EstateOfTheDay

The listing calls this the most glamorous penthouse in all of Miami. The two-story penthouse sits atop The Gables Club offering easy access to amenities that include a marina, tennis courts, putting green, pool and clubhouse. The private elevator opens to a 10,000 square foot oasis with marble floors and a sweeping staircase. The penthouse has a large home theater, a terrace with ocean views, a wood-paneled library and a dining room hung with crystal chandeliers. The master suite has a bed facing windows outfitted with automatic shades to put the view at your command. There is a sitting area adjoining his and hers bathrooms. A marble tub in the master suite has its own balcony. Other features include a wet bar and an upstairs game room with a pool table. The home also has a gym, two wine cellars and a laundry room with a full bath. The penthouse is listed at $16 million.

A few weeks ago we mentioned that Edra Blixseth's Rancho Mirage, California compound, Porcupine Creek had hit the market for $75 million. Now the Wall Street Journal reports that another bank-controlled property tied to the once well-propertied ex-wife of timber magnate Tim Blixseth and co-founder of the Yellowstone Club is up for sale. Casa Captiva is an idyllic six-bedroom retreat in Los Cabos, Mexico.

The estate has 280 feet of oceanfront and the secluded cove is situated in the most exclusive and private community of Punta Bella adjacent to Villas Del Mar in Palmilla in the city of San Jose del Cabo. With 10,000 square feet of space with 7,000 square feet of outdoor space there is plenty of room (a good thing for the Blixseths who were collectors). The floors, windows and deck are handcrafted with teak wood and the home has a great room, large kitchen, family room, gym, office, bar and caretaker's quarters. The master suite is a private space with a den and bedroom facing the ocean, two dressing rooms, steam room, Jacuzzi tub and a a meditation room that opens onto a private garden. The property has an infinity pool and large Jacuzzi and the beach is just steps away. The property is listed at $12.875 million.

It takes a certain kind of guy to name his home Heaven. Maybe the kind of guy who walks around town in a cowboy hat and is famous for being one of television's most notorious villains. As Hagman tells it in a video (after the jump) it was love at first sight for him and his wife Maj when they saw the hilltop estate in Ojai, California. They bought the property in 1991 and built the Mediterranean-style house with nine bedrooms the following year.

The home is designed for entertaining, there is a guest house and an open but covered space fits more than 200 guests with a lap pool and retractable roof. Hagman may have played an oil tycoon on television but the home is equipped with a huge solar polar system which sliced his electric bill to pennies and enabled him to sell back electricity to the town. The home also has its own helipad.

The property is designed to take advantage of views of the Pacific ocean, Channel Islands, mountains and valley and sliding glass walls offering unobstructed views. This home hit the market last November for $11 million but as the Wall Street Journal reports it is now listed at $9.5 million.

Former Giants superstar Michael Strahan has been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles over the past year while working on his now-cancelled sitcom "Brothers." Last fall he listed his New York City loft for $1.5 million. But now it is back on the market at an increased price. His 2,000-square-foot loft at 25 Murray St. in TriBeCa is listed for $1.85 million.

The NY Post reports that he bought the home in 2006 for $1.6 million. Strahan's two-bedroom unit is a full service pre-war condominium with exposed brick, shiny wood floors and an eat-in kitchen. The 15-foot ceilings gave the 6'5" Strahan plenty of head room. The decor has obviously been staged in this one, Strahan has long ago decamped for greener pastures. He is engaged to Nicole Murphy, Eddie Murphy's ex-wife, a woman with some substantial real estate of her own.

Today's home is part of a new trend. Houses for sale that tweet. Yes, today's home, a six-bedroom in Menlo Park, California, has its own Twitter account and sends out tweets like "I'm being shown to some new potential buyers right now! " The home is part of a new house twittering trend, our sister blog WalletPop did a piece on a Malibu home that is also tweeting its way toward a sale just the other day.

The home is a new build in a Dutch Colonial style with an open floorplan. The home was designed for family life with nice details like a breakfast nook and a sunny open kitchen, dining room with a buffet, upstairs office and a downstairs great room with a bar. A marble master bathroom includes both a large tub and a shower stall. Covered outdoor space offers a lovely spot for alfresco dining. This home is listed at $5.499 million.

[Thanks, Andrew]

Need a Las Vegas lair? Today's home might be a gambler's dream, a sky-high penthouse unit in Palms Place. The ultra-modern two-bedroom penthouse is being sold with all its ultra-modern furnishings which include a pool table, leather furniture and large flat-screen televisions. The most "ruler of all I survey" spot has to be the private spa which actually projects out from the building and faces a wall of glass with views of the Palms Casino and the Vegas strip. The home includes large closets and a stainless steel kitchen that looks more like a place for surgery than dinner but this isn't the sort of place you'd cozy up for meals anyway. The penthouses at Palms Place are available for rent so you can check out a similar place for a few thousand a night. This home is listed at $4 million.

Today's home sits within the gated community of Estancia in Scottsdale. The sprawling estate spans three lots in the subdivision at the base of Pinnacle peak. it was designed to blend in with the boulder outcroppings creating a private oasis. Heavy wood doors, tile floors and curving adobe fireplaces add to the feeling of desert luxury. There are eight bedrooms total and over 20,000 square feet of living space if you include both the caretaker's cottage and the large 2,000 square foot pool house. The outdoor space includes large porches as well as several outdoor fireplaces and seating areas and a pool with a waterfall. This home is listed at $15 million.

Today's San Francisco penthouse has to be one of the most fabulous creations I have ever seen. It sits atop the Art Deco Hamilton building on O'Farrell in the Tenderloin District. The building was built as a hotel in 1929 but it was converted to condominiums in 1962. The crowning glory of the building is a 3,879 square foot penthouse. Socket Site has the story of the apartment which was created for a wealthy heiress by the name of Marcia McDonald. She combined four proposed units on the top floor into one full-floor unit with its own private elevator access. She also added the glass barrel-vaulted solarium with imported Greek-style columns. McDonald didn't finish the unit in her lifetime and never lived there. Instead, when she was told she had to spend another $500,000 to finish it she decided not to an lived in a pair of apartments lower in the building. The unit was finished after her death. The residence has three bedrooms,a library, two working fireplaces, formal dining room, gourmet kitchen and a pair of terraces, one of which has an antique fountain. It first hit the market in November and is still listed at $4.5 million.

Today's home isn't just on Ballantine Road in Bernardsville, New Jersey, it has a Ballantine provenance. It is the former home of Alice Isabel Ballantine, daughter of brewery founder Peter Ballantine, and her husband Henry Young Jr. The home was designed by architect Charles Alling Gifford and is a stately Greek Revival manor on 28 acres. Inside the venerable old home has been restored to the nines with a muted neutral, gently feminine style that suits a home outfitted with columns and elaborate moldings. The decorator did excellent work here. I'm particularly smitten with the subtle details, like the fact that the chairs in the living room have the legs of a klismos chair, a nice nod to the home's Greek aspirant leanings. One bastion of masculinity remains in what is generally my favorite room of any home, the wood-heavy study, this one is particularly cozy and warmed up with richly toned furnishings. The grounds include an in-ground pool, four bedroom guest house and a tennis court. It is listed at $10.75 million.

A lot of the estates I show you in Florida are newer homes but today's vintage beauty in Coral Gables was built in 1936. Java Head is a beautiful old estate. The three-acre property includes gardens, a tennis court, pool house, a four-car garage with a separate apartment and a protected dock that offers your boat open access to ocean. The seven-bedroom main house has Art Moderne and Art Deco notes. Of particular charm is the massive living room with the 23-foot cathedral ceiling. The lower half of the room is encased in dark wood panels and an old stone fireplace is a relic from another time. A round doorway leads to a mural-covered dining room. This unique home is listed at $13.9 million.

With all the press Vancouver has received lately with the Olympic Games I would think a waterfront property there would be one hot item! Although I have to say I was a bit surprised that the $8.5 million home only offered three bedrooms and four baths. Nestled in a gated private community boasting outrageous ocean and island views and a private outdoor pool brings the value up rather quickly though.

At 5351 Seaside Place in Olde Caulfeild, West Vancouver this spacious contemporary home designed by renowned architect Russell Hollingsworth features a courtyard entry complete with reflecting pond and stone walls, a gourmet chef's kitchen, polished marble flooring, media room and private boat launch. The use of floor-to-ceiling sliding doors and large picture windows bring the stunning outdoor view inside.

[Thanks Ben!]

It doesn't really look much like a castle but that's the name attached to today's estate, a historic mansion in Beaufort, South Carolina's Old Point neighborhood. The Greek Revival home was built around 1859 and sits on the intracoastal waterway and is surrounded by live oaks and old gardens. The listing states that the home recently underwent a major restoration that included a new gourmet kitchen with Sub-Zero refrigerator, Wolf gas stove, Meile dishwasher and an additional ground floor catering kitchen with dual full size Sub-zero wine coolers. The bathrooms have been spruced up with Calcutta gold marble and Waterworks fixtures and the home has a new roof and new HVAC.

It's the old features that attract here, the original wood flooring, the double verandas and the sweeping center hall with a double staircase large enough to flounce down in an antebellum gown. There are six bedrooms and approximatley 7932 square feet of living area. A Forbes report on the house from 2006, when it was listed at $4.5 million, states that the home is haunted by a ghost. And not just any ghost, a dwarf named Grenauche which only appears to sick children. This home is now listed at $3.95 million.

Even some beachfront property in southern California is slow to move. One estate Vista al Mar in Dana Point, California, is headed for auction. The home is located in The Strand at Headlands, southern California's last and most exclusive beachfront community. The development has several tiers of oceanview homes, this one appears to be on one of the middle levels. The new home was once priced at over $15 million but will be auctioned off with an opening bid of just $7.5 million. The three-level estate was designed by architect Jon Eric Christner and has five bedrooms with elevator access to all three levels. The home has wood beam ceilings, arched passages and reclaimed Maltese stone floors. Rooms include a gourmet kitchen, theater room, theater room, game lounge, massage room with a sauna and spa bath, exercise room and wine cellar. The home's master suite includes a sitting room with a walk-in closet and a private terrace. The two-level patio has an infinity spa with a cascading waterfall into the larger salt water pool below. Bids on the home will be accepted until March 11.

I'm not usually a fan of nautical. I grew up in a resort town, ship's wheels and rope decor generally make me itch. Today's estate in Lake Country, British Columbia could change my mind. This home combines a nautical theme with modern architecture and the overall effect is worlds away from the local fish shack. This six-bedroom home has a great room with a huge round window, a canoe seems poised to smash through the center. A curved bar continues the nautical theme and a shower enclosure is designed to mimic the ocean floor, complete with fish. The property also has a beachside cabana, water features, bridges of stepping stones and an outdoor kitchen. It is listed at $10 million Canadian.

Fantasy island-wise, they had me at "Turks and Caicos" -- islands in the British West Indies that I visited in my youth and now fearfully refuse to return to lest they have changed. Then lo and behold, into my inbox comes this: A chance to own -- at least partially -- the 12,000-square-foot Coral House estate that sits squarely on Grace Bay Beach, voted by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the top 10 beaches in the world. My heart be still.

The luxury residence, which sits on nearly an acre of white powdery sand, has five bedrooms, two living rooms, a family room with a large flat screen TV and a library for all that mindless beach-reading you'll want to do.

But the devil -- the one who could lure me back to the Turks -- is in the details: The home has stunning coral render flooring with glass tile inlays, Brazilian hardwood doors, antique wrought-iron gates imported from Saudi Arabia, France and Egypt and furnished with antiques and one-of-a-kind designer pieces.

The estate is being sold in fractional interests, starting at $1.1 million for four weeks of use. Since we're fantasizing here, we won't get bogged down in the fine print, but basically 13 shares are being offered which guarantee four weeks of use a year and the opportunity to trade usage in other Elan Collection properties if desired.

The residence, constructed from coral stone blocks imported from Barbados, features an outdoor covered breakfast nook and an outdoor beachfront dining pergola with an area for a table setting of 30. There is a one-bedroom guest cottage with its own pool and garden and separate two-bedroom staff quarters. The central courtyard is filled with mature giant frangipani trees, bougainvillea, ferns and other lush landscaping. For those who misplaced their atlas, the Turks and Caicos are a territory of the United Kingdom consisting of two groups of more than 40 islands and cays, eight of which are inhabited. The island chain is known for its pristine white sand beaches, turquoise waters and legendary diving, snorkeling and fishing activities