Real Estate

Gregg Busch • January 17, 2014

Over the last several months, I keep hearing DC realtors saying the same thing, “Buyers are wanting to buy, but there is very little inventory on the market to sell.” In desirable areas, multiple offers seem to be common once again and buyers are getting frustrated loosing out in these competitive situations. According to a report released by the national housing research firm, Metro study Report, the volume of DC metro listings on the market has dropped down to 3.6 months of supply from a peak of 11 months existing supply back in 2008. The limited home inventory in our area is likely to continue through 2012 with strong local job growth, decreasing short sales and foreclosures, and a lack of new buildings coming to market.

The best advice for someone looking to purchase is to get pre-approved. Don’t wait till you find the house of your dreams, as it may be too late. Do it up front – maybe even before finding a realtor . With the implementation this year of the Dodd Frank bill and FHA (Federal Housing Administration) tightening lending guidelines, sellers are sure to scrutinize, more than ever, a buyers’ ability to get to closing. Nobody wants to accept a contract from a wishy washer buyer, even if they may be offering a little more. Getting pre-approved lets the seller know that you are credible, with FICO scores and income that meet the strict criteria of today’s lending climate.

The benefits of getting pre-approved are many, First, it saves you time and heartache by looking in the right price range. Second, as described above, it makes you a stronger candidate when you do make an offer, thereby increasing your negotiating power.

Here are some great tips in starting the pre-approval and buying process:

1) Determine how much you can afford up front, Remember that when you hear the total monthly payment make sure you are looking at the approximate after tax payment. If your lender tells you that you can not qualify for what you want to buy think about a family member co-signing.,

2)Have a lender run your credit report to check your scores, sometimes the credit scores you get on line can vary from the scores lenders get from mortgage credit reporting companies, good credit scores are important if you want a good rate, Sometimes it can take as much as 6 months to improve your scores so act now before you start looking for a house.

3)Make sure you enough for a down payment and closing costs. Have your lender calculate what you need for cash in the bank. A rising numbers of young people struggling to buy their first home are being forced to ask their family for help with down payment and closing costs, Work out an arrangement where one day you will pay them back with interest, With FHA and conventional financing you can put down as little as 3% these days!!!!

4) Hire a real estate agent: As a buyer of a home, especially being a first time buyer, you will want to have an agent represent you on your purchase. A buyers agent that you hire will have your best interest in mind and help you in evaluating the value of the property and negotiating the best possible price and terms in making an offer. Additionally your agent can help you with the many facets of the transaction process, connect you with a reputable lender and inspector and other service people. The buyer agent is paid from the transaction by the seller. One of the best ways to select a Realtor to help you find a home is through a referral from a friend, work colleague or neighbor. Another is by going to open houses and talking to the different agents holding the various homes open.

Finally, since a full mortgage approval is taking somewhat longer these days it is to your advantage when you make an offer to shorten your financing contingency to 21 days or sooner. Being pre-approved can allow the lender to speed up the loan process and get the appraisal ordered immediately once you have a ratified sales contract. If you can accomplish a faster close date your offer will be looked at more seriously by the listing agent and seller if there are multiple offers.

Gregg Busch is a licensed mortgage loan officer and Vice President of First Savings Mortgage. Gregg has over 20 years of mortgage banking experience and can be reached at Gregg@Greggbusch.com.

Donna Evers • December 6, 2013

The so-called first Thanksgiving occurred in Plymouth Colony, Mass., in 1621. It was a feast held one year after the Pilgrims landed to celebrate their first successful harvest, a three-day joint celebration by the colonists and the resident Native American tribe. They had plenty of reasons to celebrate, including being lucky enough to have survived the perilous Atlantic crossing a year before. Only about half of the people on board the Mayflower actually lived through the ordeal.

The accommodations might have been a large part of the problem. There were 102 passengers and 26 crewmen on board a ship that measured about 25 by 100 feet and was not meant to carry passengers but rather freight. They were on board for two months and hit many dangerous storms, finally landing in Plymouth, instead of their planned destination at the mouth of the Hudson River.

Some of the leaders who emerged from the group—including John Alden and Miles Standish—were crewmen who had been hired by the Pilgrim Separatists to help out on the trip and build houses when they went ashore. And some of the crew had actually crossed the ocean on previous trips exploring the New World. One of them, Stephen Hopkins, who had been shipwrecked on Bermuda during a prior trip, was a neighbor of William Shakespeare. His Bermuda shipwreck is said to have been the basis for “The Tempest.”

These hardy survivors started the tradition we celebrate today, but it took nearly 30 years of campaigning by Sarah Josepha Hale, the first woman to edit an American magazine (and incidentally the author of the nursery rhyme “Mary had a Little Lamb”), to make it official. Finally, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, who had other things to think about, declared the last Thursday in November to be the national holiday of Thanksgiving.

This last-Thursday designation lasted until Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it up to the third Thursday in November. The idea was to extend the Christmas shopping period and give businesses and the economy a boost—something merchants can sympathize with this year, given the late Thanksgiving and a mere 26 shopping days until Christmas. But people didn’t like the earlier date and nicknamed it “Franksgiving.” In 1941, therefore, Roosevelt signed a bill declaring that the holiday would fall on the fourth Thursday in November.

Though we think of the fearless Pilgrims as the creators of the first Thanksgiving, theirs was but a one-time celebration. The more important fact is that 53 persons survived such a tough journey across the ocean to start the great adventure in the New World, a circumstance for which we will always be thankful.

Donna Evers, devers@eversco.com, is the owner and broker of Evers & Co. Real Estate, the largest woman-owned and -run real estate company in the Washington Metro area.

Georgetowner • December 5, 2013

Doyle New York
Platinum, Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond,
emerald and diamond ring
Auction Date: Sept. 12
Estimate: $80,000 – $120,000
Doyle New York’s auction of Important Jewelry will offer exquisite jewelry spanning the Antique, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modern eras by such designers as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, David Webb and Tiffany & Co. Certain to attract attention will be this 1920 ring featuring an old-mine cut oval Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond flanked by emeralds and diamonds.

Sotheby’s
Egyptian Revival faience and jeweled brooch from Cartier
Auction Date: Dec. 11
Estimate: $300,000 – $500,000
Designed as an Egyptian fan, centering an ancient green faience bust of the goddess Sekhmet, this jeweled brooch is among the highlights of Sotheby’s Auction of Magnificent Jewels. Set against a lapis lazuli sky, twinkling with diamond stars and bordered by a black aureole and diamond-set lotus motif, there are a total of 100 diamonds throughout the piece. It is complete with the original fitted box stamped by Cartier.

Bonhams
Diamond-set engraved and enameled gold singing bird snuffbox with musical movement and watch
Auction Date: Dec. 12
Estimate: $120,000 – $180,000
Bonhams will auction this historic snuffbox as part of its Auction of Fine Watches, Wristwatches and Clocks. The box, with lozenge maker’s mark of Jean-Georges Reymond, bears the monogram of the 19th-century Ottoman Prince Shehzade Mahmud Celaleddin Efendi, son of the Turkish Sultan Abdul Aziz, who likely had the box embellished for his son. The diamonds were added during the mid 19th century.

Sloans and Kenyon
Portrait of a nude Norma Jeane Baker Dougherty
(later known as Marilyn Monroe)
3D filmstrip
Circa 1945
Auction Date: Dec. 14
Estimate: $2,000 – $3,000
This rare filmstrip depicts a young woman named Norma Jeane Baker Dougherty, who later changed her name to Marilyn Monroe and became the seminal, sultry icon of American desire. This full-length image is attributed to W.O. Schwartz, located in 1945 just six blocks from the Blue Book Modeling Agency, Norma Jeane’s first employer. Thought to be the first nude photograph of the future Marilyn, predating Tom Kelley’s famous 1949 pinup image. The full image is on view at the Sloans and Kenyon gallery prior to auction.

Freeman’s
Lemuel Everett Wilmarth (American, 1835-1918)
“Still Life with Wrapped Orange”
1893, oil on canvas
Auction Date: Dec. 8
Estimate: $50,000 – $80,000
Freeman’s American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists Auction has a wealth of consignments from private collections across the country, featuring this still life by Lemuel Everett Wilmarth, a rarely auctioned artist admired for his genre scenes and still-life paintings. As seen here, Wilmarth’s still lifes are celebrated for their polished realism and deft display of textures. Additional works include portraits by William Merritt Chase and John Singer Sargent.

Robert Devaney • December 2, 2013

Over the last couple of weeks, Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc., the largest independent residential real estate company in the United States, has been celebrating 45 years in the real estate industry. Today, Nov. 25, it also celebrates co-founder Wes Foster’s 80th birthday.

Well known in Washington, D.C., and Georgetown. Long & Foster prides itself as a company that was “founded on the principles of integrity, innovation, honesty and good old-fashioned customer service—values it continues to support today.”
Here are some detailed from a company news release:

Long & Foster was founded in 1968 by P. Wesley (Wes) Foster, Jr., and Henry Long in a 600-square-foot office in Fairfax, Va. The company then comprised Foster, Long and one employee. It provided residential and commercial real estate services, selling about $3 million in volume in the first year. Since then, Long & Foster has grown to more than 11,500 agents and employees in seven states in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and it is now part of the Long & Foster Companies, which also includes Prosperity Mortgage Company, Long & Foster Insurance, Long & Foster Settlement Services, a corporate relocation services division and one of the largest property management firms in the United States. The companies’ combined sales for 2012 were in excess of $48 billion, about half of which resulted from the real estate business.

“From the time I started this company, our goals were to provide the best service possible to our real estate clients, create wonderful career opportunities for real estate professionals, and do better today than we did yesterday,” said Foster, chairman and CEO of the Long & Foster Companies. “It is with great pride that I can now say Long & Foster has been doing so for more than 45 years. It couldn’t have been done without the support of my family and the many real estate agents and employees who have worked so hard to make Long & Foster such a successful company.”

“We are thrilled to be celebrating 45 years of success at Long & Foster as well as Wes’s 80th birthday,” said Jeffrey S. Detwiler, president and chief operating officer of the Long & Foster Companies. “As a company, we’re greatly looking forward to continuing to provide top-notch real estate services and the total homeownership experience for clients across the Mid-Atlantic region for the next 45 years and beyond.”

See the March 13th Georgetowner for a profile of Wes Foster and his company Here

Robert Devaney • November 25, 2013

Once upon a time in America, a boy left Georgia to become a Virginia Military Institute cadet, then a soldier, and later an aluminum siding salesman. He turned to selling real estate in Washington’s booming suburbs in the 1960s and now commands the largest privately owned residential real estate company in the United States. The story of P. Wesley Foster, Jr., is the story of 20th-century American success.

Foster is the chairman and CEO of Long & Foster Companies, headquartered in Chantilly, Va. His easy manner tells a tale of an American life we hope can still happen today. Georgetowner editors got a chance to sit down with the real estate legend.
As his executive assistant offered us coffee, Foster greeted us in his modest—at least by Donald Trump’s standards—office. The space immediately telegraphs his main loves — real estate, VMI, America, football, art, his family and especially his wife, Betty.

Feeling casual with Foster’s disarming charm, one of us flippantly began, referring to Long & Foster. “I know all about you guys.” Foster shot back, “I doubt it.”

No doubt, Foster has built a real estate and financial services empire step-by-step, agent-by-agent and office-by-office for longer than four decades. Who has not seen a Long & Foster sign somewhere during a daily drive? Such effort to build the top independent real estate company in America is not for the faint of heart, short of time or low of aim.

These days, however, Foster can take it a little easier: “I get up around 7 a.m. and read the paper,” he said. He doesn’t arrive at the office until just before 9 a.m. Foster and his wife—a sculptor who taught at the Corcoran and was on its board—moved to a townhouse in Old Town, Alexandria, after spending 32 years in their McLean, Va., home with almost four acres. “I go for a walk with my wife when the weather is good in the afternoons,” he continued. “So, I leave the office around 3:30 or 4 p.m. … I’ll be 80 in November. I don’t work as hard as I used to.”

Fair enough. He deserves that, although he still visits the branch offices and sales meetings as often as he can. In Foster’s early years, the opposite surely was the case. His long hours involved a six-day work week.

It’s this sort of discipline that Foster needed to build his company, but he has had some vices along the way. The first of which has been a sweet tooth. He manages his love for chocolate, and even turned to candy while he quit smoking when he was 30. “I was dating my wife and carried around a little bag of chewing gum and lifesavers,” he said.

As to the impact of the recent economic recession on the housing industry, Foster is clear. “We went through about five years of challenges in the market. Our production went down from 2005 to – I don’t know where the low point was, 2008 or 2009 . . . and now we are fortunate to see growth once again. As tough as it was to do, we continued investing in our company and our people. That’s what makes us so optimistic going forward.”
Not that Long & Foster itself was immune from such miscalculations. Its huge Chantilly headquarters building is an unexpectedly imposing Williamsburg-style building that has a similarly styled garage with more than 1,000 parking spaces, which Foster has dubbed “the best-looking parking garage in Washington.” He is pleased that the company has just negotiated a lease for 50,000 square feet and looks forward to welcoming new tenants to the building. “It’s a beautiful building and we are quite proud of it,” he said. “I think our headquarters represents the stability and confidence of our company and our agents.”

Still, the economy appears in recovery—with the stock market hitting an all-time high and unemployment numbers lowering March 8—but Foster remains cautious: “I’m not sure that it’s going to be that great [a recovery] because the Federal government has to get its house in order. The good news is that our company is well positioned to succeed in any scenario. I learned early on that if we lead our team to focus on the basics – really taking great care of every single client, one transaction at a time – then together as a team, we can weather any kind of market and emerge even stronger.”

Regarding the economy, Foster added: “We still have some work to do.” And as far as a true recovery in real estate? “We are working our way through and are beginning to see a real shift in the market.”

For Foster, such an approach illuminates his life. At VMI, he was on the football team. “My playing wasn’t that great,” he said. “But I played, played all four years. I was a slow, small guard.” Working his way through, even then. Foster has never truly left his beloved VMI. “I’m on the board there,” he said. “I go down there three or four times a year …” In 2006, VMI’s football stadium complex was dedicated as the P. Wesley Foster, Jr., Stadium.

So, what brought Foster to Washington, D.C., and specifically, its suburbs?

“When I graduated from VMI, I took a job,” Foster said. “I didn’t go directly into the military. You could take a year off and work in those days. So, I delayed my military duty for one year, and worked for Kaiser Aluminum. They put me in the Chicago office. When I got there I hated it. I mean, it was a place a little southern boy didn’t want to go to. But, by the time I left the next spring, I nearly left with tears in my eyes. I had a great time.”

Foster served his military duty as many young American men do and served for two years in West Germany. He was in the 8th Infantry Division—“Pathfinder”—and served as a special weapons liaison officer to the German III Corps. (Begun in World War I, this army division was inactivated in 1992.)

When his time was up, Foster said he toured Europe, thus igniting his love of travel. “They’d let you get out of the army over there and for up to a year, they would send your car and you home for free,” Foster recalled with a smile. “You could get out and travel if you wanted to. . . . Well, I got out, and a buddy and I … drove my Volkswagen to Moscow. The United States had an American exhibition that year and [Vice President Richard] Nixon was over there speaking. Got tears in my eyes watching him speak.” (This was the famous “kitchen debate” between Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in July 1959.)

Soon enough, our American GI returned home, with no money to his name. Foster got his old job back at Kaiser Aluminum and sold aluminum building products to homebuilders in 15 cities across the United States. Foster ran the program for a year. “Boy, did I get tired of that. I’d get up in the morning and have to think for a while about which city I was in that day.”

Nevertheless, one thing does lead to another. “All the guys I had been working with at Kaiser Aluminum got interested in the real estate business because we were working with builders, and I thought I’d become a builder,” he said.

This English major seemed still to be undecided on his career path. “I thought about law school,” Foster said. “My two brothers were lawyers, and had I never made it in real estate. . . . I would have probably gone onto law school and become a mediocre lawyer.”

So, why think that way and why the success in real estate? We asked.

“The guys that really tear it up are very bright. … I think I have a knack for this [real estate] business and see things that other people don’t see. In college, I graduated in the middle of my class. I may not have graduated at the top of my class, but I think I was the most persistent and worked the hardest – that’s what, after all of these years, has driven the growth and success of Long & Foster.”

Foster admitted that he sees “opportunities that other people don’t pick up,” and said a large part of his success was due to the “companies we acquire, and the people we hire and team up with. We choose to associate with people that share our values – teamwork, integrity and a drive for results. A team like this can be magical.”

Before that powerful recognition was a beginning: “I happened to meet a young fellow by the name of Minchew, who was also from Georgia and was a good builder here in Northern Virginia,” Foster recalled. “I went to work for him selling his homes. Worked for him for three years.”

Foster lived in Annandale, “sold a lot of new houses . . . and met my wife here,” he said.
“I had a roommate at VMI who was a Navy SEAL doctor and had come to Washington to do his deep sea diving training, if you can believe it, at Andrews Air Force Base,” Foster said. “He went skiing one weekend and rode up the ski lift with a pretty girl who became my wife. He introduced me to her and said, ‘Man, I’m leaving town, call her.’ ”

From Connecticut, Foster’s future wife moved to Virginia to be near her brother, an Episcopal priest. “We raised our family right here in Virginia,” Foster said. He is a father to three, and now a grandfather to six, ranging in age from teenagers to a four-year-old, all boys, and all of whom he takes delight, especially the youngest.

Today, of course, some of the family is involved in the business: son Paul Foster looks after offices in Montgomery County and D.C.; son-in-law Terry Spahr runs the New Jersey and Delaware offices; and nephew Boomer (Larry) Foster oversees offices in Northern Virginia and West Virginia. “Even as a large company, it’s important that we remain a family company. That way, our commitment to our agents and their success is unwavering,” Foster said.

Before all these company positions were possible, Foster had to meet Long. While working in Annandale on a new development, called “Camelot,” a name which Foster still dislikes to this day, he met Henry Long, an Air Force bomber pilot. The two worked together in a firm and then decided to start their own. And what of those good-looking homes in “Camelot”? They sold very well despite that name.

“We both went to military schools,” he said of Long. “He went to VPI [Virginia Tech]. I’d gone to VMI. He had flown B-47s. I shot rockets. He was commercial, and I was residential. We’d start a company, and we flipped a coin. He won and got his name first. I got to be president. We took off. We were partners for 11 years until 1979. Merrill Lynch came along and wanted to buy us, and he wanted to sell and basically do what he was doing and that was being a developer. So, I bought him out of the company.”
Foster has been asked the question again and again. We asked again, too, if he would sell the company. He folded his arms, leaned back and said: “I don’t want to sell . . . We have brought together some of the best business minds from inside and outside real estate to take our firm to the next level, and that gives us a solid succession plan as a family-owned company. Not many firms like ours can say that.”

“Family members play an instrumental role in the company,” Foster said. “I’ll be a large part of this as long as I can, but my three children own practically all of the company now. So, that’s all set. They will keep the family company spirit and leverage our management team to make sure we are on the right path.”
Things may be set internally, but elsewhere, competition remains for Long & Foster. In one of the nation’s hottest residential markets, that’s a given. “Good competitors drive us to better ourselves every single day,” Foster said. “It’s a great incentive to stay on top of your game and advance your business.”

“For example, luxury real estate, particularly in the D.C. area, is huge. Everyone out there today is vying for luxury business – and while we do sell more million-dollar-plus homes than anyone, our competitors keep us on our toes. That’s why we leverage our affiliation with Christie’s International Real Estate for our agents and their clients. The Christie’s brand really matters – it’s immediately recognizable as ‘high end,’ and it gets us in front of the most exclusive buyers and sellers from around the globe. Only our agents can market with the Christie’s brand.” Indeed, the biggest D.C. sale in 2011—the Evermay estate in Georgetown – was sold by Long & Foster.

How do you deal with all the egos? We asked. “The best you can,” Foster wryly replied. “We give them all of the tools and the backing of a great brand – and they do what they do best – work with buyers and sellers.”

“I will tell you this,” he said. “What we look for, especially in managers, is good empathy and a drive for results. When we achieve this, it is a winning combination for our company, and most importantly, for our agents and their clients. That is the key.”
From start to finish, Foster can easily detect that. “I grew up fairly poor and went to college on a scholarship, and my brothers also went to college on scholarships,” he said. “We’ve had a fair amount of drive. Two were lawyers and one is a developer now in Atlanta. I am truly humbled by the success of the company and my team. It is an honor that so many clients put their trust in Long & Foster and our team of agents.”

At a Glance:
Long & Foster is the largest independent residential real estate company in the United States.

Long & Foster represents more than 10,000 agents at approximately 170 offices across seven Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states, plus the District of Columbia.

For 2012, Long & Foster’s sales volume exceeded $24.8 billion and with more than 74,000 transactions; this is up from $22 billion and 69,000 transactions in 2011. 2012 marked a year of significant growth for Long & Foster, seeing an increase in volume of 14 percent and a 9-percent increase in unit sales.

While Long & Foster was founded as a real estate company, today its family of companies offers everything customers need as it relates to buying selling, or owning real estate – including mortgage, insurance, settlement, property management and corporate relocation services.

Long & Foster Companies’ combined sales volume and equivalents for 2012 were $48.7 billion, a $6-billion increase from 2011 figures.
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Corrie Dyke • November 7, 2013

While future condominiums’ designs are debated, here are some in and around town that are selling now or are about to be.

1045 Wisconsin Ave.
Developer: EastBanc has broken ground
Expected Completion: mid-2014.
Units: 8
Unit Sizes: 3,000 to 4,000 sq. ft. at the site on the Misc.: ground level retail, a green roof and below-grade parking

2251 Wisconsin Ave.
Developer: Altus Realty, Chesapeake Realty Partners and Ellisdale Construction
Expected Completion: Late 2014
Units: 81
Unit Sizes: Unknown
Misc: The $39-million project will revamp the building occupied by the Washington Sports Club and Glover Park Hardware and put up a second building on what is now a parking lot.

Adams Mason House
Expected Completion: Late 2013
Units: 10
Misc: One, two and three-bedroom condos, as well as approximately 3,500 square feet of office or retail space.
1072 Thomas Jefferson St., NW.

Foxhall Ridge
Developer: Duball LLC, Buvermo Properties and Stanley Martin Companies LLC
Expected Completion: Complete
Units: 34
Unit Sizes: 2,100 – 3,500 sq. ft.
Misc: Townhomes, $1.5M – $1.9M

MacArthur Boulvard between Foxhall Road and Q Street, NW.
Key Bridge Exxon Site
Developer: EastBanc
Expected Completion: TBD
Units: 35
Unit Sizes: 1,800 – 2,200 sq. ft.
Misc: The five-story building will be 50 feet tall with 72,000 sq. ft. of building area.

3601 M St., NW.
The Montrose
Developer: Argos Group
Expected Completion: Late 2013
Units:15
Unit Sizes: 1,300 to 2,500 sq. ft.
Misc. $969,000 to $2.6 million
3050 R St., NW.

Georgetowner •

**FREEMAN?S**
*Walnut Tall Case Clock
Edward Duffield (1720-1801), Philadelphia, Pa. 1765
Auction Date: Nov. 14*
***Estimate: $30,000 ? $50,000***
Freeman?s Pennsylvania Sale: Furniture and Decorative Arts features a wealth of hand-crafted
American antiques from the state?s rich tradition of craft and decorative arts. This walnut tall case
clock, a tour-de-force of 18th-century Philadelphia craftsmanship, was built by renowned clockmaker
Edward Duffield. The clock has double scroll molded cresting with floral rosettes and center
flame carved finial, two applied branch decorations above and arched face door flanked by slender
fluted columns. The brass face is ornamented with leaf spandrels and a moon phased, silvered dial
with Roman numerals and an outer Arabic numeral minute band.

**POTOMACK COMPANY**
*Ray Eames Desk Chair
Auction Date: Dec. 7*
Potomack Company?s Modern Designer Sale will feature designer
furniture from the personal collection of Charles M. Goodman
(1906-1992), the pioneering Washington area modernist architect,
who was the designer of National Airport, the Officers Club at
Andrews Air Force Base, the WMAL studio at American University
and other projects in Virginia and Maryland. The Dorothy S.
Goodman Trust is offering more than 100 lots from the collection,
including rare pieces by Ray Eames, Hans Wegner, Harry Bertoia,
Jens Risom and other noted mid-century designers, as well as
original furniture from the award-winning Alcoa Care-free Home
designed by Goodman in 1957 that was a prototype for the post-
World War II affordable housing boom.

**DOYLE**
*Photograph inscribed by John F. Kennedy
Gelatin silver print.
Auction Date: Nov. 25*
**Estimate: $5,000 ? $7,500**
Doyle?s upcoming auction of Rare Books, Autographs
& Photographs features material related to
President John F. Kennedy, including an image of
the president taken by photographer Fred Bauman
in Palm Springs on Sept. 28, 1963, inscribed to
him by Kennedy. A remarkably candid photograph
of President Kennedy, taken just weeks before his
assassination in Dallas, the image was taken by
Bauman at the Palm Springs airport upon Kennedy?s
arrival. Kennedy would spend two nights resting at
the home of Bing Crosby, just long enough for the
picture to be seen by Kennedy on the front page
of the Press-Enterprise. Secret service agent Jerry
Behn, who appears in the photograph behind the
president, was asked by Kennedy to call Bauman
and request a copy. Bauman sent two copies, requesting that one be returned signed and proudly
hung the inscribed photograph in his home for 50 years. Here the smiling Kennedy embodies the
forward-looking optimism of his era and the cool of a sunny afternoon in Palm Springs in 1963.

**SOTHEBY?S**
*Selling Exhibition: Les Lalanne: The
Poetry of Sculpture
Dates: Oct. 31 ? Nov. 22*
Sotheby?s selling exhibition at its New York
S|2 Gallery will feature Les Lalanne: The
Poetry of Sculpture, featuring works by
Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne, curated
by Paul Kasmin and Michael Shvo. Private
gallery sales will go through Nov. 22. Offering
a wide range of the couple?s most iconic
and sought-after works chosen by Kasmin, a
long-time gallerist for the duo, and Shvo, an
avid collector of the works, the gallery space
will be transformed into a midnight garden and
thereby evoke the surrealist sculptors? magical
world in which their life and art were intertwined
since the 1960s.

**BONHAMS**
*1940 Buick Phaeton automobile from
?Casablanca,? Warner Bros., 1942.
Limited model 81C convertible
Auction Date: Nov. 25*
***Estimate: $450,000 ? $500,000**
Bonhams auction, ?What Dreams Are
Made Of: A Century of Movie Magic,? in
conjunction with Turner Classic movies,
will feature more than 300 of the most
important pieces of movie memorabilia
ever to come up for auction. Iconic props,
costumes, production art, original scripts, posters and ephemera from Hollywood?s biggest starts
will be offered. The 1940 Buick Phaeton automobile from ?Casablanca? is one of the stars of the
auction, used in the final act of ?Casablanca,? as Claude Rains drives the car to the airport, with
Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henried. Other items include the lead statuette of the
Maltese Falcon from the 1941 James Stewart film of the same name, and Vivien Leigh neglig?e
from ?Gone With the Wind.?