Scarlett Johansson Buys $2.2 Million Hampton Bay Mansion

Scarlett Johansson has bought a custom-built, 3,500-square foot shingled house in Amangansett, according to Zillow real estate blog.

The estate sits on 1.4 acres of land and shares a boundary with the Peconic Land Trust and Napeague State Park allowing for plenty of private acreage.

The four-bedroom, open floor plan space includes decks that expand the living space outside, along with a master suite featuring its own private balcony and fireplace. There are also three additional guest rooms each with their own balcony.

Last year the Her star sold her Hollywood Versailles Tower condo for $470,000.

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Snapchat Stays in Venice Office Longer Than 10 Seconds

Snapchat's Market Street expansion.

This story first appeared in the Feb. 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Snapchat is laying down roots in Los Angeles.

Last year, the fast-rising photo messaging service (which turned down a $3 billion cash buyout offer from Facebook in November) signed leases on 6,000 square feet of office space on Market Street in Venice. Now the company has leased an additional 3,940 square feet on the same side of the street, according to sources close to the deal.

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The two-story building, built in 1922 and located just a block from the beach, is owned by producer-director Tony Bill, who is said to originally have purchased the property back in the 1970s with earnings from The Sting, for which he shared a best picture Oscar with Michael and Julia Phillips. The ground floor of the building was an Aardvarks vintage clothing store until 2010 and, more recently, an art gallery.

The deal isn't the only way Snapchat is increasing its Venice footprint: In addition to the company's expanding Market Street presence, co-founder Bobby Murphy, 25, purchased a two-bedroom, Larry Scarpa-designed home nearby for $2.1 million in December. Bill and Snapchat did not return calls for comment.

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Time Warner Nearing Sale of Manhattan Headquarters for $1.3 Billion (Report)

Time Warner is closing in on a deal to sell its midtown Manhattan headquarters to real estate firm Related Cos. for $1.3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

A sales agreement for the Time Warner Center, on whose construction the entertainment conglomerate spent around $520 million about a decade ago, could be announced as early as Thursday, it said.

A Time Warner representative declined to comment.

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Sources have said that Time Warner has focused on a sale of its current building at Columbus Circle that would allow it to lease office space there for about five years before consolidating it's New York operations in a new building. It currently has seven different office locations in the Big Apple.

That building could be a new commercial tower that Related has been developing in the Hudson Yards neighborhood on Manhattan's far West Side, south of Times Square. The conglomerate is believed to have reached a tentative agreement to move into the 80-story skyscraper set to be built at the corner of 10th Avenue and 33rd Street. Other options include a new development on the site of the former World Trade Center.

Time Warner, led by chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes, has been exploring its real estate options for about two and a half years in an effort to save money and consolidate the staff of its various operations. Most of its current New York leases are up in 2017.

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The far West of Manhattan has cheaper real estate. Previous chatter was that TW could save as much as $100-million-plus by moving office space.

Related has offered to sell the new office space at cost to get TW as an anchor tenant, hoping to make money from the retail and residential parts of the real estate development, according to previous reports.

The Time Warner Center sale could be one of the biggest in a recent slew of commercial real estate deals in the U.S. that have relied on foreign investors.

Related is financing its bid for the Time Warner Center with backing from so-called sovereign-wealth funds from Abu Dhabi and Singapore, sources told the Journal. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. would own most of the property venture, but Related would manage the building, the paper said.

E-mail: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai

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Time Inc. Eyeing Move to Downtown Manhattan

Current corporate parent Time Warner will spin off Time Inc. and move to a new Manhattan building.

Time Inc., the magazine giant that Time Warner is planning to spin off later this year, is looking at leaving its headquarters at the Time & Life Building in midtown Manhattan to take advantage of lower rents in lower Manhattan, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

The largest U.S. magazine publisher, whose brands include Time, Sports Illustrated, People and Entertainment Weekly, has talked to real estate companies managing locations in the new World Trade Center complex and other downtown locations, as new CEO Joseph Ripp is looking to reduce costs, it said.

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Time Inc. has been in its Avenue of the Americas headquarters near Rockefeller Center since the 1950s. Its lease expires in 2017. Time Warner itself recently unveiled a deal to move from its current headquarters in the Time Warner Center at Manhattan's Columbus Circle to a new Hudson Yards development slightly south of its current location.

Top office space in the current neighborhood of the Time Inc. headquarters costs an average of $82.35 per square foot late in 2013, compared with $53.79 for downtown areas, Bloomberg News said, citing data from real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield.

"We are currently exploring a number of real estate options," a Time Inc. spokeswoman confirmed.

Time Warner’s spinoff of Time Inc. will allow the entertainment conglomerate, led by CEO Jeff Bewkes, to focus on its cable networks and film businesses as the publishing arm has struggled amid changing consumer habits and lower advertising revenue in the digital age.

Conde Nast Publications has also agreed to leave midtown for lower Manhattan.

E-mail: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai

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Residential Real Estate Firm Douglas Elliman Expands to Los Angeles

9440 Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills

The Los Angeles real estate boom is attracting not only global buyers but real estate brokerages eager to get in on the market as well. Douglas Elliman Real Estate has announced its entrance into the Southern California market with plans to open offices in Beverly Hills by mid-March of this year.

The company is the largest residential brokerage firm in New York, with offices throughout New York City, Long Island, the Hamptons and South Florida. In total, more than 4,000 real estate agents work for the firm.

Elliman will launch its L.A. operations from 2,500-square-foot offices at 9440 Santa Monica Blvd. in Beverly Hills. Plans also include the rollout of additional Westside offices by the end of 2014.

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Real estate agents Tom Dunlap, who worked most recently as manager and executive vice president of John Aaroe Group, and Cory Weiss, who worked as a partner and director of Partner’s Trust, will head the office.  

“This company knows their clients and knows what type of agents they want and aren’t rushing this,” said Weiss, who is known for selling some of L.A.’s most architecturally significant homes, including landmark properties designed by John Lautner, Rudolph Schindler, Ray Kappe and Paul Williams.

And even though the offices have yet to open, the company already is trading in top-tier homes. "We have a major sale already under contract and an upcoming listing of one of L.A.’s most iconic architecturally significant houses," Weiss said.

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