Back to the Ranch for ‘Bonanza’ Star

Michael Landon is building himself a “Bonanza”-type Ponderosa, but his ranch house sure won’t be like his “Little House on the Prairie.”

The actor/writer/director, who starred in both long-running TV series, already has a modern home on the beach in Malibu Colony, but he is building a 10,000-square-foot Santa Barbara Mission-style house with eight bedrooms in a Malibu canyon.

The ranch house is BIG because Landon has nine children! (He has been married three times.)

And the ranch is being designed with the children in mind. That, according to Robert Earl, who acknowledged when contacted that he is the architect.

The U-shaped house will have a swimming pool in the center, a barbecue area and an aviary. When completed in about six months, it will be the first of several structures to be built on the remote 10-acre site. Tennis and equestrian facilities are planned.

The inside of the house should be spectacular, too, because Ron Wilson is designing it. Wilson just completed work on Cher’s New York loft building and is putting the finishing touches on Johnny Carson’s Malibu tennis complex.

Other sources figure construction costs on Landon’s new house to be $3 million.

One day after actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was quoted widely predicting that sister Eva would marry Merv Griffin, a little item appeared in the Hollywood Reporter, saying that “chatty Zsa Zsa’s Bel-Air residence, once owned for a time by both Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley” has been put on the market for “a hot but cool” $6.95 million.

Did “chatty Zsa Zsa” list the place after Eva hotly denied having any plans to marry the talk show host-turned-entrepreneur? Did Zsa Zsa decide to sell so she could put a little distance between herself and her angry sis?

“Nope,” says Mike Silverman, who has the exclusive, “Zsa Zsa signed before opening her mouth about Eva.

“Zsa Zsa rarely lets a thought go unsaid,” he added, “but that’s part of her charm.” (Eva’s Holmby Hills house has been on the market with a couple of different real estate companies since last August for about $5 million.)

The stars should really come out for this: ground breaking for Hollywood Galaxy.

The $30-million project is being touted as “the first large-scale commercial project completed in the 1,100-acre, 30-year-old Hollywood Redevelopment Plan approved in 1986.”

Developed by Kornwasser & Friedman, it will officially get under way Thursday with a 10 a.m. ceremony on the northeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Sycamore Avenue.

Old-timers will remember that’s where the landmark Garden Court Apartments were until they were demolished by former owners in 1984.

(In its heyday, the Garden Court was a luxurious address for such celebrities as Mack Sennett, Louis B. Mayer and John Barrymore, but in its later years, the boarded-up and deteriorating building became a home for vagrants and was known as “Hotel Hell.”)

U-shapes must be “in,” because that’s how Maxwell Starkman Associates designed the three-level, 148,000-square-foot Galaxy, which will have a food court, glass elevators and a sixplex movie house.

This will be music to many of his fans’ ears:

Lawrence Welk is still leading a band--of construction workers, that is.

With son Lawrence Jr. and Bob Holland, he is developing Ivey Ranch Country Club near Palm Desert, and they just celebrated the sale of Phase 1, 60 of the planned 300 manufactured homes. (Prices started at $88,500.) The community has a golf course, tennis and swimming pools.

The Welks have been involved in a number of successful real estate projects in San Diego County, including Lawrence Welk Village Resort, which has a hotel, musical theater, golf course, time-share resort and mobile park.

There is a scarcity of great old, Westside mansions for sale, but a 12,000-square-footer built in 1927 has come on the market, and it belonged at one time to the late producer Mervyn LeRoy (“Wizard of Oz,” “Little Caesar” and “Gypsy,” to name a few) and at another time to the late Harry Warner, one of the four original owners of Warner Bros.

The $4.9-million house in old Bel-Air has a dining room that can seat 20, a large swimming pool, underground theater, and motor court for 20 cars. A fountain now stands where there were stables.

And what neighbors! The house is a block from where the Reagans plan to live.

Jeff Hyland of Alvarez, Hyland & Young has the listing.

Hollywood has come to Mid-Wilshire--for the second time since April.

Mark Goodson Productions has signed a lease for 28,600 square feet of offices in the Wilshire Courtyard, that huge complex across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The lease was valued at $8 million.

In April, New Visions Pictures, a joint venture of New Century Entertainment and Cineplex Odeon, signed a $7-million lease for 25,000 feet.

The latest lease was handled by Gray DeFevere of Greenwood & Co., who represented Goodson, and Clifford Goldstein, who represented the J.H. Snyder Co. and California Federal Savings, the developers.