British comedian and actor Russell Brand has been in the news a bit lately. He's been increasing his profile in the United States with more acting roles (he's set to take on the Dudley Moore role in the remake of Arthur) and with his romance with Katy Perry. Perhaps Brand is considering a permanent move to the U.S. because the BrickWork blog reports that Brand's home in the Hampstead area of London is on the market.

The Victorian home has been renovated in a hiply goth style that reminds me of the vintagey creations of Douglas Little. The home has five levels and features dark flocked wallpaper, large televisions and modern furniture. An entire room is given over to Brand's love of yoga and the plush black and silver master bedroom is exactly what you might from this self-confessed sex addict. The home also includes a media room, outdoor hot tub and a top floor bedroom suite which currently serves as an office. It is listed at £2.5 million.

I'm not up to date on the on again and off again relationship between Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush but it is significant that the curvy reality television star put her home on the market a few weeks ago and now Bush, a New Orleans Saints football player has listed his Hollywood Hills home. I also suspect these two might have had the same decorator. Either that or Kardashian had a major influence on the decor of Bush's tri-level home on a cul-de-sac overlooking the city.

The four-bedroom home has views all the way to the ocean with a glittering swath of city spread out below. It is filled with touches that seem Kardashian inspired including zebra print cushions in the living room and a master suite with an apricot-colored padded headboard. Masculine touches reassert themselves in sports jerseys mounted on the staircase, a pool table on one of the home's many terraces and a wonderful walk-in gentleman's closet. This home has one of the most makeout friendly home theaters I've ever seen. It's decked out in black and red velvet. The football star also seems to have a love of his own monogram, his initials appear throughout the house including in the velvety red elevator. This home is listed at $5.099 million. According to the LA Times Hot Property, Bush bought the home for $4.7 million in 2007 for use as his off-season home.

The main home of the Jenner- Kardashian clan also remains on the market. It was originally listed at $3.395 million but is now listed at $2.995 million.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts veteran Barry Sternlicht is looking for real estate to surge in Greenwich, Connecticut. The wealthy New York City suburb got spanked over the past year as the city's financial industry gurus saw their bonuses jobs disappear and flooded the market with ostentatious homes on the market at a time when buyers were few and far between. A year later, Sternlicht thinks this town is ready to stage a comeback.

Sternlicht just raised the asking price on his 5.8 acre estate in Greenwich to $5.95 million, even though the local market is about to finish its worst year in the past 30. Jean Ruggiero, Sternlicht's real estate broker, said he pushed up the asking price because "we felt like we were giving it away." People showed some interest in the home, and the fact that other sellers were cutting prices didn't mean that Sternlicht had to follow. "Just because people are lowering their price doesn't mean it's right, because he's not a desperate seller, "Ruggiero said of Sternlicht.

The new number is 8.3 percent higher than the $5.495 million Sternlicht previously asked, even though prices for single-family homes in Greenwhich dropped 40 percent year-to-date.

Originally, the home was put on the market at $8.25 million in June 2008, and it was cut three times from September 2008 to April 2009. It boasts a tennis and shuffleboard court, pool and guest house ... and is of course gated.

Even at $5.95 million, Sternlicht will come out ahead. He bought the place in November 1994 for a mere $2.93 million.

I thought we were done talking about this one. After all I've been following the potential sale of the the Robert Taylor Ranch in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles since 2005. The ranch, which was built in 1956, is a prime chunk of land with 122 acres of trees and equestrian trails. The large 34-room main house designed by Robert Byrd has Western appeal and includes a study, master bedroom with dual baths and a spa room. The home's vintage appeal includes a wine cellar, bar, screening room, game room and more. There are four guest houses for a total of 17 bedrooms on the estate. The grounds include a pool, tennis court, and stables. We've seen it listed at a variety of prices, $35 million, then $40 million and up to $50 million in 2005. Then in 2007 we heard that it would be auctioned off following several notices of default in 2006. The ranch never sold and now it's back on the market with its highest price yet, $65 million. It can be divided into four large lots (in addition to the 11-acre lot where the ranch is located) but will that be enough to tempt a buyer in this market?

The Aura residence is like nothing I've ever seen before. This unique home is located in Larnaca on the island of Cyprus a short drive from the Larnaca marina and the Cyprus international airport. The design was based on the Kanagawa wave of the famous Japanese artist "Hokusai" and features a unique ribbed roof. The luxurious home on Dekelia beach has six bedrooms, a hammam, media room, swimming pool with two Jacuzzis, yoga platform and more. It is listed at €12,500,000.

The English aristocrat the 12th Earl of Drogheda, better known as Derry Moore to his friends, is an arbiter of taste and style but also an accomplished photographer for Architectural Digest and other magazines, as well as the the author of several books. His latest, In House, just published by Rizzoli, is a selection of interiors from what he considers to be some of the world's most remarkable residences photographed over the last 35 years. The 28 houses pictured within are richly diverse in style and period with a common thread of originality, eccentricity and aesthetic appeal. They range from an airy and colorful palace in Morocco to an "austere but whimsical" Scottish castle; an Art Deco masterpiece in Jodhpur to a cluttered apartment in Prague; and from the museum-like home of one of London's most macabre collectors to the "extravagant remnants of Madrid's aristocratic heritage." Each of the houses is accompanied by commentary from noted architecture and design writer Mitchell Owens, and is laid out with an eye to its unique character by award-winning graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook.

Back in February we reported that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the sexy supermodel, singer and first lady of France, had sold her family's castle in Italy (above) to an Arab sheikh. Now the buyer, who has since been revealed as billionaire Saudi businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has relisted the historic castle with an affiliate of Christie's Great Estates with a reported asking price of about $28 million; he was said to have originally paid anywhere from $12 million - $25 million depending on sources. The 40-room, 21,000-sq.-ft. Castello di Castagneto Po, near Turin, has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt over the years but is believed to first date from the year 1019. Bruni's father, the billionaire industrialist Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, bought the historic estate in 1952 for about $1.5 million. It is surrounded by 175 acres replete with vegetable gardens, orchards, flowering terraces, ancient greenhouses, a caretaker's house and a farm building.

If the front of this house looks familiar you might be flashing back to the 1990s television show "Party of Five." Charlie, Bailey, Julia and the rest of the Salinger clan lived in this 19th Century mansion in San Francisco. This house on a hill has stunning Golden Gate and Bay views from multiple levels. There are seven bedrooms total. The main level has a reception foyer with 12 foot box-beamed ceilings, stained glass windows and a grand main staircase leading to the upper levels. The main level also features a large living room, formal dining room and an open kitchen and great room with a greenhouse solarium that leads out to the garden. Upstairs the master bedroom suite has his and hers master baths and dressing areas and a home office with wet bar. The top level of this home has a large media/game room with cathedral ceilings, a wet bar with refrigerator and an abundance of skylights and windows. On the lower level there is a garage and storage room. This home is listed at $7.2 million.

[via Zillow blog]

It's hard to resist the urge to cover a house in Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween. The historic town on the Massachusetts North Shore has become a Halloween headquarters. It's also got some beautiful old real estate. The Boston Globe highlighted one example as their house of the week and I'm picking up another today. The George Nichols House was built in 1816 and is located in Salem's McIntire Historic District on Chestnut Street, a street which features many fine Federal period homes. This one has nine bedrooms total and is topped by a widows walk. The home has been beautifully restored but has newer details including a media room, wine cellar and lap pool. A separate brick carriage house offers parking as well as an apartment. No ghosts or witches here (although hose taxidermied birds in the library are a wee bit creepy), just a beautiful brick home. This home is listed at $1.8 million with Merry Fox Realty.

[Thanks, Chris]

Earlier a bunch of you lamented that we didn't have the $100 million listing in Charlottesville, Virginia up yet. Thanks to a kind gentleman for directing me toward the listing which has now gone live. The Wall Street Journal broke the story that Virginia winemaker and philanthropist Patricia Kluge has put Albemarle House, her 300-acre English country estate up for sale for $100 million,making it one of just a handful of listings in the nine-figure range. Kluge is the former wife of John Kluge, a billionaire who founded the Metromedia. She has been living in the area for a while making wine and working on a development called Vineyard Estates which is selling multi-million homes in the area.

Her estate is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and James Monroe's Ash Lawn-Highland on over 300 acres. On the grounds there are three ponds, a pool as well as a pool house, log cabin, a greenhouse and several staff cottages. The main house was completed in 1985 and spans over 25,000 square feet with 45 rooms. The home was designed by architect David Easton and his team and includes a theater, library, recreation room with spa and sauna, a card room and an Islamic gallery featuring an antique Syrian fountain. It's a bit of a pastiche, gilded Versailles-like rooms contrast with simpler spaces that have a more Early American style. Should you have some leftover cash after buying the home you can turn the front grounds into an 18-hole golf course. Arnold Palmer has already designed it.

Any guesses on a final sale price?

Howsham Hall is gorgeous but is it cursed? In September, Country Life ran a story that says that the stately and fabulously restored 17th century mansion near the Malton area of North Yorkshire, England comes with a curse. The Curse of Kirkham apparently reaches way back to 1610 when Sir William Bamburgh built the hall by taking stone and timber from the nearby Kirkham Priory, a former religion community which had been destroyed by Henry VIII during his rampage against monasteries. The plundering of materials from the site was considered to be sacrilege and the curse says that all male heirs of the estate will perish and no true happiness will ever come to the family or its successors. Ouch.

But the home's charms are enough to make anyone want to tempt fate. It is on sale for only the fourth time in 400 years and offers both exceptional formal rooms and practical family areas. The home is situated around a central courtyard with the front door entrance porchway leading into the great hall. Rooms touched with columns and moldings and marble fireplaces are updated with modern touches. We only have a few listing pictures but they show an extraordinary residence. There is also planning permission for an indoor swimming pool to be created within the courtyard. The home has over 80 acres that include formal lawns, a cricket pitch, pastureland and river frontage with the opportunity to moor a boat.

Those with deep pockets and no fear of curses can purchase this home for £6 million through Savills.

Think Lenny Dykstra had the poshest pad in the Southern California community of Thousand Oaks? Not hardly. Check out this incredible home on 23 acres. The French formal home has amazing grounds that feature elaborate ornamental flower beds. Large terraces and a fountain lead to an infinity pool with a fountain. The two-level home is over 16,000 square feet of space. Around 3800 square feet of that is taken up by the master suite which includes two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a gymnasium. The gourmet kitchen is large enough to require two islands. Everything in this home is done on an elaborate and grand scale. It's rococo for the modern age, all swags and flourishes and curlicues but with a healthy dose of technology (the huge media room boasts a massive screen and motorized arm chairs). This home is listed at $29.9 million.

An incredible property in the Hudson River Valley has come on the market at an extremely recession-friendly price. New York-based handmade furniture company BDDW is relocating to Philadelphia and putting their bucolic headquarters up for sale. The 147-acre property is located just north of New Paltz in Ulster County, and features two incredible stone barns totaling 30,000-sq.-ft., a 1,500 sq. ft. farmhouse and a creek, all for just $1.9 million. The stone barns were built at the turn of the century by architect Julian Burroughs for Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne, Civil War sharpshooter, democrat, wealthy industrialist and philanthropist, to house his thoroughbreds. They were subsequently used as a school for boys and passed back into private hands before BDDW acquired them.

[via A Continuous Lean]

It's in Wayne, Pennsylvania so of course I want to refer to it as stately Wayne Manor but this home is a bit of new mixed with a bit of old. The listing calls it an "artisan revival-style" home, a nod to the fact that it mixes modern home design with a few classic touches like stained glass windows and decorative moldings and wainscotting. There's a lot of stone in this house, Pennsylvania granite, a slate roof, limestone balustrades, bluestone-brick terraces, statuary and monumental steps. This seems like a wealthy executive's home, it has a music room, paneled library, a dining room that seats 36 and a family room that has a more casual decor. There's a refreshing lack of television in the home, another detail that gives it a bit of an older feel. There are two large offices and four bedrooms. A guest suite has a separate kitchen. The downstairs is given over to an entertainment area and exercise rooms. An elevator reaches all four levels. The home is on three acres and there is a pool and a pool house. This home is listed at $14.7 million.

It's always a bit risky to brand anything as "in the style of" and architecture is an area where it seems particularly fraught. I've seen far too many faux Frank Lloyd Wright homes. This home in Aspen, Colorado takes its inspiration from Mexican architects Luis Barragan and Ricardo Legorreta. We've seen the work of each of these architects before. The Campbell Divertimento is attributed to Barragan while Ricardo Montalban's home was a Legorreta.

Looking at those two homes one can definitely see the inspiration. This five-bedroom home offers clean, squared spaces, flat terracotta walls and an interesting use of water features. The overall effect is a lot more Southwestern than anything usually seen in Aspen. The home is on 5.73 acres and has two master suites, a media room with cherrywood cabinetry, professional kitchen, a large central gallery for displaying art and a fitness room, air conditioning. The use of Colorado sandstone floors and earth tones creates a tranquil feel. Windows of varying sizes from tiny squares to floor-to-ceiling view watchers make the most of the available light. This home is listed at $13.5 million.