News — Trends

Perched atop this week’s list of oldest homes on the market is an exquisitely preserved Colonial in Massachusetts dating to 1690. Right next to the waters of Gloucester Harbor, this beautiful old-timer has been updated in all the right places. The rest of the week’s 10 oldest homes also have a claim to pre-Revolutionary War history, but thanks to strategic face-lifts, many are looking better than ever in 2021. But if you’re in search of a renovation project, there are a couple of opportunities. A 14-acre estate with a farmhouse and stocked pond dating to 1750 is headed to the...

Douglas Gilman put a new designer kitchen in his Manhattan apartment last year with entertaining in mind. He placed the sleek marble-accented Dada kitchen, from Italy’s Molteni&C, at the center of the airy 2,800-square-foot home that he created from combining two adjacent units in a former West Village printing house. He figured it would give him easier access to his guests. But the arrival of Covid-19 restrictions has meant much more cooking, and next to no entertaining, and it’s his high-tech German appliances that have come to the rescue, including an induction cooktop that can sense where he places a...

Laufen expands BASE bathroom furniture collection Laufen expands BASE bathroom furniture collection Swiss bathroom manufacturer Laufen has extended its popular BASE bathroom furniture range, with the addition of new vanity units for the Ino washbasin collection. The extensive furniture range is timelessly simple and graceful and features Laufen’s trademark attention to detail in carefully thought-through functionality, high-quality materials and the latest colour schemes. Bathroom furniture helps to create a tidy, uncluttered atmosphere in the bathroom, allowing bathroom accessories and towels to be unobtrusively tucked away out of sight. The latest additions to Laufen’s BASE range are not only designed to...

For nearly $100,000, Matthew and Nina Christensen got exactly the landscaping they wanted. The 2,029-square-foot area around their home in Newport Beach, Calif., has several shades of green, gentle slopes and altering lengths of bluntly cut grass that make it look freshly mowed no matter the season. Three lush living walls cover an exterior concrete wall. What’s more, it is basically maintenance-free. “Our neighbors on both sides are in contact with our landscaper,” says Mr. Christensen, 39 years old, a commercial real-estate developer. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. The greenery is almost all artificial. The...