The publicity may have slowed down, but Michael Jackson fans are still coming out in force. Several lots soundly beat presale estimates at an auction conducted by Julien's Auctions. The staples of Michael Jackson's image -- such as the famous white glove and the jacket from the "Bad" tour -- went under the gavel. A presale estimate for the entire auction of $80,000 to $100,000 quickly became irrelevant, as bidders sent prices into the stratosphere.

The white glove opened at $10,000 but went immediately to $120,000 before settling at the final price of $350,000 (not including fees and commissions). After all fees and taxes, Hong Kong businessman Hoffman Ma spent around $420,000 for the piece of Americana that Darren Julien, the auction house's CEO, describes as "the Holy Grail of Michael Jackson." It was expected to sell for $50,000.

The black jacket, with all the straps and zippers, that Jackson wore during his 1989 "Bad" tour, also made presale estimates pointless. It closed at $225,000 (before any fees or taxes), more than 20 times the expectation.

At the auction, held at the Hard Rock Café in Times Square, most of the 80 lots pertained to Michael Jackson, generally provided by friends and family who had received them as gifts. Other lots included a car driven by Jackson, a guitar once owned by David Bowie and memorabilia from the Beatles.

The State of California and the watch maker brand and group Franck Muller have something in common. They are both in dire financial straights. Both have likely over extended themselves financially, and both seem to continue in operation somehow.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was recently spotted in Milan, Italy shopping at a Franck Muller boutique store. While Schwarzenegger is a well known watch lover, I was not previously aware that he was a fan of Franck Muller timepieces. Now I know. For those of you that don't know, Arnold is a big fan of big watches. Luxury watch brands have been known to make special timepieces just for him. One relatively recent watch I hear that he purchased was sized at a whopping 60mm wide. To my knowledge, Franck Muller doesn't make anything this large, but they have some hefty timepieces.

The reports aren't clear as to what, if anything Schwarzenegger purchased. He spent some time in the store, as you can see by the candid security camera images. Perhaps if he is helping to save one fiscally troubled entity, he might also refocus his efforts on the State over which he is currently presiding as governor - that probably needs his help more.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Via Business Montres (in French).

If you'd like to be an author with a nice house, write thrillers. The best author houses I've seen belong to the thriller writers. Today's home in Palm Beach Florida belongs to James B. Patterson. According to the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties column Patterson calls his beautiful home with frontage on the intracoastal waterway the house that Alex Cross built, referring to his popular psychologist main character. Patterson used a wood-paneled office with a water view (outfitted with plenty of Patterson books in the listing pictures) as his writing studio. The turquoise and white kitchen currently decorated with a collection of gleaming copper pots has the type of farmhouse style appeal one doesn't usually see in lavish Palm Beach homes. Outside there is a terrace surrounding a heated pool with spa ,built-in barbecue and a dock with boat lift. This home is listed at $14.95 million.

Patterson is moving his family to an even bigger home, a two-acre Palm Beach estate, with a 20,505-square-foot main house which he picked up for $17.45 million over the summer.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--A 13,500-square-foot home in Tarzana with a tennis court and koi pond, an underground garage that fits 16 cars is being put up for auction. It was once listed at $9.775 million and cost more than $7.5 million to build. The minimum bid will start at $2.1 million on Dec. 5. The property website is here.
--Personal trainer Bob Harper of "The Biggest Loser" has purchased a home in the Hollywood Hills for $2.9 million.
--Robert Loggia has sold his longtime Bel-Air home for $2.95 million.


From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--Rod Aldridge, the founder of British outsourcing company Capita Group, has picked up a place in New York for $13.75 million at the Superior Ink building on West 12th Street.
--via the NY Observer, Doug Von Allmen, a venture capitalist and victim of alleged Ponzi-schemer Scott Rothstein, has put his duplex apartment at the Time Warner Center on the market for $18.45 million. The listing is here.
--Bank of America portfolio manager Raymond Cubero and his wife, Kathleen Comerford, have changed brokers and dropped the price of their Trump Tower duplex. The four-bedroom "smart house," is down from a high of $14.995 million to $12 million. The listing is here.
--via Curbed, architect Dean Maltz has paid $3.4179 million for a four-bedroom apartment at the Metal Shutter Houses at 524 West 19th Street.
--Gisele Bundchen has officially sold her triplex penthouse at 347 West 11th Street. The 1,700-square-foot apartment, which originally hit the market for $10.9 million sold for $4.4 million.
--Steven "Mac" Heller, the former head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, has sold his three-bedroom apartment at 14 East 75th Street for $4.725 million.
--via Newsday's Real LI, Billionaire Ron Lauder has sold a 2.77-acre estate in Wainscott for $5.256 million to his daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer.
--Former Ariba CEO Lawrence Mueller and his wife Mary Kay have gone into contract to sell their condo at 15 Central Park West. The three-bedroom apartment which the couple first listed for $16.5 million in May was reduced to $15.5 million in October.
--Alex Acquavella, the son of top NYC art dealer Bill Acquavella, has paid $3.9 million for an apartment at 50 Gramercy Park North.
--Melvyn Blum, a retired EVP at Vornado Realty Trust, has sold his apartment at the Trump International for $6.4375 million.
--via the NY Observer, the Rothschild Mansion has undergone a price cut for the third time this year. It was once listed as high as $35 million and is now listed for $25.5 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Post:
--A four-bedroom condo at The Dakota is in contract for $11.5 million after once being listed for as much as $24 million. The buyer is Mark Fisch, managing partner at Continental Properties, a New Jersey-based real estate firm.
--Nicolas Cage's Olympic Tower condo at 641 Fifth Ave. has just closed at $7.5 million.

--At 76 Crosby St., where Kelly Ripa has a duplex penthouse there was a bidding war for a 2,578-square-foot apartment with a $4.35 million listing price. The two-bedroom home with a deep soaking tub in the master bedroom suite is now in contract after about three months on the market.The new owner will share the second floor with Gawker Media boss Nick Denton. The listing is here.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
Fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger has finally sold Stone Hill, his Greenwich, Connecticut home for $20 million. He first listed the estate more than a year ago for $27.9 million.

--The heirs of a California builder have listed the 600-acre Middle Ranch, the getaway spot of film director Cecil B. DeMille, for $28 million. The listing is here.


From the Chicago Tribune's Elite Street:
--Chicago Bears player Dusty Dvoracek has sold his Lake Villa home to teammate Juaquin Iglesias for $344,500. Dvoracek purchased the home in 2006 for $365,000. In January he listed the home for $389,900.
--White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has rented out his four-bedroom, 2,719-square-foot house in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood for one year for $4,995 a month. Emanuel purchased the house in December 1998 for $695,000.
--Nancy Hughes, the widow of filmmaker John Hughes, has bought a 17-room, 6,700-square-foot English country-style house in east Lake Forest, about a block from Lake Michigan, for $5.2 million.

From the Real Estalker:
--Real Housewives of Atlanta's Kim Zolciak is not moving to Los Angeles and is staying put in her Atlanta, GA area townhouse condo.
--Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have lost as much as $10,000,000 in the Madoff scandal and has had a $118,000 tax lien placed against her Bel Air Road residence. An unpaid tax lien can force the sale of a property if the debt is not paid.
--LaToya Jackson has seen condominium at the Regency Towers inside the Las Vegas Country Club in Las Vegas, NV taken away from her in foreclosure proceedings. Rumor has it that she now lives in a condo in one of the tall apartment towers that line Wilshire Boulevard near Westwood and Century City.
--Actor Gale Harold has listed a four-bedroom duplex in Los Angeles for $1.3 million.
--Ali Larter and Hayes MacArthur have picked up a four-bedroom home in Los Angeles for $2.925 million.
--Nicolas Cage has listed a three-bedroom home in Newport Beach, California for $995,000. He bought the home in 2006 for $1.7 million for his father who recently died. The listing is here.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Actor Rob Lowe and his makeup artist wife, Sheryl Berkoff, have sold a six-bedroom house in Montecito, Calif. for $7.6 million.
--A look at "Harry Potter" actor Rupert Grint's real-estate empire: two country mansions plus another house, all worth about 9.2 million pounds.

From Brickwork: The London Property Blog:
--via Telegraph, Suzie Quatro, best known to U.S. fans as Leather Tuscadero from Happy Days is selling her mansion 'Hyde Hall' for £2.3 million. The listing is here.

Those new aviator shades Brad Pitt's been sporting lately are by his favorite designer Tom Ford, naturally. The decadent designer's Pablo model is actually two pairs of sunglasses in one. One set of lenses fits right into the metal frame and the other set sits in plastic inserts. The Pablo is an evolution of an earlier Ford design as worn by Daniel Craig; these are much better proportioned and actually a fine fit for both men and women. The sunglass history buffs at Eyegoodies, where the Pablo can be purchased for $450 a pair, note the influence of an old (1970's) Ted Lapidus aviator with the plastic inserts in, and the Porsche Design Aviators from the 1980's with the plastic inserts out. The Pablo comes in three colors: gold / light havana (pictured above), gunmetal / dark havana, and gold /black.

[via JustLuxe]

Sports stars has a habit of retiring to Florida where the weather is warm and the living is easy. Luxury Real Estate recently announced the listing for a Jupiter, Florida home belonging to Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The five-bedroom home is located in the Admirals Cove Golf and Yacht Club in Jupiter. Schmidt bought the home in 1991, two years after playing his last major league game. The 8,500 square foot home has been renovated with new kitchen appliances, a butler's pantry and wet bar, master suite with his and hers baths, exercise room, media room and study. The home has a pool and a full guest house with a bath. It has 120 feet of water frontage with a dock suitable for a large yacht. A golf membership must be sold with the home.

Rob Thomson, of Waterfront Properties says that Schmidt and his family love the Admiral Cove community and are looking for a more suitable home within the community now that their children have grown up. This home is listed at $4.5 million.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Jason Winer, an executive producer and director of the ABC comedy "Modern Family," has listed his three-level Hollywood-area town house shown above for $599,000. Winer is selling because he is moving to a larger house in another Los Angeles neighborhood. He bought the town house in 2006 for $560,000. The listing is here.
--Annette Cook, the founder and chief executive of Barefoot Dreams, and her husband, Stan,have sold an ocean-view contemporary in Malibu for $3 million.
--Actor Conrad Bain has listed his longtime Brentwood home for sale at $3.175 million. The listing is here.
--Music industry executive Mark Mazzetti has sold his Hollywood Hills-area home for $1,089,000
--Actress Sandra Will Carradine has listed her beach house in Carpinteria's gated Rincon Point community for $4.29 million. The property website is here.

From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--Washington power lobbyists Tony and Heather Podesta have picked up a New York pied-à-terre, paying $3.247 million for an apartment at the Sohmer Piano Building at 170 Fifth Avenue.
--via the NY Observer, The Sloane mansion, which was once listed at $64 million, is now listed with a new broker and a new lower price, $39 million. The listing is here.

--via the NY Observer, a one-bedroom (plus library) apartment in the Sherry Netherland building has gone on sale for $9.5 million. The listing is here.

--Actress Kristen Johnston has closed on the sale of her duplex at 296 West 10th Street. The two-bedroom apartment with a solarium and terrace was listed for $1.795 million and sold for $1.7 million to costume designers John Orberg and Janet Kuhl.

--via Curbed, Armon Bar-Tur, a managing director at SafeHarbor Capital Partners, and his wife Rebecca, have found a buyer for their townhouse at 92 Charles Street. The four-bedroom home, which the couple bought for $6 million in 2006 and listed for $14.95 million in October, has gone into contract after less than a month on the market.
--Hedge funder Steve Stuart, who left Fortress Investment Group in 2007 has found a buyer for his 35th floor apartment at the Park Laurel on West 63rd Street. The four-bedroom condo, which Stuart bought for $5.4 million in 2004 and put on the market for $10.8 million in October 2008, sold this week to an unidentified buyer for $7.4 million.
--via the NY Post, real estate investor Michael Hirtenstein is the mystery buyer who has agreed to purchase financier Armon Bar-Tur's townhouse at 92 Charles Street for "about $13.5 million."
--via Curbed, Gigi Mahon, an interior decorator, author, and the wife of former Citicorp vice chairman Thomas Theobold, has put her two units at the Plaza on the market for $22.5 million. Mahon bought the two units separately for $3.66 million and $10.02 million back in 2007. The listing is here.
--via the NY Post, Mets outfielder Gary Sheffield and his wife have gone into contract to sell their home in Alpine, NJ. It had been listed for $5 million.

From Newsday's Real LI:
--Jamie Drake, the interior designer who counts Mayor Bloomberg as one of his clients, has put his East Hampton, New York home on the market for $2.9 million. The listing is here.

A Matinecock, New York mansion will go up for auction on November 17 auction. The auction is being held by Grand Estates Auction and the home will be sold to the highest bidder, with no reserves and no minimums and buyers must present a $50,000 certified check in order to bid on the property. The 5.33-acre estate is appraised at $10 million.
--Lands End, the 13.35-acre Sands Point estate which may have been the inspiration for Daisy Buchanan's home in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby," is back on the market with an approval for a five-lot subdivision and a price of $30 million. The property has a 25-room mansion was designed by Stanford White and built in 1902. The listing is here.
--Private eye Bo Dietl has gone into contract to sell his Manhasset home. The former cop and occasional TV commentator bought the home for $2.3 million in 2004, listed it for $3.295 million in August and is reportedly selling for "just over $3 million."


From ShelterPop:
--Ellen DeGeneras has purchased a horse ranch outside of Westlake Village, California.
--Lndsay Lohan and Sam Ronson both recently moved from their leased houses in the Beachwood Canyon area of Los Angeles and into leased condos at the very same West Hollywood high-rise building where Nicole Richie once owned multi-million dollar digs. Sam's previous place on Beachwood Canyon Drive iscurrently available for lease at $4,350 a month and Lindsay's former rental on El Contento Drive is also up for rent for $8,900 a month.

From AOL Real Estate:
--Check out a list of the most expensive homes on the market in the United States.

From the NY Post:
-- Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts have been spotted checking out listings at 120 11th Ave.
--Louise Sunshine, is helping her son, broker Sam Sunshine, sell the One Beacon Court apartment owned by her husband, Martin Begun. The apartment is listed at $6.75 million.
--Singer Frankie Valli has been showing some interest in a $3.3 million, three-bedroom apartment at the Rushmore, a luxury condo development on the Upper West Side. The apartment is now listed as 'in contract.'

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Connie Chung and Maury Povich are in contract to buy a home listed for $8.98 million in the Embassy Row area of Washington. The couple, with their son, plan to move from New York in 2010 or 2011.
--Former Lehman Brothers president Joseph M. Gregory has gone into contract on his seven-acre Manchester, Vermont estate, which he listed for $2.48 million. He bought the seven-acre Vermont property for $675,000 in 1993. His 2.5-acre oceanfront estate in Bridgehampton, New York remains on the market with an asking price of $27.9 million.


From the Real Estalker:
--Hollywood talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz has listed his four-bedroom Malibu home for $7.299 million. The listing is here.
--Sophia Loren's son Edoardo Ponti and his wife Sasha Alexander have listed their four-bedroom Los Angeles home for $2.135 million. The listing is here.
--Designer Max Azria has listed his home in Beverly Hills for $6.899 million. The listing is here.
--Celebrity hair stylist and reality television star Jonathan Antin has listed his four-bedroom home in Toluca Lake for $1.999 million. The listing is here.

From Zillow Blog:
--Curt Schilling has reduced the price of his Medfield, Massachusetts home again. It is now listed at $4.5 million down from an original $8 million.

Entertainment journalist and Dancing with the Stars co-host Samantha Harris and her husband Mark Hess have listed their home in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, California home for $1.595 million. Records on Property Shark show that they bought the four-bedroom home for $1.6 million in 2007 and so the pair won't make any money on the deal.

The Spanish-style home has wood beamed ceilings, hardwood floors, a freshly remodeled kitchen and a master suite that includes a bathroom with an extra large shower with double shower heads. A pretty pink princess room is decorated for the couple's two-year-old daughter and there is also a multicolored playroom. The home has a private sundeck.

[via Move Trends, via Celebs Digs HQ]

Love your state? Maya Brenner's state necklaces are a unique way to show your love for your home turf or maybe the place you'd most like to be. The necklaces are hung on 16-inch 14K gold chains and show the outline of the state. For a little personalization you can add a small diamond mounted anywhere along the outline. The pieces are available in 14K gold or sterling silver, with or without the small diamond. The Texas necklace shown at right sells for $300 and is a favorite with Texas natives Eva Longoria Parker and Jessica Simpson.

It's official, Nic Cage is no longer a homeowner in New Orleans. The Times-Picayune reports on the foreclosure auction which saw Cage losing both his French Quarter and Garden District homes. Cage's lender, Regions Bank, bought both homes back for a total of $4.5 million, which is two-thirds of the value that appraisers hired by the bank had determined they were worth. There were no other bids for the property. Cage did not attend the auction. The city will collect $151,729 in unpaid property taxes. Cage owed approximately $5.5 million on the homes. The bank is free to go after Hancock Park Real Estate Company, Cage's real estate holding company, for the other $1 million and can also try to sell the homes at market value to raise the money.

Cage bought his six-bedroom Garden District home in 2005 for $3.45 million and listed it for sale for $3.7 million. Cage's New Orleans other home, the haunted LaLaurie mansion was bought by Cage in 2006 for $3.45 million. He listed it for $3.9 million. He has blamed his former business manager, Sam Levin, for his recent financial woes including a $6 million IRS bill. He still has homes in Las Vegas, England, Rhode Island and the Bahamas either on the market or about to be sold.

Former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales is finally officially leaving Washington behind for good. He and his wife are selling their five-bedroom home in the McLean Hamlet area of McLean, Virginia. The Washington Post reports that Gonzales is moving his family closer to his job at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

The home was bought in 2005 through a trust for $1.05 million. The center-entrance Colonial home has hardwood floors, a kitchen with granite countertops and a fully finished walk-out basement. What makes this home distinctive is the security. It has a video security system with four separate cameras. There is also a safe room behind a secure metal door off the master bedroom. The home is listed at $1.075 million meaning that Gonzales isn't making any money off this deal.

[via Berg Properties Big TIme Listings]

You may remember she hit pause. studios from our previous article on the gritty, sexy polaroids when they went up at Alison Nelson's Chocolate Bar at Henri Bendel (Sexy Polaroids at Henri Bendel). Well, we're not the only ones who love artist Matt Schwartz's provocative photography -- Catherine Zeta-Jones does, too.

"She will be hanging them in her dressing room for her new Broadway show," says Schwartz, who sold five photos to Zeta-Jones. The Oscar-winning Welsh superstar will be making her Broadway debut alongside Angela Lansbury in a revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music," which is slated to open December 13. This is Schwartz's first major celebrity sale. We knew about him first, CZJ!

You can order prints unframed or framed in the artist's signature weathered barnwood from she hit pause -- check out some of the new photos, like the above "white legs + bridge (brookyn)," here, or see them in person at the Union Square Holiday Market November 23 - December 25.

A helpful reader directed us to a rather interesting listing, Donald Trump's personal jet. Trump's flashy Boeing 727-100 has shown up on the Controller website. Lest you have any doubt that it is his, the plane has the Trump T on the tail and a 30-foot Trump logo on the side done in gold leaf. A plane like this usually has 134 seats but this plane was reconfigured to hold just 24 passengers in the lap of luxury.

The 1968 vintage plane was originally operated by American Airlines according to Aviation.com. It has been refurbished with soft beige leather armchairs around a conference table. A separate dining area has seating for five around a wood table and additional seating on an adjacent upholstered sofa. A master bedroom offers a posh place for mid-flight nap.

The listing with AvPro in Maryland says it has new paint and is current with all avionics. It has logged a total of 41,833 hours with 29,664 total landings. Why is Trump selling? Is a new, even more lavish plane in the works, or is Trump, like the rest of us, feeling the pinch of a struggling economy?

UPDATE: CNN Money has a quote from George Sorial from Trump's organization who says that Trump is upgrading to a larger aircraft.

[Thanks, Jay!]

Naomi Campbell just surprised her Russian billionaire boyfriend Vladislav Doronin with a lavish jet-set birthday surprise in Morocco, the London Mirror reports.

The supermodel chartered a private jet to fly them there as a surprise for Doronin, who's been called the Donald Trump of Russia. There she presented him with a lifesize sports-themed cake with a boxing ring, race cars and rackets on it.

The pair partied all night before boarding a jet to Abu Dhabi and then Tanzania for her charity work for the White Ribbon Alliance. Of course, as we've reported previously Doronin has been very generous as well.

Campbell has been earning praise of late for looking better then ever despite her 39 years. Her longtime hairstylist Amoy Pitters, who tended to the precious tresses for recent A-list events like Black Girls Rock and the Clinton Global Initiative gala, deserves her share of the credit.

Pitters, whose other celeb clients include Sheryl Crow, Ashanti, Ciara, Iman, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige and The Pussycat Dolls, is famed for her unique, signature method of hair extensions, indistinguishable from - some would say better than - the real thing.

Today's San Francisco home isn't just a piece of celebrity real estate, it's a before and after. We first checked out the home of Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett in 2006 when it was listed at $12.5 million. At that time the Georgian home in Pacific Heights was so decked out in velvet and wine colors that one commenter called it the "Shady Rest Funeral Home." Even the kitchen was red. The home disappeared off the market but now as the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties column reports, it's back. And it's a whole lot brighter inside. Hammett has had this home for a while. He paid $2.56 million for the home in 1993. The home has eight bedrooms and a music studio and a billiard room with a bar in the basement. The renovation did not change any of the home's beautiful lines and vintage wood details, but those touches are showcased much better against a more neutral palette. The former music studio is now repurposed as a family recreation area and the listing states that the area would be perfect as a home theater. This home is now listed at $9 million.