Sunday Morning Live in Beverly Hills Home
Japanese TV viewers are getting a look--possibly as you read this--of the $9.5-million Beverly Hills estate once owned by actress Barbara Stanwyck and most recently by hair-care expert Vidal Sassoon.
The home is featured in a shopper’s program to be aired in Japan via satellite, originating today at 9 a.m. PDT from the estate on Beverly Drive.
“I am not aware of any other real estate brokerage firm that has done this on a live TV broadcast during prime time in Japan,” Richard (Rick) Merrill, president of the Beverly Hills division of Merrill Lynch Realty, said.
“In fact, I’m not aware of anything like it on prime-time live TV, even in this market.” There is a home-shoppers’ show on local cable television, presented by Fred Sands Realtors, and there have been cable TV shows nationwide for shoppers in general for at least 10 years.
The show today was conceived as a way for Merrill Lynch and its Rodeo Realty to cash in on the expansion of Japanese investments into U.S. residential real estate. Japanese sponsors look at it as a way to offer L.A. homes to their viewers.
This is the fifth or sixth program in a series and the first focusing on real estate, specifically real estate on L.A.’s Westside. Unlike the cable shoppers’ programs in the United States, which offer such items for sale as lawn mowers and lawn chairs, the shows in Japan are targeted to the affluent.
Diamonds were offered on one program, classic cars on another. Somebody might actually bid on the $9.5-million house and/or the half dozen others featured in the half-hour show.
The show was arranged by Fuji Sankei Living Services Direct Marketing system through an agreement in principle formed by Merrill Lynch Realty, Beverly Hills, and D.S.Y./Fuji Sankei, Tokyo. Plans for future shows and other details will be finalized by Merrill and top executives of Fuji Sankei in Tokyo.
Merrill and Gary More, Rodeo Realty marketing director, will go there Wednesday to participate in a 6-day marketing conference, sponsored by Fuji Sankei. Expected to draw an audience of 150,000, the conference will feature a video showing 28 Merrill Lynch/Rodeo homes on the Westside that are priced from $300,000 to $12.5 million.
“We have higher listings,” Merrill said, “ but the video isn’t meant to include every one of our properties. It’s just a cross section.”
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Here’s a high listing, and what’s more, it’s a new house built on spec!
At $10 million, the Beverly Hills home was recently completed by designer/developer Stephen Ball and Bill Mayer, president of Structural Builders.
It has a circular area under the house where up to 13 cars can be parked, and an elevator and circular stairway that lead to the 8,700-square-foot residence, which also has a magnificent view of Pickfair and other famous houses, a pool and a cantilevered tennis court.
“Nobody else in town is spec building a contemporary home,” Ball said. And you’d be pressed to find many other spec houses priced so high, either.
The house is actually for sale at $6 million, but an adjoining lot would make it a $10-million package. It’s being handled by Debbie Schwartzberg at Fred Sands Estates.
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Reading last Sunday’s column about James Cagney’s Coldwater Canyon home being on the market, attorney Brad Berlin phoned to say that 24 acres of adjacent land, or four parcels, including one owned years ago by the late actor and the rest owned once by the late newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, are being offered to the highest bidder in a court-ordered sale.
Though listed at $3.2 million with Annette Mott and Wayne Cliffe at the Bel-Air office of the Jon Douglas Co., bids may be sent in writing no later than Tuesday to the court-appointed referee, Gary Plotkin at 16633 Ventura Blvd., Encino 91436. “He’ll choose the best bid and give it to the court on Thursday,” Berlin said.
Berlin’s firm represents one of the owners, and the sale is part of the resolution of a divorce case, he explained. Berlin is with the Pasadena law firm of Gronemeier, Barker & Huerta.
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Singer Barry Manilow’s management firm, Stilletto Ltd., has acquired the office building at 6640 Sunset Blvd., in the heart of Hollywood’s redevelopment area from Joseph Sherwood Associates in a deal valued at $1.3 million.
Scott Milano of the Beverly Hills office of L.J. Hooker International represented the seller, and Grubb & Ellis, the buyer.
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Is there a Westside home owned, or once owned, by a famous person that can be used for a few hours by the American Cancer Society?
Stephen Browning, director of special events for the Society’s L.A. Coastal Cities Unit, is getting nervous because the group’s annual fund-raiser is less than two months away, and at press time, he still hadn’t found a suitable house--not that the organization uses the house for the 350 to 400 people expected to attend. “We only use the lawn area,” he said, “and if we need to replant the grass, we do.”
As before, film executive Sherry Lansing will head the evening party, catered by Wolfgang Puck and other celebrity chefs. Browning can be reached at 213/390-8766.
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Mary Martin, Robert Conrad, Jack Ward, Jose Ferrer and several sheiks once called it home.
It is the Granville Hotel in Los Angeles, and it’s been sold by Kay Pick of Mike Silverman & Associates, Beverly Hills, to a local businessman for $6 million.
The Granville was known as the Chateau Voltaire when built in the late ‘20s as an apartment house. Shortly after it was completed, it was purchased by the owners of 20th Century Fox studios and became one of the most fashionable addresses in town. The 40 recently renovated units, at 1424 N. Crescent Heights Blvd., operate today as an apartment/hotel.
