Tag: Wall Street Journal

Dry January 2021 CANCELLED

At a time of lockup lunacy in early 2021, the last thing we need is the marketing nonsense that is ‘Dry January’ forced upon us; instead, celebrate #DryGinuary

“Dry January will be Wetter Than Ever!” screamed a WSJ Magazine headline on 30^th December and today we join those echoing Iris Apfel and Robert Venturi in stating: “More is More and Less is a Bore.” We suggest our readers that so choose should ignore the hype of ‘Dry January’ and at a time when many are locked up and lonely, respond by suggesting that everybody just enjoys themselves and drinks whatever they bloody well wish (in moderation).

“I don’t associate guilt with pleasure,” artist and How to Survive the End of the World podcast hostess Autumn Brown told the article’s author Annie Werner and once again today we remind readers of the legendary French chef Alain Ducasse’s words this time last year:

“I like swimming against the tide. I’ve noted [the Dry January] trend, but I don’t want to see or hear of it, I am opposed to it. [I want to] rid consumers of their inhibitions [with regard to wine drinking].”

Going further and speaking of the dangers of signing up to a month without booze, consultant in liver medicine at the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust Dr Mark Wright told Metro:

“Giving up alcohol for dry January as some sort of detox is like maxing out your credit cards all year and thinking you can solve your financial problems by living like a hermit for a month… It just isn’t going to make things better if you then go back to your usual habits in February. It’s not a fix-all solution.”

Faced with Boris Johnson’s lunacy lockdown in 2021 – where you can buy a leather collar for a dog in pet store (“essential” and open) but not a leather belt for a human in a clothes store (“non-essential” and closed) – we say that Brits that wish should follow the French and say ‘NON!’ to the patronising and pointless campaign that is ‘Dry January’ for once and for all.

Instead, today, we join all those celebrating #DryGinuary this month and raise a glass and an almighty cheers to y’all.

Three gins we recommend this #DryGinuary:

No. 3 London Dry Gin

The only gin in the world crafted by someone with a PhD in gin and owned by the world’s finest wine merchants, Berry Bros & Rudd.

Fishers Gin

This “authentic [44% ABV] coastal spirit” has notes of samphire and bog myrtle. Hints of salt shine through. It’s a catch and once reeled in, it’ll become a keeper.

Gilpin’s Westmorland Extra Dry Gin

47% ABV, from the Lake District and featuring a fresh aroma balanced with a dry yet bitter resinous taste. Not for the faint hearted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IphT-rMZcCs

January 6, 2021
Sex and the Single Zillionaire

Belvedere, CA home of late tech billionaire and author of ‘Sex and the Single Zillionaire’ Thomas Perkins for sale; he entertained amongst others Sophia Loren and Rupert Murdoch there

Thomas Perkins (1932 – 2016) had it all. Born in New York, this Harvard University and MIT graduate made his fortune in Silicon Valley, California when he co-founded Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1972 and invested in amongst others Amazon, AOL, Compaq, Google, Macromedia, Netscape and Segway. He was said to be worth £6.4 billion ($8 billion, €7.4 billion or درهم29.4 billion), was briefly married to famed author Danielle Steel between 1998 and 2002 and wrote a novel of his own, Sex and the Single Zillionaire, in 2006.

Aside from an £8 million ($10 million, €9.3 million or درهم36.6 million) country house in East Sussex, England named Plumpton Place and ‘The Maltese Falcon’ – his 289-foot long, £104.3 million ($130 million, €120.9 million or درهم477.5 million) sailing yacht – Perkins owned a French style residence on Belvedere Island in Marin County, California. He purchased it with his Norwegian first wife, Gerd Thune-Ellefsen, in 1972 and continued to live there after her death in 1994.

Danielle Steel and Tom Perkins remained friends even after their divorce

Steel even hosted a party for Perkins’s novel at her Pacific Heights, San Francisco mansion when it launched in 2006

The tech billionaire’s yacht, The Maltese Falcon, was the largest sailing yacht in the world when it was launched in 1990

Perkins at his English country home, Plumpton Place in East Sussex

The exterior of Perkins’s Belvedere home, 345 Golden Gate Avenue, appears modest

But what is to be found within includes this spectacular ‘Grand Salon’

Extending to 8.885 square foot in total, the house – which was put up for sale last June by Perkins’s children – was built to the designs of architects Julia Morgan and George Kelham in 1928 and features 16th century linenfold wood-paneled walls in a room described as a ‘Grand Salon’. Here, Perkins entertained European royalty, his fellow News Corp board member Rupert Murdoch and the Italian actress Sophia Loren and given the room’s outlook to the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, these luminaries cannot have failed to have been impressed.

Known simply as 345 Golden Gate Avenue, Perkins’s former home is for sale through Sotheby’s International Realty for £13.2 million ($16.5 million, €15.3 million or درهم60.6 million). It includes a formal dining room seating 18, 6 bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms, a guest apartment, an outdoor swimming pool and stands on a plot of 0.85 acres.

Prior to his death, in 2014, Perkins attracted controversy when he penned an article for The Wall Street Journal. At the time, he wrote:

“Writing from the epicentre [sic] of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one per cent’, namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one per cent, namely the rich”.

He later apologised for making comparisons to Nazi Germany but subsequently added: “In the Nazi era it was racial demonization, now it’s class demonization”.

February 6, 2017
Reducing a Kennedy

Former home of Jacqueline Kennedy in Georgetown, Washington reduced in price by £600,000; she lived there in 1964 before moving to Manhattan

Reduced from £7.677 million ($9.750 million or €9.109 million or درهم‎‎35.811 million) to £7.075 million ($8.995 million or €8.403 million or درهم‎‎33.038 million) and the first home of Jacqueline Kennedy post the assassination of her husband, 3017 N St NW in Georgetown, Washington first went on the market in June 2016.

Jacqueline Kennedy leaving the house in 1964

Offered by Washington Fine Property, the 6 bedroom, 5.5 bathroom, 7,000 square foot residence dates to 1794 and features “extraordinary proportions and entertaining spaces”. It was home to Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, during the First World War and was owned by a former Miss America, Yolande Betbeze Fox, from the 1970s until her death in February this year.

Now in need of some renovation, Mrs Kennedy bought the house in late 1963, moved in in February 1964 and moved out later that year. According to <em>The Wall Street Journal, she is said to have left because the property was “too exposed to tourists and the press, with tour buses stopping outside the house throughout the day and sightseers peering into the windows”.

Also featuring an elevator to link its five floors, Kennedy sold to her stepsister Nina Auchincloss Steers and her husband, Michael Straight.

From the front

The drawing room

The dining room

The staircase

From the rear

Yolande Betbeze Fox

December 5, 2016
A house for Trump

Replica of the White House in Texas for sale for a record sum – it’d be the perfect plaything for ‘bored of the race for president’ Donald Trump

Last week, Michael Moore suggested Donald Trump doesn’t really want to end up in The White House. For the media loving mogul it’s all about ‘the game’ and as he looks increasingly bored with a campaign he’s ended up railroaded into, he could choose an alternative in the form of a replica of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Texas and take life a little easier on a beach created by the current owner there.

A house for Trump – A genuine White House replica at 515 Bayridge Road, Shoreacres, Morgan’s Point, La Porte, Houston, Southern Texas, TX 77561, United States of America

The house was built for Governor Ross S. Sterling and his family

It is currently owned by Dr. Marcos Masson

Offered for sale for £4,584,000 ($5,995,000 or €5,293,000) – an extraordinary sum in a location where there are very few properties priced over $1,000,000 – 515 Bayridge Road at Morgan’s Point on Galveston Bay was designed by a respected architect named Alfred E. Finn for Ross S. Sterling (1875 – 1949), founder of Humble Oil and 31^st Governor of Texas (1931 – 1933), after the politician and businessman handed his architect a $20 bill in 1924 and said: “Build that for me”.

Completed in 1927 and significantly smaller than the 55,000 square foot “real thing” according to The Wall Street Journal, the 20,689 square foot limestone house – known as The Governor Ross Sterling Mansion – was the largest property in Texas when it was built and now includes 9 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms and a 43-foot long great room with a Gone with the Wind style staircase. Its most notable feature is a columned portico flanked by two sets of stairs and topped with a flagpole that resembles the South Portico at the White House.

Donated to charity by Sterling in 1946, 515 Bayridge Road was used as a juvenile home by the Houston Optimist Club until 1961 and purchased in 2013 by Dr. Marcos Masson, an orthopedic surgeon, for £2,447,000 ($3,200,000 or €2,825,000). He claims to have spent £1,147,000 ($1,500,000 or €1,325,000) on renovations and brought in sand and palm trees to create a small private beach on the 6.365 acre plot.

The house is offered by Lin E. Neese and Chris Foster of John Daugherty Realtors.

This double reversed Gone with the Wind style staircase frames the entrance

The grand salon doubles as a ballroom and is 43 foot long

Whilst this dining room could be a little more tastefully decorated

A reception room with a somewhat ill-coordinated colour scheme and a truly hideous corner sofa

A library without many books

Questionable decoration has also been introduced in this morning room

The kitchen looks as if it belongs in the 1970s

Especially attractive lighting has been used in this media room

A games room featuring a barbers chair antique bar and an Artex ceiling

A gym with yet more Artex

Another reception room

The master bedroom

A somewhat antiquated bathroom complete with a rusty radiator

The rotunda portico rises 22 feet above the bay

From the rear at night

From the front at night

From the road

From the beach

An aerial shot of the house and its plot

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August 23, 2016
His Excellency Nunzio Alfredo D’Angieri and sons Stefan and Teava

This dandy dynasty of diplomats and collectors of motoring marvels are renowned on the international jet set. Diplomat H.E. Nunzio Alfredo D’Angieri was once termed “Arafats’s banker” (more…)

September 6, 2015
Fire up the PJ

£45.7 million Virginia estate of the late Paul and Bunny Mellon complete with its own private one-mile long airstrip now available in lots (more…)

September 1, 2015
Debbie Bancroft

Debbie Bancroft spends her days amongst the upper echelons of New York and Southampton yet considers the word “socialite” to be “meaningless”. (more…)

July 20, 2015
Leon Max (born Leonid Maxovich Rodovinksi)

Having become “more British than the British” after paying £15 million for Easton Neston House at Towcester in Northamptonshire in 2005, Leon Max got what he described as “a smoking deal” when he snapped up Madonna’s former home (more…)

April 22, 2015
Seafair – The Hurricane Hut

The last great Newport ‘cottage’ heads into its second year on the market (more…)

January 3, 2015
Patricia Kluge (née Rose)

The rise and fall of the “wealthiest divorcee in history” has been extraordinary. A former nude model for her first husband’s Knave magazine and star of adult films such as “The Nine Acres of Nakedness,” Patricia Kluge is the daughter of an Englishman and a Scots-Iraqi. She married her second husband, the late John Kluge, chairman of Metromedia and once the richest man in America, in 1981 after belly dancing for him at a dinner party in New York. As part of her plan to dovetail herself into the top drawer of American society, the couple built a 24,000 square foot mock 18^th century English-style mansion, Albermarle, in Virginia and stuffed it full of Chippendale furniture. She got this as part of her $100 million divorce settlement in 1990 and wisely invested part of the payoff in a highly successful business trading football cards but then vanity struck. The Kluge Estate Winery project that she started with her third husband, William Moses, bankrupted the pair in June 2011 and the Bank of America foreclosed on her properties. A lifeline came from “longtime friend” Donald Trump who purchased the vineyard and employed her, but even he’s now uttered the words: “You’re fired!” and sent her packing. Of her newfound predicament Kluge commented: “What did we lose? Material things, nothing too important. When something like this happens you really see who your friends are, those you can rely on, and we have many friends.” Here is a lady with fortitude that can only be described as admirable. It’s probably best, however, to keep her away from the cash register.

November 13, 2012