According to the 2015 survey, the average Czechs lives in an apartment of 49.6 m2. However, since our clients are not average Czechs, the real estate we sell is not average either. What do the villas and houses of the famous look like? Wayne Gretzky, for example, owned one house with total dimensions and area almost equal to that as an ice-rink. and Karl Lagerfeld altered his "Roman" villa overlooking the Elbe to suit his taste perfectly.
George Clooney, Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and the above-mentioned Wayne Gretzky and Karl Lagerfeld. Our brokers meet with some of the planet’s biggest showbusiness names. All of them are exceptional, and the real-estate that they have owned or still own is likewise exceptional.
Ice-hockey‘s all-time best player prefers life in sunny California over that in his native Canada; his exact place of choice is namely the luxurious Westlake Village. He owns several truly luxury properties here, and when he’s not at home, you can meet him on the famous Westlake golf course, just a little way from the Sherwood Country Club Estate where he owned and sold an 800 m2 house.
And it was this very house which our expert brokers from Engel & Völkers were helping Wayne Gretzky to sell. And what, exactly, could a buyer able to spend 6 million euros (about 155 million Czech crowns), expect from such a property? For the price, they got a luxurious mansion which was designed and built with an emphasis on providing maximal privacy for its residents, 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a huge swimming pool, and a luxurious men's office finished in materials including leather and expensive wood - and a very large stylized portrait of the famous ice-hockey player himself hanging on one of the walls.
The property didn’t sit on the market for long before a buyer was found. And you might be interested to know that there are other gems to be found in Westlake Village; for example, there is a French-style manor house that, while not housing a celebrity per se, does feature a rose garden and an eternity pool. It’s interesting to know that it's just 25 miles from Westlake Village to Malibu -another place well-known for its exceptionally high concentration of celebrities.
Incidentally, Malibu just so happens to be the location of the "famous" villa owned by Barbra Streisand. Do you know how it became so famous? The villa’s road into the public eye has since been called the "Streisand effect", and is now a well-known paradoxical phenomenon: the more effort is put out to conceal a specific piece of information, the more attention it attracts. The back-story is that in 2003, when Barbra Streisand’s luxurious home appeared on the website photos of an agency concerned with marine erosion, the famous diva attempted (in vain) to have them removed. She demanded their removal with such fervor, that the initially "unnoticeable" photograph of her house (which until then had been seen by only 4 internet users) became a sensation, downloaded by 420,000 internet users in the course of the following month. Her intention to stay invisible simply did not work out, to say the least.
Now, back to celebrities under the wings of Engel & Völkers, and their special residences. Luckily, we in the Czech Republic do not have to go all the way to California to see such exceptional and beautiful houses, and glimpse their famous inhabitants. Occasionally, it’s enough just to head out across our border to visit some of our neighbors in Germany. The famous designer Karl Lagerfeld‘s remarkable Villa Jako, for example - the place he called home from the years 1991 to 1998 - is located in Hamburg, Germany.
The fashion star even designed the interiors of some of the villa’s rooms. Set in a luxurious residential area of Blankenese, the Roman-style villa offers a breathtaking view of the Elbe. Within the villa’s 443 m2 of living space, you will find 3 reception rooms, an 80 m2 living room with a 6-meter high ceiling, and 3 luxurious bedrooms. In addition, each bedroom has its own spacious dressing room (as is befitting a world-famous fashion-house designer) and a private bathroom.
In addition to the spaces mentioned above, the new owner - who paid 10 million euros (about 257 million Czech crowns) for the villa - can also now enjoy the spacious library on the villas’ first floor, and the romantic garden with its exceptional views of the Elbe river.
Would you prefer views of the Vltava River to the Elbe? Take a look at our Prague real estate offer; you will be charmed by some wonderful residences; for example, a luxury villa set in lush greenery in Prague’s Troja, and an enchanting apartment in Mala Strana.
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