Wealthy Bachelor Buys Kirkeby Estate
The Kirkeby Estate has been sold, not the one in Bel-Air that was used as a set for TV’s “Beverly Hillbillies” and set a national record last year when it was purchased by TV producer Jerry Perenchio for $13.6 million. This time, it’s the Kirkeby Estate in Malibu.
It’s in the Malibu Colony area, not behind the security gates but just outside of them, near the homes of actor Lee Majors and comedian Bob Newhart, who just bought his house from actor/director Robert Redford. Violinist Jascha Heifetz and actor Rod Steiger also recently sold their nearby homes.
The Kirkeby Estate is about five houses away from Mike Silverman’s, whose Beverly Hills realty firm represented the buyer, Silicon-Valley entrepreneur W. Jerry Sanders III, founder and president of Advanced Micro Devices Corp. The Kirkeby house is the fifth home that the wealthy bachelor (he was divorced in 1982) owns in California.
“The original asking price of $9 million made the Kirkeby Estate one of the most expensive homes in the Colony,” Silverman said. “It’s been on and off the market for about a year.” It closed escrow last Tuesday.
Silverman declined to reveal the selling price but when pressed, conceded that it was “dramatically less” than $9 million. “The house will be worth close to $5 million when Mr. Sanders remodels it extensively,” he added. (Documentary transfer stamps indicate that it sold for $2,003,000.)
The 9,000-square-foot house has nine bedrooms, 11 baths, two kitchens and 66 feet of ocean frontage.
Carol Rapf of Jim Rapf & Associates of Malibu represented the sellers, the estate of Arnold and Carlotta Kirkeby. (Arnold--who made a fortune in hotels, including the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, Drake in Chicago, Gotham and Sherry-Netherland in New York, and Nationale in Havana--died in 1962. Carlotta died in 1985.)
Frank Sinatra’s Beverly Hills-area home, which has been on the market since last fall, sold last week to an industrialist from the East Coast.
Old Blue Eyes built the mountaintop refuge as a bachelor pad for himself about 30 years ago. It was in escrow only 14 days, said Ed Kelly, who had the listing through Mike Silverman’s firm. Gordon Mueller, another Beverly Hills real estate broker, represented the buyer.
Sinatra and his wife, Barbara, have a nine-home compound in Rancho Mirage, and they purchased a home in Beverly Hills during the past few months for slightly more than $5 million. The retreat went for about $1 million.
The James Cagney Estate in Coldwater Canyon is for sale at $1.8 million, with proceeds expected to go to charity.
Built in 1938, the Beverly Hills-area home was the late great actor’s prime residence until he retired in 1961 and moved to his farm in upstate New York. Even then, though, Cagney and his wife, Billie, returned to the Beverly Hills estate every year for the winter.
She came alone in 1985. He died last March 30. The furniture was removed last summer.
The property was put on the market last fall but was not publicized until now, said Val Safarik, who has the listing through Rodeo Realty, a division of Merrill Lynch Realty, Beverly Hills.
The 4.35-acre property has a 400-foot long private driveway leading to a circular motor court and four buildings: a main residence, garages and servants quarters, a guest cottage, and an art studio.
Its two-story, country-style main house was designed to Cagney’s specifications by architects Welton Becket and Walter Wurdeman. It has two master suites and a full-size basement with a wine cellar. Cagney’s favorite room was a library/den with a stone wall and fireplace, built-in cabinets and a bar.
