Rocky and Rambo star Sylvester Stallone — who lost a battle with Madonna and his other wealthy neighbors to sell his sprawling Miami estate to a hotel company — has a new deal to unload his Florida mansion.
In a sale that is shaping up to be Miami’s richest residential deal, Moroccan-born luxury home builder Heim “Michel” Ifergane signed a contract to buy the 24,000-square-foot bayfront mansion and its three guest houses, Alan Jacobson, a real estate broker involved in the pending sale, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Jacobson would not reveal the sale price but said it would be lower than the $24.7 million offer the film star got from London’s Orient-Express Hotel chain.
That deal flopped when Stallone’s wealthy neighbors, who include pop music icon Madonna, attacked the company’s plans to build 200 villa-style rooms on the 11.7-acre estate, which is richly landscaped with a walking path, a 12-foot-deep river, waterfalls and small lakes.
Stallone paid $8 million for the property in 1993 and spent another $12 million to add a movie theater, indoor shooting gallery, high-tech wine cellar and other expensive extras.
If Ifergane’s deal turns out to be the Miami area’s most expensive, he would unseat New York hotelier and “Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley, who paid $13 million for a home and several acres on Miami Beach’s Star Island in 1996, said David Dabby, senior vice president at Miami’s Appraisal & Real Estate Economics Associates.
He prefers being Idle to acting with Pythons
While fans may have been heartbroken when Monty Python broke up in 1983, Eric Idle says he was thrilled.
“I am exceedingly grateful. I have had a wonderful time over the past 16 years, and I would like to thank them all personally for it,” Idle said, responding to questions from readers of The Independent newspaper in London, which published the answers on Wednesday.
Could Idle be joking?
After all, he is promoting a new book, The Road to Mars, and he is participating with the other surviving Pythons in a 30th anniversary special this weekend on the BBC.
Gates charity gives $2 million for refugees
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $2 million to improve health care for refugees worldwide.
The grant announced on Wednesday went to the New York-based International Rescue Committee, which was founded in 1933 at the suggestion of Albert Einstein to help refugees fleeing Hitler.
Mob at TV taping out of sync with city
Members of the boy band ‘NSync were mobbed while on a supposedly secret shoot for the TV show Touched by an Angel.
Word wasn’t supposed to get out that the band was making a quick cameo in Salt Lake City to tape an episode to air in November. But CBS executive Chris Ender said two disc jockeys at radio station KZHT told listeners the group was in town signing autographs and announced the set location.
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It’s the 280th day of the year; 85 days are left in 1999. On this date:
In 1849, author Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore at age 40.
In 1954, Marian Anderson became the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union.
In 1981, Egypt’s parliament named Vice President Hosni Mubarak to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat.
In 1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean with more than 400 people aboard.
Thought for today: “There’s many a mistake made on purpose.” — Canadian jurist-humorist Thomas Haliburton (1796-1865)
Today’s birthdays: Retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 68; Oliver North, 56; singer John Mellencamp, 48; cellist Yo-Yo Ma, 44; singer Toni Braxton, 31.
