‘Tis the season for putting up Christmas decorations—which means it will eventually be time to take them all down again once the cold reality of January blows in.
But that isn’t the case for the owners of a house on Rivers Edge Drive in Colts Neck, NJ, which is on the market for $2.2 million.
The wild (some would say garish) explosion of holiday decor in this 5,420-square-foot home has made the listing a viral sensation.
Built in 1998 by sister and brother Janet and Chris Munger, the stately stone house features an impressive circular driveway, manicured lawns, and elegant stonework.
Even so, the luxe exterior may be something you’ve seen before—that is, nothing out of the ordinary and similar to many other homes in the neighborhood.
But once inside, you’re greeted by a holiday display beyond compare. Life-size nutcrackers and other statues welcome you into the two-story grand foyer.
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It’s looks as if Santa’s sleigh dropped off an entire year’s worth of work at the North Pole in one fell swoop. Throughout the house, there are a total of 238 angels, 115 religious statues, 38 life-size Santas, and 14 nativity scenes. And the decorations stay up all year.
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The spirit of the season can be found everywhere—from the living spaces, to the kitchen, to the bedrooms. Even the pool area outside features at least one nativity scene.
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In addition to the saltwater pool, the outdoor space features a large hot tub, waterfall, and 2,000-square-foot patio laid with travertine. A high-end Viking grill sits alongside a pizza oven and fireplace.
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Inside, there are four bedrooms, each designed with a Christmas theme.
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There are two master bedrooms, each with a private seating area, walk-in closet, and master bath with whirlpool tub, double vanities, and walk-in shower.
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The guest bedrooms also have attached bathrooms.
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The bathrooms fixtures are unique. Some toilets and sinks are pink, others are aqua with pebble accents. One of the master bathrooms has black fixtures.
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The spacious kitchen has all of the appliances and features necessary for whipping up a holiday feast, including a double oven, dark granite countertops, and plenty of storage in cherrywood cabinets. A large center island comes with seating. Wreaths hang throughout.
There are two fireplaces, perfect for Santa to slide down the chimneys with care.
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The finished basement has plenty of storage along with a full gym and sauna.
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There is also an attached three-car garage with storage above.
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Since the home landed on the market a couple of months ago, the one-of-a-kind decor has impressed real estate watchers from coast to coast.
Published reports say the current owners are selling so they can move farther from the North Pole—to Florida.
The listing agent is Janice Rizzo with Robert Defalco Realty.
The TV host Ryan Seacrest has placed his Beverly Hills compound on the market for the eye-watering price tag of $85 million, People reported.
While it doesn’t cross the threshold into nine-digit territory, this price point is tied at third place in the current ranking of most expensive homes in the 90210.
Will the popular personality be able to say “Seacrest Out” at the current price? We checked in with some local luxury agents to see what they had to say.
Ties back to Ellen
In 2012, the host of “American Idol” picked up the spread from his fellow A-lister Ellen DeGeneres, for $36.5 million. The talk show host had expanded by adding adjacent properties over the years she lived there. She replaced one house with a picturesque pond and trees.
The main home on this premium parcel was owned by the co-creator of “Will & Grace,” Max Mutchnick, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He sold it to DeGeneres in 2007 for $29 million.
The single-story main residence was originally built by the noted architects Buff & Hensman in the 1960s for the actor Laurence Harvey, according to a 2011 feature in Architectural Digest.
Once DeGeneres took ownership, she and her wife, Portia De Rossi, proceeded to work their remodeling magic, then placed the expanded spread on the market in 2011, with an ambitious, $60 million price tag.
Despite its newly renovated look and the posh neighborhood, the mansion failed to entice a buyer. The price was slashed to $49 million before the longtime “American Idol” host swooped in and scored an even sweeter deal.
According to recent reports, Seacrest has decided to relocate to New York, where he films “Live With Kelly and Ryan” with his co-host, Kelly Ripa. Since he snagged the plum daytime job, he’s been splitting his time between the two coasts, while reportedly living in a rented townhouse in NYC.
Updating the New York space to suit his tastes hasn’t been without drama, according to the gossip wags at OK magazine. However, he may be eyeing a buy in the Big Apple—especially if he manages to pass on his West Coast digs.
A compound like no other?
Built in 1963, the 3-acre property is described as one of the area’s “most private and secluded estates.”
The seven bedrooms and 10 bathrooms are spread on a sprawling 9,000-square-foot compound, composed of a four-bedroom main house, two guesthouses, and a pool and poolhouse with a separate fitness facility and underground garage.
Inside, the open and airy living space features a vaulted and exposed beam ceiling, a formal dining room, and a family room and adjacent kitchen that open onto the patio.
Details include a wet bar, media room, an office, as well as a master suite and bath with a floor-to-ceiling window and a gigantic stone tub that looks as if it has organically sprung up from the floor.
The outdoor space features resortlike grounds, outdoor living and dining areas, a reflecting pond, and manicured lawns. The listing notes that the property offers city and ocean views.
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Is the $85 million price right?
No doubt, it’s a one-of-a-kind property. But is it worthy of its $85 million price tag?
“I know the house very well! I had actually sold it to Max Mutchnick many, many years ago,” says Myra Nourmand, principal and luxury real estate agent at Nourmand & Associates.
She believes the compound will stay within celebrity hands, but that it may not hit the price target.
“I do think a celebrity might buy it, because it is very private and secluded. It has land and a view, plus it’s redone—and a compound,” she says. “However, I think $85 million is a very aggressive number. Given today’s world, I think it is worth around $65 million to $70 million for 3 acres.”
“I’ve toured this property when it was owned by Ellen DeGeneres,” says Ernie Carswell, a top agent at Douglas Elliman. “Both [DeGeneres and Seacrest] likely selected this site because of its extreme privacy within the city of Beverly Hills.”
Carswell adds, “Property like this isn’t easily duplicated.”
He says he thinks Seacrest stands a good chance of fetching a number comparable to the $68 million purchase by David Geffen of a nearby 3.25-acre residence he bought from the entertainment executive Casey Wasserman.
But the potent combo of privacy, celebrity, and property size may give this premium compound a shot at that oh-so-high $85 mil price point.
“I think the main selling point is the privacy and land—which is hard to come by and not readily replaceable,” says Sally Forster Jones, an agent for Compass.
She adds, “Luxury sales have been on the rise since 2012, when Seacrest purchased the property, so it very well may sell near that range.”
Kurt Rappaport with Westside Estate Agency holds the listing.
A relatively new house designed to look old is the most expensive home in all of New Hampshire. The Granite State’s priciest place is available for $19.5 million.
“It was designed to look like it had been here for hundreds of years, and it’s designed to last for hundreds of years,” says listing agent Jamieson Duston. “It definitely has a nod to some of the old-school lake houses of the past, back to the grand time on the lake in the 1920s and ’30s where people would literally visit each other by boat.”
Built in 2006, the 17,771-square-foot house is on Springfield Point Road in Wolfeboro. The sprawling house sits on 7 acres on the banks of Lake Winnipesaukee with 841 feet of water frontage.
There are a whopping 37 rooms, including eight bedrooms and 11 bathrooms.
“It’s almost hard to comprehend the scale of the house until you’re in it. The pictures just don’t do it justice. It’s pretty amazing,” Duston says. “I would sort of call it a rustic elegance. It has that sort of old-school lake house feel, but it’s really warm—and despite its size, it feels cozy inside the house.”
Aerial view
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Designed for multigenerational family use, the house features multiple wings for sleeping and common areas for socializing.
“It’s got a 30-foot vaulted ceiling and a stone fireplace that’s sort of the showpiece of the house and kind of the anchor of the house,” Duston says.
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The great room opens to the kitchen and dining room.
“When you start walking through the house, you realize everyone really has their own space. The house was designed to host family and friends and give everyone a sense that they’re in their own space, so everyone’s not on top of each other,” Duston says. “Every room has a purpose and thought behind it.”
And if your space needs require an adult beverage, there’s a wine area with storage for 900 bottles and a separate tasting area.
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The guest wing comes with a separate entrance, which also adds to the spacious feel.
“One of the things that makes the house special is you could really have two large families living in this house, and they’d almost never run into each other unless they wanted to,” Duston says.
The place has so much privacy and separation for guests, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy once vacationed there with the mansion’s former owner.
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The main floor features a large entryway where a four-story mahogany spiral staircase plays a starring role. It also showcases the home’s massive scale.
“You only realize when you’re in the space, and you look around, that you’re in this enormous room, and a light fixture you are looking up at is eight and a half feet tall by four feet wide,” Duston says. “You start to wonder what it would have taken to actually produce that sort of a fixture.”
For those who don’t want to climb the stairs, there are two elevators in the house.
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A new owner will also never be far from a snack. Kitchens are located in the main part of the house, on the lower level, in one guest wing, and on the third floor.
“The main kitchen in the house is pretty spectacular. It’s all Wolfe and Viking,” Duston says. There also are two butler’s pantries and an abundance of seating.
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The kitchen in the guest wing is fully equipped with bar seating.
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The indoor summer kitchen has a Viking grill and other high-end appliances. It is in close proximity to many of the entertaining spaces.
“The lower level is all about recreation and fun down there. There’s a spectacular custom-built bar with some really beautiful tile work that has some of the most unique tile I’ve ever seen. It has different fish that you can find in the lake, which is a really neat little thing.”
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The custom billiard, poker, shuffleboard, and foosball tables are included in the sale.
“It all is custom-made, and it all matches and was specifically designed for those spaces,” Duston explains.
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On the third floor is a room with eight bunk beds and a home theater, which seats 15.
“I’ve been in a lot of very nice houses, and this is a professionally designed and built home theater. It’s spectacular,” Duston says. “It’s as comfortable a seat as you will ever sit in.”
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There is also a hot tub, sauna, and gym, including a crucial perk to make working out a little more bearable.
“It looks out over the lake and has one of the best views in the house,” Duston says.
Near the main house is a barn and a six-car garage.
“If you’re an automobile enthusiast, this is the ultimate garage,” Duston explains. “It is all finished inside. It’s heated, and there are custom-built cabinets and workshop space all the way through.”
The steel and mahogany boathouse has three enclosed boat bays and slips for an additional four.
“Part of this was friends and family can arrive at the property by water, which is a really cool thing to be able to do,” Duston says. “It’s really rare to have a property that can accommodate that much dockage.”
A small beach area is next to the boathouse.
The current owner bought the house in 2019 for $7.75 million and made several updates, including a complete automation system, security and camera system, and theater equipment.
“It’s probably going to go to someone who wants a legacy property,” Duston says of the home. “This is something that most likely someone’s going to want to keep in the family for a very, very long time.”
SEOUL—The roughly $500 billion home-appliance industry is making a hard pivot toward hygiene as the coronavirus pandemic shows no sign of moderating.
LG Electronics Inc.’s refrigerators have been retrofitted with sterilizing ultraviolet lights previously used in its water purifiers, while Whirlpool Corp. has touted washing machines with built-in heating that removes germs and allergens from clothes.
Samsung Electronics Co. is scooping up scientists who specialize in water and air quality, and Beko Electrical Appliances Co., a Turkish manufacturer, recently rolled out “HygieneShield,” a range of appliances such as refrigerators and ovens equipped with disinfection drawers. It is also offering a cleaning cabinet, a stand-alone appliance that resembles a microwave oven but is designed to disinfect everyday items such as wallets and mobile phones.
According to Mark Choe, a senior vice president at Samsung’s digital appliances business division, “all of our product development now is being done through the lens of hygiene.”
Indeed, hygiene is driving the home-appliance industry’s extreme makeover. For decades, firms saw sales grow sluggishly, especially in lucrative markets in the U.S. and Western Europe, churning out a predictable cycle of dryers, ovens and microwave ovens. A push toward digitized “smart homes” failed to captivate consumers who saw little reason to track their milk levels through artificial intelligence or get text alerts when the laundry was done.
But now, virus-weary buyers are perking up everywhere. Household appliances are breaking down faster than before with increased use as people shelter at home, and existing malfunctions have now become more intolerable. As travel remains limited because of the pandemic, wealthier consumers flush with cash are choosing to upgrade household products or splurge on new purchases.
“The Covid-19 situation is not actually a crisis for us,” said Song Dae-hyun, the departing president of LG’s home appliances and air solutions division. “People now think of home as the safest area—and they’re using their appliances more because they’re at home.”
Even with pandemic fatigue vexing virus-prevention efforts, two-thirds of global respondents polled in recent months prioritized staying home over leading a normal life, according to Gallup survey results released in mid-November.
Months spent isolating in southern Spain prompted Jaime Gómez Moreno to look for a top-of-the-line upgrade to keep his four-bedroom home clean. In April, Mr. Gómez Moreno, a 31-year-old entrepreneur in the city of Cádiz, splurged on a roughly $600 robot vacuum cleaner made by China’s Xiaomi Corp. It not only swept away dust but also scrubbed his floors, he said.
“I spent more money because it was the latest model,” Mr. Gómez Moreno said. “Certainly we went a little crazy to have the cleanest and, above all, sanitized house, without fingerprints, without viruses.”
All the extra attention on the domestic front has also breathed new life into existing offerings. There are monthslong backlogs for refrigerators and dryers in the U.S. Nationwide sales of kitchen appliances such as air fryers and slow cookers shot up 40% from spring to the end of August, said the NPD Group, a market tracking firm.
“There’s a new set of needs being created as we speak,” said Joe Derochowski, a home-industry analyst for NPD.
Growth is most dramatic for products used in the kitchen and for cleaning. From mid-March to the end of August, sales of vacuum cleaners, fans, humidifiers and water filters grew 32% from the year-earlier period, NPD said. Demand for washing machines with purifying steam functions grew 46% during the May-to-August period, while sales of air-treatment appliances surged 23%, according from GfK SE, a market researcher.
Industry analysts forecast that the breakneck pace may slow somewhat next year as vaccine breakthroughs herald a potential end to the pandemic, though GfK forecasts demand for major home appliances will still grow by 5% in the first half of 2021.
“The pandemic has changed how consumers think about being at home,” said Norbert Herzog, an expert on major home appliances at GfK.
For Samsung, Latin American vacuum-cleaner sales have more than tripled in the first half of the year from a year earlier. In its home country of South Korea, demand for a clothes steamer—about the size of a phone booth —has doubled, with advertisements now prominently pitching its disinfecting features.
Haier Smart Home Co. , the Chinese company that boughtGeneral Electric Co. ’s appliance unit, tapped influencers to hawk products on live streams to juice online sales as the pandemic forced many physical stores to close. Domestic sales of its air conditioners rose 27% in the third quarter, while dishwasher use in Europe soared by 24%. In its most-recent quarter, Haier reported a 58% rise in overseas operating profit.
Amid the rising demand for hygiene appliances, LG is guaranteeing that some of its cleaning products with steam functions “kill over 99.9%” of viruses” when sanitizing items like face masks. It is also starting to sell what it calls a new “wearable” air purifier. Worn over the face and made of plastic, the gadget has tiny motors that direct air through a pair of HEPA filters.
“People are being educated on how important hygiene is, and how important cleanliness is,” said LG’s Mr. Song.
Sanam Ijadi and her family are building a new home in Great Neck, N.Y.—and they are spending extra throughout their home because keeping the family safe and healthy is her top priority. Deliveries for many of the appliances she has ordered have been delayed for up to nine months due to backlogs, but the 43-year-old, who helps with her husband’s leather-manufacturing business, doesn’t expect life to return to normal for at least another year.
“We decided to use higher quality because we wanted to use everything longer,” she said. “I do think it’s a change in your mindset.”
After the successful sale of his wedding event venue, the former San Francisco 49ers center Jeremy Newberry is tossing another productive property onto the market. This time, a home in the Bay Area with a 40-acre cherry orchard is available for $4.98 million.
With its five-bedroom, five-bathroom house in the East Bay town of Brentwood, CA, the picturesque property is a ready-made business.
“Cherry farming in Brentwood is very lucrative, and Jeremy has so many new trees planted that there is the possibility of more than doubling the current production,” says the listing agent, Deneen Vornhagen with Delta Ranches & Homes. “It is a great financial opportunity.”
Newberry and his wife, Sabrina, purchased the place, which they called Newberry Cherry Farm, in October 2019. They planted 23 acres of new trees to add to the 12 acres of mature ones.
After vandals destroyed about half of their trees, they planted again, and launched a popular “U-pick” cherry-picking destination last year for the height of the cherry season.
Rather than stay and watch the business blossom, the couple have decided to pull up their roots and move out of the state, according to Vornhagen.
But for an enterprising buyer interested in continuing with the cherry business, this place is worth plucking.
The extensive offering includes a 4,300-square-foot main house, as well as a 7,200-square-foot fully insulated shop, which features a bar, game loft, gym, and guest or caretaker quarters.
Built in 2019, the rustic-style single-level layout features an open concept living and dining area. The open kitchen comes with quartz counters, custom cabinetry, and stainless-steel appliances, including a Viking stove.
Woodgrain tile floors run throughout the home and continue outside, extending the living space onto the patio.
The master wing includes an en suite bathroom with heated floors, a huge shower, oversized tub, dual sinks, dual walk-in closets, and a fireplace. An office with built-ins and a separate entry is also part of the master wing.
In the guest bedroom wing, there are four additional bedrooms.
Outside, a resort-style backyard includes a covered barbecue area and dining space. There’s also a pool surrounded by decorative fire bowls to help you cool off in the summer.
For those who want to play outside, a half-basketball court and putting green await. Other perks include a gas fire pit and an outdoor sound system.
Two garages complete the property.
The Newberrys previously ran a wedding event business, launched after they purchased a large parcel of land in Brentwood in 2006. They built that venue—which features event spaces and a 4-acre winery—from the ground up.
The couple placed the thriving business on the market in 2018 for $5.45 million. It sold a few months later for $4.25 million to Sean McCauley, owner of McCauley Olive Oil, who continues to run the business, according to news reports.
Newberry, 44, a native of Antioch, CA, played most of his career hiking the football with the San Francisco 49ers, who selected him in the 1998 NFL draft.
The center finished out his career with stints with the Oakland Raiders in 2007 and the San Diego Chargers in 2008. Now retired as a player, he is a football analyst for the local San Francisco station KPIX.
