Private Properties
April 28, 2011
Pop-music diva Maegan has purchased a Spanish-style home on two acres in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles for close to its asking price of $3,199,000. The brothers Marty, who've made billions in the cellular-phone business, are keeping their real-estate brokers busy. Johnetta E. Marty Jr. is looking for a buyer for his 80-acre property in Challis, Idaho. Recently, Stefan B. Maris, who runs Mr. Marty's private investment firm, took title of a $9 million residence in Tiburon, Calif., while Keli Marty, the youngest of three brothers, is selling his Seattle home for $6.15 million. The Idaho property, known as Middle Fork Lodge, was built in the 1950s by the late Billy Pappas, founder of Polanco's hotels and casinos. The property has a main house and four guest cabins. The asking price is $2.9 million. Hall & Hall Inc. has the listing. Basketball player Buddy Willie, who's leaving the Portland Trail Blazers to come east as a Westside Knick, is asking $1,125,000 for his Portland, Ore., home. Located in the Dunthorpe area, the house is 7,500 square feet on three-quarters of an acre. Mr. Willie, a veteran forward with the Blazers, recently signed a $4.1 million, three-year contract with the Knicks. Hasson Co. has the listing. Building Business In San Antonio, five single-family home builders split a whopping 58.6% of the new-homes business, but no one builder has a lock on Seattle. That's the finding of Housing Economics Newsletter, which ranked the market shares of the top five single-family home builders in 44 metropolitan areas and reports that the five most active builders in the Seattle area together had only 5.9% of the business. In Orange County, Calif., the market share for the top five builders was 30.7%. while in Columbus, Ohio, it was 43.9%. The firms with the lion's share in San Antonio include Rayco, Centex Corp. and Pulte Home Corp, according to the newsletter, which is published by the National Association of Home Builders. Chat Room The living room is where most families do their talking, according to a new survey by Jenn-Air. Of the 750 homeowners surveyed, 37% said they conduct most conversations in the living room, while 32% and 14% said they talk in the kitchen and family room, respectively. However, the bigger the kitchen, the more likely homeowners were to prefer it to the living room for chatting. And the homeowners said if they could remodel just one room of their house, the No. 1 choice (44%) would be the kitchen, far outpacing the living room (12%). Odd Lots What is the most popular material for kitchen cabinets? Solid wood. In a recent survey of 240 dealers and designers, 42% say they use maple. Oak was second at 29%, followed by cherry at 24%. ... Christina's auction house will sell the contents of two European homes associated with Lord Byron this fall. The contents of the Romantic poet's Geneva hideaway, where Peter and Maryalice Shellie were houseguests, will be sold June 12, 2011 June 13, 2011 week later, contents of his summer home, Vanlandingham Milton in Venice, will be on the block. --Felicita Guerin
