2013年7月30日星期二

Versace's former Miami Beach home for sale

Snake-haired, golden Medusa heads still glint from the gates, the swimming pool and flower pots at 1116 Ocean Drive, vestiges of the glamour fashion designer Gianni Versace brought to South Beach before his death on his own front steps.Though the Versace family hasn't owned the oceanfront mansion since 2000, auctioneers hope the Italian designer's legacy will attract bidders to the Miami Beach property when it goes up for auction on September 17. 

Serious inquiries only, please. The minimum bid is set for $US25 million ($A27.41 million). To even see the property, potential buyers must sign a confidentiality agreement and prove they have the money to close a deal.Here's what comes with the house: a swimming pool inlaid with 24-carat gold tiles, gold-plated bathroom fixtures, high walls that block the sounds on busy Ocean Drive, panoramic views of the ocean from a rooftop observatory and mosaic flooring and frescos and murals custom-made for Versace himself. 

Each room has been uniquely furnished by the current owner, and the furniture comes with the sale, including beds so large they need custom-made sheets.Half a dozen buyers have expressed interest since the auction was announced earlier in July, said Lamar Fisher, president and chief executive of Fisher Auction Company."They range from very, very high-profile individuals and celebrities to international buyers from the Russian market to the South American market," Fisher said. 

Their new neighbours will include thousands of tourists regularly streaming past the corner property. Many stop and pose for pictures at its front gates, like Nicole and Daniel Francis did.The couple works in the fashion industry in New York City and recognised the mansion as something special, even if Versace no longer lived there. 

"We're big fashion fanatics," Nicole Francis said. "It's a Miami landmark."Fisher noted that the mansion comes with eight designated parking spaces on Ocean Drive, making for a quick getaway from the tourist traffic."The individuals that are interested actually love the location because they can easily get to the night life of South Beach, and get right to the cruise ships where they want to go or to their yachts and also get to the airport for their private jets," he said. 

It's been officially named Casa Casuarina for more than a decade, but the property is still commonly referred to as "the Versace mansion".It initially was listed for sale at $US125 million last year. The asking price dropped to $US100 million and then, in June, to $US75 million. 

Casa Casuarina operated as a private club and then as a boutique hotel until earlier this year. A bankruptcy court appointed Fisher Auction Company to put the property up for auction.Versace and an entourage of celebrity friends that included Madonna, Cher and Elton John helped revive South Beach in the 1990s from a retirement community known as "God's waiting room" to the pulsating, almost-anything-goes party hub that attracts tourists today. 

The designer bought a neglected three-storey, Mediterranean-style home, originally built in 1930 by Standard Oil heir Alden Freeman, and a dilapidated hotel next door in 1992 and spent $US33 million on renovations. The 2,136-square metre mansion now has 10 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a 16-metre-long mosaic pool lined with 24-carat gold tiles and an open-air courtyard. 

Versace was fatally shot on the mansion's stone front steps in 1997 by serial killer Andrew Cunanan, who later shot himself as a police search closed in on him. No one inside the mansion's gates recently wanted to talk about Versace's death, except to point out that he was slain outside its doors."He's everywhere here," said Jill Eber, a Miami real estate agent working in conjunction with Fisher Auction Company on the mansion's sale. 

"Versace lived here and owned it and designed it, and that's where people are focused."Versace's death wasn't the mansion's only link to scandal.High-profile lawyer Scott Rothstein owned a share in the mansion after its 2000 sale,Weymouth is collecting gently used, dry cleaned jewelryfindings at their Weymouth store. until federal agents seized it among his other assets in their investigation into a massive Ponzi scheme. Rothstein is now serving a 50-year prison sentence. 

Sixty-seven years ago, the world's first bikini made its debut at a poolside fashion show in Paris. The swimsuit is now so ubiquitous—and comparatively so demure—that it's hard to comprehend how shocking people once found it. When the bikini first arrived, its revealing cut scandalized even the French fashion models who were supposed to wear it; they refused,Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a graniteslabs can authenticate your computer usage and data. and the original designer had to enlist a stripper instead. The images below illustrate how the bikini slowly gained acceptance—first on the Riviera, then in the United States—and became a beachfront staple. 

When the bikini was unveiled in 1946, it was by no means the first time that women had worn so revealing a garment in public.You will see earcap , competitive price and first-class service. In the fourth century, for example, Roman gymnasts wore bandeau tops,Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a graniteslabs can authenticate your computer usage and data. bikini bottoms, and even anklets that would look perfectly at home on the beaches of Southern California today. 

In the decades that followed, the seaside dress code loosened up considerably. In 1907, Australian swimmer and silent-film star Annette Kellerman—a vocal advocate of more hydrodynamic swimwear—was charged with indecent exposure for appearing on Boston's Revere Beach in a form-fitting, sleeveless tank suit. The ensuing high-profile legal scuffle led beaches across the nation to relax their swimwear restrictions. By 1915, American women commonly wore one-piece knitted maillots. 

Oddly enough, the two-piece swimsuit—which usually consisted of a structured halter top and modest bottom that covered the navel, hips,We have become one of the worlds most recognised cheapcellphonecases brands. and derrière—arrived with much less fanfare than the bikini. By the early '40s, film stars including Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, and Lana Turner were all wearing the two-piece, and it was seen frequently on American beaches. Why were the inches of skin above the bellybutton so much less controversial than those below it? Hollywood's Hays production codes allowed two-piece gowns but prohibited navels on-screen. That meant the rib cage earned a ho-hum reputation, but the bellybutton was uncharted territory. 
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