Screen Actors Guild Holds Open House

Patty Duke, president of the Screen Actors Guild, was there--along with Ed Asner, Guild ex-president--at the open house and social last weekend celebrating the Guild’s new national headquarters, the Renaissance Court, at 7065 Hollywood Blvd.

Joe Hooper, who turned the old church on the site into offices for the Guild’s 125-member staff, was also there, talking about another of his projects, a redo of the landmark Capitol Records building, completed in 1956 near that famous intersection Hollywood and Vine.

No, the building’s familiar circular shape won’t change, he said reassuringly, but its exterior might be painted something else than white--”maybe black.” Then it would look even more like a stack of records!

Tandem Realty, which developed the Guild’s new headquarters, is developing an 84,000-square-foot, five-story building next door that will provide parking for Guild members as well as offices, possibly for the Guild’s future use. Lyle Parks Jr., a La Habra contractor, has scheduled a May completion.

The Guild’s old headquarters at 7750 Sunset Blvd. has been sold, by the way, to Petersen Publishing Co. for $2.2 million. Seth Dudley and Tom Korey of Julien J. Studley negotiated the transaction.

The 12,500-square-foot building was constructed in 1955 to house administrative offices of the Guild.

It’s that rare chance again to view the house that starred in the “Fantasy Island” weekly TV program: the Queen Anne Cottage, built 101 years ago by the flamboyant millionaire, E. J.(Lucky) Baldwin as a wedding present for his fourth bride. It’s open today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum in Arcadia.

How about buying a residential lot for $2.2 million? That’s the top price at Ritz Cove, where 42 of the 101 home sites have been sold since mid-September at an average price of $700,000 without even advertising!

All it took were some private champagne receptions and the project’s location: the oceanfront between the opulent Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Laguna Niguel and the golf links at Monarch Beach. The area is called (appropriately) the Gold Coast Riviera.

One of the buyers is Boyd Jefferies, chairman of the Los Angeles-based Jefferies & Co. investment firm, which recently confirmed that Jefferies received an SEC subpoena in the Ivan Boesky insider-trading case.

Jefferies reportedly sold his Laguna Beach home for $8.25 million, including $2 million in personal property, to Robert Breese, a real estate developer/investor, and his wife.

Built by Jefferies and his wife Sharon a few years ago, the house is spectacular, with a glass-bottomed circular stairway over the ocean leading to the master suite, which has a dome that can be opened by pushing a button in the headboard of the round, king-sized bed. There is also a button in the headboard for turning the bed toward the ocean, fireplace or TV.

The Jefferies entertained lavishly and had one sit-down dinner party for several hundred people on their tented tennis court.

Sylvester Stallone’s impending Malibu purchase turned out to be rather “rocky,” because the star of the “Rocky” films is again looking for real estate--this time in Santa Barbara, as well as on the Westside, sources say.

“He did show interest in the house (in Malibu),” Betty Graham, manager of Douglas Properties Estates in Malibu, confirmed, “but we did not sell it to him.” Known as Villa Casablanca, the mansion is still listed with her for $11.5 million.

The 16-acre site was once a part of the Serra Retreat, an estate that was sold--not donated--to the Catholic Church by the Rindge family, which for years controlled hundreds of acres in the area. Yvonne Bierley of the Serra Retreat says many folks think the property was donated to the church, but that the Franciscans purchased it 40 years ago for $50,000. Today, the retreat totals 29 acres.