Source : Business Times – 17 Nov 2009
Actors, sports stars and writers are just some of the rich and famous selling off their luxurious homes
Former University of Southern California tailback turned New Orleans Saint Reggie Bush has listed his Hollywood Hills home at US$5,099,000.
The tri-level contemporary sits at the end of a cul-de-sac and has 360-degree views encompassing Long Beach, Santa Catalina Island, Malibu and nearby mountains. There are four bedrooms and 51/2 bathrooms in 4,831 square feet. Glass entry doors open to a soaring living room.
Designed for entertaining, the property has a home theatre, a swimming pool and a spa. The house even has a red plush-lined elevator bearing the monogram RB, making the digs move-in ready for actress Roseanne Barr, actor Robby Benson or Milwaukee Brewer Ryan Braun.
The entire penthouse level is devoted to the master bedroom suite with his and her bathrooms, an oversized closet and a deck.
The running back, 24, has been with the Saints since 2006, when he left USC before his senior year as the No 2 pick in the NFL draft.
The 2005 Heisman Trophy winner purchased the home for US$4.7 million in 2007 for use as his off-season home, according to reports at the time.
Actor Larry Hagman and his wife, Maj, have listed their longtime mountaintop home in Ojai, a 43-acre spread befitting Dallas oilman JR Ewing, for US$11 million.
The nine-bedroom, 141/2-bathroom Mediterranean-style estate was designed and built for the couple in 1992.
The off-the-grid property 60 miles northeast of downtown LA has separate solar systems providing energy for the main residence, the well and the caretaker’s home, while creating surplus power. When Hagman installed the first system in 2003, his annual electric bill went from US$37,000 to US$13.
Sitting behind iron gates, the 18,000-square-foot main house has an open floor plan with walls of sliding glass doors, painted murals, an indoor grotto-style spa and a retractable roof over a 40-foot saltwater lap pool in the grand room, which has accommodated parties of up to 200 people. Glass walls on three sides provide unobstructed views from the bed in the master suite. There are ocean, mountain and valley vistas.
The compound includes a two-bedroom guesthouse, a separate office, an outside pool connected by streams to two ponds, a private helipad and more than 200 avocado trees.
A television, film and stage actor for more than five decades, Hagman was twice nominated for Emmys for his work on Dallas (1978-91). He starred as Major Anthony Nelson in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70). Hagman, 78, was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in March.
The Hagmans are selling because they are ready to downsize. They own another home in the LA area.
The Antonio Moreno estate, a 1930 mansion named for the film star who lived in it until 1935, has sold for US$4.2 million.
The Mediterranean Revival has a two-storey living room, five separate bedroom wings and 71/2 bathrooms in 8,081 square feet. The home sits on more than half an acre in gated Laughlin Park in LA’s Los Feliz neighbourhood. There is a period kitchen, original tile bathrooms, a guesthouse and a recording/editing studio.
The house and its two-storey detached garage cost US$27,300 to build during the Depression, according to building biographer Tim Gregory. It last sold for US$1.66 million in 1996, public records show.
Moreno, an actor from the silent- film era through the 1950s, was the home’s first owner. Although he was married to oil heiress Daisy Canfield Moreno when he moved into the Los Feliz estate, they were estranged. She died in a 1933 car accident.
The suave matinee idol was often cast as a ‘Latin lover’ in his early films and played opposite Greta Garbo and Clara Bow, among others. With the advent of talking pictures, he directed and starred in several Spanish-language films made in Mexico before returning to Hollywood as a character actor. His later work included Thunder Bay (1953) and Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). He died in 1967 at age 79.
Author and screenwriter Brian Garfield has sold his Beverly Hills Post Office-area home for US$1,795,000, the Multiple Listing Service shows.
The traditional single-storey house has a skylighted entry, a family room with a bar, wide-plank distressed hardwood floors and formal living and dining rooms.
French doors open to a brick patio with a swimming pool, spa and canyon views. There are four bedrooms and 31/2 bathrooms in 3,232 square feet.
About a quarter of Garfield’s 70- plus books have been the basis for movies, including Death Wish, which was made into the 1974 Charles Bronson action film and its sequels, and Hopscotch, the 1980 comedy-adventure film starring Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson and Sam Waterston.
The recently released Sela Ward thriller, The Stepfather, is based on his 1987 novel of the same name. Garfield, born in 1939, bought the house in 1999.
No comments:
Post a Comment