Could it be the halo effect of Sandy and Joan Weill‘s unloading their 15 Central Park West penthouse for $88 million? The proverbial little bird chirps that Courtney Sale Ross has finally found a buyer for her double duplex apartment at 740 Park–and got her asking price of $60 million via Kathy Sloane at Brown Harris Stevens, whose listing for it is here. Officially listed last November, though it was available as a semi-secret pocket listing long before that, the apartment is on the 12th and 13th floors of the fabled co-op. Ross and her late husband, Warner Communications mogul … Continue reading →

The selling of Greg Smith, formerly of Goldman Sachs, is the subject of my Crain’s New York Business column this week. Is he the next Michael Lewis…or the next Jayson Blair?

According to the Associated Press, $100 million of Brooke Astor’s fortune will now go to organizations like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. But though his share of the estate has been halved, the AP says, son Anthony Marshall, who is appealing his conviction for, in part, engineering changes to her will when her mental capabilities had allegedly eroded, still gets $14.5 million. That may be an heircut, but it’s still a tidy sum. I wonder if he’ll leave anything to his son Philip, who engineered the public exposure of this private mess? Read the … Continue reading →

A New York Times reporter has just broken the news of an (as yet undisclosed) settlement in the Brooke Astor estate battle in White Plains. His source? Philip Marshall (pictured), who put the family dispute in the public sphere when he accused his father of mistreating his grandmother, sent a text to the man from the Times. UPDATE: I;m told that News 12 in Westchester actually had it first. I’ll add details of the settlement once I have them.

This Bob Dylan Spring is a great excuse to return to the subject of my 1978 biography for my latest Crain’s New York Business column.

Regular Gripepad readers will recall that two years ago, in an afterword to the paperback of Rogues’ Gallery, my history-cum-expose of the board and benefactors of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, I speculated on how the vice chairman of that board got her hands on one of the embargoed advance copies of the book. Which led to a pre-emptive threat (that thankfully proved empty) to sue my publisher and me for “gratuitous and false character assassination.” George Gurley of The New York Observer subsequently confirmed my suspicion that the embargo-breaker was Robert Silvers, the esteemed co-founder and editor of … Continue reading →

In the March issue of Wish Magazine from The Australian, Carrie Kablean calls Unreal Estate, “A literary peek into the estates of the rich and/or famous that’s raised a few hackles among its glittering cast of characters. High life, low life and a fascinating tale.”

Private jets! Republican gossip! Italo-Asian-Middle Eastern fusion food! If it’s Sunday, it must be a Palm Beach Story in my latest column for Crain’s New York Business. Thanks to the Brazilian Court Hotel for inviting me back to its Author Breakfast series to discuss Unreal Estate.

Unreal Estate continues its unreal performance at Book Soup in West Hollywood, hanging out its shingle as the #5 bestseller this week.

In today’s New York Post, Jennifer Gould Keil announces that I’ve joined Avenue Magazine as Real Estate Editor, to write a monthly column on….ta-da…luxury residential real estate. A stretch, I know.

It’s back up to #12 on the Los Angeles Times non-fiction bestseller list for Unreal Estate this week. It’s now been a bestseller for 13 weeks.

What’s the latest cause celebre at 1000 Fifth Avenue, I ask in my latest Crain’s New York Business Column. Is it (right-wing) donor David Koch? Or the Metropolitan Museum’s imperial mind-set?

The Los Angeles Review of Books has just posted a long, thoughtful and fair consideration of Unreal Estate. Even though it’s not entirely positive, it is the kind of review most writers hope to receive now and then, but do all too rarely, especially nowadays when ever-fewer media outlets do that job. The site, which is currently in preview mode, clearly deserves attention and support. And I say that not only because it says, “Gross isn’t selling us a bill of goods; he’s just asking us to enlist him as our trusted cicerone, to let him guide us through the … Continue reading →

After a brief absence, Unreal Estate returned to the Los Angeles Times bestseller list today, to make its run there a neat three months long.

On Monday February 13th, I spoke about Unreal Estate, the book, and the houses that inspired it, at the Aaroe Architectural Forum at the Silver Screen Theater in West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center. My comments about a Mark refer to Mark David, aka The Real Estalker, who introduced me at the event but is not included in the video. Thanks to him, Bret Parsons and John Aaroe.

I should visit L.A. more often. Unreal Estate today vaulted back to #5 on the Book Soup bestseller list.

My talk at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club on Sunday February 12th has been cancelled, but I will still speak on Monday February 13th at the Aaeroe Architectural Forum at the Pacific Design Center. See the Unreal Estate page for details on how to reserve. The event is almost at capacity, so book soon to ensure entrance!

New York Magazine’s Daily Intel has resurrected “The Great Zatzby,” my 1992 profile of Joseph Brooks (nee Joe Zatz), the former boss of Lord & Taylor and Ann Taylor, who died last week at age 84. This morning’s obituary of Brooks in the local community newspaper omitted most of the blood, sweat, tears and juice in his biography, but thanks to New York and Google Books, you can wallow in them here.

Attention Angelenos: Click through for the details on my February 12th appearance at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club and the next day’s Aaroe Architecural Forum lecture at the Pacific Design Center’s Silver Screen Theater. (That’s Lynda and Stewart Resnick‘s Sunset House under construction, at right)

Unreal Estate is now (unreally!) in its eleventh week on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. My new Crain’s New York Business column is about the persistence of beach books. And in case it’s not obvious, Gripepad is off the beach (at right) and back in business.

David Patrick Columbia has written briefly about Unreal Estate before. Today, he offers a lengthy review, and it’s as provocative as I tried to make the book. “Houses are fascinating because houses are people,” he writes. “And when there’s the more, there’s the merrier, not to mention hucksters and hustlers, money managers and lawyers, and the misled, the misplaced, as well as the maudlin, and even murderous. It’s life on the other side of the real fence, and it’s not like yours or mine. That’s what you get in this book; the hot skinny and with caviar and creme fraiche. … Continue reading →

My new column in Crain’s New York Business is about the unfortunate politics of health insurance.

For the ninth week, Unreal Estate is holding the fort on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. This week, it’s at #7. Thanks again, California. I look forward to saying that again in person on February 12 at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club and the 13th at the Aaroe Architectural Forum at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

Star Corcoran broker Wendy Sarasohn hosted a book party for Unreal Estate on Wednesday night, where I spoke to a crowd of New York real estate heavyweights including Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman (at left in the photo with Wendy and me) and New York’s highest-earning realtor (and go-to guy for 740 Park apartments), John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens. The New York Observer’s Elise Knutsen was there and reports on the festivities here. And Guelda Voien of The Real Deal has a report and photos, too. (Photo above by Richard Lewin)

Today’s announcement of a new head of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its in-house newsletter, er, sorry, the Arts section of the New York Times, was heavy on hand-fed detail but sorely lacking in context. The Met’s relationship to contemporary art has been contentious almost from the day the museum opened, and is an unlikely foundation for its emergence as “a Major Player,” as the C1 headline has it, yet art-world reporter Carol Vogel (who has gone far since her days as an assistant to caricature-quality fashion editor Carrie Donovan at the Times’ magazine) chose to … Continue reading →

That’s Unreal Estate front and center in Burbank. Meanwhile, on the right coast, Elise Knutsen offers up a squib on my next book, House of Outrageous Fortune, for my new publisher, The Free Press at Simon & Schuster, on observer.com. And as if all that isn’t enough attention for one Wednesday, The Fame Game has named me the week’s #1 literary Mover and Shaker, edging out James Frey and Candace Bushnell. The great Gay Talese and the egregious Ann Coulter round out the top five. (Photo by the The Real Estalker aka Your Mama)

Former #1 Steve Jobs has dropped from the top ten, but Unreal Estate is showing staying power at #2 on the nonfiction bestseller list at Book Soup this week. The people of L.A. approve and one author rejoices.

Unreal Estate leads Liz Smith‘s column today for the Chicago Tribune and wowowow. It’s “a sprawling, delicious chronicle of how L.A. evolved real estate-wise, how the land became valuable, how the great neighborhoods were designed,” Smith writes, “….compelling and overflowing with gossip. Gross doesn’t just give us sites and architecture. He tells of the innumerable scandals that each house spawned: the epic divorces, murders, suicides, bankruptcies, sexual excess, family plotting, betrayals and crooked land and water deals. It’s fun! And quite astonishing to read….Unreal Estate is compulsively readable.”

Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal inspired my first Crain’s New York Business column of 2012, proposing that we cut the uber-wealthy even more tax breaks. Elsewhere, today’s New York Post looks at one of my earlier column subjects, a leading anti-carriage-horse activist, revealing his use of campaign contributions to buy City Council support for his agenda.

Unreal Estate is now in its seventh week on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. I love L.A.!

In the week ending on Christmas, Unreal Estate hit #2 on the nonfiction bestseller list at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Riot on the Sunset Strip!

I’ll be giving talks and signing copies of Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition and the Lust For Land in Los Angeles in Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Palm Beach in weeks to come. On Sunday evening February 12th (from 6-8 PM), I’ll give a talk at a buffet dinner at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club. On February 13th, I’ll speak at the Aaroe Architectural Program at the Pacific Design Center’s Silver Screen Theater, on the Second Floor at 8687 Melrose Ave. That program is from 10:45 AM– 12:30 PM. And on March 2nd, I’ll join one of my favorite writers, Sally … Continue reading →

Curbed National today takes notice of the great Times review of Unreal Estate which, it reminds, “might be best described as what would happen if Us Weekly and Architectural Digest had a love child that was much smarter than either.”

Looks like I’m not the only one with a Christmas gripe against someone at The New York Times. The Newspaper Guild’s letter to Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is astonishing. But it’s vital to remember a lesson I learned while writing my penultimate book Rogues’ Gallery on The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some took that book as an attack against the institution itself when all I did was try to accurately describe the background, motives and actions of the often-flawed individuals who support it and allow its greatness to flourish. Today’s…what shall we call them?…issues at the New York Times–mine and now, … Continue reading →

“We’ve heard it before — Americans don’t like to read, they just want to ogle celebrities and watch shows about houses on TV. So how about a book that allows the reader to ogle celebrities and their homes to bring them back to reading?” asks Alana Semuels in The Los Angeles Times today. “That’s just what Michael Gross has provided in ‘Unreal Estate.’…It can sometimes read like real estate porn, with paragraphs of jaw-dropping details about a type of extravagance that might have been scorned even by the very wealthy on the Titanic. But he also leaves the reader with … Continue reading →

“It’s a message to the press: Don’t ask questions,” says Robin Wright early in David Fincher‘s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, speaking of the demonization of reporter Mikael Blomqvist that drives the narrative. Thank goodness that can’t happen here.

Unreal Estate is now in its fifth week on the non-fiction bestseller list of the Los Angeles Times. Happy holidays and thanks to all who’ve put and kept it there!

In the January issue of Travel + Leisure, I check into the re-imagined Hotel Bel-Air and check out with a story about its illustrious past and its new look for the future.

A few weeks back, talking about Unreal Estate and Natalie Wood on Tyler Brule‘s The Monocle Daily podcast, I coined a term, The Culture of Stupid, to describe too much of ours. This week, that inspired my Crain’s New York Business Commentary column, “Discarding the Kards.”

Unreal Estate is featured in the Daily News two days in a row. Tomorrow, its “Best Places” section includes a Q&A with me and reporter Gina Pace about the book and HBO’s plans to make it into a series.

In today’s Daily News, Frank DiGiacomo‘s Gatecrasher column asked me to put my two cents in on New York Times critic Janet Maslin, after spotting my various posts here reprinting e-mails I’ve received about her recent review of Unreal Estate. He also spelled her name right and ran her picture. In today’s New York Post, Jennifer Ceaser visits my apartment for one of the Home section’s weekly peeks at how the un-1% live. And in broadsheet news, a story on A-1 of today’s Times follows my Crain’s New York Business Commentary column last week, “Let’s Talk Horse Sense,” on the … Continue reading →

For the fourth week running, Unreal Estate appears on the bestseller list at West Hollywood’s wonderful independent book store, Book Soup (that’s it, at right).

The latest slam of the New York Times review of Unreal Estate comes from a fellow journalist and author: “I was enraged by that review! Totally unfair. I have very strong views about people in media taking advantage of having a platform that people can’t defend themselves against….What Janet Maslin did to your excellent book’s selling prospects for whatever grudge she appears to have against you is to my thinking totally unfair & intolerable & a disgrace to journalism. Anyone reviewing a bk for the NY Times is wielding strong power over someone’s hard work & usually source of income … Continue reading →

Sunday’s Los Angeles Times features Unreal Estate in its guide to the holiday season’s best gift books.

Yesterday’s post of excerpts of comments on the attempted take-down of Unreal Estate by Janet Maslin (at right) has inspired another one, this one worth reprinting in full. It’s from a bestselling author and journalist whose work frequently appears in, ta-da, the New York Times: “Janet Maslin should stop reviewing. She is getting tired, lazy and cranky. She creamed over a book — Annie Jacobsen‘s — about the history of nuclear tests that was absolutely excoriated by nuclear expert Richard Rhodes, and others, for having fraudulent material in it. She writes reviews like she just wants to get them over … Continue reading →

The reviews of New York Times critic Janet Maslin‘s “review” of Unreal Estate are coming in. Here are some excerpts. I’ve left out the senders’ names to protect the innocent. “It’s one thing to dislike a book but another to trash an entire body of work. What raw nerve(s) did you cut into along the way? And whose, one wonders.” [from a former New York Times reporter] “Insane and ridiculous.” [from a publishing executive] “What on earth did you do to mizz janet’s axe that she has such a terrible need to grind?” [from an LA writer] “Idiotic and absurd.” … Continue reading →

Janet Maslin‘s knickers are in a twist over Unreal Estate. You can read her evisceration of book (and author) here.

Unreal Estate rose to #4 on the Book Soup bestseller list this week, topping the Steve Jobs biography for the first time. And last night’s book party at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller attracted model Ekaterina Trifonova, New York Grand Opera soprano Victoria Miningham and clubland’s Alison Devlin (at right), David Redden of Sothebys, James Atlas, photographer Jessica Burstein, Tracey Jackson, Tara Palmeri of Page Six and many more.

A reminder that on Tuesday night November 29th from 6pm-8pm, Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 50 1/2 E. 64th St., will hold a champagne reception and book-signing celebrating Unreal Estate, co-hosted by John McWhinnie and Tracey Jackson, and on Wednesday October 30th from 7pm-8:30 pm The Wilton Library, 137 Old Ridgefield Road in Wilton, Connecticut, is sponsoring a talk about the book, followed by a Q&A session and signing. Reservations are recommended for the latter event. Please come!