Robin Williams Sells His Topanga Canyon Home

Robin Williams and his wife, Valerie, have sold their Topanga Canyon home to live year-’round on their 600-acre ranch in the Sonoma wine country--year-’round, that is, except when the popular actor/comedian is maintaining his Hollywood connection through the couple’s apartment in Los Angeles.

“They sold their Topanga digs for $270,000 to a husband-and-wife writing and riding team,” Gary Harryman, who handled the transaction through the Topanga office of Malibu Realty, said. The buyers are Gene Larson, a writer, and Jodi Johnson, whom Harryman described as a “top-notch horsewoman.”

“Robin and Valerie built a large plantation house on the ranch, which they’ve owned for some time, and they have every comfort there that a Caesar ever had,” Harryman noted.

They also have some cows, chickens and, of course, grapevines at the ranch, which they share with their 2-year-old son Zachary.

The ranch isn’t far from where Williams, 32, attended Redwood High and College of Marin, and he frequently drives, though it’s several hours away, to the Bay Area to appear in comedy clubs there.

But his heart isn’t in San Francisco. It’s not in Hollywood, either, though his love of acting is evident in “Moscow on the Hudson” and other films.

His heart is at the ranch, judging by one of his business cards. It reads: “Robin Williams. Rancher.”

Rancho la Cima: Translated, it’s the ranch at the top, and it is, apparently in more ways than one.

On the summit of one of Rancho Santa Fe’s loveliest hills, Rancho la Cima has a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean and its surrounding 64 acres, including a large, private lake.

And, having just sold for $11 million, it may be the largest sale of a single-family residence in the history of San Diego County, say the listing/selling agents at Rancho Santa Fe Acreage & Homes.

A businessman/author from Northern California and his wife and three children bought the home from Woodhaven Development Corp. of Riverside. “The house was about a year old and was occupied at the time of sale,” John McChristy, the selling agent and office broker, explained. “It was built by the builder for himself. It was not a spec home.” It would be a rare builder indeed who would speculate on selling an $11-million home!

Designed by architect Frank Gonzales, the 15,500-square-foot, Spanish-style home (with two guest houses) has nine bedrooms, 13 baths, two spas, three fountains, a 67-by-47-foot swimming pool, computerized security and stereo systems, a TV satellite dish, mature orchard, and a marble shower stall with 15 showerheads and four controls. The house also sold with 26 telephones and five private lines. Oh, yes, it also came furnished.

“Scarce as hen’s teeth” is the way modern-day shopping centers might have been described when architect Theodore L. Pletsch (who is still practicing architecture in Pasadena at the age of 83) designed and built one in Pasadena in 1930.

The little center he conceived with a gas station, grocery store and produce market was one of the earliest examples of a “suburban drive-in shopping center” in Pasadena or possibly the world.

“It was one of the first that recognized the importance of the car,” said Jeanette Henderson, who currently owns the center with her husband, Winston. “By the end of the ‘20s, automobiles had become widespread enough to warrant an automobile-oriented shopping center some distance from downtown Pasadena.” The center is on the Altadena border of Pasadena at Los Robles Avenue and Woodbury Road.

It’s empty now. The old, 7,600-square-foot, Spanish-Colonial-Revival style building--a Pasadena historical landmark--is being renovated, and an additional 18,000-square-foot, two-story retail/office building is being planned. The Hendersons have formed the Los Robles Limited Partnership with PensionVest Inc. of Montrose to develop the property at a total cost of $2.5 million, using RGC Development Corp. as project supervisor and some Community Development Block Grant funds.

The restoration is expected to be completed in July, and the new building, by next Christmas. Then it will be a specialty center, focusing on foods such as imported coffee, fresh produce and special cuts of meat--”the kinds of things you’ll drive out of your way to get,” Jeanette Henderson said.

And the center will be called-- you probably guessed it--”Hen’s Teeth Square.”