Hot Property: Faith Hill, Tim McGraw sell Beverly Hills Post Office home for $9.5 million
Country music superstars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have sold their Beverly Hills Post Office spread for $9.5 million.
The two-story Mediterranean, with panoramic canyon and city views and a swimming pool with a spa, sits on 4.85 gated acres — a fair amount of breathing room for a “city” home. The two-story entry features limestone floors. There is a step-down living room. The 10,500-square-foot house’s six bedrooms and 7 1/2 bathrooms include a master bedroom suite with dual bathrooms and a connecting gym.
Hill, 42, has sold more than 40 million records. She and McGraw won a Grammy Award for best country collaboration with vocals in 2006 for “Like We Never Loved at All.” Each of them has won multiple Grammys.
McGraw, 43, also has seen sales in the 40 million range. He starred opposite Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” (2009). Hill appeared in the 2004 film “The Stepford Wives.”
The duo, whose primary residence is in Nashville, bought the Beverly Park house in 2003 for close to its $6.45 million asking price, according to Times archives.
Marisa Zanuck of Hilton & Hyland handled both sides of the transaction.
A half-century of belly laughs
The longtime family home of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” actor Morey Amsterdam is on the market at $6,495,000.
The Beverly Hills Midcentury classic, with many of the original features and décor from the time of the comedian’s purchase nearly a half-century ago, has a ‘60s vibe.
The single-story house was a place where guests could feel at home.
” Ronald Reagan would stop by to visit, and Dad would tell him jokes standing in the kitchen,” said son Gregory Amsterdam, who lived there through his college years and beyond. “There were people popping in and out all the time.”
The Amsterdams often entertained at home, throwing dinner parties in the formal dining room for 10 to 15 guests. Other times the area around the kidney-shaped swimming pool in the backyard was used for parties of 50 to 60, Amsterdam said.
“My father loved the sun,” Amsterdam said, to the point where he would walk backward on a golf course to face it. The senior Amsterdam sometimes wrote quips while lounging in the pool area. “If there was any hint of sun, he would be out there getting a suntan.”
The family changed the footprint from a T-shape to a J by adding what they called a play room with large picture windows, a television, a card table and a desk, where the comic also worked on material.
The 5,854-square-foot house has walls of glass that open to the backyard, a living room with a fireplace and a step-down bar, a breakfast room, a den with a fireplace, four bedrooms and 4 1/2 bathrooms. There is a three-car garage and large motorcourt.
Morey Amsterdam, who died in 1996 at age 87, played fellow office worker Buddy Sorrell on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-66). The gregarious actor was in show business for more than seven decades.
“My father really loved people,” Gregory Amsterdam said. “He’d go out to get the mail, and Starline Tour would go by and he’d stop to talk.”
Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker Beverly Hills South and Gloria Benveniste of Coldwell Banker’s Marina del Rey office have the listing.
Variation on a Venice harmony
“The X-Files” composer Mark Snow has listed his Venice home at $1,899,000.
Custom-built in 2007, the Cape Cod-inspired house has an open-plan first floor with skylights. There are three bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms and 2,860 square feet of living space. The master bedroom suite has a balcony, vaulted ceilings and two walk-in closets.
The Juilliard School graduate was a co-founder of the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble. Among his compositions is the theme music for sci-fi series “The X-Files” (1993-2002) and both “X-Files” films. He also wrote the music for “Millennium” (1996-99) and “Ghost Whisperer” (2005-09).
Snow, 63, is looking for another house in the immediate area.
He bought the property in 2007 for $2.2 million, according to public records.
Tina Stern of Ewing & Associates, Sotheby’s International Realty, Sherman Oaks, has the listing.
Newly minted in Beverly Hills
A newly constructed 36,000-square-foot mansion has come on the market in Beverly Hills at $68.5 million. It was built by C. Frederick Wehba, founder of the international real estate investment firm BentleyForbes.
The French Palladian-inspired three-level house has a hand-carved limestone exterior, marble columns, a two-story circular entry with a skylight and bronze beveled double-pane windows and doors. There are nine bedrooms and 13 bathrooms. The grounds include a pool with a pavilion entertaining area, a tennis court and gardens.
The house sits on nearly two acres of what was once part of Beverly Hills co-founder Max Whittier’s estate. In the late ‘70s, owner and Saudi sheik Mohammed al Fassi drew complaints from his neighbors by painting his white mansion green and its white plaster statues of nudes in multi-tone anatomical detail. That house was gutted by fire in 1980 and later razed, and eventually the lot was subdivided.
The listings agents are Joyce Rey and Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker’s Beverly Hills South office and Mauricio Umansky of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills.
Stepping into Hollywood past
A Hollywood Hills home once owned by actress-singer-dancer Ginger Rogers and her actor husband, Lew Ayres, is listed at $2,395,000.
Tucked away behind walls and gates, the 1927 Spanish-style house has a large second-floor studio, unobstructed 270-degree city and ocean views and a total of five bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms in 4,800 square feet of living space. The grounds include an enclosed outdoor patio/entertainment area with a barbecue pit, a fireplace and a koi pond.
Rogers gained widespread recognition for her performance in “Gold Diggers of 1933” (1933), popularizing the song “We’re in the Money.” She was often paired with dance partner Fred Astaire in films such as “Top Hat” (1935) and “Shall We Dance” (1937). Rogers won a lead actress Oscar for “Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman” (1940).
Ayres, with scores of film and television credits, starred in “Young Dr. Kildare” (1938). He reprised the role in more than a half-dozen subsequent movies.
James Nasser of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, has the listing.
