Priscilla Chan's $4,700 wedding dress by Claire Pettibone

[czb]

^^^ i realized that but i don't always remember who posted what. then i read the forbes article and 'modest' stuck in my mind. that's all.

eta: now, back to bagging on priscilla's puny ring. j/k

[ShimmeringGlow]

Facebook Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg Buys a $7 Million Home


Posted under: Home Buying in Boston, Home Selling in Boston, Celebrity Homes in Boston | May 9, 2011 11:51 AM | 1,800 views | No comments



Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly a California homeowner. The 26-year-old multibillionaire has reportedly purchased a five-bedroom house in Palo Alto, Calif., just 10 minutes from Facebook's new 22-acre corporate campus in neighboring Menlo Park. The prperty was sold for $7 million, and is located in a northern Palo Alto neighborhood near University Avenue.

The two-story, 5,500-square-foot-plus home identified in the Real Estalker blog post was originally built by a local pioneer in the mid-1800s as a Victorian cottage, according to a history of that home posted online by Alain Pinel Realtors. That brokerage declined to confirm whether Zuckerberg was the buyer of that home.
In the early 1900s the home was reportedly rebuilt.

Successive owners expanded the home. The home was previously purchased in April 2006. The current occupants renovated the landscaping extensively, including the addition of a saltwater swimming pool, spa, outdoor gazebo with wood‐burning fireplace, and carport.

The house exhibits "a stunning blend of early Colonial Revival and Craftsmanship architecture," according to the history. The home also includes a "spacious" porch, a music alcove, and a glassed-in sunroom, according to the Mercury News.

"Set back and shielded from the street by a wall and trees, the new home certainly offers more privacy than Zuckerberg's current address," the paper said.

Price history information from PropertyShark shows the neighborhood's median sold price in 2010 was $2.7 million, with a median square footage of 2,790. In 2009, the home identified in the blog post had a total assessed value above $4 million.
Source: InmanNews

Facebook Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg Buys a $7 Million Home

[witchcurlgirl]

eta: now, back to bagging on priscilla's puny ring. j/k

It's a Canhardly. I can hardly see it.


​

[WhateverLolaWants]

The victorians and edwardians and their 'cottages' crack me up. They would have a main mansion in a big city and then they would have some two or three story houses other places that they liked to visit. Those often 3 story houses were called their 'cottages'

[Beeyotch]

*raises glass* The victorians and edwardians fucking did it right!

[stella blue]

I love that house. It's got so much more character than the typical mcmansions that many celebrities buy.

[fgg]

Zuckerberg Wife Priscilla Chan's Ruby Ring May Be Valuable After All

Billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 28, is getting a lot of flack for being cheap with his new bride. He married Priscilla Chan, 27, in a surprise ceremony in their backyard last Saturday and Chan wore an off-the-rack dress by Claire Pettibon. No fancy venue or Vera Wang gown for this bride! Experts consulted by the UK paper The Daily Mail are claiming Zuckerberg was too frugal and thoughtless because of the "very simple" ruby ring he gave Chan (the AP reported that he designed it himself). However, an expert consulted by Yahoo! Shine points out that rubies are extremely significant and popular in Asian culture, and can potentially be more expensive than diamonds.

Thanks to Facebook going public, Zuckerberg is now worth over $20 billion (at least, he was before stock price started to fall), and though he's partial to wearing casual hoodies, he may still have bought his long-term girlfriend a nice ring. Chan was spotted showing off her new bling at lunch with a friend in Palo Alto, California on Wednesday, and while the jewelry designer and price of the ring remain undisclosed, a ruby expert told Yahoo! Shine exclusively that the ring could have cost over $100,000.

"It's a small stone, but rubies can be extremely expensive," says Michael Arnstein, CEO of the Natural Sapphire Company. He estimates the size of Chan's ruby to be 2.75 to 3 carats. Rubies of that size cost from $20,000 for a low quality stone, to up to $100,000 for a higher quality one. "The value depends on the quality of the ruby, and it's hard to tell for sure from the photo," Arnstein says. "A Burmese ruby, which this definitely looks like, can cost upwards of $100,000." The two diamonds flanking the ruby look to be around 1 carat combined, and could tack an extra $5,000 on to the price tag.

As for Zuckerberg's choice of a ruby, Arnstein is not surprised. "Red has more meaning and emotion in Asia," he says, and Zuckerberg's Chinese-American bride may have requested a ruby ring because it "identifies where she comes from culturally." Rubies are a symbol of wisdom--what better for the new medical school graduate? And, the jewelry expert points out that Zuckerberg and Chan are conservative, and the engagement ring isn't too flashy but rather something she'd feel comfortable wearing every day. Arnstein also says the setting appears to be yellow gold, which is also more traditional in Asian culture. "Zuckerberg loves her and would have bought her anything she wanted, but this is probably what her grandmother had."

Arnstein says untreated rubies can be the most expensive stones of all. On May 15, a 32-carat ruby and diamond ring sold for a record $6.6 million at Christie's.

Rubies, however, come with many tricky issues. Zaven "Zee" Ghanimian G.G., designer for Simon G Jewelry, tells Yahoo! Shine that there are many fakes on the market. "Synthetic rubies have been produced from a very long time and can be difficult to spot. It usually takes a trained professional, gemologist or a gem lab." Ghanimian says currently the good rubies in this country come from Africa, "but the quality is not like a Burmese Ruby."

An estimated 90 percent of the world's rubies originate in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and are known in the trade as "blood rubies." They've been embargoed in the U.S. since 2008. Arnstein points out that if Chan's ring is a Burmese ruby, the stone would have to have been in the country before the embargo. "I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that this is a Burmese ruby and it's from a small jeweler and [the jeweler] broke the law," says Arnstein. "[Zuckerberg] potentially didn't know, but this is probably a smuggled stone. He'd need proper documentation which I'm pretty darn sure he's not going to have." Arnstein says Zuckerberg would have to obtain the ruby though an auction house, vintage store, or jeweler carrying gems from before the embargo.

We've reached out to Zuckerberg for more info on the ruby ring, but have received no comment at press time.

[Laurent]

I love the house and like the idea of the ring. For me there's only so big you can go with a ring before it looks tacky and with a house before it becomes a chore. I personally don't care for yellow gold, but I love the idea of a colored gem and I wouldn't want such a large stone that it was bothersome. Diff'rent strokes and all that.

[gas_chick]

If I ever get engaged/married again I want an emerald stone and I think he got her exactly what she wanted. It is much better than some gawdy shit you can't really wear in everyday life.

[LynnieD]

Don't like the ring and don't really like the house. That's right, I don't.

Whew, that's a load off.