If you read this blog from time to time you know I’m a sucker for luxury apartments and houses as well as good design. I’m also deeply in love with New York City which is why New York penthouses and townhouses pop up on this page sometimes. I’m not in real estate, but the industry has fascinated me ever since I read Pulitzer Prize winner Independence Day by Richard Ford. The book deals with the life of real estate agent (among other things) Frank Bascombe and his family issues and although the reviews are torn for this book, I absolutely loved it. Together with American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis they are perhaps the strongest inspiration for my novel The Wake-Up Call. I recommend all three of them :)

Anyway, let’s get to the point…(cough)…penthouse.

It’s in TriBeCa and covers 10 000 square feet. Now I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves (more pictures and details here)

For a measly $100 000 a month you can rent this fantastic 13 500 square feet penthouse in the Tribeca area of New York. I was considering it, but when I saw that it only has half a basketball court, I got very disappointed so Lenah and I will keep on looking for the right place. If you’re interested you can check out the details and some more pictures at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate (direct link to the apartment page).

But there sure are beautiful houses. Just look at Lisa Vanderpump‘s (from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) “house”. Lenah and I are doing plenty of Hollywood and celebrity research for my upcoming novel (set in the Hollywood celebrity world, Rome and New York) at the moment and it’s quite interesting. I’m working hard whenever I get a free moment and I hope to release the novel named Hollywood PA on April 1st (not as an April fools joke!).

I will post more information about the upcoming book over the next two months, it’s a humorous take on the Hollywood lifestyle and also a love story with a twist. It will be interesting to see what people think of it when it’s released. For now, please enjoy these photos of Beverly Hills housewife, Lisa Vanderpump’s fabulous ”house”.

I think both Lenah and I would like a room like this. It’s in New York of course.

Also, don’t miss out on our planned house purchase (in 5 years or so) in La Jolla, California. Just a few million dollars left…

I came upon this article about a New York “flat”. Looks decent, but I would like something a little more extravagant if I’m going to drag my family all the way to the Big Apple.

The Central Park views are okay, but aren’t marble floors so like NOT trendy?

And by the way, what 22-year-old needs seven walk-in closets? I’ll be happy with five and I’m soon thirty!

I wouldn’t say the TV series Mad Men is very close to The Wake-Up Call but there’s something about the cover to series 4 that gives me that Jack Reynolds-feeling from this scene:

Stepping inside my ridiculously large and luxurious office immediately makes me feel a tiny bit better. It’s supposed to be the warmest welcome you can get to your workday and it’s somewhat comforting that it still does to me. You see, I was always a sucker for the Wall Street movies, from Gordon Gekko to Patrick Bateman (yeah, although he’s a psycho you’ve got to admit the guy’s got class) and I always wanted floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows, big expensive art on the walls and a large dominating desk giving you the feeling that here works one of the most powerful men in New York. The view from here, on the 34th floor, is breathtaking. Everything in it is carefully thought out, has a price tag that blows your mind and screams POWER. If you’re in a salary discussion with me and you’re not intimidated, then I am.

Mad Men is by the way an excellent series with a score of 8.9 out of 10 on IMDB.

Photograph by Navid Baraty for the National Geographic Photo Contest

There are some really cool New York images from the 40s here. If you check them out you’ll find that some things have changed big-time but some have hardly changed at all! The beautiful city of New York still carries that special, vibrant glow that makes people write poems, books and make movies about it. It’s a city with a pulse entirely of its own.

When I wrote my novel The Wake-Up Call I had to place the main parts of it there, although I knew it’s kind of a cliché. My central character Jack Reynolds simply couldn’t be based anywhere else but in the world’s capital and I couldn’t write so lovingly about any other city in the world.

Google analytics tells me a lot of my visitors find the New York tag but I’m not exactly sure why or from where. Sure, I write a lot about New York, but I still can’t figure out why the New York googlers keep on coming.

I guess I should hope a few of them happen to stumble upon my book…

Maybe I’ve lost my (possibly imagined) sense of humor completely, but when Lenah, Aiden and I went to see The Smurfs (3D) I (we) laughed out loud enough times to stop and wonder.

But no matter what the amateur critics at IMDB think, this movie is pretty funny.

The animation is good, some of the actors (Hank Azaria as Gargamel) do a nice job and the setting is of course wonderful (New York, New York).

My favorite Smurf was the Narrator-Smurf. He looked good in his blazer and I enjoyed his movie-trailer voice.

Now go smurf yourselves!