Hot Property: Julianna Margulies’ Santa Monica home for sale at $4.5 million

Whenever I walk into a hospital emergency room, I still look for Nurse Hathaway -- the one who goes the extra mile for her patients, even when someone who looks like George Clooney is distracting her at the moment.

Actress Julianna Margulies may have hung up her scrubs as Carol Hathaway on the NBC drama “ER” way back in 2000, but the part remains her best-known.

We aren’t sure why Margulies, 42, wants to sell her house in Santa Monica, just listed for $4.5 million, but perhaps returning to her roots in New York is just what the career doctor ordered.

The house, north of Montana, is currently rented to actress Kyra Sedgwick,star of TNT’s “The Closer.”

The house, built in 1927, has 3,235 square feet of living space. The main house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a living room with a beamed ceiling and wood-burning fireplace.

There is an open chef’s kitchen, a den, an office-library and a swimming pool.

The detached guesthouse has one bedroom and one bathroom.

Margulies, and her raven-colored ringlets, most recently starred on Fox’s short-lived “Canterbury’s Law.” She also starred in Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” on stage.

In the 2006-07 season, she appeared in four episodes of “The Sopranos,” portraying a real estate agent, and she starred in the movie “Snakes on a Plane.”

The listing is being handled by the Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills East office.

A shot at a Moroccan dream

On a hilltop about five miles outside Petra, Jordan, is one of the most unusual hotels in the world. Taybet Zaman Hotel & Resort is a 19th century Bedouin village renovated into a five-star hotel -- the brainchild of Jordanian Queen Noor, who rightly predicted that tourists would flock to the one-of-a-kind resort.

To the best of my knowledge, the queen had nothing to do with the Venice home of world-class photographers Phillip Dixon and Véronique Vial, but this $8,295,000 home evokes much the same feeling as the magnificent hotel.

The Moroccan-style palazzo makes liberal use of stone and water. In fact, a river-like pool runs through the home’s main rooms. There are three bedrooms and three bathrooms in 4,380 square feet.

Given the owners’ professions, it’s no surprise that the house has a naturally lighted photography studio (which could be converted to an art, dance or recording studio). The property first came on the market in January at $13 million.

Dixon is a fashion photographer whose work has appeared in Playboy, French Elle and Harper’s Bazaar. His advertising clients include Ray-Ban and Paramount Pictures.

Vial has published several books of her art photos, including “Women Before 10 a.m.” and “Men Before 10 a.m.” -- both journals of celebrities during the morning hours.

Kelly Sutherland, Coldwell Banker Previews International, Beverly Hills South, has the listing.

Pickfair’s return to the spotlight

There are celebrities who are so well-known that they need only one name. The housing equivalent is Pickfair,the Beverly Hills Georgian manor whose name instantly summons images of old Hollywood and the days of glamour and opulence.

Pickfair has been listed for sale at $60 million. Designed by California architect Wallace Neff in 1919 and named after its original residents -- silent film actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford -- the house was once a hunting lodge. It was later transformed into a 22-room mansion and is believed to be the first private property in L.A. to have its own swimming pool.

In the 1920s, visitors to the home included everybody who was anybody -- George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Crawford and Noel Coward.

Fairbanks and Pickford divorced in 1936; Pickford resided in the mansion until her death in 1979. The house stood empty for several years until it was bought by Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss. Later, while owned by actress Pia Zadora and her husband, Meshulam Riklis, the original mansion was largely demolished and a new, larger one constructed in its place. Zadora and Riklis sold it in 2005.

Including the guest units and staff quarters, there are 17 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms, elevators, a ballroom-size living room, an indoor glass-domed spa, a gym, a swimming pool, a 35-millimeter home theater, a discothèque and parking for 30 cars. The property is 2.7 acres.

Felix Pena of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, has the listing.

Marketing all-star wants that sale

How much larger than life do you need to be to get James (“The Sopranos”) Gandolfini to play you in an HBO movie? Let’s ask Sonny Vaccaro, best known as the sports marketing genius who signed Michael Jordan to his first sneaker deal.

Vaccaro has listed his 6,200-square-foot home in a gated Calabasas community for $2,399,000. The two-story house has six bedrooms and 6 1/2 bathrooms and a pool with cascading waterfalls. There is a covered veranda and built-in barbecue. The house, Mediterranean in style, was built in 1994. Two of the bedrooms are on the first floor. The master suite has a fireplace and sitting area.

As a sports marketing promoter, Vaccaro put basketball stars in Nike, Reeboks and Adidas. He founded the ABCD Camp, an elite showcase of high school basketball standouts that saw the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Sebastian Telfair.

An air date has not yet been set for the made-for-TV movie.

Jordan B. Cohen of Re/Max Olson & Associates, Westlake Village, has the listing.

ann.brenoff@latimes.com