The Wall Street Journal-20080125-WEEKEND JOURNAL- The Home Front- Private Properties
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; The Home Front: Private Properties
Renoir's Montmartre
House Is for Sale
A longtime Parisian home of Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir is on the market for 3.75 million euros (about $5.5 million), reduced from its listing last year of 4.5 million euros.
Known as the Chateau des Brouillards (mists), the 18th-century stone house was also the childhood home of famed filmmaker Jean Renoir, the painter's second son. The house is in Montmartre, the Bohemian enclave that lured Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and many other artists. The neighborhood figures in Renoir's 1876 masterpiece "Le Moulin de la Galette," as well as the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
The four-floor, 3,200-square-foot stone house has four bedrooms and a concierge's apartment. There's a front garden and a 1,200-square- foot interior garden. The current owner's family has held the property for about half a century and hasn't renovated the interior, says listing agent Xavier Attal, of Immobest International in association with Quintessentially Estates and Prestige Properties.
Jean Renoir, who directed "Grand Illusion," wrote extensively about the Chateau in a memoir of his father, who died in 1919 at 78, calling it an "odd conglomeration" of buildings "perched high above the Paris mist" whose hedge let its inhabitants live "in a world apart."
NBA's Baron Davis
Sells Pair of Condos
NBA point guard Baron Davis of the Golden State Warriors has sold a pair of adjacent condos in Los Angeles for $2.66 million.
The 11th-floor units are in the same West Hollywood high-rise where reality- television star Nicole Richie sold her apartment for $2.25 million in December. Known as Empire West, the building has a rooftop pool, a valet, a gym, tennis courts and a 24-hour doorman.
Mr. Davis, 28, paid $1.1 million for the one-bedroom apartment and $1.25 million for the two-bedroom in 2006. He listed them for $3.25 million in November. The units, which aren't combined, together measure 3,900 square feet and have a total of three balconies, three bathrooms, two powder rooms and views of the Hollywood Hills and the city.
Mr. Davis, a two-time NBA All-Star, also owns homes in New Orleans and San Francisco, according to his listing broker, Max Shapiro of Westside Estate Agency. Ms. Richie's apartment was one floor below Mr. Davis's.
Banker Warren Woo
Pays $22 Million
Investment banker Warren Woo has paid $20 million for a house in Los Angeles, plus $2 million more for furnishings.
The 47-year-old Mr. Woo was until last year the global head of UBS's leveraged finance and private equity coverage group. He recently joined the Swiss bank's former investment-banking head, Ken Moelis, at his new Los Angeles-based boutique investment bank, Moelis & Co.
Located in the Holmby Hills neighborhood, the 1997 Georgian traditional home has seven bedrooms. The one-acre property has a pool, tennis court, elevator and five-car garage, according to the listing. The '97 house replaced a residence once owned by Irene Dunne, a leading film actress in the 1930s and 1940s, according to listing broker Christophe Choo of Coldwell Banker. Jade Mills of Coldwell represented Mr. Woo, who couldn't be reached for comment.
Steve Y. Kim, the president and chief executive of Xylan Corp., a data-networking company acquired by Alcatel in 1999 for $2 billion, sold the house to Mr. Woo. Mr. Kim, who couldn't be reached for comment, listed the house in 2006 for $29.5 million and cut the price in May to $26.5 million, according to listing information.
Mr. Woo previously worked for Drexel Burnham Lambert and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette. In December, he became a part-owner of pro hockey's Nashville Predators and of Powers Management, which operates the Tennessee city's Sommet Center, where the Predators play.
