Tag Archives: Beverly Hills

Travel

New Research Shows Most Iconic Film Locations Include One In Canada

Leave a comment

Indiana Jones fans might hear The Raiders March in their heads when looking at this photograph.

Can you name this neighborhood in London, England and the movie that made this street famous?

Our friends at Spin Genie have analyzed Instagram posts, TikTok views and Google search data to determine which can be crowned the most iconic. The study also considered the average hotel costs of the world’s most famous film locations, to share insights into how much a visit could set back fans of the film. 

The 10 most iconic film locations:

RankLocationFilmNo. of Instagram Hashtag PostsNo. of TikTok Hashtag ViewsNo. of Google SearchesAvg. Cost of Hotel per Night Overall Score
1PetraIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade1,720,3571,100,000,00010,407,000$105.009.17
2Notting HillNotting Hill, Love Actually1,690,606400,500,0007,865,000$159.008.71
2SalzburgThe Sound of Music3,663,9241,600,000,0009,180,000$266.008.71
4BusanBlack Panther4,564,7041,800,000,0003,149,000$232.008.56
5ClevelandAvengers8,133,6793,000,000,0006,546,000$324.008.37
5SavannahForrest Gump3,713,5821,100,000,0007,092,000$280.008.37
7BrugesIn Bruges1,444,721149,700,0005,172,000$270.007.39
8Oxford UniversityHarry Potter423,853507,200,0007,980,000$378.007.27
9MatamataLord of the Rings, The Hobbit180,491268,800,000783,000$49.007.2
10Beverly HillsPretty Woman, Clueless6,768,7632,800,000,0006,100,000$956.007.16
10Lake ComoStar Wars, House of Gucci1,951,742989,300,0006,885,000$507.007.16

The most iconic film location across the globe is Petra, which can be found in Jordan’s Southwestern desert. The famous archaeological site is most well-known for appearing in the third Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and is featured in over 1.7 million Instagram posts. Petra has also been viewed on TikTok over 1.1 billion times and received over 10.4 million searches on Google between August 2022 and July 2023.  For those wanting to visit the site, it will cost you around $105 on average for a hotel nearby.

The second most iconic film location is Notting Hill, which can be found in West London. The vibrant and trendy area is most well known for appearing in films such as Love Actually, and, of course, the self-titled Notting Hill. Notting Hill is featured in almost 1.7 million Instagram posts and has been viewed on TikTok over 400.5 million times, as well as garnering over 7.8 million Google searches between August 2022 and July 2023. A hotel in the area will set you back around $159 per night.

Also in second place is Salzburg, which is one of Austria’s most famous cities. The baroque city is most well-known for being the filming location of the classic musical The Sound of Music. Salzburg is featured in over 3.6 million Instagram posts and has been viewed on TikTok over 1.6 billion times, as well as accumulating almost 9.2 million Google searches between August 2022 and July 2023. Anyone wishing to visit the city should expect to pay around $266 per night for a hotel room.

Further findings:

  • The most popular film location on social media is Cleveland, Ohio. The US city is featured in over 8.1 million Instagram posts and has been viewed on TikTok over 3 billion times.
  • The film location that people are searching for the most on Google is Petra, with over 10.4 million searches being made between August 2022 and July 2023. 
  • The Tabernas Desert is the most affordable film location for visitors, with hotel costs averaging $71 per night.  The cheapest month to visit is March, with a 25% drop in price, and the most expensive month is August, with a 69% rise in price.
  • When it comes to famous Canadian film locations, any Twilight fans will be pleased to know that Stawamus Chief Provincial Park, located in Squamish in British Columbia, is featured in both parts of Breaking Dawn. Visitors can stay in a hotel in Squamish for a current average of $247 per night. 

Featured image: Stawamus Chief Provincial Park

Culture

NORTH AMERICAS MOST EXPENSIVE HOME FOR SALE

Leave a comment
The One 1.jpg

Once projected to list for $500 million USD, this LA home is for sale at a still staggering $295 million USD.

“America’s Most Expensive Home – Twice As Big as the White House”

One of the world’s most expensive homes, appropriately named “The One,” has just hit the market. Construction ran several years late causing financial issues for the developer. If The One sells anywhere near the $295 million USD ask, it would be the most expensive home ever sold in California, well over the $177 million USD that venture-capitalist Marc Andreessen paid for his Malibu mansion in 2021 and the $165 million USD that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos paid in 2020 for his Beverly Hills estate.

2

Perched on a promontory with 360-degree panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean, downtown Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains, the Bel Air mansion is surrounded on three sides by a moat and measures in at a mind-boggling 105,000 square feet – almost twice as big as the White House. Located on 3.8 acres, the house, which was actually raised during construction to further optimize the views, includes 21 bedrooms and 49 baths.

11

Highlights of The One include five outdoor and indoor swimming pools with the moat encircling three quarters of the exterior, a massive nightclub, full-service beauty salon, wellness spa, 10,000-square-foot sky deck, 400-foot private outdoor running track with a glass-walled view of the city, and a private theater with seating for over 40.

In addition to ownership of one of the world’s most spectacular homes, the property also includes butterfly artwork by Stephen Wilson, an Oto Murano chandelier by Vistosi, a rotating statue by Mike Fields, and a glass sculpture by Italian artist Simone Cenedese. There is also a two-story library/office with a balcony and water features touching three windowed walls, and parquet flooring. Add in a custom bar with a smoked-mirror backsplash and marble countertops, a cigar lounge,  four-lane bowling alley, putting green, wellness center, gym, a 64-foot (19.5 Meter) indoor pool with juice bar, tennis court, 10,000-bottle wine cellar, and a 30-plus car garage with two car-display turntables.

3

Entertaining in such unique luxury might draw some interesting Bel Air neighbors such as Jennifer Lawrence, who moved there last year, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Liam Hemsworth, Miley Cyrus and Kylie Jenner to name just a few.

6

The property is listed by Aaron Kirman of Compass, Beverly Hills and Branden and Rayni Williams of The Beverly Hills Estates, Beverly Hills, and will go to Concierge Auctions, which if not sold prior, will be held online on February 28th. For The Silo, Terry Walsh/Top Ten Real Estate Deals.com.

Culture

Chef Shows Celeb Couple Art Of Truffles And Pasta

Leave a comment

Beverly Hills CA  – Chrissy Teigen and John Legend celebrate life with Cook Unity (cookunity.com), a Los Angeles-based meal delivery. The couple cuddled up in their Beverly Hills home around Cook Unity’s Chef Luciano Pellegrini while learning the secrets of making the perfect fresh pasta stuffed with Fontina Cheese and Black Truffles.

The couple shared the experience with some of their closest friends and relatives and shared a few snaps on snapchat for their fans.

Cook Unity is a  decadent catering and meal delivery service that has been aiding Hollywood A-listers get through the summer with their alluring, ever-changing menu designed to keep you in shape and conveniently delivered to your doorstep daily. Cook Unity (formerly crateful.com)  is quickly becoming the most sought-after, luxurious meal delivery service in Southern California with an ever growing roster of high profile clients throughout Hollywood, such as Cindy Crawford, Jamie King, January Jones.

WHAT THEY MADE:

    . 

 

About Cook Unity

Cook Unity makes every chef-prepared meal using state-of-the-art cuisine techniques, creating perfectly balanced portions with the highest quality ingredients available. Together with a team of award-winning chefs and nutritionists, all produce is organic, wholesome and always fresh. All meal plans are calorie controlled and personalized to the individual’s dietary needs allowing a wide range of customization for each meal plan.  Offering four different menus,  all with Gluten, Dairy, Soy Free options, and with 42 different meals per menu in the breakfast, lunch and dinner categories, there is always something new and exciting to try. Cook Unity set out to revolutionize meal delivery services, by combining slowly and artfully prepared food with fast and convenient delivery.

Inspired by their Italian roots and new world innovation, they offer chef-prepared gourmet meals with locally-sourced and organic ingredients. All dishes are designed and prepared to taste just as delicious when you eat them as the moment they came out of the oven. Preparing them in the lightest and healthiest way possible allows leverage whilst enhancing the quality of the wholesome ingredients.

Jaime King and Cook Unity’s Chef Luciano Pellegrini during a behind the scenes look at how Cook Unity makes their organic, on the go, fresh meals. This took place at Jaime King’s House. | January Jones arriving on the set of  The Last Man on Earth carrying a special bag of goodies.

All photos except Snapchat pics by Eclat Public Relations

Vintage

First “Party Star”, Socialite Dorothy Taylor’s Beverly Hills Mansion For Sale

Leave a comment

“The Countess of Beverly Hills Mansions” Before Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, socialite Dorothy Taylor may have been the first Hollywood celebrity who wasn’t in the entertainment business. She was the ultimate party host and frequent 1930’s scandal rag fodder. Her lovers included Gary Cooper, Bugsy Siegel, George Raft and an Italian count.

Dorothy Taylor Countess Of Beverly Hills And Interior 3Dorothy’s trip to celebrity fame began after she inherited $12 million in 1916, the equivalent of about $275 million today. The first thing she did with her money was divorce her British aviator husband, Claude Grahame-White, and embark on a long party in Europe’s best circles. In 1923, she married Italian Count Carlo Dentice di Frasso, many years her senior. On the outskirts of Rome, the new countess acquired and restored one of Europe’s most famous homes, Villa Madama, that had been designed in the sixteenth century by Raphael. It was later used by Benito Mussolini during World War II for National Fascist Party functions.

While residing in the villa, actor Gary Cooper was doing a movie in Rome and became quite ill. Dorothy took him in and during his recuperation began an intense affair with him under her husband’s nose. Since she and the count were at that point leading separate lives, Dorothy went on with the affair and moved to Hollywood where she purchased a mansion in Beverly Hills. Making friends of some of Hollywood’s most important stars through her Cooper connections, Dorothy called in the best decorators and landscapers and created a luxurious estate that was classic Art Deco filmdom glamour. Dorothy and Cooper eventually went their own ways but remained distant friends. She was always known as the woman who taught Gary Cooper how to dress, making him the most elegant man in Hollywood.

Dorothy Taylor Countess Of Beverly Hills And Interiors

Through her new Hollywood friends, Dorothy eventually rented her mansion to Marlene Dietrich and headed off to search for sunken treasure on the studio-owned schooner, Metha Nelson; Captain Bligh’s ship in the 1935 movie “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Also on the ship was American gangster Bugsy Siegel. Although the trip turned into a disaster when the schooner was tossed violently by 70 mile-per-hour gale winds that split the main mast and destroyed the sails, it was the start of a new affair with Bugsy.  She always rejected gossip of her association with Bugsy, instead referring to him as Benjamin to her friends.

In 1947, Dorothy sold the Beverly Hills house to MGM pianist Jose Iturbi, who lived there until he died in 1980. In 1954, Dorothy died of heart failure in a train compartment while she was traveling with George Raft from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after attending one of Dietrich’s performances.

Hand painted murals & mirrored verre églomisé panels.
Hand painted murals & mirrored verre églomisé panels.

Once again for sale, the beautifully preserved Spanish Revival estate hasn’t changed much since its heyday in the 1930s when it was featured in “House and Garden.” At approximately 8,000 square feet, it has four bedrooms and five baths on 1.12 acres. The home was built for entertaining with large public rooms and although it looks like wallpaper, the walls are covered in hand-painted murals. In the dining room, the walls are mirrored verre églomisé panels that depict towering palms. There is also a two-bedroom guest house and pool nestled within the mature landscaped grounds. The asking price is USD $26.9 million. Dimitri Velis of Hilton and Hyland in Beverly Hills is the listing agent. For the Silo, Terry Walsh.

Visit our friends at TopTenRealEstateDeals.com for more famous homes and real estate news.

 

Fashion

Celebrity Homes: Donald Trump’s First Mansion Is For Sale $54 Million USD

Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s former Connecticut mansion that he bought at age 35 is for sale and featured this week at TopTenRealEstateDeals.com.
Donald Trump’s former Connecticut mansion that he bought at age 35 is for sale and featured this week at TopTenRealEstateDeals.com.

Donald Trump was born into the real estate business in 1946 in New York City where his father, Fred Trump, was a developer. Donald got a jump-start in the business while he was still in college in the 1960s working menial jobs at his father’s lower middle-class apartment complex in Cincinnati.  In 1971, he moved back to New York City where he took over his father’s company changing the name to The Trump Organization and earned a reputation as a fast-rising real estate tycoon on hotel, condominium and casino projects. In 1986, he made a deal with New York City Mayor Ed Koch to renovate Central Park’s Wollman Rink. The ice skating rink was going on its seventh year of renovations when Trump volunteered to finish and finance the restoration with his own money. He completed the job in just three months.

With his business success and wealth, Trump owns a roster of mansions. His main home is a posh three-level penthouse at Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue where he also runs his vast business operations. Also in the Gotham area, in 1996 Trump purchased a 60-room mansion in Bedford, New York with three pools and a bowling alley. He later bought Albemarle, a 23,000-square-foot mansion, vineyard and winery on 2,000 acres in Virginia for $12.7 million, a fraction of the original asking price of $100 million. Trump also keeps a large home on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

One of the interior sitting rooms in Trump's first mansion.
One of the interior sitting rooms in Trump’s first mansion.

When he isn’t running for president, firing someone or saying something controversial, Trump relaxes at his Mar-A-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Florida that he purchased in 1985 for $10 million. The 1920’s mansion with 62,000 square feet and over 100 rooms was originally built for Post Cereal heiress, Marjorie Merriweather Post. Trump upgraded it to a private resort with initiation fees of $100,000, annual dues of $12,000 and nightly rates up to $3,000. Mar-A-Lago guests have included Bill Clinton, Regis Philbin, Tony Bennett and Barbara Walters.

Trump was only 35 in 1982 when he and wife, Ivana, purchased their first mansion, a 5.8 acre home on a peninsula in Greenwich, Connecticut for $4 million. Always a family-oriented business, Ivana was also remodeling the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan in the early 1980s and was able to incorporate many of the same materials in the decoration of their new home creating a residence dripping in gold leaf, elegant chandeliers and crown moldings. When they divorced in 1991 after 15 years of marriage, Ivana won the mansion in the property settlement. She sold the Greenwich home for $15 million in 1998, and the mansion’s new owners immediately began a renovation to tone it down to more livable neutrals and added tennis courts as well as a 4,000-square-foot addition which includes guest suites, a lap pool and a sauna. It is currently for sale at $54 million.

Click to view on I-tunes
Click to view on I-tunes

Originally built in 1939, the 19,773-square-foot Georgian Colonial-style main house and a guest house have eight bedrooms, thirteen baths, a three-story rotunda foyer with double grand staircase, formal rooms overlooking views of the pool, grounds and Long Island Sound, home theater, a putting green, multiple terraces and patios, tennis courts and three fully-equipped staff apartments.

Awaiting a new Greenwich billionaire resident, Donald Trump’s former Connecticut mansion with major additions, six waterfront acres and private boat dock. The listing agent is Tamar Lurie of Coldwell Banker in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Real estate is never boring at TopTenRealEstateDeals. Check out today’s most entertaining, important and unusual real estate news stories of the week. News such as “Obama Vacation Home For Sale,” “Bacall’s Dakota Apartment Sells At Big Profit” and “New York’s First Penthouse.”

Visit TopTenRealEstateDeals.com for more historic, spectacular and celebrity homes.

Vintage

Another Million Dollar Movie Poster Auction

Leave a comment

The stunning three sheet movie poster for the lost 1926 Paramount big budget silent film The American Venus realized $35,850 to lead the day in Heritage Auctions’ July 25-26 Vintage Movie Posters Signature Auction in Beverly Hills. The auction realized, in total, more than $1.45 million. All prices include 19.5% Buyer’s Premium.

Controversy surrounds this 1932 Disney cartoon- in one scene, Mickey Mouse is seen using a cigarette lighter that has a painted swastika on it. In 1932, the world did not fully understand the significance of the swastika as it would relate to the rise of Naziism. image: Heritage Auctions

“Demand was steady and prices were, overall, quite good across the more than 1,300 lots we featured in this auction,” said Grey Smith, Director of Movie Posters at Heritage. “We saw a trifecta of focuses in this auction as collectors went after early Hollywood, Disney animation and Universal Horror. At the end of the day, we were all quite pleased with the solid results.”

The American Venus (Paramount, 1926) three sheet is a film that is now lost to history, minus a few trailers. What is known about it, however, is that the poster spectacularly features Louise Brooks, though this was only her second film appearance. She was relatively unknown at the time and her role in the film was very minor. The producers, however, obviously realized her star potential as they featured her exclusively on the poster. Brooks would go on to become one of the most iconic female stars of the late silent era.

“Brooks crafted a personal style that left an indelible mark on 1920s popular culture that’s still imitated today,” said Smith. “She achieved a cult status rarely garnered by entertainers of that time and is clearly a star that still resonates with collectors at the top of the hobby.”

Vintage posters were emotional, engaging and uniquely hand-crafted before hitting the printing press. image: Heritage Auctions

Rare and early Disney posters always create a stir when they appear at auction and the presence of a 1932 United Artists one sheet for Disney’s The Wayward Canary, depicting Mickey and Minnie Mouse, set collectors buzzing on its way to a $26,920 final price realized. Released in November 1932, the same year that the Academy awarded Disney a special Oscar for his creation of a nationwide phenomenon, Mickey Mouse, this is a key addition to any top Disney collection.

Universal Horror posters are still the gold standard in movie posters and this auction boasted several prime pieces from the top films of the genre, including a beautiful pre-war 1935 Belgian one sheet for Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale’s sequel to his 1931 masterpiece Frankenstein that quickly became a classic in its own right, realizing $20,315 from a determined collector, while a 1943 one sheet for Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man — often cited as one of the best posters in the Universal horror cannon — was the subject of intense collector interest before finding a new home at $15,535.