Bo Derek Feted at Montecito Remodel
Bo Derek was honored a few days ago at a Mexican fiesta hosted by Carol and Paul Scott to celebrate completion of the Scotts’ remodeled home in Montecito and new, 11,000-square-foot mansion in Las Hadas.
Las Hadas--across the bay from Manzanillo on Mexico’s Gold Coast, half an hour by air from Puerto Vallarta--is where Bo was filmed in the 1979 movie that made her famous, “10.”
Fermin Trucios, general manager of the romantic-looking, Moorish-style Las Hadas Manzanillo Hotel, and other representatives of the resort presented Bo with a large, framed heart bearing a couple of hundred signatures from the Westin-managed hotel staff, along with the sentiment that they would like to have Bo return.
“We thought we’d send her our autographs,” Hans Rothlisberger, tthe hotel’s director of public relations, said with a chuckle.
Bo was at the Montecito gala with husband, John, who was in a Santa Barbara hospital in June after suffering a minor heart attack.
A couple hundred other guests--including actor Lyle Waggoner and his wife, Sharon--were also there to see the Scotts’ 50-year-old remodeled home, once owned by former world-class tennis pro Roscoe Tanner. Guests also saw a video of the famous 203-room hotel and surrounding property, which is being developed into sumptuous condos and houses--about 8,000 to 10,000 square feet in size. Casolar, a subsidiary of Grupo Alfa, has been developing the property since buying the 1,200-acre site, including the hotel, from Antenor Patino, a Bolivian tin magnate, in 1976.
Unfortunately, there was no video of the Scotts’ wonderfully described Las Hadas house, designed by Joaquin Torres and decorated by Beverly Hills interior designer Pasquale Vezanna, who also did the interiors of the Scotts’ Montecito home. Known as Casa Carolina, the white stucco and marble Las Hadas home is supposed to have the best view of the Santiago Peninsula, where the hotel is situated.
In case you don’t know who the Scotts are, by the way, he was founder and president of Ernst Strauss Inc., manufacturer of ladies tailored designer apparel, and she was a model before he retired nine months ago. He was also president of the Los Angeles Fashion Guild for 15 years. Now he’s teaching “The Fashion World Explored” at Santa Barbara City College and writing novels based on the fashion industry.
As soon as he completes a major redecorating, Merv Griffin plans to move into the 1940-era Beverly Hills mansion he bought through probate a couple of weeks ago for $5 million cash.
That’s the word from Jack Hupp, who had the $6.5-million listing. “There were no overbids” when the matter was heard in court, he explained.
The 10,000-square-foot house on three acres was owned by Liliore G. Rains, who died last November.
Our sources goofed when they said that Rains bought the Georgian-colonial home in 1966, while married to William Palmer. Seems she built the house years earlier. And she wasn’t married to Palmer in 1966.
Lee Harrell Palmer wrote: “For your information, the property was a gift from Mrs. Rains’ father (Beverly Hills co-founder Burton Green), and she built the house in the late 1930s and occupied it continuously from its completion to her death. In 1966, I had been married to William Palmer for 20 years. . . .”
A transfer of title in 1966 implied a change of ownership, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Bill Bakewell, an actor/real estate agent who works with Hupp, said, “I went to a party at her house in 1943, and she was divorced from Palmer then.” After she was divorced from Palmer, she married William Rains.
Now that that’s all clear. . . .
Speaking of Burton Green’s offspring . . . the second of his daughters, Burton Green Bettingen, also died in the past few months, and her house in Newport Beach is for sale now at $10.6 million.
John Wayne owned the house before Bettingen bought it in 1980 for $5.5 million. He lived there for about 14 years before he died in 1979.
After Bettingen and her husband (also now deceased) acquired it, they remodeled it and added 1,000 feet, making it a 9,000-square-foot, 30-room house with nine bedrooms and 12 baths.
Memories of the Duke linger on, though, as his bed is still there. “I suppose it could be included in the sale,” William Cote, whose Cote Realty & Investment Co. in Newport Beach has the listing, said.
The estate, with 160 feet of lawn, is on two-thirds of an acre, and that’s unusual for waterfront homes, Cote said. It’s also the highest priced house in town, he added.
Is Dustin Hoffman getting ready to move? The popular actor was seen last weekend at the Sand Castle Restaurant in Malibu with a home-shoppers magazine, which he was perusing between sips of ice tea before studying a script. Hoffman presently lives near newscaster Kelly Lange off Mulholland Drive overlooking the San Fernando Valley, sources say.
