Malibu Home Sale Called ‘2nd Highest’
Malibu is back in the news this week with what is being touted as “the second highest (single-family) sale” in its history--the first being Johnny Carson’s $8.75-million home purchase in 1984.
The talk-show host’s acquisition was reported, by the way, for the first time in the first item of the first Hot Property column, which ran Nov. 25 of that year.
The second highest sale was for a home built in 1948, but remodeled and known most recently as the Cameron Estate because it was owned by Ron Cameron, who developed the Malibu Grand Prix, a racing park in Northridge, open to the public.
Cameron owned the 5-acre Malibu home, with about 7,000 square feet of interior space and 450 feet of beach frontage, for about 10 years.
New owners are husband and wife, John Jay Carsey and Marcia L. Carsey, better known as Marcy Carsey. (Don’t you love names like that?)
Marcy started her career as an NBC tour guide but now is co-executive producer of “The Cosby Show.”
Finding this all out took some digging, since all that the listing brokerage firm would reveal is that the property was sold “to a top television producer of one of the highest rated TV shows.”
The selling price was estimated at $7 million, although a title check indicated that there is a trust deed on the property for $4.69 million. A down payment, which did not show on the title, could account for the difference.
The asking price was originally $8.5 million. (What’s a $1.5-million drop, anyway?)
Listing agents were Spencer Tenen, Marilyn Tatum and Colleen Rose of Fred Sands Realtors.
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The invites are out now, and celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck and film executive Sherry Lansing (of Jaffe-Lansing Productions, which produced “Fatal Attraction”) are gearing up to host “California Spirit IV,” a gourmet fund-raiser planned June 12 for the L.A. Coastal Cities unit of the American Cancer Society at that $10-million spec home designed by Stephen Ball.
(Actually, you can buy the Beverly Hills-area house for $6 million, but with the vacant adjacent lot, it would be a $10-million package, listed with Debbie Schwartzberg of Fred Sands Estates.)
Chefs from Spago and Chinois, owned by Puck, as well as other trendy restaurants, including Valentino, Primi, Trumps, City/Border Grill, Citrus, Le Dome and Rex il ristorante will feed the guests, and there will be dancing to a nine-piece orchestra, conducted by pianist Joe Morino, and a drawing for international trips and prizes. Tickets are $200 each.
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Langan’s Brasserie, that fashionable London restaurant started several years ago by a few partners, including actor Michael Caine, is finally coming to Los Angeles--er, make that Century City. After much fanfare, it will have its official opening Wednesday at a private party in its newest location at little Santa Monica Boulevard and Century Park West.
Caine is not an investor in this venture. “But we’ve invited all the (local) British celebrities,” Hope Boonshaft-Lewis, whose public relations/government affairs firm represents the world’s second Langan’s, said. “Dudley Moore, too?” I gushed. “But of course,” she replied.
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L.A. attorney Terry O’Toole and his realtor wife, Evelyn, are buying the Cecil B. DeMille estate in Laughlin Park, while trying to sell a Los Feliz home that once belonged to historians Will and Ariel Durant.
The two-house estate, which still belongs to the DeMille family, though the movie producer died in 1959, has been on the market for $2.4 million through Connie Nelson at Fred Sands Realtors, and escrow is due to close in July for close to the asking price. DeMille built one of the houses about 1914 and bought the other a couple of years later, his grandson, Peter Calvin, said.
The O’Tooles bought the Los Feliz home, with a third-floor rotunda housing an artist’s studio, last fall. Since then, they refurbished the house and added a tennis court and air conditioning.
They’re asking $2.1 million through Jodi Hodges and Dorothy Carter of Douglas Properties. (Before the O’Tooles bought it, the estate was listed at $998,000.)
The 6,000-square-foot house was built in 1925, and was home to the Durants a couple owners back, for about six years. They were not the original owners.
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“Seven” seems to be a lucky number for Gene Klein, former owner of the San Diego Chargers, because on the weekend of May 7, his filly “Winning Colors” won the Kentucky Derby, and his residential development, Del Rayo Downs in Rancho Santa Fe, tallied $3.5 million for five home sales. Klein doesn’t bow to luck but credits the sea breezes and other qualities of Del Rayo, where he maintains his thoroughbred training center as well as his own residence.
