There's nothing like a truly delicious and absurdly lavish amenity to jostle a sleepy Friday morning: this 2,181-square-foot penthouse, covered today in the Wall Street Journal, is so mindboggling that we can't help but take another look. The two-bedroom, three-bathroom Vancouver apartment, which will feature in an upcoming Reese Witherspoon flick and once played host to Owen Wilson, is being sold by the owner/developer—co-founder of Canadian Springs Water Co.— who says he's "living a little quieter lifestyle now than when I first started the project." Meaning the full-scale renovation that produced a gleaming modernist kitchen, a private elevator, and, of course, the crown jewel: a 40-foot lap pool whose acrylic floor serves as ceiling for the hallway below. Why the hell would anyone give such a property up? "[L]iving in the [penthouse] can be a little too social at times," the owner adds. (We're playing the world's saddest song on the world's smallest violin over here.) Ask? Roughly $3.4M American dollars.
· Swimming Cool in Chinatown [WSJ]
· 50 133 Keefer Street, Vancouver, BC [Ken Leong]
Seriously, we doubt realtors have that deep-pocketed a sense of humor, but the swell house at the end of Normandie Terrace closed on Friday, April 1 for just that, or $700,000 under the asking price of $9,500,000, well above the $6,000,000 they paid for it in 2000. Should cover the renovations they did, although it was probably on the market because the renovations they wanted to do were successfully rebuffed by downhill neighbors. It's still a great house- and forty-one days from listing to close of escrow. [