D

Dallas Real Estate: 4214 Manning Finally Under Contract

Because I truly believe that homes have souls, I just love it when they finally find a family.  4214 Manning is one of my favorite bittersweet new construction stories out there. The builders were trying to go outside the box, build a unique home with a strong New Orleans-style slant. Might have worked had the market not turned south. And so this lovely southern belle went into foreclosure even with all her bells and whistles. What was it, $3 million, then $2,050,000 and I said I would have gone in at $1.5. I mean, look at this breakfast room!

LBJ and Lady Bird’s Anniversary

Married 75 years ago today in Johnson City, Texas, where — full disclosure — I own property. Johnson City, Fredericksburg, Stonewall (where the LBJ Ranch is located) and Blanco have grown considerably over the years; market  a bit soft even though this part of Texas has one of the strongest real estate stories in the state. In the Johnson’s honor, here’s a nice little ranch just under a million.

Reduced For Quick Sale: Sweet Charity’s Dream House

Now that it’s up here on Dallas Dirt, Sweet Charity’s precious Jeanne Prejean may lose this once in a lifetime chance to buy her dream home at a greatly reduced price. I mean, this puppy is on the drastically reduced shelf…  hopefully not a scratch and dent.

9243 Church Road, reduced $150,000 from $650,000 to $425,000. This for 1.49 acres on Church Road, kind of an historic Dallas home. The agent, Briggs Freeman’s Erika Orbin, says the sellers are just really, really motivated.

Update: I’m told the property was recently apraised by veteran appraiser D.W. Skelton for $500,000 but the sellers, savvy business folks, are trying to be realistic given the current market. In my shorthand, that means motivated!

Acres of Astro Turf Invade Preston Hollow

Oh God, think I’m going to be sick. This is the house I wrote about months ago, 8787 Jourdan Way, you pass it on Douglas heading north from Northwest Highway to Walnut Hill. I used to drive carpool on this street. Months ago  Dr. H. Doug Barnes started building a $9,460,500. behemoth stucco Palm Springs-style mansion here, plastering huge, ominous signs all over the place — KEEP OUT! PRIVATE PROPERTY! PROPERTY UNDER SURVEILLANCE!!! And the best: NO PHOTOS, NO CAMERAS (because we might actually want to duplicate this home, yes). So I packed up my dogs one sunny weekend and tried to take them over there for a walk. Was stopped by a huge security guard, a former defensive tackle no doubt. He asked me to leave and leave fast because the owner was on the premises.  Do you know how hard it was to peel myself out of there? I called his office the next day, he never called me back.  I so wanted to ask for a tour and why he was re-creating a Florida hotel in Preston Hollow. Would an ocean soon follow?

Please note: Dr. Barnes, I’m told, did not make his great fortune from doctoring but eyeglass ty-cooning. Here I thought everyone was doing Lasik!

Update: Thanks to the reader who snapped and sent these in — huge hugs! This home was also listed in D Magazine’s Most Expensive Homes issue — surprise, surprise!

So What’s Happening Over At Troy Aikman’s?

A lot on the $8 million lot he purchased as a play yard for his kids. You asked, I asked. Stay tuned.

Annual AIA Dallas Tour of Homes Saturday, Sunday

It covers six Dallas neighborhoods from Buena Vista to Tokalon to Maple Springs, and the most influential architects in Dallas. You will see the homes of an Austin filmmaker, a textile artist, a noted art critic and book collector, and several families devoted to eco-friendly lifestyles. Can’t miss, tickets are $25, jump for details: (more…)

Drexel Park Hollow Auction Saturday and Pillsbury Doughboy House Porn

November 7,  29 “luxury condominium homes” will be auctioned off by Kennedy Wilson. I was reminded of this yesterday here at the Urban Land Institute meeting in San Francisco, when I stopped by the Sheldon Good & Company booth/exhibit. Sheldon Good auctioned off the The Centrum a few years back, kind of got sales jump-started. They were telling me that auctions are an emerging trend in real estate sales and not just for distressed properties (or condos) either; check out this:  the 40,000 square foot main house of the John S. and Eleanor Pillsbury estate, designed in 1916 to 1918 by architect H.T. Lindeberg, on Brackett’s point overlooking Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota. This is the second time in the home’s history that it has been on the market.

Segue back to the Drexel Park Hollow: jump for  the deets on those interiors.

(more…)

Dallas Real Estate: Contain Yourself In a Max Levy Green High Rise

As SweetCharity tells it, the Turtle Creek Association sure knows how to hold a home association meeting. We are not talking casseroles and cookies from Sam’s; try the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek and every Who’s Who in town. Then the man who has brought us more hangers, cubicles and containers than we really know what to do with speaks. That would be Garrett Boone,co-founder and chairman emeritus of The Container Store. Boone was talking about clean air, which we all love and want dearly, but most vitally for us, he also talked real estate. Thanks to Glenn Hunter, I got  notes.

I had heard that Garrett and Cecelia, who are the best neighbors folks could ever have, were going high-rise and moving to The Centrum. Boone said he’d hoped to be an official Turtle Creek “neighbor” by now, but a “six-month construction delay” has kept them out of their unit at the Centrum Tower and in their sprawling ranch home not too far from yours truly. (Boone’s co-founder, William “Kip” Tindell, also lives nearby since he bought Caroline Minnis’s $ 5 millionish sleek contemporary home on Northaven at Ricks Circle.) The Boones have a penthouse on the 14th floor of the Centrum, which he said they love because of the unique, sleek architectural component of the building, the spectacular views and yet still neighborhood-y feel.

But here’s what’s really cool: The Boones have hired architect Max Levy to create a contemporary but uber green showcase home up there. To wit, three sides will be made of sustainable, recycled glass; hidden LED lights mean no more lightbulbs; a complete rainwater recapturing system even way up there, and native, not-so-thirsty Buffalo grasses on the terrace. The Boones say they will be one of the the first Platinum LEED certified penthouses in Dallas.

Despite the delays, Boone says he’s sure to be moving into the new space by April 2010; a palm reader in New York told him so, saying, “You will have a big move in your life in April of 2010.”

“In terms of construction timing,” says Boone, ” a palm reader is as good as anyone!”

No kidding!

Sign of the Times: 1.45 Acres, Lennox Lane, Under $1,500,000

That would be 10011 Lennox Lane. OK, so this home is a bit south of Ross and Margot, edges on Walnut Hill Lane, still — you get 1.45 acres of prime dirt, a mid-century modern home that doesn’t have to be scraped and replaced by a 20,000 square foot mansion. And get this price: $1,295,000.

Reminds me of what I was telling my husband the other day: the minute you move in these palaces, the place starts depreciating. All downhill, just like cars. Put the keys in the ignition, turn her on, the dollars start falling before you get out of the parking lot. Structure may decrease in value, but that dirt does nothing but hold hold hold.

So here’s my new theory: we should all live in tents on one acre lots. This place? One fancy pants tent.

Update: My first headline said $1.5K — was just trying to get your attention.

House Porn With a Capital P, a House Built On Credit

We are talking 9339 Hathaway. Oh boy, this is FANCY living in the honey pot of Old Preston Hollow. New on the market with Erin Mathews of Allie Beth Allman. How much? Get your smelling salts handy — $12,550,000. A true French manor house: 10,000 plus square feet on 1.9 acres, gated, loaded to the hilt (there’s a Card Room), owned by Thomas and Sandra Rouse, Mr. Rouse being the founder of TransFirst, a provider of credit card processing services. He founded the company in 1995, took it through seven acquisitions and annual revenue up to $25 billion, servicing 155,000 merchants and 965 financial institutions. We love us some credit cards.

I’ve got to get you all inside this one…

Dallas Real Estate: Is The North Texas Condo Market Finally on its Knees?

The Fort Worth Star Telegram’s Mitchell Schnurman says yes, that both Dallas and Fort Worth share a glut of condos but that Dallas is in more trouble because we have more unsold units — more than 400 vacant properties, a host of million dollar plus homes, and about one foreclosure for every four condo units posting.

It could be worse — we could be Miami. And I’ve heard that condos in Austin are moving like molasses, this in a town where parents often buy real estate for their UT undergrads.

I agree with Schnurman and the folks he consulted — Residential Strategies’ Ted Wilson and RECON’s James Gaines: too many condos were built. They knew it, we all knew it. As I was purging papers for our move to Saint Paul Street last week,  I found a brochure from the Cresta Bella — remember that? And Museum Tower was supposed to break ground this spring or fall. Schnurman says Mandarin Oriental pulled the plug last summer; I heard the writing was on the wall last March. And a reader asked me this week what, if anything, could be done with that sad Stoneleigh Residences shell — the ghost condo is the view from her front window. The Ritz opened The Tower Residences last Tuesday — all of phase one sold, though re-sales are slow and have seen two foreclosures, and the new 95-unit Tower Residences has 30 units left to sell. (David Farmer reminded me how bullish I was on the Stoneleigh; I still think it’s an excellent location for a high-rise. I asked what they thought would happen to that shell — nothing, I was told, until someone starts lending some money.) What was their secret to success? Great timing.

Here are the problems: a lack of financing in the jumbo market  ($417,000 or above in Dallas); if you do obtain funds, getting an appraisal through the new Home Valuation Code of Conduct; and in fact getting any money at all. Buyers are also skiddish over HOA’s, which I hope to examine more on this blog.  But why do lenders get the heebie jeebies still with Dallas condosl? Last Wednesday night at The Travis, one of the developers told me it was like pulling teeth to obtain financing on those units, but they did get a bank to sign on. I maintain that the real estate market would be a whole lot healthier if the lenders would just start lending again — not to anything that has a pulse, but to qualified people.

The good news is that Dallas now has 30,000 people living downtown — and I saw with my own eyes last weekend how we are becoming a city that never sleeps. (Yes!) The units will get absorbed, but it will take time, a few foreclosures,maybe even an auction or two.

Meantime, hold the cranes, please. Just please pass the credit.

Dallas Real Estate News: Ebby Halliday Serenades Yvonne Crum, Dallas Woman of the Year

That’s Ebby Halliday strumming her famous ukulele Friday night for Yvonne, Crum, Les Femmes du Monde Woman of the Year for 2009 for her amazing volunteer efforts in the Dallas community since 1970… Dallas summer musicals, Suicide Crisis Center, Dallas Children’s Theatre, Dallas Historical Society among many others. In fact, Laura Bush wrote a personal congratulations in the program.

Yvonne, I just love you and super, super congratulations!

Now I am sorry this photo is so distant. I had a little embarrassing moment Friday night. I always have my phone handy for photos, and it was tucked away in my handbag ready to shoot. Well, the program began, we were all quiet, and I heard this music coming from somewhere –  well actually, coming from under our table! Apparently I had accidentally sat on or stepped on my phone in my clutch bag (Jimmy Choo, of course, on super sale) and the i-tunes music was playing. Now I didn’t know how to turn it off because I (a) panicked and (b) have never listened to music on my i-phone. True confessions here. In fact, until very recently, I had no music on the thing. So I didn’t know how to stop the music from playing and driving everyone nuts. I went into the hall to figure it out, and got this picture of Ebby. Too bad I didn’t play with my Quick Voice app and record Ebby’s solo — but with my technical luck — I might have blasted her out with my Paul McCartney concert recording.

Go check SweetCharity: I’m sure Jeanne will have even more great details about the night and all the glitterati of the weekend!

Dallas Real Estate: Haute Night at the Travis at Katy Trail

Whoa, see what I mean? A great hot crowd Wednesday night for the debut of The Travis at Katy Trail Condominiums, the one-time apartments converted into condominiums by a Canadian developer, acquired by Hall Financial Group earlier this year. The space has been reconfigured somewhat — larger, lighter & brighter lobby, expanded fitness facility, and re-vamped units decked out by Dawn West Interior Design, Baron and J, Minivir, Jesica Sharp Designs, Rachel Dauphinee, Abi Ferrin, and Geoffrey Henning. Really interesting building: I was a little confused by the hallway configuration, but impressed with all the designers work. The price is right for these units, starting at less than $300,000 though the 3600ish penthouse is available for $700,000. I’m told four sold Wednesday night, and real estate management guru Worth Ross is moving into one of the units — stay tuned. Best attribute: location, right off Knox Street, stone’s throw from both Central and Highland Park, and an Uptown resident’s very best friend, Toulouse.

Dallas Real Estate Memory Lane: Best Deals of 2004?

“Visible corner: Hotel Palomar and Residences will be constructed on the site of the Hotel Santa Fe at the busy intersection of… ”

I really need to pack!

Newsweek Hearts Dallas Arts Center But: “Time Makes Cities Beautiful”

In the latest edition of Newsweek, Cathleen McGuigan lauds our new Arts District — telling New Yorkers to watch out, that the premiere cultural complex of Lincoln Center is getting Big D competition — and that we’ve done it right, avoiding the grandiose errors of our New York forebear. What have we done right? A lot: stunning architectural design — check. But the new Winspear Opera House is also pedestrian-friendly, open and inviting everyone to come in, a true urban renaissance project. Says project architect Spencer de Grey about his first trip to Dallas in the 80’s: “when I emerged from a restaurant at 9 o’clock there wasn’t a soul on the street.” That was my reaction also when I moved here from NYC in the early 80’s — at one point I wondered if a calamity had sent everyone for cover. But my stay this past weekend at The Tower Residences at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas proved that Dallas has evolved into a city that never sleeps. Time makes cities beautiful and busy.

McGuigan also warns that just because you build art doesn’t mean people will come: case in point, LA’s Disney Concert Hall. We are also a car-centric city and must keep LA’s lesson in mind: whatever we plan, whatever we build, you gotta take care of the darn cars that get people to the event. Make that parking inconvenient enough, those valet lines too long, folks will be tuning out to art, tuning into their PDA’s, heading back to their McMansions. And let’s be nice to our feet: one of the biggest selling points of every downtown residence is the walking proximity of the Dallas Arts Center (and yes, Victory) to all of them. So let’s also make sure we are foot friendly as well as car friendly.

Dallas Real Estate: It’s Hard To Leave 1604

My tub, my towels. Fortunately, two wonderful people rescued the D crew, the towels stayed white. Well, at least come up for a drink, I offer, wanting to run downstairs and stir up the place.  (What if we got really noisy?) Are you kidding? says Prejean. This mud and those marble floors will never meet. OK, everyone was home safe, I went to bed to gear up for another strenuous agenda: a day at the Ritz spa.

8:00 a.m. My husband, the early riser, is up after a perfect night’s sleep. Oh, how he tries to be quiet but oh, how it always fails. “Have you seen my chart bag?” Though I secretly hope it’s buried in Kaufman mud, I tell him it’s in the car. Go get it — no wait, call and ask for someone to get it for you! Test out the hot phone. “Is it HIPPA compliant?” (Peace and sleep for ten minutes. Then…) “Shall I order breakfast? What do you want?” Duct tape.

10:00 a.m. Breakfast Beautiful arrives on a wheeled cart with a warming oven below to keep it warm. I am concerned that the cart will not make it down the hall and around the center hall table, but it does: someone obviously measured, someone watched those details. I feel guilty — briefly — that I haven’t used the gourmet kitchen — the Wolf stove, the warming drawer, the twin wine fridges next to the integrated Sub Zero — well, I did use something. I load the integrated Asko dishwasher, though not necessary. Breakfast mess will be cleaned up during our massage.

11:00 a.m. What would we be doing now at home? Reading the paper, sipping coffee, surfing the internet. What are we doing now? Reading the paper, which was delivered dry inside our home, sipping coffee, surfing the internet to find Tweets of the Cattle Baron’s mudfest. Only here we are on the 16th floor, overlooking the city, thinking about mosey-ing down to that exercise room which does not require a car ride, which really takes away every excuse.

11:30 a.m. Dallas is a city that never sleeps: we are surprised by how many cars were on the roads last night, especially since half were still stuick in Kaufman. And did you notice how quiet it is in here? My husband, a perfectionist surgeon,  is impressed with the quality of the construction and the windows. It really does feel like a home, a home that floats, I say. I love watching the city in action, my husband says. I could do this. But, I say, you’ll have no garage. They have garages for your car downstairs, he says. But no tools, I say. Who needs tools? You use the hotphone.

11:45 a.m. We really are going to go downstairs and exercise.

The Residences at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas Versus the Cattle Barons Ball

The perfect cocktail party, a five star dinner. We return to our new home in the heavens to find love in the air: someone has turned down our bed and strewn it with fresh rose petals, forming a heart right in the middle. Ah, the empty nest: my husband is asleep in five seconds; he delivered babies the night before. So I do something I’ve wanted to do since I toured the very first Dallas high rise in a hard hat: take a nice soaking bath overlooking the lights of the city in that stunning white and black veined marble bathroom.  (Just lock me in there.) The Ritz jetted tubs are by Kohler with platinum Kallista fixtures — and the  jets are perfectly placed. Robert A.M Stern is a genius, but please, no hand-sprayers? I make do with the excellent water pressure — which was also perfect when the shower was running. A-plus plus bathrooms. (And no scalding flushes — like when your spouse flushes the commode and whoever in the shower gets scorched?) So I was soaking, enjoying a magazine, breathing in the city lights and noticing for the first time that it was still raining.

Then the phone rang.

I was out of the tub within minutes of learning that my daughter and son in law had wrangled themselves out of the mud at Cattle Barons, while the D Magazine crew had to abandon their car. (”Go back” I told my daughter.) Frantic phone calls had created an image of what would become a Woodstock for thousands of Dallas millennials, an event that they would relay to their grandchildren: I survived Cattle Baron’s 2009. I got into my suitcase and found that black lounging outfit — I was going to call for the car just like a real resident, go rescue those folks, bring ‘em back to The Ritz.

“You don’t understand, we are covered in mud,” said SweetCharity Blog editor Jeanne Prejean.

Towels, they’ll need towels: I looked at the pristine white Ritz bath sheets embossed with the regal lion brand.

Let’s see just how much they want us to make ourselves at home.

Dallas Real Estate: Behind The Doors of 1604

5:00 p.m. The glam begins. After a brief tour of our new home logistics — where we get our mail, store our wine, and work the state of the art elevators, all with champagne in hand — we jet up to 1604. Otis meets NASA: The Tower’s elevators are electronically synced to your key fob, so you don’t even have to punch in your floor number — it reads it for you. (And oh so hygienic.) If you are, say, a guest who actually has to touch the keypad, you simply tap in the floor number and up you go — the elevator will never stop at another floor, so Ritz security is supreme.  What do you do if you want to visit a neighbor, borrow a cup of sugar? Good question. (Friends will also have had to get by Willie, a 6′7″ former linebacker doorman.) En route we run into a friend, physician Dr. George Zoys — he LIVES here, actually, and loves it. Come on by for a drink, we tell him, if you can outsmart the elevator. (The Tower Residences are about 75% sold out.) Our home: 1604 is a two bedroom with study plus powder room, kitchen, laundry room, dining room and balcony extraordinaire, 2700 ish square feet. First thing we do is check out the view: wow! We spy Cowboys Stadium and even snatches of Fort Worth. Guests arrive. Conventionally, if I were at my home, I’d have made a frantic run to Whole Foods or Tom Thumb for cheese, fruit, or whatever they had on hand ready-made. But life at The Ritz-Carlton Dallas is different: you ring up the kitchen or Dean Fearings and they happily prepare your hors d’oeuvres, sending up a complete wait staff. And so we had folks stirring up pumpkin shooters and mini wasabi filets, serving vino. For two hours we nibbled and chatted as the rain settled in over Dallas and moved east — our balcony view of Dallas was nice and dry. Oh yes: at some point I said something about being  chilled, and like magic Thomas Smyth, Director of Residences, had a fire glowing in the fireplace at the touch of a button.

Next thing you’ll tell me, I said, is that I can turn on the fireplace from my key fob.

7:30 pm: Dinner for four at Fearings. By now our cocktail guests had departed — Halle and Ali to a concert, Pam to dinner, Anna to her babies, Jeanne, Glenn, Sara and Gillea to Cattle Barons. By now it was pouring but the four of us footed the skybridge that connects The Tower Residences to the hotel. Neither of us curly girls frizzed. In fact, I had no idea how much it was raining until later.

8:00 pm: We enjoy the meal of a lifetime at Fearing’s, one of the driving reasons why many people buy Ritz real estate: you’ve got the Number One restaurant in hotel dining (dry) steps away, available for in-home catering, and a boost on reservations. In fact, Barbara Capasso personally escorted us to the restaurant lest we get lost. Or wet.

“Are you doing this just because I am a writer?” I asked.

“No, we treat all our guests like this,” she said. “We are renown for our personalized, attentive service.”

And yes, when we finished dinner — a sampling of Dean’s signature Tortilla Soup, Cast Iron Alaskan Halibut on Gulf Lump Crab “Succotash”with Tabasco/Bacon Gastrique and Fried Green Tomatoes, Maple-Black Peppercorn Soaked Buffalo Tenderloin on Anson Mills Jalapeño Grits and Crispy Butternut Squash Taquito, Barbara was there to roll us escort us home.

In 1604 For Twenty-Four, Ctd.

Really my favorite hallway, this leads to the sky-bridge that saved us from Cattle Baron’s weather — it connects The Tower Residences to the hotel and Dean Fearings.

In 1604 For Twenty-Four, Ctd.

Vestibule to The Tower Residences pool.

In 1604 for Twenty-Four: Saturday Night at the Ritz-Carlton Residences’ Newest Tower

Saturdays go something like this: clean house, killer work out class, home to recover and hop in the pool with the dogs if weather permits, after which I usually walk around the exterior of my house and make note of what needs to be done. If I don’t get someone out to clean my windows the  mud wasps will have eminent domain. I have a dead juniper next to my front door. The yard man needs to pay more attention to the Japanese garden, which looks more like Hiroshima, the summer color is going going gone and it’s time to shell out money for think fall color. The pecans are raining on my sidewalk faster than I can sweep them, yielding enormous squirrel scat, and there’s a duck pooping in the pool, on my deck. So much for a swim. No wonder that by four pm, I’m hitting the bottle and re-thinking my love affair with home ownership.

So when the Ritz-Carlton Dallas asked if we’d like to try on living in one of their newest homes — to be unveiled tomorrow — I said not just yes but HELL YES and told the squirrels to stuff themselves.

2:00 p.m We pack our bags for a night of elegance, dinner at Fearings,  and (yard maintenance be damned, or at least postponed), a Sunday at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas spa: I slip into a cocktail dress and fold up work-out clothes, tee shirts, bathing suit (which I ended up leaving on my dresser) and make-up. Also throw in an elegant black velour lounging outfit with tags still hanging — never worn since I never “lounge” in my own home.

3:58 p.m. Arrive at the 23-story Tower Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, pulling the car into the port-cohere at our new address: 2555 North Pearl Street. We are greeted by none other than Ritz-Carlton General Manager Roberto van Geenen; Joseph Pitchford, Senior Vice President, development, Crescent Real Estate Equities L.L.C.; and Barbara Capasso, Residences Manager, with champagne. The Robert A.M. Stern regency-style building exterior is similar — identical, actually — to it’s twin tower and the hotel, the pale brick and cast stone. Most definitely a New York City elegance. The interior lobby is dramatic with white onyx floors bordered by rich chocolate brown and, a concierge counter bearing the most beautiful russet-colored stone slab I have seen to date: rich maple wood paneling everywhere. Unlike Tower One, this lobby is more of a rectangle, with a warm residence sitting room, a library, Chinese-red dining/board room,  private exercise room with a cushioned floor, individual lock and key wine-storage units for each homeowner, and gateway to a gorgeous, 80 foot long pool and spa flanked by Jerusalem Palms. There is an exterior fireplace and the entire deck, chairs, chaise lounges, pillows are new, spotless, squirrel and duck-free.

There is a fireplace in the lobby as well, and it is lit, warm and welcoming on what will soon be an historically rainy day in North Texas.

And so begins one of my most amazing 24 hours ever…

While The Cattle Barons Were Playing Slip and Slide In The Mud Saturday Night…

We were in Ritz-Carlton comfort testing out the newest Ritz-Carlton Residence Tower which opens Tuesday. We spent the night in a fabulously designer furnished home listed for $2.8ish million. You learn a lot about a home when you spend one night there. Here’s what I learned, The Ritz-Carlton is perfect. From rose petals sprinkled across our bed to the family photograph collage right next to my side of the bed. Downright perfect! So would you rather have been rolling in the mud (where our kids are) or here?

House Porn From the Ritz

Got my hair straightened today but that won’t stop me from getting in this pool!

Kicking It Up at the New Ritz-Carlton Tower: Candy’s In House Porn Heaven

Now that we are empty nesters, every time something breaks in our home the code-phrase is — time for a condo. (Which reminds me: my Northland ice maker is broken. Again.) We dream the impossible dream of a day when life can be easy — no broken sprinkler heads to replace, no frantic calls to the pool man, no leaks, no home repairs. (Is the wine cellar broken?  AGAIN?) So when the good folks at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas offered a luxury stay in a new designer-furnished  showcase home at their brand new Tower Residences so we could try it on for fun, I jumped at the chance! Can you imagine, this is like going to home porn heaven: the interiors are by Robb & Stucky. And don’t think I won’t be LIVING on that PRIORITY phone. (Attention Ritz staff: eat your Wheaties!) Stay tuned this weekend for a blog report, and post Ritz-Carlton depression on Monday. Join us virtually at our cocktail party Saturday afternoon — poolside, if weather permits. If not, we’ll watch the sunset from our new home away from home, get healthy (and work off Fearings) in the exercise room and then get rubbed down ’till we shine at The Ritz –Carlton Spa. And to think all this could be ours for a mere $800,000…

Eat your heart out, Jason Sheeler. (Sounds like you did.) We’re going to The Ritz!

(more…)

Where Does The Co-Founder of Twitter Live?

In San Franciso, yes, but no longer in this rather sterile looking penthouse : Evan Williams and his wife are building a new contemporary home, and I bet it will be green.