This stunning Victorian in San Francisco was built in 1902 and is a real show-stopper. Its original period details have been preserved, but the interiors were updated with some modern finishes and contemporary design. It’s on the market for $3.8 million, so take a look and see what you think!

The front door is flanked by Corinthian columns:

The floors are walnut with radiant heat.

The 12′ coved ceilings feature the original intricate detailed moldings.

The woodwork, stained glass, built-ins, and window seats in this dining room are amazing, but it’s a lot of white. Wish we could see what it looked like originally, before the wood was painted over.

If contemporary isn’t your thing, the kitchen probably won’t be, either, but it seems like no expense was spared:

Here’s how it’s described in the listing:

“The light-filled Arclinea gourmet kitchen is finished with Carrara marble and has an impressive wrap-around counter and custom cabinetry. The two-tier island welcomes guests with comfortable bar seating and tempts chefs with a Wolf cooktop on the other. A tall bank of white custom cabinets provides abundant storage and walnut veneer provides warmth.

“Appliances include a 5-burner Viking cook top stove with down draft vent, Viking Oven and separate microwave convection oven, built-in sub-Zero refrigerator, Miele dishwasher, and top-of-the-line built-in Miele espresso maker.”

The house has 5 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. I love all the light and windows in this one:

The remodeled master bath has a soaking tub and steam shower with Philippe Starck fixtures.

The house is close to Alamo Square and within a short walk to the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park.

What do you think? Do you like the contemporary take on the house? You can read more about it and see the rest of the photos on Pricey Pads and the listing by Vanguard Properties. (Thanks to Kim for telling me about it!)

More San Francisco Eye Candy:

• The Classic Victorian in Mrs. Doubtfire
• One Kings Lane Founder’s Fab Pad
• Reese Witherspoon’s Apartment in Just Like Heaven
• A Neoclassical Revival with $32-Million Views

Exes Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds finalized their divorce last summer, and now they’re parting ways with their former home in L.A., too. The Buff & Hensman-designed “Wong House” was built in 1969 in the Los Feliz hills.

They paid $2.9 million, “totally restored and upgraded” the house, and are now selling it for $3.65 million. Take a look!

I thought it was kind of sad when they split. They seemed like a cute couple. She has since dated Sean Penn, of all people (didn’t see that coming) and he’s now being linked to Blake Lively of Gossip Girl.

There aren’t many photos in the listing, so some of these are from when it was on the market before. Here’s how that living room looked when they bought it (from the old MLS photos):

There are 2 bedrooms and 3 baths. Here’s a bedroom pic from the old listing, since the new one doesn’t show it:

Love all the big windows in this house.

I’ve been a fan of Ryan’s since I saw his 2005 comedy Just Friends. It’s kinda goofy, and he wears a fat suit in it, but whenever it’s on TV, I have to stop and watch. It always makes me laugh.

Like the house? More photos and information in the listing by Keller Williams.

P.S. One of my favorite movie houses is the one that Ryan Reynolds’ family owned in the Sandra Bullock romantic comedy The Proposal.

You can see my post about it and how they made a house in Massachusetts look like it was in Alaska here. His movie The Change-Up has a great traditional house in it, too!

More Celebrity Houses:

• Sandra Bullock
• Kate Hudson
• Meg Ryan
• See ‘em all!

Gotta say I was kind of disappointed to see the new house Jennifer Aniston just bought in Bel Air, California. It’s a little “chilly” for me, and if I had $21 million to spend, this is probably not what I’d spend it on.

However, if you like contemporary design as much as she apparently does, you might love this 8,500 square-foot house, which was designed in 1965 by A. Quincy Jones. Take a look!

The house originally went on the market for $29 million in 2008.

There are lots of great floor-to-ceiling windows:

A long covered balcony off the second floor:

According to Yahoo! Real Estate, the house comes with “more than three acres of land, views of the city and ocean, a pool, a guesthouse, a wine cellar, and—last but certainly not least—a vineyard. Let’s not forget to look inside: those distinctly midcentury-feeling interiors boasts gleaming wood floors, full-wall expanses of glass, and some pretty stunning fireplace detail.”

Jen seems to love real estate. Last May it was reported that she bought 2 apartments in NYC.

TMZ has all the photos if you want to see more. A gossip blog suggested that Jennifer bought this house so she and her boyfriend Justin Theroux could start a family here. It doesn’t really scream “family home” to me, though.

I preferred the more modest house she was renting in the Hollywood Hills:

It looked so much cozier to me. (You can see the rest of that house here.) But maybe she has plans to revamp this new place the way she did her former Beverly Hills home known as Ohana:

Here’s hoping she lets a magazine like Architectural Digest show us around after she gets settled in. I’d love to see what she does with the place, wouldn’t you? (Thanks to Kim for help with this one!)

Click here to see the Top 10 Celebrity Houses on my blog right now!

A reader named Meredith told me about this Mid-Century modern house that her real-estate investment group Heaton Dainard flipped in Seattle, Washington. She says, “We went for a contemporary look, which is popular in this area.”

Here’s how the exterior looked before it got a makeover:

The interiors were pretty dated–doesn’t look like anyone had redecorated anything in the house in decades:

Whoever lived here before certainly loved color!

But what stopped me in my tracks was the kitchen:

I swear we had those same orange flowers on the walls of our kitchen when I was growing up (at least until my mom got around to redecorating it!). The wallpaper covered the entire room. We didn’t have orange and yellow cabinets to match, though.

Here’s how this Mid-Century looks now, after a head-to-toe remodel:

The house was meticulously staged to sell, and their efforts paid off. Meredith says the house sold before it was listed, and above the list price.

Have you gotten into the gray trend? I’m starting to think I’m the only one who doesn’t have a gray room in her house.

Hard to believe it’s the same house. The kitchen makeover is especially dramatic.

It’s always nice to see an older home brought back to life for a new generation of owners.

You can see all of the before and afters on Active Rain. Thanks to Meredith and Heaton Dainard, a real estate investment firm founded by James Dainard and Will Heaton, for sharing it with us!

Click Here to See More Before & Afters!

Do  you watch the show Sell This House on A&E? It’s fun to see designer Roger Hazard turn a house around in a short amount of time to get it market-ready. So when I heard that he was selling his own place–a 1,500 square-foot “modern farmhouse” in Texas, I had to take a look!

It’s located in an “alternative modern community” known as Agave in Austin where houses are anything but cookie-cutter. The 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home is listed for $300,000, which sounds like a bargain to me.

I love seeing smaller houses that are built with a sense of style and attention to detail.

The floors are polished concrete.

Short curtains in the kitchen–something we’ve been seeing a lot of lately, haven’t we?

The house was designed by FAB Architecture. They’ve got the kind of portfolio that is really fun to look through, so check out their website to see more of their work.

There are barn doors…

…and “Mr. Ed-style doors on the bedrooms upstairs let in light but keep out pups or toddlers.”

The other thing I’m loving? All the board and batten!

Roger has a degree in landscape architecture, and it shows in the outdoor spaces.

Apartment Therapy wrote an article about this house last year and included lots of source info if you’re looking for it.

For more information, check the listing at The Gill Agency. They made a really nice video that gives a better sense of how the spaces connect, too–watch it here. Photos are by Chris Stout-Hazard, Roger’s husband and design partner. Floorplans are posted on their website Design Hazards.

P.S. You can catch the season finale of Roger’s show Sell This House Extreme on January 14.

If you’ve been watching this season of “The Rachel Zoe Project,” then your eyes probably popped like mine did when she moved into her big new house recently. Rachel and her husband Rodger Berman usually go for minimal, modern spaces (like their condo), so it was kind of surprising to see them choose something more traditional.

Her new styling assistant Jeremiah Brent was given the arduous task of decorating the place in only 10 days before they moved in. It was like some kind of crazy “Design Star” challenge. Here’s how it looked in the real estate listing before they took it off the market by leasing it:

And here’s how the house looks on the show:

The entry hall and staircase as it looked the day Rodger saw the house for the first time:

The living room before:

The living room after Rachel and Rodger moved in:

Dining room:

Is anyone else missing Brad (her former assistant) this season? I liked him.

Here’s how the kitchen looked before they moved in:

And now:

Love that windowseat that runs across the entire wall:

Baby Skyler’s nursery, which hasn’t been shown on the show yet:

Rachel and Rodger’s new bedroom:

I know a lot of you are watching the show because every time it airs hundreds of readers search for her new house on my blog. Not to mention the fact that the post I wrote about her former home is still one of the most popular.

The next episode of “The Rachel Zoe Project” is on tonight at 8 p.m. (ET).

You can watch the big reveal when Rachel and Rodger saw their redecorated house for the first time in this clip from Bravo (they might make you watch a commercial first):

More photos on the Bravo website. There’s an interview with Jeremiah Brent, as well as additional photos, on CasaSugar, and more information about the property itself on RealEstalker.

P.S. Check out Rachel Zoe’s former home in Beverly Hills and her one-bedroom condo on Sunset Strip.

Last year I caught the tour of the 2010 Esquire House on the DIY Network, and they dubbed it “The Ultimate Bachelor Pad.” I could definitely see the crew from HBO’s “Entourage” hanging out here. It was listed in LA for $18.9 million, but a reader tells me it just sold for about $13.7 (thanks, Billy!).

The house was built in 1972 but got a head to toe revamp last year for the magazine.

I’m a little baffled by the seating in the great room. Can you even call it seating? Looks like it’s more for lounging and let’s say…napping. According to the article in Esquire magazine about the house, it was a “custom sectional made from Hugo Boss textiles.”

It has 4 bedrooms and a whopping 7 baths, so the lines for the bathroom shouldn’t be too long at any big parties you might throw.

The views are pretty amazing. I think this is one of my favorite spots in the house because of the walls of windows:

This is the study, which the magazine notes is “perfect for checking the stock market, and perfect for sealing a deal over Scotch. Makes work feel like a luxury.” (Why did the image of J.R. Ewing suddenly spring to mind? Does anyone seal deals over Scotch any more?)

The kitchen, on the other hand, looks perfect for the bachelor’s catering crew to work in…

Every Bachelor Pad needs a “Virtual Reality Lounge,” right?

“Powered by Lufthansa-approved technology you can’t even see, this room is literally a wall-to-wall flight simulator,” the mag explains. “Air multipliers convincingly blow wind through your hair as you hold your arms out and tilt like a human jet soaring over exotic locales on the projection screen. Because the Ultimate Bachelor should feel like Superman on a whim.” Um, if you say so…

The listing refers to this as the “Sexy Master Bedroom:”

What do you think of the Esquire House? Is this really what men want? For more information and photos, check the listing and read the article.

P.S. Note that the agent is Mauricio Umansky, Kyle Richards’ hunky husband from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” and the same agent listed on Lisa Vanderpump’s mansion.

North by Northwest is considered one of the best Hitchcock films ever made. It was also one of the most commercially successful. The movie follows the classic Hitchcock “Wrong Man Scenario.” Cary Grant is a successful Madison Avenue ad man (think Don Draper) who says things like, “There’s no such thing as a lie. There’s only the expedient exaggeration.”

Then his life gets turned upside down when he gets mistaken for an undercover CIA agent. He’s swept up in a game of cat and mouse that takes him across the country and eventually to the top of Mt. Rushmore for that classic chase scene across the presidents’ faces.

This cool Modernist house, perched on the peak of Mt. Rushmore, is what a lot of us remember most about the movie, right? I’ve gotten a lot of requests for photos of it. And we’ll get to the Vandamm House, as it’s known, but first let’s start back at the beginning of the story.

Roger Thornhill (Grant) is having lunch in the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel when a couple of thugs force him into their car at gunpoint. They think he’s an undercover agent named George Kaplan.They filmed these scenes on location, and Cary Grant lived in an apartment at the Plaza during filming:

The bad guys drive him here, to the Townsend Estate in Long Island:

Townsend Mansion was a real estate in Glen Cove, Long Island, but the interiors were a set. The estate is known as Old Westbury Gardens, and they provide tours of the home. You can see some cool photos of it being built in 1905 and read about its history here.

The estate as it looks today:

Jessie Royce Landis (below), the actress who played Grant’s mother in the movie, was in reality only 8 years older than he was:

The set designers were Robert Boyle, William A. Horning, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace, and Frank McKelvey.

The library that Thornhill gets locked in. He says, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll catch up on my reading.”

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman says Grant was a perfectionist who often complained about various parts of the script or the way things were being filmed and lobbied to get them changed.

North by Northwest turned out to be Grant’s biggest box-office success.

James Mason played the baddie, Phillip Vandamm, and Martin Landau was perfect as his sinister-looking associate. Hitchcock loved using overhead shots like these. I appreciate them because we get a good look at the rugs:

After escaping from Vandamm’s thugs, Thornhill went to the U.N. to try to figure out what was going on.

Hitchcock wasn’t allowed to film there, so they “stole” a shot of the U.N. exterior with Cary Grant walking in. The other people walking around in the shot didn’t know they were being filmed, or that Grant was walking beside them. (Can you imagine? “Hey, that’s me!”)

The interior of the U.N. was (quite obviously) a matte painting:

The backdrop was on display in Grand Central Terminal a few years ago, as part of a Turner Classic Movies exhibit on movies set in NYC. A reader sent me this photo of the matte painting:

The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who won more Best Screenplay Awards from the Writer’s Guild than anyone in history. He was the screenwriter behind other classics like The King and I, West Side Story, Sabrina, and The Sound of Music.

Lehman died in 2005 at the age of 89, so we’re fortunate that he recorded a detailed commentary about North by Northwest.

Hitchcock told him, “I always wanted to do a chase scene across the faces of Mt. Rushmore,” and that was the starting point for the movie. Lehman recalled, “I wanted to write the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures. I wanted something that had wit, sophistication, glamor, action, and lots of changes of locale.”

For the famous crop-duster sequence, they planted some corn in Bakersfield, California, to make it look more like Indiana:

After Thornhill miraculously survives (and the pilot of the plane doesn’t), he surprises Eve by showing up at her room in the Ambassador East Hotel in Chicago. He’s a little dusty but every hair is still in place.

I thought the hotel decor was pretty cool:

The movie was a little racy for the late ’50s. It may not have shown much, but it insinuated a lot about what Roger and Eve were doing when the cameras looked away.

In the dining car in the train, Eve coos, “I never make love on an empty stomach.” It was censored in post-production to “I never discuss love on an empty stomach,” but if you read her lips you can see what she was really saying.

The crew traveled to South Dakota, and Eva Marie Saint, Cary Grant, and James Mason posed for the press before shooting on it was supposed to begin.

Then word leaked that there would be a fight scene and a couple of deaths on the monument, and the government officials barred them from filming it there. The crew flew back to Hollywood, where Mt. Rushmore had to be recreated at MGM.

Those are real shots of the monument from the distance. The rest was Production Designer Robert Boyle’s creation back at the studio.

“I don’t like the way Teddy Roosevelt’s looking at me,” Roger says when looking up at the monument. “I think he’s trying to tell me not to go through with this hare-brained scheme.”

Thornhill meets Van Damm and his crew at the community parks building near the monument, and even it had style:

Check out the cool checkered-wood walls in the cafeteria:

In the scene where Eve (Eva Marie Saint) shoots Roger (Grant), can you spot the mistake in the background?

The little boy at the table behind Eva Marie Saint plugged his ears, knowing the gun was about to go off. I always get a kick out of that!

The Vandamm House:

They needed to come up with a reason why all of the characters would be congregating at Mt. Rushmore, so Lehman decided that the bad guys would have their headquarters nearby. It’s known as “The Vandamm House” after James Mason’s character, Phillip Vandamm.

A lot of people have asked me whether it’s a real house, and if it’s really on top of Mt. Rushmore. Sadly, no, it’s not real. The exterior was a matte painting (a pre-digital effect when a real set or location was combined with a painting), and the interior was created on a soundstage.

In reality, there is no way anything could be built on top of the monument, even temporarily for a film.

According to a fascinating post on Jetset Modern, Hitchcock knew he wanted it to be a Modernist house. In the late ’50s, Frank Lloyd Wright was the most famous Modernist architect in the world. Any house he designed for the film would have been instantly recognizable to audiences.

The problem: they couldn’t afford Wright’s fee. So Hitchcock decided they’d just build a house that looked like one Wright would have designed.

The second problem: the top of Mt. Rushmore was too fragile to build anything on it. The MGM researchers had to get special permits and Park Service escorts just to visit the area in order to photograph and measure it.

According to Sandy McLendon of Jetset Modern:

The house would be created entirely in Culver City, where MGM was located. It would consist of a few sections built at full-scale, as movie sets. The exterior shots would depend on special effects. Certain shots would blend the sets together with the special effects, to create the illusion that the house was real. The final design was of a hilltop house of limestone dressed and laid in the manner made famous by Wright, along with a concrete cantilever under the living room area.

Just when he thinks he’s in the clear, Vandamm’s housekeeper pulls a gun on Thornhill:

McLendon explains how the set was designed:

Certain areas like the outside of the bedroom wing had their exteriors finished, so that they could be shot from inside looking out, or outside looking in.

The interiors were masterpieces of deception: nearly nothing was what it appeared. The limestone walls were mostly plaster, real limestone was used in a few places where the camera would be very close. The expanses of window were mostly without glass; glass reflects camera crews and lights.

All of the scenes involving the Vandamm house were shot at night so that the effects would look more realistic. Read more about it and see examples of how the matte photography technique worked here. (Thanks to Lyle for the info!)

More North by Northwest Movie Trivia:

• North by Northwest was just the working title, but they never came up with anything better. One they considered: The Man in Lincoln’s Nose. (Seriously.)
• Jimmy Stewart was originally considered for the role of Thornhill, but Hitchcock decided he looked “too old.”  Cary Grant was 55 when he filmed it–4 years older than Stewart–but looked younger.
• MGM wanted Cyd Charisse in the role of Eve Kendall, but Hitchcock insisted on Eva Marie Saint.
• MGM designed an entire wardrobe for Saint’s character, but Hitchcock threw out almost everything. She says he took her to Bergdorf-Goodman and selected clothes for her “right off the models.”
• Hitchcock gave Saint three basic directions: 1) Lower your voice. 2) Don’t use your hands. 3) Always look directly into Cary Grant’s eyes.
• North by Northwest was nominated for 5 Oscars but lost in every category.

The movie trailer, humorously presented by Alfred Hitchcock himself:

What’s your favorite Hitchcock movie? I just watched Rebecca again last week (you can see my post about Manderley here). Hitchcock knew how to work a great house into a suspenseful movie!

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page to see other classics I’ve featured, from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House to Gone with the Wind.

Areader named Maureen sent me photos of this 1958 ranch in Illinois and said she thought it had a “fun-retro-Brady vibe.” It’s on the market for $225,000, which seems like a pretty good deal for all this space on such a big, wooded lot, but it needs some work. It hasn’t been updated much over the years, so it’s almost like peering inside a time capsule.

That makes it interesting to look at, but it would be hard to live in as is. That’s why it’s perfect for our 5 Changes Game. If you’ve never played before, it’s simple. Take a look at this house and then tell us: If you could make 5 changes right away, what would they be?

Built-in planters line the entry hall. And check out the sunken living room around the fire:

There’s even a funky opening for the TV:

I’m thinking Austin Powers would be right at home here, Baby.

The dining room:

Check out the groovy dividing wall:

Looks like the kitchen was updated at some point, but badly. It doesn’t really fit with the style of the rest of the house:

The master bath still has the yellow sink and tub:

I think this house could be cool again with the right updates, especially if you really went for a retro-modern look instead of trying to make it something it’s not (traditional brass light fixtures, I’m looking at you!). But what do you think? (Visit the listing for more photos and information.)

What are the first 5 changes you’d make if you bought this house?

Like playing the 5 Changes Game? Check out more houses than need some love, like this Sears Bungalow and a Center-Hall Colonial.

Check out these cool contemporary chair prints from Century Finds. Aren’t they fun?

If you can’t choose just one print, how about a poster featuring all of the illustrations from Jen Renninger’s Modern Design Deck?

Century Finds is a great online resource for contemporary design and vintage decor, and I’m proud to have them as one of my blog’s sponsors.

Sophie, the owner, says, “My love of vintage items started as a child in the ’70s, uncovering discarded housewares in chests and closets all around our home. Later, I spent many happy hours in the flea markets of Paris and London. I started Century Finds as a way to share some of those unique little found items which can ‘make’ a room.”

Visit Century Finds to see what else is in Sophie’s shop this week!