Expensive Places

Jack Dorsey, Twitter Co-founder, has a new $9 million 2 bedroom house in the Seacliff neighborhood of San Francisco.

According to Dupont Group, where the house was listing:

Every element of this grand home celebrates its oceanfront heritage. This 2 bed 3 bath, 3700 sqft home comes with approved plans for a 3000+ sqft addition. The foundation and retaining walls are an engineering marvel: a sophisticated blend of architectural potential and seaside, Golden Gate kinetics.
The vistas are of titanic proportions – entertained by a steady stream yachts and vessels that disappear through the Golden Gate’s counterpart to the Colossus of Rhodes
Sleep here comes thru undulating Pacific Ocean rhythms and sea-fresh California breezes with absolute silence except for the sounds of the sea.
This home is hidden from street view behind an old growth Redwood gateway, down a short private drive and behind a front door destined for a museum. Inside custom finishes abound: hand beveled Beauharnais limestone floors, and hand trawled integral plaster walls; where views emanate from infinity decks and windows of Starfire glass capture San Francisco’s most prominent architecture to the Southeast and the ocean and Golden Gate all around. The central lounge area is illuminated by a mammoth, double-pained, retractable glass skylight and flows in every way to cozy spaces with views. Framed by vast Golden Gate vistas, the kitchen contrasts this natural order with Brazilian blood-wood cabinets, Volga-blue granite counters, a large central island, and a plethora of custom high-end finishes.

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Werner Neumann is a furniture designer from Netherlands with some really good projects. One of them is Birchwood Collection, described as “born from his love of material and lightness of form. Touched by the beauty of birch bark, Neumann allowed the material to keep it’s natural value and turned it into a practical work of design”.

You can admire below some photos with interior made for Banks Hotel – Steenhouwersvest 55, 2000 Antwerpen – in hotel lobby furniture.

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Athens-based architectural studio Mab Architects prove that a healthcare facility can have a modern design. Embryocare, 140sqm flat in downtown Athens, Greece, is a gynecological clinic specialized in assisted reproduction and Mab Architects got the job to make a new design for it.

The entire flat was gutted including all installations. The concept was to provide cool but friendly clinical environment for doctors and their patients. The predominant color is white with just few sculptural pieces of furniture in “summer-sky” blue. The choice of materials with cellular structures is a reference to the nature of the work performed in this surgery.

Partitions and wall claddings are made of special translucent sandwich panels, made of two sheets of Perspex and the in-between gap, which is filled with plastic straws of different diameters. The material provides extraordinary effects and changes translucency depending on the viewpoint. White round mosaic tiling is covering all floors and occasionally the same surface splashes also over walls. Glossy white plaster ceiling is randomly pierced by seemingly floating circles of light or circular air vents. All furniture and fittings were carefully chosen to enhance the overall appearance.

The end user – gynecologists and their patients are happy with the result and hopefully the new serene environment will assist more women in conceiving a baby.

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Casa Casuarina at Miami Beach, Florida, was purchased by the late fashion designer Gianni Versace 1992 for $10 million and then invested another $33 million in the property (like adding a 54-foot-long mosaic-tiled pool lined with 24-karat gold).

Peter Loftin, a telecom entrepreneur, purchased the property in 2000 for $20 million and served as a residence and later a boutique hotel. Now Casa Casuarina is on the market for $125 million and is the most expensive home for sale in the United States.

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If you are rich I think you can choose a nice place to live with drinkable water coming out from faucet. Anyway, if you are rich but cannot move from your dirty and polluted city you still have the chance to buy water ionizer and purifier. And because you are rich I don’t to choose a $2,795USD Under Counter Extreme 9000T Water Ionizer from Tyent?

This product will transform your boring and expensive kitchen into a Hi-Tech Kitchen that make your friends jealous…

The Under Counter Extreme 9000T Water Ionizer design is very cool as it has a touchscreen to control the system. Also, it is feature warning voices to enable to more safely and conveniently use the product for the explanation and safety of various functions.

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Sliding House project by dRMM, London, is sliced into three: house, garage and annexe. The garage is pulled off axis to create a courtyard between the three. The composition is further defined by material and color; red rubber membrane and glass, red and black stained larch.

The separated forms are transformed by a 20 ton mobile roof/wall enclosure which traverses the site, creating combinations of enclosure, open-air living and framing of views according to position. This is an autonomous structure; steel, timber, insulation and unstained larch spanning recessed railway tracks. Movement is powered by hidden electric motors on wheels integrated into the wall thickness. The tracks can be extended in the future should the client wish to build a swimming pool, which may need occasional shelter.

Sliding House (uniquely) offers radically variable spaces, extent of shelter, sunlight insulation, and views. A denial of static architecture. The dynamic change is a physical phenomenon difficult to describe in words or images. It is about the ability to alter the overall building composition and character according to season, weather, or a remote-controlled desire to delight.

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Hermès designers team, led by the fabled French decorator Yves Taralon, the Creative Director of La Table Hermés, decorate a spacious 6,232 sq ft fivebedroom luxury apartment at the Signature Tower at The Marq (Paterson Hill, Singapore).

Hélène Dubrule, General Manager of Hermès Maison, said, “I am delighted that our House contributes in the design ambition of SC Global and Mr. Simon Cheong for their exceptional project The Marq, in Singapore. By realising for the first time, a complete project of home decoration and furnishings, we also
share with SC Global a unique experience and express our high quality values of excellence and craftsmanship in the home universe.”

The special interior design project incorporates a combination of furniture, fabrics, rugs, carpets, wallpaper and made to measure leather upholstered items.
The apartment is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2012; it will be a flagship apartment for The Marq and held by SC Global for private engagements.

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If your dream is to live into the most expensive home in Washington, D.C. now it is your chance to buy it. An eight-bedroom, 10-bathroom house sits on 28th Street in Georgetown was listed at $18 million.

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For $6.8 million you can bu this enchanting six bedroom property, spread out over two and a half acres of oceanfront land. This property offers uninterrupted ocean views across a Balinese stone tiled infinity pool and 150 metres of secluded beachfront.

As you can see in below photos the expansive grounds are filled with vibrantly coloured tropical plants and ancient trees which provide shade over the smooth Kanchanaburi stone pathways to the various living and sleeping pavilions.

The entire estate consists of eight bedrooms (including staff quarters), three kitchens, three living rooms, three screening rooms, a beach yoga sala and a staff office.

The villa is only a short stroll down the beach from the award-winning wellness retreat, Kamalaya, which provides yoga classes, a health club, treatments in all forms of eastern and western medicine and two restaurants. The property also includes two rai (three quarters of an acre) of open land for expansion or addition of further facilities.

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Priced at $29 Million, Celine Dion’s custom built mansion (24,000 sqft) stands on an 830,000 sq ft private island.
The exterior features numerous stone terraces from which one can appreciate the surrounding water views and natural forested environment, a large in-ground pool and fabulous pool house equipped with its own kitchen and built-in grill making outdoor entertaining a delight.

The main floor features a formal living room and dining room seating eighteen, completely custom “la Cornue” kitchen, spectacular paneled library and family room with custom fireplaces and built-ins, informal dining and sun rooms and an office.

Tranquil water views are present from almost every room and a customized elevator makes moving through the residence a breeze.

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