Casagrande & Rintala have designed a floating sauna for the Rosendahl Village in Norway. It literally floats on the water and is 100% functional… and a big part of me wants one!

When it is in use, it has semi transparent walls, to provide some privacy for the user. At night, when it is not in use, it glows like a lantern on the soft surface. Access is only allowed by rowing boat and soap is strictly prohibited due to ecological reasons. Of course, to get one anchored off the shore of your Lake Washington home might require a ten year fight with Fish & Game… something most waterfront home owners are very familiar with!

Seattle Luxury Exclusive: Click to View Property Auction Brochure

The New York auction firm Sheldon Good & Co. announced today that it’s been retained to sell the famed Lytle Estate located on the Northern shore of Mercer Island. This is the same home that has been listed by CBBain’s Wendy Lister going all the way back to 2004 when the asking price was a staggering $40,000,000 USD. The Lytle’s, an active Seattle couple and founders of Leisure Care, have owned the property since 1989 and have poured millions into its transformation as one of the premier properties in the NW.

With approx. 23,000sq’ of living, the home was once described by Wendy Lister as:

“Jeweled candles of city lights; sunsets drawing your vision to the rugged Olympic crags. An arena of mirrored lagoons, saltwater pools… the manse itself a shy one-half acre showpiece surging to the sun. Unparalleled dinner chambres; master suite of epic proportions…rich marble salon, personal gym, wardrobe wing. Land: 2 gentle acres; 175′ low bank shores. Significant 140′ yacht moorage. Spiraling 12′ centre hall Chihuly. Schematic plans completed for additional 2BR 2BA within current walls.”

The listing recently expired on 01/19/2010 at a listing price of $25 million. Bidding will open at $15 million and the auction is date is set for this coming April… so get those deposit checks ready!

Click here to view the photos from the NWMLS

If you would like more information on this spectacular property or on the auction itself, please contact Shawn Filer, Director of The Luxury Collection, NWG at 206-919-5388 or visit www.shawnfiler.com

“Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris,” an exhibit of more than 150 works of art, from paintings and sculptures to prints, drawings and photographs, opens at SAM on Oct. 8 and will be on display through Jan. 9, 2011.

The exhibit will cover every phase in Picasso’s protean career, from the dawn of the 20th century through works dating from the early 1970s, including his 1970 self-portrait “The Matador.”

SAM director Derrick Cartwright calls this “a once-in-a-lifetime chance for a large public to view these important objects in Seattle.”

Added Chiyo Ishikawa, co-curator with Michael Darling of the show’s Seattle stop: “The exhibition presents an entire sweep of Picasso’s career, documenting the full range of his unceasing inventiveness and creative process.”

“Picasso never liked to rest on his laurels,” Darling said. “This prompted him to always move on before any one expressive mode began to run thin.”

Highlights will include “La Celestina” (from his famous Blue Period), “The Two Brothers” (from his Pink Period) and the exuberant “Two Women Running on the Beach (La Course)” from 1922.

“Portrait of Dora Maar” (1937) finds him taking a multiplaned approach to the human figure — in this case, his mistress Dora Maar, a surrealist photographer. Jonathan Jones, writing in The Guardian’s “Portrait of the Week” column, ascribed to the painting “the kind of leap of perception that caricaturists loved to parody in Picasso, and that enables his art to say two or 200 things at once. … Her presence transcends the physical.”

The most unusual thing about the Musée Picasso’s collection is that it comprises works that Picasso kept for himself. This is the artist’s personal record of his eight-decade-long career.

The Musée National Picasso, Paris, opened in Paris’ Marais neighborhood in 1985. Housed in a converted 17th-century mansion, the museum has room to display only 300 or fewer works at a time — a clear source of frustration for museum director Anne Baldassari, who told The Associated Press, “We can’t continue like this.”

Along with expanding exhibit space, renovations will address “electrical problems,” enhance accessibility for disabled visitors and create additional venues for student activities. The museum is scheduled to reopen in early 2012.

In the meantime, “Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris” just closed in Helsinki, Finland’s Ateneum Art Museum, where it attracted record crowds, and is about to open in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum. The exhibit likely will go to two more U.S. cities — still to be confirmed — after it leaves Seattle.

Source: Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times arts writer

See you soon!