NICOLE KIDMAN, who’s lived quite a nomadic life while waiting for construction to end on her West Village apartment, has apparently taken up residence at London Terrace, the sprawling co-op/rental building in Chelsea.
“I always see her in the gym, or by the pool,” said one eagle-eyed resident. And she’s fitting in quite well in the pre-war complex with all of her fellow independently minded female neighbors, including photog Annie Lebovitz, Deborah Harry and Annabella Sciorra, the actress who played Tony Soprano’s psycho girlfriend who eventually offed herself.
Also in the building, which takes up an entire city block on 23rd and 24th streets, between Ninth and 10th avenues, is former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and her live-in Rhodes Scholar beau, Ian Klaus.
The new locale is even closer to her former husband Tom Cruise’s former girl-friend Penelope Cruz’ Chelsea Mercantile apartment.
Kidman has been engaged in lengthy and expensive construction at the twin-towered, glass-and-steel Richard Meier-designed apartment buildings on Perry Street.
In fact, she paid over $8 million for the condo that Meier had originally chosen for himself.
But Meier told us recently the idea of having to pack up his belongings at his Upper East Side co-op and move was “just too overwhelming.”
Buyers in the well-documented building include Calvin Klein, the condo board’s president, felonious Martha Stewart, who’s still unable to unload her penthouse there, and fellow Aussie Hugh Jackman.
The Oscar-winning actress may be prolonging her move while not winning any popularity awards with her neighbors and the complex’s developers.
Last year, according to reports, the security-conscious diva wanted the building to somehow install a private entrance.
Kidman first rented Lenny Kravitz’s vacated duplex apartment in SoHo last June for about $30,000 a month. Then, as we later discovered, the relationship between landlord and tenant blossomed into something a little more special . . . And the next thing we knew, they were shopping for houses together.
$6 million man
MAYBE it’s the Whole Foods that has attracted Nicolas Cage.
Sources say that the “Leaving Las Vegas” star wants to stay in New York – and stay in style – and is looking to shell out some big bucks. We told you about his love for Columbus Circle after Cage (formerly Cop-pola) was seen heading up to one of the higher floors in the North Tower in the Time Warner Center. Sources say he checked out some raw space in the tower, otherwise known as the Mandarin Oriental residences, and it had a $6 million price tag. That’s actually chump change for that place.
He’s at least got the down payment, after selling the oceanfront home he shared with former wife Lisa Marie Presley in Venice Beach last September for about $3.5 million.
NY Dolls-house
David Johansen, the sometime actor (the cabby in “Scrooged”) and musician (New York Dolls) is probably best known for his one hit song as Buster Poindexter, “Hot, Hot, Hot.” And now he’s bought, bought, bought. Johansen is now the proud owner of a two-bedroom prewar apartment on East 46th Street that had an asking price of just over $1.3 million.
The condop (that means no board approval) at the building known as Turtle Bay Towers, has 14-foot ceilings and great views of the river.
Holy hotel
THE 69-room Welsh estate that is said to have housed the Holy Grail for years has just gone on the market.
“Nanteos,” located on 30 acres a few miles from the coastal town of Aberystwyth, Wales, is listed for $2.2 million, or about the price of a three-bedroom Manhattan condo.
Built in 1739, the elegant house, currently configured as a hotel, overlooks landscaped parkland and its own lake.
The main house at Nanteos (Welsh for Nightingale Brook) features six main bedrooms with baths and sitting areas, five reception rooms, a large first-floor gallery, dining room and library. The music room, with ornate gilded moldings, is considered one of the finest 18th-century rooms in Wales.
The property has several outbuildings that include two large lofted coach houses – one of which has been reconfigured with a sitting room, kitchen, three bedrooms and bathroom. There are also eight stables. The grail, according to legend, is the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. It is said that Joseph of Arimathea used it to hold Jesus’ blood at the Crucifixion, and it made its way northward.
The grail was given to the owners of Nanteos by monks seeking shelter after they fled their abbey following King Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. The grail, much like Donald Trump’s hair, has been widely believed to possess miraculous restorative powers.
The property is available through Tony Morris-Eyton, director of FPD Savills, in their Telford office.
Goodbye Venice
LIKE Nicolas Cage, guitar legend Eric Clapton won’t be strumming or sunning on Venice Beach, after selling his un-rock-godlike beach house for about $1.4 million.
The modest 2,100-square-foot Venice home, which the Los Angeles Times says he owned for four years, was built in 1986 and has one bedroom and two baths. The house is near the beach; the living room features a 30-foot-high cathedral ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows opening onto a bamboo garden.
Clapton, 59, who also has homes in England, France and the Caribbean, is preparing to start a North American tour on June 4 and has no plans to buy another property in Southern California.
Rx for the area
NOW that The Post has broken the news that the Singer Division of Beth Israel Hospital has gone on the market, sources tell us there are over 40 bids on the property.
Interested parties vary from other hospitals to residential developers, including
Donald Trump. The 14-story prewar building on East End Avenue, between 87th and 88th streets, which overlooks Gra-cie Mansion and the river beyond, may be too nice to be wasted on those simply clinging to life.
“They could become the most sought-after apartments in the city,” said one broker who specializes in upscale real estate.
“You just don’t find opportunities like this in Manhattan anymore.”
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