Stars Leave Memories at Arrowhead

Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald: Remember them? What better time to remember than now, during the Memorial Day weekend?

Eddy and MacDonald, who co-starred in eight musicals starting with MGM’s “Naughty Marietta” in 1934, are like so many talents who are gone but shouldn’t be forgotten. Eddy died in 1967, and MacDonald, two years before.

They made their last picture together in 1942, but there is a Los Angeles real estate development company that is celebrating an MGM film they made in 1936, because that movie--”Rose Marie”--was shot at Lake Arrowhead, where the firm, Moreland Development Co. (a Unocal company), is offering 19 lake-front lots for sale, ranging from $225,000 to about $500,000 apiece.

Not only that but the lots are supposed to be on the exact site where Eddy and MacDonald sang love songs among the pines. Totem Pole Point is the name of the site, and there are even a couple of old and nearly forgotten totem poles that mark the spot where “Rose Marie” and the 1931 Warner Bros. movie “River’s End” were filmed.

In those days, Lake Arrowhead was a playground for such stars as Myrna Loy, Buster Crabbe and Merle Oberon. Even today, though, there are some celebrities who have homes at Lake Arrowhead. Among them: Mike Connors, Dennis Weaver and Dick Clark.

Ever have a yen--make that a mark, a forint or a schilling --to visit the castles and estates of Germany, Hungary and Austria?

Cannell & Chaffin Residential Interiors, the design company that provided furnishings for Hearst Castle more than half a century ago, will host a tour of such properties this fall that will include “an evening with Countess Pallavicini at her palace and cocktails with the American Ambassador to Hungary in his home.”

As Danford M. Baker, president and chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based Cannell & Chaffin described it, the trip--Oct. 2-17--will give 30 to 35 participants “the opportunity to meet and dine with distinguished citizens of the three countries in their private homes.” Also on the itinerary: a concert of the Vienna Boy’s Choir, a performance of the State Opera with an appointment backstage, and a look inside Schloss Neuschwanstein, which Walt Disney used as a model for his castle at Disneyland.

This is the fourth year that Cannell & Chaffin has hosted a European tour, arranged by William J. Bird and his Sunshine Travel of Indio. Past tours have focused on: “the Great Estates of England,” “the Great Chateaux of France,” and “the Great Villas of Italy.” Now, a spokeswoman for the travel agency said, “we’re doing Great Castles and Estates.” And all for the great--or not-so-great (depending on your perspective)--price of $4,000 plus airfare.

Christie’s, a leading fine-art auctioneer established in the 18th Century, and Douglas Elliman, a brokerage firm handling prestigious residential properties since 1911, have joined forces in New York.

“It’s not a merger,” Hall F. Willkie, vice president of Douglas Elliman, was quick to explain. “It’s just an association for this end of the market.”

“This end of the market” is, you might have guessed, the “high end.” An announcement of the new association put it this way:

“Through Douglas Elliman’s Manhattan headquarters and its branch offices in Locust Valley and Southampton, Long Island, and Greenwich, Conn., Christie’s-Douglas Elliman will accommodate Christie’s distinguished clients in the purchase and sale of first-class properties. In turn, Christie’s fine arts services will be made available to Douglas Elliman’s select clientele.”

So far, the first four properties being handled by the new association are each listed at “well over $1 million,” Willkie explained, “but the criteria is not just price but properties that would benefit from special marketing; that is, properties requiring more than local exposure.” And, he said, those properties could be in Bel-Air as well as in White Plains, N.Y.

“Where this will come in handy is for executors of estates--where somebody died,” he added. “Through Christie’s-Douglas Elliman, the executor just needs to go to one source to sell the real estate and the objects of art.”

Sotheby Parke Bernet International Realty Corp. is similar, but it is a division of Sotheby’s, fine-art auctioneers headquartered in Manhattan, and it has opened offices in New York, Boston, Palm Beach, Los Angeles, Washington, Atlanta, Denver and, most recently, San Francisco, since being formed in 1976.