Golfing hottie Hunter and his bride, former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Kandi  (Harris) are building a 19,000 plus square foot home in The Creeks of Preston Hollow. The mega mansion at 10719 Bridge Hollow will not only have underground parking, it will have an underground basketball court! Hunter’s home in Colleyville, (pictured here) meantime, remains on the market at $1,499,999. The 7105 Vanguard (Colleyville) home is just about the value of Hunter’s one-acre Bridge Hollow lot over there at Royal and Inwood. DCAD has it valued at $1.2 plus just for the dirt. He and Kandi bought it in November of 2010. Estimated taxes are $33,000 for starters… I cannot even begin to think what his property taxes will be one that puppy is complete!

Read this story on CandysDirt about how the rich seem to be accelerating the size and scope of their new homes. Then know this: whatever is happening to the primary home market is being mimic’ed in second and third homes. Prices may be soft, but the rich are getting out their checkbooks for beach homes and mountain ski palaces. Told you about Jon Huntsman’s dad, right?

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Karen Luter of Allie Beth Allman tells me she has been working her fingers to the bone for weeks trying to get this home ready for sale. Will be in MLS next week. Not much besides the price has changed at 8915 Douglas since the late Mary Kay Ash – do I need to add she was the famous founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics?— moved out to return to her home off Boedecker because she thought the mansion was too big. It is ginormous: 12,000 square feet. Built in 1984, but remodeled in 2000. Located in coveted Old Preston Hollow, on over one acre of manicured lawns with fountains, pools, koi ponds, arboretum like gardens, there is Brazilian teakwood flooring, grand sweeping staircases (two or three), statues, arcades of Corinthian columns, wine cellar, walls of beveled glass windows, hand painted murals, original pink quartz-marble hardware, indescribe-able mill work and a pink quartz toilet. Er, commode. I think that lime green carpet on the stairs is the original that hosted many a top producer party. The kitchen has the original white Corian counters and I believe that may even be Mary Kay’s own breakfast table under the massive chandelier. The current owner’s furniture tastes are a bit more “antique” — when I first saw the home years ago, right after Mary Kay had moved out, it held no oriental rugs. Asking $3,300,000 which is less than DCAD appraised value. Formerly listed with Myla Patton of Patton International Real Estate for $5.7 in 2007, then listed with Linda Jordan Hobbs over at Ebby for $4,995,000, which is about what DCAD thinks. Myla was again considered for the listing.

Jeff Lamkin says he flew a plane across the Texas Gulf coast a few years ago, and about five minutes after he landed plunked a couple million dollars down on Texas beachfront dirt. Jeff is the developer of Cinnamon Shore on Mustang Island near Port Aransas, a beach front development done “Seaside-style” in the new Urbanism mode that is giving buyers an upscale taste of living on the Texas coast: it’s as good, if not better, than Florida’s panhandle coast. (Certainly, it’s much closer!) And, according to Jeff, Texas is a great buy. Maybe, in fact, the ONLY buy. Continue reading →

If you own a second home, you need to contact Yun, a graduate student in Finance at Rockester Institute of Technology. He and his team are working on a marketing project about second homes, creating products to help second home owners protect their properties. Say an unauthorized person was in your home while you were not — could a body heat sensor trigger an alarm? How about water bugs that beep or call you when a leak is detected? How about temperature controls when you are not there? Here’s the letter I received from Yun, pictured above with his team, who is from China. Let’s help him:

The folks from Cinnamon Shore are coming to Dallas on Monday, January 30. Email me if you’d like to come & learn more!

One of my favorite vacation home destinations is Cinnamon Shore on Mustang Island in southern Texas, just about an hour south of Corpus Christi, and maybe five miles west of the charming fishing village of Port Aransas. It’s a budding beach community development and poster child for New Urbanism. CS captured my heart when I visited last March. If you’ve ever been to Seaside, Florida, or the St. Joe clone of Watercolor, you will see that Cinnamon Shore is a Seaside clone in Texas. And there is nothing wrong with cloning something that works! Seaside was a planned beachfront community that remains one of the biggest second home real estate and New Urbanism success stories in the U.S. If you’ve ever driven down Route 30A outside of Panama City Beach, you will see a stretch of Gulf shore developed from my hearthrob Alys Beach to Rosemary Beach, Seaside to Watercolor. Cinnamon Shore brings the same flavor, style and quality of construction to the Texas coast.

Got your attention now, huh? I kid you not when I tell you how very affordable the homes at Cinnamon Shore are! Look at this darling 1 bedroom, 1 bath condo a short walk from the beach and right in the action of the new Town Center. Only 605 square feet but really, who needs more? (Plus with a condo you avoid all the maintenance of a home.) The finish out is pure beach house charm with the soft water color palette, beadboard walls and granite counters in the kitchen. Pop a comfy sofa bed in the living room and you have plenty of room.  When we were in Port A as they call it, we wanted to eat out every night because the food is fantastic! This unit is on the first floor. Honestly, for $205,900 you don’t have to be in the “One percent” to own a second home at the beach! This one would be a great getaway for us alone or with the kids — or a nice gift to let them use it as a getaway. On the first floor.

We sure don’t hope he dropped out of the race because of this home. The Utah governor/ ambassador to China gets to ski in this $49.5 million Park City Utah ski compound when he hits the slopes. Huntsman’s father, businessman Jon Huntsman, Sr. is a billionaire and profoundly generous philanthropist who has given more than a billion dollars in donations over his lifetime. The senior Huntsman, a Morman, made his fortune through food packaging. According to Wikipedia, in 1974, Huntsman Container Corporation created the “clamshell” container for McDonald’s Big Mac and developed other popular products, including the first plastic plates, bowls and fast-food containers. He built this huge home in 1989 from Yellowstone reclaimed logs on a 60-acre bluff overlooking downtown Park City, one of my favorite ski areas where I will, in fact, be heading next month. This 20,000-square-foot spread includes 12 bedrooms, 16 baths, an indoor swimming pool, a game room, and a gym, along with huge entertaining spaces. There are two bunk rooms that can bed twenty. I imagine they ski at the Deer Valley Mountain Resort, which is just minutes away and the kind of place where they carry your skis at the end of the day. The home also has this amazing underground garage –no wait, TWO amazing underground garages — with parking for 26 cars between the two of them. Listed with Paul Benson at Summit/Sothebys for $49,5oo,000.

So it’s January, the holiday decorations are FINALLY put up, and I am determined to spend next Christmas in our second home. Look at what I just found at Possum Kingdom Lake: the owners are relocating to Chicago— they need to sell this place to buy furs! I am liking this location, a perfect combination of the RLR –ranch~lake~resort living in the Hill Country, but two hours west of Dallas/Fort Worth.

The Hill Country begins in Palo Pinto County!

If it helps you try and guess what kind of a second home he’ll buy in Dallas, know that Yu Darvesh just divorced his wife, actress and TV personality Saeko, age 25 and the mother of his two children. I had wondered if Yu has a family. Knowing this explains why he was looking at this slick glass goddess over at the W: 2430 Victory Park, #2509 right smack below Khloe and Lamar. Yu toured this two-story with Crestron Audio Visual System, elegant mother of pearl and suede entry with LED lighting, tooled leather columns, warm suede walls, art lighting, hip Euro kitchen. He liked it, but still looking. Asking ONLY $1,900,000, possibly furnished.