Marcos Friend’s Mansion on Market
The Pasadena mansion of Dovie Beams de Villagran, the former movie starlet who claimed to be a lover of deposed Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, is back on the market after being sold during bankruptcy proceedings in April for a reported $2 million to United California Savings Bank in Anaheim.
Now the property, with 4 1/2 acres of magnificent grounds but a huge house in need of great repair, is for sale at $3.5 million through Steve Levine of Asher Dann & Associates in Beverly Hills. Levine said there were $6 million in loans against the property that have been assumed.
All it would take to acquire the property is $1 million down and $18,000 a month! Then there is the cost of renovating the 10,000-square-foot Greek neoclassic mansion, which has many (estimates range from 16 to 30) rooms, old fixtures and no kitchen appliances. The house was built in 1916 for Col. Henry C. House, top adviser and confidant of President Woodrow Wilson, who used the residence, Levine said, as his Western White House.
There is also the cost of maintaining the gardens, fountains, statuary and rolling lawns, which a gardner said takes three days to mow. Levine estimated the cost of electricity and gardeners at $5,000 a month!
And the cost of completing what De Villagran started--the rest of a large swimming pool and swim-up, truly “wet” bar and a tennis court.
De Villagran lived there for about eight years, Levine said, and during that time, she and her builder/developer husband, Sergio, were embroiled in controversy over film making on the property. A public hearing was held in 1981 in which complaints were raised about parking, bright lights,and shoots that went until 4 a.m.
Her name didn’t surface publicly again until just before an auction last May when she and her husband filed for bankruptcy and auctioned off a number of properties, including 22 homes in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, a pharmacy and medical center in Alhambra and a 67-acre undeveloped tract in the San Fernando Valley.
The Pasadena house sits on three lots, which could be subdivided, Levine said, if the area’s Heritage Council approves it.
Singer Peggy Lee was among the well wishers the other day at a fiesta marking the opening of Celebrity Properties’ new, expanded headquarters in Beverly Hills at 9238 Civic Center Drive. Joe Hooper designed the interior. Hooper designed the Screen Actors Guild’s new headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard and is working on the landmark Capitol Records building on Vine.
When people say, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” they sure weren’t talking about developer Norman Russell, who has a couple of apartment projects that reflect early 20th Century Los Angeles architecture.
One is the Villa Flores, just completed at 1123 N. Flores St. in West Hollywood. It looks something like a villa in southern Spain with its curved lines, moldings and arches. Russell has commissioned artist Kathleen Dolan to create individual paintings to designate each villa.
The other project, at 1650 Veteran Ave. in Westwood, will be reminiscent of the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1910 when the apartment building is completed in September, he said. That will be one to watch!
A 1929 Art-Deco style house in Holmby Hills has been sold to Jane Nathanson, a trustee of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and her husband, Mark, head of Falcon Communications Cable System.
The Nathansons plan to remodel, keeping the integrity of the house, says Stephen Shapiro, who represented the sellers, Jim and Stephanie Raskin. It sold for just under $4 million, Shapiro added.
The house is one of those huge ones--14,500 square feet on nine-tenths of an acre--too large for the Raskins, whose children have grown and left home. It was built by architect Robert Finkelor for the Kresge family, owners of a chain of five-and-dimes that evolved into the giant K Mart retailing chain.
The landmark, 242-room Breakers Hotel, on the Long Beach oceanfront at 210 E. Ocean Blvd., is for sale at $18.5 million, with terms. A $15-million renovation of the 61-year-old hotel was completed in 1985.
Gary Smith and John Mathiesen of Schneider Commercial Real Estate’s Los Angeles office have the listing.
“Hooray for Hollywood” is the theme of Elan ‘87, the yearly award program sponsored by the Sales and Marketing Council of several Southland counties in association with the Building Industry Assn., and the program will be held Sept. 12--in keeping with the theme--on a 20th Century Fox sound stage. Not only that, but the call-for-entries notices were sent in film cans! And Price Waterhouse, the accounting firm that tabulates the Academy Awards balloting, will figure out who wins the Elans.
