $19,500,000. 

In the fall of the same year (2009) Miz Ryan briefly re-listed the residence at $14,200,000 and the following fall (2010) put it out for lease at a mouth-drying $40,000 per month. Eventually, we first learned from from well-connected Tinseltowner Kenny Kissintell, Oscar winner and historic architecture buff Diane Keaton came along and rented Miz Ryan's meticulously updated, upgraded and maintained Bel Air mansion at an unknown amount of monthly remuneration.

The trout-pouted (former) rom-com queen—she's barely worked in The Big Bizness of Show since 2009 and, hence, ripe for a come back—seems to spend a great deal of time in New York City where she's often spotted around town with middle-aged rock star John Mellencamp. In fall 2010 Miz Ryan was reported to have signed a one-year lease for an approximately $25,000 per month rental in the Jean Nouvel-designed tower at 40 Mercer Street but we can't confirm or deny that tidbit nor do we know if she's moved on or signed an extension on the (alleged) lease. She owns a secluded residence near the quaint community of Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard she picked up in early 2004 for $2,270,000 and had photographed for the glossy pages of Elle Decor's June 2010 issue.

Back in Bel Air, Miz Ryan's privately situated estate, tucked into a hair pin curve in one of Bel Air's most posh pockets, sits surrounded by mansions and estates owned by a plethora of high-profile peeps who include Academy Award-winning legend Clint Eastwood, television super-producer Darren Star (who had his newly remodeled residence photographed for the March 2012 issue of Architectural Digest), Showbiz icon Robert Redford and, right next door to Miz Ryan's place, the Richard Neutra-designed Brown-Sidney House now owed and extensively restored/renovated by fashion world superstar turned film producer Tom Ford, he-rah of the squinty-eyed smolder.

Property records show Miz Ryan procured her Bel Air mansion in October 2000 when she paid $8,500,000 for the multi-winged, two-story mansion that current listing information indicates was built in 1931 andmeasures 6,877 square feet with 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms plus additional living/sleeping quarters in a detached guest house near the swimming pool.

Interior spaces includes a step-down formal living room with fireplace, formal dining room, two family rooms, separate bar room, second floor screening room, and eat-in kitchen with commercial-style appliances and a massive center work island.

The museum quality renovation features dark hardwood floors, hand-stenciled and painted ceilings, vintage tiles, wrought iron details, dozens of archways, and French doors that spill out to various patios and loggias that give way to flat lawns, shaded terraces, a dining ramada with antique wood ceiling, and a small free-form swimming pool nestled into a lower terrace with stacked stone retaining wall. 

Your Mama has discussed Miz Ryan's no-longer-wanted Bel Air pad on several previous occasions so if you're interested in more prattling and pontificating head over here and here.


exterior aerial photo: Pacific Coast News
listing photos: Prudential California / Brentwood