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Aaron Goldberg discovered Park Slope, Brooklyn while visiting New York during his summers off from Harvard. Since traveling the world is the norm for this musician, Goldberg tells us why the tranquility of Park Slope is the best place for him to call home.

Name, Age, Occupation: Aaron Goldberg, 35, Jazz Pianist

Abode: One bedroom, "floor-through" (or entire floor) co-op apartment in a brownstone

How long have you lived in Park Slope? I've lived here for 13 and a half years.

Mel Gibson, who last year split from his wife Robyn after nearly 30 years of marriage and seven kids, is selling one of his Malibu homes for $14.5 million, reports Monsters and Critics.

The recently remodeled home, located at 23333 Palm Canyon Lane, has 6 bedrooms and 6 baths. The estate also features a tennis court, a swimming pool, three guest houses, two offices, a detached gym and a garden cabana with a game room, not to mention fruit orchards and organic gardens (it's not called Lavender Hill Farm for nothing!) You can check out the house, which is listed with Chris Cortazzo of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, at RealEstate.com.

Gibson, 54, bought the 5,403-square-foot home in 1993 (See our slideshow of this home at the end of the article). It's only one of several Malibu homes and other properties that the Braveheart star owns, but it is the one that he and his wife raised their family in and called home.

A recent interview with a Studio City resident got me curious about the homes in this area and this 4-bedroom, 4-bath gem popped right up. The views from the living room (left) are incredible, but most of the rooms in this house have great views. To wake to this view and be in a city that is such a pleasant community could make this house a very nice home.

Spice Girl Mel B mistook a property appraiser parked outside of her Los Angeles home with a camera for a paparazzo and sic'd her hubby on him. The appraiser, Amada Aguirre, claims he was assaulted by Scary Spice and husband producer Stephen Belafonte while just trying to do his job. Apparently, he was scared enough to file a lawsuit alleging assault, battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A press release issued by the law firm, Frederick S. Schwartz, Esq., says that Aguirre had no idea the home belonged to a celebrity.

As if appraisers weren't vilified enough these days, thanks to a few bad (ok, really bad) apples!

Art and design shared the spotlight during L.A.'s week of Academy Award-related festivities last Thursday night as Beverly Hills' Gagosian Gallery unveiled its addition in a starry opening for photographer Andreas Gursky.

Among the crowd in the Richard Meier & Partners-deigned space were actors Adrien Brody (mother is NY-photographer Sylvia Plachy) and Molly Shannon; major Hollywood players like producers Lawrence Bender (Oscar nominated for "Inglourious Basterds"), Brian Grazer and Harvey Weinstein and Independent Spirits Awards' presenter, film director and artist John Waters.

The gallery's polished concrete floors resounded with the clicks of Louboutin heels as fashionistas also took in the scene. Dior Homme's designer Hedi Slimane stopped by as did the dean of L.A. artists John Baldessari and photographer Catherine Opie (who will soon have a LACMA show).

It's hard to search for practical homes in Los Angeles when you keep coming across stunning properties like this dream house. How can I resist this beachfront Pacific Palisades 3-bedroom, 4.5 bath home with Hollywood Royalty as a former owner. It's got everything you could want in L.A. And did you see the pool?! Yeah, I want this house.

The owner of San Francisco's most famous "painted lady" Victorian has put it on the market for $4 million. Michael Shannon's four-story, corner property punctuates the end of one of the city's most photogenic blocks, known as Postcard Row. The sale has drummed up some attention, but he's used to that.

John Nicholas "Nicky" Sheets was like a character out of the 1980s TV show "Dallas." The motorcycle-riding ostrich rancher with a graying ponytail met his second wife, Eleanor, a successful real estate agent (Coldwell Banker's top Texas agent for 12 years straight), while looking for house to buy in the Dallas area. For their first date, he showed up at her house wearing a white tuxedo and driving a white limo.

The pair wed in 1992 and became the best-known, wealthiest, and certainly flashiest real estate team in the Lone Star State. So when Nicky Sheets pleaded guilty this week to a cumulative individual and corporate tax evasion of $2.7 million, including penalties and interest -- a crime that carries prison term of up to five years, as well as a fine as much as $250,000 -- it sent ripples through the Texas real estate market. Many observers, however, were not surprised.

To enjoy San Francisco to its fullest, being in the center of the city is the best way to experience it.

The flat at 703 Market St. in downtown San Francisco is a perfect location for this vacation home.

It offers magnificent views of the Golden Gate Bridge and is a few blocks from always-busy Union Square and the many restaurants and stores there. The $550,000 home is also between two BART stations -- the local subway -- making access easy from the airport.

First time on the market since it was built in 1985, the $13.5M Ray Kappe-designed Scheimer house sits just above the sand on Manhattan Beach's scenic walking path known as the Strand. And this isn't just any beachfront pad -- this one came to party. The steel, concrete and glass, 5,200-square-foot house has floor-to-ceiling windows that take in grand views of the South Bay, the Manhattan Beach Pier and north to Malibu.

"It's one of the great party houses on the beach," real estate agent Crosby Doe of Crosby Doe Associates, one of the realtors representing the house.

Brittany Murphy's Hollywood Hills home is up for sale less than three months after her death. The actress died in its bathroom with elevated levels of Vicodin in her system. Brittany's husband, Simon Monjack, told TMZ on Monday that Brittany's mother, Sharon Murphy, has listed the home for the steep price of $7.25 million -- nearly double what the actress paid for it.

Murphy, who was 32, left the home and all of her assets to her mom. The will stated "I am married to Simon Monjack, who I have intentionally left out of this will," reported Popeater. And does that just irk hubby?

Lincoln Park has been on the list of "hot" Chicago neighborhoods since the Great Fire warmed its southern boundaries. Today the heat is provided by a young, energetic demographic (fueled by DePaul University and a staggering number of restaurants, bars and clubs) and rows of luxury single-family townhomes. It's been a frequent destination of mine for work and play over the last 10 years, and it's one of my top locations for a dream Chicago home.

And I may have found it.

A remodeled "Painted Lady" Victorian in San Francisco is probably out of the price range of many people, but if you have $1,535,000 and want to live in San Francisco, this home at 819 Haight St. is a beautiful place to start.

The three-bedroom, one-bath condo is in the Haight-Ashbury district, where the hippie movement was born and the nearby intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets was one of the most popular spots in the 1960s.

Since I moved here 17 years ago, I've wondered about this building, which was renovated long before homes west of 6th Avenue in South Brooklyn were legitimately considered Park Slope. (This is a neighborhood that people in New York City flock to the moment they learn they're pregnant, convinced that it's the premier area for child-rearing. And once upon a time those migrants who came here for the schools and the park didn't care to live anywhere below 7th Avenue.)