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Celine ends Vegas run; next up: Jupiter Island

Posted by Jose Lambiet | Cribs, Island’s Finest |
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| Wednesday 19 December 2007 7:00 pm Print This Post

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As Canadian songbird Celine Dion’s five-year gig in Las Vegas ended over the weekend, workers in Jupiter Island were working overtime to make sure her new digs on tony Jupiter Island would be finished on time for her planned move late next summer.

Blueprints filed with the town recently show the 9,800-square-foot, six-bedroom Key West-style beachhome will have 40 first-floor windows facing the ocean and a rare feature in coastal Florida: an honest-to-goodness basement with space for four cars, a wine cellar and giant closets.

The price tag is close to $20 million, including $12.5 million for the 3.7 acres in the dunes, $3.2 for the main cross-shaped home, plus $1.1 for a four-room guesthouse, $600,000 for a cabana and two Olympic-sized pools.

Best Page 2.1 can tell, however, is that the clothesline Dion said she would use to dry her household’s clothes hasn’t been put up just yet.

The French-speaking chanteuse of the Titanic soundtrack isn’t commenting about the construction. But she recently said she’s planning to live on the island full-time and already contacted private schools for son Rene-Charles, 7.

It’s the second time Dion and hubby Rene Angelil will be living in these parts. They once owned a place on the other side of the Intracoastal, in the nearby Admirals Cove in Jupiter.

The golf-crazy singer, meanwhile, will be living up-the-street from Tiger Woods, whose home should be ready a year later.

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Tennis legend Evert, golf great Norman say they’re engaged

Posted by Jose Lambiet | Hookups |
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| Friday 14 December 2007 2:18 pm Print This Post

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Sports legends Greg Norman and Chris Evert were secretly engaged earlier this week, slightly more than a year after separating from their respective spouses.

Links leviathan Norman, 52, proposed to 18-time Grand Slam winner champ Evert, 53, with a fat rock while the couple flew his Gulfstream jet to South Africa Sunday night.

The two had just attended Norman’s golf tourney in Naples, the Shark Shootout, and were traveling to South Africa for the South Africa Open.

Evert let the cat out of the bag this morning when reporters in Paarl, South Africa, noticed a sparkler on her left hand.

“We’re both extremely happy to have found each other,” Evert said through spokeswoman Tammy Starr, who said the wedding would be in 2008. Starr said no more details would be released until the couple returns next week.

Norman was officially divorced from wife Laura Andrassy, a former flight attendant he married 25 years ago, in September after 12 acrimonious months in a Stuart court. Several issues in their settlement are still pending. The gavel fell on Evert’s divorce from former Olympic skiing champ Andy Mill Dec. 3, 2006, in Fort Lauderdale. Former Jupiter Island resident Norman now lives a mile from Evert in Boca.

Norman’s ex said Friday afternoon she heard of the engagement earlier and wished the lovebirds well. Although she wouldn’t confirm it, the buzz is that she heard about it from Mill.

“I was expecting this,” Andrassy said, “and I don’t really care. But if that’s what they want, then so be it. Personally, it feels wonderful to me to be free for a while. If I had any advice for them, I’d tell them to enjoy a long period between the two marriages.”

Apparently, Norman didn’t heed a warning that, an insider tells me, came during court-ordered divorce mediation with Andrassy.

The warning: That entering a new marriage soon after a divorce rarely works!

And in case there’s any doubt who’ll wear the pants in this household, get a load of Chris’ taunt to Norman this morning, when he wouldn’t address the press about the good news: “Why don’t you say something to them (the media)? Gee, you’re a big chicken!”

Owen’s mad dash away from date crashers

Posted by Jose Lambiet | Hookups, Hotties |
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| Wednesday 12 December 2007 7:00 pm Print This Post

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It’s not because Tinseltown superstar Owen Wilson shared a hotel room with pal Woody Harrelson during Art Basel in Miami over the weekend that he wasn’t getting companionship of the female kind.

Paparazzi who swarmed the celeb-heavy art fair got shots of The Butterscotch Stallion with at least two steadies and a handful of occasionals, sometimes on the same day — despite his attempts to keep it quiet.

Owen Wilson

Storms Media Group

Video Hey Owen,
where ya goin’?

In this funny bit, Wilson is walking along Collins Avenue in Miami Beach late Saturday afternoon with a handler and one of his love interests. When the trio spotted the hidden lensman, Wilson and the lady split. He sprinted south. She headed north, walking at first, then running.

Ten minutes later, Wilson returned to the beach with his handler, looking slightly annoyed at the attention.

It wasn’t so long ago, circa 2000, that the same Wilson could spend a week on South Beach without impressing the ladies.

But after flicks like Starsky & Hutch and Wedding Crashers, and a suicide attempt, it’s a different story.

“It’s probably gotten easier for me to meet girls as I’ve gotten older,” Wilson once said. “Girls, just as I get older, are better able to see into my heart and recognize that.”

Alrighty then!

Ex-Creed singer, wife ‘passionately in love’

Posted by Jose Lambiet | Hookups, Hotties, Splitsville |
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| Wednesday 5 December 2007 7:00 pm Print This Post

scott_stapp.jpgFormer Creed frontman Scott Stapp and his missus, former Ms. New York Jaclyn, are “passionately in love” again.

Things are so peachy indeed for the couple — after what a member of the Stapps’ entourage described as months of marital counseling — that a charge of domestic assault pending against the 34-year-old Stapp since May is likely to get dismissed early next month, sources say.

A trial was scheduled for Feb. 5, 2008, but is not expected to happen now.

Through one of their lawyers, the Stapps had the following statement faxed to Page 2.1: “We are passionately in love, blessed with two beautiful children. We believe in the sanctity of marriage and the commitment we made to each other before God. Any problem of the past we have overcome together as a family.”

When Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies were called to his $5 million home just west of Boca Raton May 20, the singer of My Sacrifice and the Grammy-winning With Arms Wide Open faced a felony charge for supposedly throwing a bottle of Orangina at the head of his wife of a year. He missed her.

scott.jpgBut during her 911 call, Jaclyn told the dispatcher Stapp was high on pot and drugs when he returned home at dawn after a night of partying. She also said there were as many as 10 guns in the home, which were confiscated.

Two weeks later, Jaclyn extended an olive branch to the oft-troubled singer by withdrawing her complaint and an order of protection to keep the Christian rocker out of their home.

The charge was downgraded to a misdemeanor, and Stapp was allowed to return home for as long as he’d undergo drug and alcohol testing.

jaclyn.jpgWhen she had him tossed in jail for 24 hours, did Jaclyn overreact? In one court filing, a Stapp attorney wrote Jaclyn had “recanted” her story.

“No,” said her former lawyer, marital law specialist Michael Gora. “The allegations she made under oath that I filed were accurate. She participated in filing a criminal case as a witness. But they have worked things out. It’s not unusual.”

The case’s prosecutor, Terri Skiles, had no comment other than to say she is supposed to talk to Jaclyn within a few days to make sure Stapp is behaving.

It seems to be a quiet period indeed for Stapp, whose off-stage shenanigans followed one another at furious speed in 2005-2006. There was a fight with a rival band in late 2005, a public intoxication arrest at LAX and a sex tape that included Stapp, fellow performer Kid Rock and four strippers on a tour bus — all within four months.