By Mark Moffa
Recently, Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC asked seven respected and knowledgeable sales associates and broker/owners affiliated with the ColdwellBanker® brand to gather for a roundtable discussion to reveal and examine the developments currently having the greatest effect on the industry.
As we were preparing for the roundtable, we expected to hear that buyers are concerned about safety and security, highly focused on technologyand smart homes, and even preoccupied with spaces for their collections of art, wine or cars. And to some extent this was true. But it was clear that our panelists are also finding…
Click here for the full story, as seen in the Fall 2016 issue of Homes & Estates.
A new project that includes Bermuda’s first Ritz-Carlton Resort promises to raise the bar for luxury hospitality and vacation real estate.
By Alyson PItare
If the idea of living directly on the waterfront with access to a mega-yacht marina, five-star hotel and luxury residences overlooking the azure seas of Bermuda sparks your sense of wanderlust, then you may want to keep close watch on Caroline Bay, Bermuda, over the next two years. The tropical sanctuary has promised to be “the flagship for a new era of luxury hospitality in Bermuda,” according to CraigChristensen, president and CEO of Morgan’s Point Ltd., the development company behind the much-anticipated project.
The first phase will feature a 79-room Ritz-Carlton Reserve resort — the first Ritz-Carlton inBermuda — and world-class amenities such as restaurants, an indoor/outdoor spa and upscale boutiques, a mega-yacht marina with slips for 79 boats and 23 super yachts, and 35 branded waterfront residences represented exclusively by Coldwell Banker Caroline Bay. Adds Christensen: “The first block of residences is scheduled to be ready for occupancy in the summer of 2017, with the remaining blocks to open consecutively, one per month, until all five are completed.”
Nestled in a cove on the island’s west end…
Click here for the full story, as seen in the Fall 2016 issue of Homes & Estates.
An urbane penthouse perched high above Chicago’s famed Michigan Avenue captivates as both gallery and home.
By Dresden Scott
How does one live with art — or rather, live in art? It was a question that guided a particular art collecting couple, who divide their time between the sun-kissed shores of Palm Beach and the wind-swept streets of Chicago.
There are no universal guidelines, of course — no set of rules for guiding them on a path toward harmonious art-home coexistence. It became a matter of intuition and taste, and a matter of letting the art speak to them so that they, as owners and stewards, could display their art in a way that honors both the artist and his or her subject. They chose an unfinished, 4,000-square-foot penthouse on the 60th floor of the glorious Park Tower for their blank canvas. Renowned Chicago-based architect/interior designer Scott Himmel was promptly brought on board to envision the interiors as an homage to their life’s passion.
“The clients had a world-class art and sculpture collection, and in addition, they wanted a world-classMid-Century furniture collection to go along with it,” recalls Himmel, who spent…
Click here for the full story, as seen in the Fall 2016 issue of Homes & Estates.
A 1917 Pennsylvania estate shines with historic grandeur, modern updated.
By Alyson Pitare
Built for the family of Allegheny County Judge A. Marshall Thompson in Gibsonia,Pennsylvania, this Italian Renaissance mansion boasting 17 magnificent rooms is credited with spurring the rise of thePittsburgh area’s most exclusive neighborhoods. Some of the original acreage belonging to the 1917 estate was sold, becoming Villa of North Park and later,Estates at the Villa. A 2009 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article chronicling the development cited the mansion’s historic grandeur as the inspiration for these new upscale enclaves.
Today, the two neighborhoods are filled with multimillion-dollar homes (and some of the most famous athletes from Pittsburgh’s professional sports franchises), but Tyburn Woods Estates, as Judge Thompson’s idyllic former home is known, remains the area’s preeminent real estate prize.“This seven-bedroom, eight-bath house combines old-world elegance with modernc onvenience, privacy with a sense of neighborhood, and familial warmth with formal entertainment possibilities on more than 9 acres on the edge of prestigious North Park,” says Peter J. Kalis, the home’s owner for the past 16 years with his wife,Mary M. O’Day. They consider themselves to be “custodians of this wonderful property.”
The 12,000-square-foot residence, which was also the site of…
Click here for the full story, as seen in the Fall 2016 issue of Homes & Estates.
A Chicago couple fashions a classic apartment in the sky — an ambitious ode to the city’s architecture.
By Alyson Pitare
Chicago’s skyline is a canvas of bold architectural statements, a portrait rendered in mile-high towers, historic beaux artsbuildings and modernist structures envisioned by the likes of Louis Sullivan and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It’s a citythat lives in the clouds and among dreams, where the world’s first skyscraper was ever conceived. It’s a city meant to be experienced from both within and from above.
One comes to fully understand this paradox from the vantage point of a glorious penthouse on the 87th floor ofTrump Tower, designed by Adrian Smith (the mastermind behind the world’s tallest structure, Burj Khalifa in Dubai). Framed by12-foot windows, the entire city of Chicago unfolds below, with unparalleled views to the north, east, south and west, glimpses ofthe Willis Tower, Aqua Tower and Lake Michigan’s seemingly never-ending stretch of blue.When Chezi Rafaeli, affiliated sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Chicago, first showed the 6,850-square-foot raw space to Tom and Michelle Gross in 2012…