Marsha Mason cuts farm price by 30 percent
Actress Marsha Mason, who has tried to sell her New Mexico herb farm for more than a year, has cut the price to just under $8 million, about 30 percent below the original listing.
The actress, nominated four times for an Academy Award for such films as 1977's "The Goodbye Girl," bought the land raw for $1.5 million in 1992 and has said that she spent about $10 million on the property. Dubbed the Double M Ranch, the 250-acre property is in Abiquiu, a village north of Santa Fe best known as the longtime home of artist Georgia O'Keeffe.
The property includes an Argentine estancia-style main house of 5,800 square feet, an "art barn" with two apartments and two studios, and a guesthouse. About 140 acres are used for farming herbs, which Mason uses in a line of natural remedies. A river runs through the property.
Mason listed the farm in June 2007 for $11.5 million and cut the price to $11 million that fall. She's changed brokers: Don DeVito of Santa Fe Properties, and Anne Goyer of Dallas-based Briggs-Freeman, have the listing.
Esprit's Friedrich lists Plaza Hotel condo
Jurgen Friedrich, founder of retailer Esprit Holdings' European operations, has listed his apartment at New York's Plaza Hotel condominium for $55 million.
Friedrich paid $25 million for the apartment in 2005, closing last year. Dubbed the "Astor suite," the 4,500-square-foot unit is on the fifth floor, site of the largest units in the original Plaza, according to listing agent Patricia Burnham of PS Burnham, because lower floors were more desirable in the early days of the elevator. The three-bedroom apartment has Central Park views.
Two buyers at the Plaza have sued El-Ad Properties, the project's developer, in New York State Supreme Court. They're seeking refunds of their deposits and claiming misrepresentation. El-Ad countersued one of the buyers.
Ex-ambassador's sale
Richard Holbrooke, who served as Clinton-era ambassador to the United Nations and was a chief architect of the 1995 Balkan peace accords, sold his Connecticut house for $1.125 million, 25 percent less than the original listing.
The house is in New Milford, about 80 miles northeast of New York City. Holbrooke bought the roughly 55-acre property about 15 years ago. The 3,800-square-foot stucco house, with four bedrooms and a pool, was built in 1935, says co-listing agent Carolyn Klemm of Klemm Real Estate, who shared the listing with her colleague Jim Appleyard. Hamilton South, a partner in HL Group, a New York-based public relations firm, bought the house.
Holbrooke, vice chairman of private-equity firm Perseus LLC and chairman of the Asia Society, first listed the home for $1.5 million in spring 2007.