Operating in other rooms now

On the work front, Patrick Dempsey and Oscar nominee George Clooney have a lot in common. Both have starred as doctors in hit TV medical series. And both have leading-man good looks.

On the home front, it’s a different story. Clooney, a single man, has lived in the same San Fernando Valley home for years. Dempsey, a married man with a daughter, just sold his Hollywood Hills home for $2.5 million.

Dempsey, who has starred as brain surgeon Derek Shepherd (“Dr. McDreamy”) on “Grey’s Anatomy” since 2005, paid about $1.4 million for his Spanish-style house in 2001 and then did a fair amount of updating. He put a new kitchen in the 1926 house and expanded the master bedroom suite, which now has a huge closet, a fireplace, a balcony and city views.

The gated estate has three bedrooms and four bathrooms in 3,000 square feet. On the grounds are a large pool, an outdoor fireplace, a lighted paddle-tennis court, terraced garden paths and a nautical-style pool house with teak finishes.

This wasn’t Dempsey’s first home purchase. In the late ‘90s, he bought a house and farm in Maine for his mother, which he also had a hand in remodeling.

For him, however, home refurbishing takes a backseat to car racing. In February, he became a co-owner of IndyCar’s Vision Racing, a racing team. He also races sports cars.

As an actor who likes to race cars, Dempsey, 40, might seem to have more in common with Paul Newman than Clooney, 44, who parlayed his role as a doctor on “ER” during the mid-to-late ‘90s into a major film career. Clooney is nominated for Oscars at the awards ceremony tonight for his supporting role in “Syriana” and for directing and co-writing “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

Dempsey will costar in Jersey Film’s “Freedom Rider” and Disney’s “Enchanted.”

Jimmy Wood of ZipRealty Inc. represented the buyer, and Brett Lawyer of Sotheby’s International Realty, Sunset, had the listing.

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With $5.25 million you get egg roll

A symbol of celebrity life in Beverly Hills is on the market for the first time in more than 40 years at $5.25 million.

It’s the Crescent Drive house that actress Doris Day and her then-husband, producer-manager Martin Melcher, bought in the ‘50s and kept even after Day moved to Carmel 25 years ago.

Day always loved the house and thought about moving back to Beverly Hills, but after renting it out to a variety of celebrities, Hollywood executives, consul officials and others, she decided to sell, said her longtime publicist, Linda Dozoretz.

When Day lived there, fan magazines were filled with photos of her riding her bicycle in and out of the front gates as she took daily rides to her Canon Drive office and her favorite Beverly Hills shops and restaurants.

Over the years, Day also kept many dogs and cats in the backyard while finding permanent homes for them. The five-bedroom, six-bathroom house is on a 30,000-square-foot lot with a pool, spa and covered patio. The 4,300-square-foot home, built in 1922, also has a detached guesthouse with a fireplace.

The kitchen, Day’s favorite room, was the setting for many photo shoots and interviews. It was often described as “the kitchen of the future” with its island cabinets and appliances, considered high-tech at the time. Still there, between the formal dining and living rooms, is the bar, where only ice cream was served.

“I loved the years I spent on Crescent Drive,” Day said. “I have so many great memories of that wonderful neighborhood. Now it’s time for someone else to enjoy it the next 40 or 50 years.”

Day, 81, made the annual exhibitors’ poll of Top 10 box office stars eight years in a row, starting in 1959. She topped the poll three years in a row. In 1959, she costarred with Rock Hudson in the movie “Pillow Talk” and won her one nomination for a best actress Oscar.

Drew Mandile and Brooke Knapp of Sotheby’s International Realty, Beverly Hills, have the listing.

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Same address, different celebrity

In what might be called a game of musical houses, celebrities often buy from and sell to each other.

The latest such deal involves pop singer Nick Lachey, who closed escrow last week on the Bel-Air honeymoon home of singer-songwriter Seal and his wife, supermodel Heidi Klum.

Lachey, 32, was looking for another home after singer-actress Jessica Simpson, 25, filed for divorce from him in December. They had been living in a house featured on MTV’s “Newlyweds” reality series.

Lachey bought the Seal-Klum home for about $5 million. Seal bought it about a year ago for $4.3 million.

The gated, four-bedroom contemporary was listed by Lynn Teschner of Coldwell Banker Previews, Beverly Hills south office, and Mauricio Umansky of Hilton & Hyland represented the buyer.

Lachey previously sold his Calabasas home, listed at $3.75 million, to Justin Berfield, 20, a regular on the sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle.”

Simpson played the musical-house game before Lachey when she paid slightly more than $5 million for a five-bedroom, Beverly Hills home owned at one time by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and at another time by actor Paul Hogan.

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To see previous columns on celebrity realty transactions visit latimes.com/hotproperty.