Christopher Kimball Chops TH Price; Nixed Condos

It's time for the weekly contribution from our sister site Curbed Boston: Curbed Cuts, all the latest neighborhood news...

SOUTH END - In January, Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen fame listed his 4,600-square-foot Worcester Square townhouse for $2,629,000. Its 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms over 5 floors (plus a basement) were impressive enough, but what really grabbed us—not surprisingly—was the kitchen, which Kimball had custom built to be some sort of foodie paradise. The townhouse's tag was chopped last week by $54K to $2,575,000.
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BACK BAY - Add another new Boston development to the list. The former owner of the Park Plaza and Copley Square hotels wants to build a hotel that that could rise up to 35 floors. It would be deliberately designed to be a unique addition to the city's skyline. The hotel would go on the site of the old John Hancock Hotel & Conference Center, which the development team, led by the Saunders Hotel Group, bought in December for $22.6 million.

SOUTH BOSTON - 'Tis bad enough to have your idea for an eight-unit condo shafted by would-be neighbors and local pols. It's another to have it happen in a city in the grips of apartment-building fever. Indeed, in South Boston alone, where the eight-unit development proposed for 408 East 8th Street was nixed by the zoning board, there are hundreds of new apartments planned or in development, enough to change the neighborhood forever.
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BEACON HILL - The first thing you should know about this 5-BR, 5.5-BA townhouse at 36 Lime Street is that the same owners have lived there since the early days of the White administration. The second thing is that its interior was designed by the late, great David Nightingale Hicks. The third thing you should know is that the townhouse, on the market now barely a week, is asking $6,950,000.