Joe Montana Buys Investment Property

Joe Montana might be out for the rest of the season after suffering a back injury Sept. 7 in the San Francisco 49ers’ win over Tampa Bay, but the 49ers’ quarterback will have an investment property near his Palos Verdes home to oversee.

He just closed escrow on a single-story, 39,450-square-foot industrial building in Culver City.

Donn Barr sold his fully-occupied, 11-unit facility at 8575 Higuera St. to Montana for $2.9 million, said Chuck Smith of Daum/Johnstown American. Smith represented Montana.

TV Anchorman Dan Miller, who was brought out from Nashville, Tenn., as one of the replacements for Jess Marlow and Colleen Williams during the KCBS news shake-up in August, bought a new house in the upper Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills, where homes are priced from $700,000 to $1.2 million.

That according to Ron Abrams, whose Beverly Hills realty firm represented Barry Dean, who built the house. Mike Silverman’s company represented Miller, Abrams said.

“It was a rush, because he had to get out here quickly for his first broadcast,” Abrams said of Miller. “Escrow closed in three weeks.”

Abrams is one of several real estate brokers participating in “A Day in the Park” today at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills, a fund-raiser for the Beverly Hills School District.

“I was one of the first to sponsor a booth,” he said, “but all 10 of the ones sponsored by real estate firms went in an instant because we all recognize the tie-in between real estate and the school system.”

The school system, which has been highly regarded for years for its academic excellence, has helped bolster local real estate values, he explained, and the fact that the school system is facing financial difficulties strikes Abrams as a paradox, since it is situated in one of the most affluent cities in America.

Abrams’ firm is sponsoring a soft-drink booth. Most of the other 40 booths are carnival-game oriented, but there will be plenty to eat and drink, a silent auction, and roving musicians from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

No admission fee, but there will be game and food tickets. The one-day fair was organized by the Beverly Hills Education Foundation, which is trying to raise $100,000.

“The world’s largest motion-picture theater complex:” That’s how Sid Sheinberg, MCA president, and Garth Drabinsky, Cineplex Odeon chairman and chief executive, describe the 18-screen, 6,000-seat Cineplex Odeon Cinemas, which will be built at MCA’s Universal City starting Tuesday. The complex is due to open by next summer.

Tom Selleck is no longer looking for a ranch in the Santa Barbara or Santa Ynez areas. The popular actor and his brother, Bob, were looking there recently, but a spokesman for them said that now, they are looking at opportunities for their Selleck Properties in Hawaii, home of Tom Selleck’s TV character “Magnum, P.I.”

Selleck Properties is developing its first project, an $11.5-million commercial center in Palmdale.

Don Budge, who won the Grand Slam of tennis in 1938, led the parade of tennis stars, past and present, at a cocktail reception last weekend, hosted by tennis champ-turned-real estate developer Charles Pasarell Jr.

The reception was held at UCLA just before John McEnroe beat David Pate there.

Jack Kramer, Vic Seixas, John Lloyd (Chris’ husband), Ray Moore, Jaime Fillol, Sven Davidson and Peggy Michel were others among the Who’s Who of Tennis at the party, given to introduce business and civic leaders to Pasarell’s Grand Champions, Indian Wells--a 340-suite resort expected to open in mid-November.

The resort’s 10,000-seat tennis stadium, third largest in the U. S., will be the site of the Pilot Pen International Tennis Tournament in February.

Eugene Klein, former owner of the San Diego Chargers and National General Corp., held the grand opening of his Del Rayo residential community in Rancho Santa Fe the other day and simultaneously put his estate, two miles away in Rancho Santa Fe, on the market.

“He plans to build another home for himself on part of his Rancho Santa Fe Farms,” according to Harland Svare, longtime Klein friend who is now helping Klein market Del Rayo and the Rancho Santa Fe estate through Culver & Associates.

Svare formerly held jobs as general manager and coach of Klein’s San Diego Chargers, head coach of the Los Angeles Rams and a defensive coach of the New York Giants. Earlier, he had played for the Giants and the Rams.

Del Rayo is being built on 420 acres of the 616-acre master-planned Rancho Santa Fe Farms, which will include ranchettes and other residences as well as Klein’s racing stables and training center. Klein is one of the top thoroughbred-racehorse owners in the world.

“He wants to be closer to his training facilities,” Svare said. Klein’s 33-acre, Rancho Santa Fe home, which he had built in 1980, has a 15,000-square-foot main house with 13 baths! Asking price: $14.75 million.

The Kirkeby Estate, the Bel-Air mansion that has been on the market for several months, now at a whopping $27 million (the highest-priced single-family home in America), was used last Friday by attendees of the American Land Title Assn. convention. Cocktails, dinner and dancing were sponsored by Ticor.