Haven't figured out where to spend the holidays? How does a five-bedroom villa in Mustique next door to Tommy Hilfiger's home sound? Walter and Monica Noel's Caribbean retreat is available for rent for $55,000 a week. With the Noels now thinking about canceling their holiday vacation plans, you might be able to take advantage of the sudden availability if you act quickly enough. Bonus: The home comes with broadband access so if someone else comes along and files suit against Noel in the coming days, you don't have to worry about missing the news! [Business Sheet]

Andre Balazs' shiny, new Standard NYC soft-launched this past weekend with rates as low as $195 a night. But if you think even that is too much to spend on a hotel that doesn't have a functioning restaurant, bar or gym, Curbed kindly points out that the Liberty Inn across the street is still open for business. And it may be the best bargain in town—$60 for two hours, although you'll have to pay $40 extra for a "romantic interlude room." Just consider the tranny hookers in the hallways and the used needles in the bathrooms a memorial to the meatpacking district of days past. [Curbed]

Hilary Duff Opens The New York Stock Exchange [Splash News]

• Armin Amiri's Socialista was shut down by the yesterday for failing to post "No Smoking" signs. Or did it have something to do with the rat problem? [GS]
• A group of vandals broke in Stephen Hanson's Fiamma last night. [Eater]
• David Burke's Fishtail is serving a late-night menu from 11pm to 1am. [GS]
• A bunch of changes are in the works for the Rusty Knot. [GS]
• The new d.b.a. beer bar has opened in Williamsburg. [FB]
• Billy's Bakery is giving out $1 cupcakes today if you're interested. [Eater]
• A roundup of outdoor bars that have heaters, so you can drink all winter long without having to put on gloves. [FB]

Great news for anyone concerned that the upcoming race for City Hall would be a dull one. Michael Bloomberg has tapped Howard Wolfson to serve as the public face of his campaign, a move that should "bring a redoubled pugnaciousness to the mayor's re-election team." [City Room]

Fox Business caught up with Bernie Madoff's sketchy accountant, David Friehling, after he made an appearance today at the Clarkstown, NY police department. Friehling refused to answer a Fox Business reporter's questions, but his son did take a moment to dump water on the network's van. Now that's a classy way to handle the situation, isn't it? [Fox Business]

Monica Noel, the wife of disgraced hedge fund manager, protested this week to the Post that she and her husband aren't really all that rich, notwithstanding the $500 million her husband's firm is estimated to have collected just by steering clients to invest with Bernie Madoff: "You write [that] our five daughters were brought up in the lap of luxury in their Greenwich estate. We don't live in an estate. We live in a normal house that was a cottage on two acres." That the "cottage" is just one of five properties that the Noels call home—there's also an apartment on Park Avenue, homes in Southampton and Palm Beach, and a "tropical retreat" in Mustique—Monica's claim doesn't seem to hold much water. But you wouldn't mistake the Noels for heavy-hitting philanthropists, at least judging by the couple's charitable donations in recent years. In 2006 (the last year for which info is available), the Walter and Monica Noel Family Foundation handed out a grand total of $169,000, most of it distributed in amounts of $250 or $500 to organizations like Americares, the YMCA of Greenwich, and the International Rescue Committee. After the jump, the complete list of non-profit groups that benefited from Noel's lucrative relationship with Bernie Madoff.

The voicemail message at Lucy Sykes and Euan Rellie's apartment.

"Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a founder of the hedge fund Access International Advisors, was found dead early Tuesday in his office in Manhattan, the French business daily La Tribune reported on its Web site, after losing as much as $1.4 billion that had been invested with Bernard L. Madoff." [Dealbook]

• For the first time in 12 years, FedEx is skipping the Super Bowl. [AdWeek]
• Another gloomy sign for NBC as the Super Bowl approaches: The network is allowing an agency to divide up 30-second commercials. [THR]
• GQ's cover featuring a half-nude Jennifer Aniston seems to be too risqué for the Hudson News outlet in Grand Central Terminal. [Folio]
• SAG has delayed voting on a potential strike until at least January 14. [EW]
• Ticket sales have tumbled since Jeremy Piven ditched Speed-the-Plow. [AP]

Hugh Jackman carrying daughter Ava across the street ... Katie Lee Joel leaving Pastis in the back of an SUV ... Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw buying pretzels on the corner of East 61st Street ... Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer leaving the Olive Tree Cafe on MacDougal Street ... Lauren Conrad leaving Butter with Holly Montag ... Leona Lewis filming her new music video in Brooklyn ... Katie Holmes and Suri shopping at J. Crew ... and Audrina Patridge catching a flight back to LA at JFK.

What happens when you run a hedge fund and you lose $7.5 billion as part of one of the biggest scams in Wall Street history? Your plans to jet off to Mustique for Christmas might go awry, for one. The Times UK reports that members of the Noel family may not be heading down to their lavish Caribbean retreat after all. Presumably they'll be forced to spend the holidays at their manse in Greenwich. Perhaps fellow hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones will invite them over to admire his Christmas decorations instead? Probably not! [Times UK via Dealbreaker]

The Loews Corporation, the vast conglomerate controlled by the billionaire Tisch family, appears to be holding up pretty well amid the economic downturn. But that doesn't mean company chief James Tisch doesn't have other things to keep him up at night. Tisch and his wife Merryl have been slapped with a lawsuit by the couple's former butler and chauffeur, who alleges the couple failed to pay him the salary and benefits he was promised and denied him overtime pay as required by law. The ex-employee, a man named Miroslaw Drabik, claims he worked for the Tisches as a butler, chauffeur and caretaker of the couple's summer home from October 2007 through May 2008 and regularly put in 40 hours a week on the job. But in his suit in US District Court, Drabik alleges he never received the pay he was owed in accordance with state and federal labor laws. Drabik is now asking a court to award him an unspecified amount in back wages as well as punitive damages. After the jump, you can peruse the full suit by the Tisch's embittered ex-butler.

• Kenneth Cole has sliced $2 million off the price of his penthouse at 101 West 79th Street. Cole originally listed the four-bedroom apartment for $18.95 million. He just reduced it to $16.95 million, but it's unlikely Cole and wife Maria Cuomo will have much stuff to move out if they find a buyer. Although the fashion mogul has owned the apartment since '85, the family spends most of its time at homes on Sutton Place and in Westchester. [Cityfile, Carol E. Levy]
• Billy Joel has taken his Centre Island mansion off the market after failing to find a buyer for the $32.5 million property. Joel bought the waterfront estate, which is known as Middlesea, for $22 million in 2002. It's also where he tied the knot with Katie Lee back in 2004. [Newsday]
• Katharine Muir has listed her five-story, eight-bedroom townhouse at 42 West 71st Street for $7.3 million. [Cityfile, TE]

As we've heard over the last couple of months, the recession has triggered a wave of crime and immorality. Today's Times confirms that shoplifting is on the rise, too, as people "are taking everything from compact discs and baby formula to gift cards and designer clothing." (The authorities say shoplifting is up 10 to 20 percent this year compared to last.) But the biggest criminal threat to retailers doesn't seem to be tragic individuals like the 25-year-old father of two who, after losing a job in a factory and then a job at McDonalds, tried to steal a $4.99 bottle of sleeping pills and is now awaiting trial. It's computers.

Carla Bruni Sarkozy is celebrating today—France's First Lady is turning 41. CBS chief Les Moonves is 60. Conservative coumnist Bill Kristol is 56. Soap star Susan Lucci is 62. Badgley Mischka's James Mischka is turning 48. Author Donna Tartt is 45. Literary agent Elyse Cheney is 41. Retired Army General (and one-time presidential candidate) Wesley Clark is turning 64. Rock star Eddie Vedder turns 44. And The Girls Next Door's Holly Madison is 29 today.

• Jeffrey Epstein is a free man—sort of. The billionaire money manager, who was sentenced to 18 months for soliciting a minor for prostitution, is now working at the office of his non-profit foundation five days as a week as part of a work-release program. [P6]
• Mort Zuckerman became a dad for the second time on Friday with the birth of a daughter named Renee Esther. [NYDN]
• Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey's frosty relationship has turned into "outright contempt" since Baldwin mocked Fey's scar at a recent photo shoot and told the photographer to "get ready to do a lot of airbrushing." [Star]
• Suri Cruise gets 100 fan letters each day, you'll be creeped out to learn. [Star]

• The U.S. economy slowed sharply in the third quarter, according the new figures released by the Commerce Department this morning. [MW]
• Lehman Brothers has won bankruptcy court approval to sell its investment management assets, including Neuberger Berman. [DB]
• What did banks do with their bailout billions? They're not saying. [AP]
• A record number of M&A deals were cancelled in 2009. [FT]
• Investigators looking into the Madoff mess continue to focus their attention on a key Madoff lieutenant, Frank DiPascali. [WSJ]
• A Madoff investor has filed suit against the SEC, the first attempt by a victim of the scheme to go after regulators. [Reuters]

Who'd have guessed that losing your life savings in a elaborate Ponzi scheme would suddenly become trendy? "Because Madoff is said to have only accepted an exclusive group of wealthy investors, saying you got ripped off by Madoff is a subtle way of saying that you've got big money. From those who spend their summers in Nantucket to those spending evenings at the Yale Club, Bernie Madoff has become the new name to drop." [Clusterstock]

• In what will probably come as soul-crushing news to Arden Wohl, Mischa Barton is launching a line of headbands with Stacey Lapidus. [WWD]
• How do you rope in shoppers during a recession? Staying open 24 hours a day is one popular approach. [WSJ]
• More bad news for retail: As if the recession wasn't painful enough, snowfall during the final days of the season is expected to make things worse. [WSJ]
• Just in case you missed the news, leggings are back. [LAT]
• Tim Gunn has sent out "videotaped personal pleas" to Giorgio Armani and Donna Karan to urge them to stop using rabbit fur from China. [P6]
• Betsey Johnson is not, in fact, planning a diffusion line. [NYM]
• Sorry, folks: Burger King's meat-scented body spray, is sold out. [Racked]