Celebrity Real Estate News and Gossip

A celebrity is a widely-recognized or famous person who commands a high degree of public and media attention. The word stems from the Latin verb “celebrere” but they may not become a celebrity unless public and mass media interest is piqued. A good example would be Al Gore, whose environmental crusade has elevated him to celebrity status. On the other hand, mass market entertainers personalities such as soap opera actors like Jennifer Aniston (one of the few soap opera stars whom it would appear can actually act) or music stars like Madonna are likely to become celebrities even if the person deliberately avoids media attention – which is itself an unlikely occurrence

Cultural theorist Daniel Boorstin is credited with a famous definition. In his book,The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, he critically describes a celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knownness . . . a human pseudo-event.” Paris Hilton for example appears to be famous for being famous and we have yet to work out exactly what she might be good for other than decoration.

Here at the luxury property blog, we, of course, deal exclusively with celebrity real estate goings-on. Not for us the lurid fascination with whom is sleeping with whom. We can safely leave that to the tabloid newspapers and blogs. But, property is a different matter. We have our own celebrity real estate columnist, Becky Scott.

Becky spends her time scouring the world for interesting tidbits, gossip and celebrity real estate news. She even beat the best of the other celebrity property blogs to the drop – with the news that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had leased a vineyard in the South of France, Chateau Miraval.

Chateau Miraval, Provence, France

The Jolie-Pitts are likely to be featured regularly in this section as they have a large disposable income and seem to regularly buy and sell property.

Another celebrity property featured recently was the sale of the stunning Versace Villa on lake Como, purchased by a Russian investor affectionately know as the “Blini Baron.”

Villa Le Fontanelle, Lake Como, Italy

This particular piece of luxury real estate is famous, not only for the fact that is was the favorite haunt of the late Gianni Versace, but the incredible amount of time, effort and money he poured into it to restore the property to it’s original neo-classic splendor.

Within the luxury real estate world we do have our own celebrities, who are famous for being famous in the industry. One in particular, Donald Trump also managed to become a celebrity in his own right. He also seems to be of the opinion that all publicity is good publicity. He hit our radars recently with the sale of his luxury mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, selling for $100million. Quite a profit from the original $41million purchase price.

Donald Trump’s Palm Beach Mansion

Academics began analyzing the phenomenon of celebrity and stardom in the 1970s and according to Sofia Johansson the “canonical texts on stardom” include articles by Boorstin (1971), Alberoni (1972) and Dyer (1979) that examined the “representations of stars and on aspects of the Hollywood star system.” Johansson notes that “more recent analyses within media and cultural studies (e.g. Gamson 1994; Marshall 1997; Giles 2000; Turner, Marshall and Bonner 2000; Rojek 2001; Turner 2004) have instead dealt with the idea of a pervasive, contemporary, ‘celebrity culture’.”

In Bob Greene’s article “The new stardom that doesn’t require paying any dues,” he argues that for “most of man’s history…people of talent would work to create something–something written, something painted, something sculpted, something acted out–and it would be passed on to audiences.” With the rise of reality TV shows, Greene points out that audiences have been turned into the creators. He argues that the “alleged stars of the reality shows “Survivor” and “Big Brother,”have become famous not for doing, but merely for being.”

Greene says that “You simply have to be present, in the right place at the right time.” Whereas “…public[ly famous] people were once defined as such based upon the fact that their remarkable skills had brought them to the attention of the public,” Greene states that with reality TV, “one can become a public person just by being a person, in public.”

Celebrities often have fame comparable to that of royalty. As a result, there is a strong public curiosity about their private affairs. Celebrities may be resented for their accolades, and the public may have a love/hate relationship with celebrities. Due to the high visibility of celebrities’ private lives, their successes and shortcomings are often made very public. Celebrities are alternately portrayed as glowing examples of perfection, when they garner awards, or as decadent or immoral if they become associated with a scandal.

Tabloid magazines and talk TV shows bestow a great deal of attention on celebrities. To stay in the public eye and to make money, more celebrities are participating in business ventures such as celebrity-branded items including books, clothing lines, perfume, and household items, but we will stick to the real estate happenings for the foreseeable future.

There are also a few other celebrity stalkers (sorry, reporters) we admire. This includes The Real Estalker, and the L.A. Times hot property section.