Griffin Breakfast: Not All Eggs in One Basket
Merv Griffin was all smiles at a breakfast in his honor the other day in Beverly Hills.
And why not? He seems to be having the time of his 63-year-old life. “Why, sure,” he told me. “If it isn’t fun, it’s not worth doing, especially at this age!”
It’s still an estimated one to three weeks before his $295-million deal to buy Resorts International will close, but at the breakfast, the singer/actor/TV talk-show host/game-show creator was already counting its assets among the others in his newest career as a real estate wheeler-dealer.
It was a natural career move, judging from what he told 82 subcontractors at the breakfast, hosted at the Beverly Hilton hotel by PCL Construction, the general contractor in charge of renovating the hotel’s ballroom in time for one of Griffin’s private parties Oct. 7.
“This is the house that ‘The (TV show) Wheel of Fortune’ got me,” Griffin said of the Hilton. “This was the first in a collection of hotels I’ve been acquiring since last December. I’m up to six now, but this was the baby, and it’s on nine of the most valuable acres in Beverly Hills. Its ballroom is a favorite with performers . . . Frank Sinatra loves it!”
The ballroom was always one of Griffin’s favorites, he said between bites of scrambled eggs and bacon, because of its excellent sightlines, raked seating and stage that can be raised and lowered in the center of the room. “But I think what disturbed me in the past was its decor,” he said.
To fix that and make what Griffin believes will be “the most perfect showroom” for large events as well as national TV programming, he called on Waldo Fernandez, who must be the busiest interior designer in the United States. Besides having a large celebrity clientele, he is in charge of all of Griffin’s interior design work, and that’s plenty!
Fernandez designed the interior of Griffin’s new Moroccan-style house, which Griffin expects to be completed on his La Quinta ranch at the end of September. Fernandez already has been to Atlantic City to see about redecorating the Resorts hotel and casino there. (“Waldo has the unenviable job of determining a theme . . . tying in the ‘20s architecture while bringing in some of the glamor of Hollywood,” Griffin said.)
Fernandez will oversee the redecoration of the four hotels and casino in the Bahamas, which are part of the Resorts deal. And he is designing Griffin’s new home on 157 acres above Beverly Hills.
That home, still in planning, is now expected to be 58,000 square feet when completed in about two years. “You laugh,” Griffin said, seemingly amused himself. “I thought it was going to be 30,000 square feet!”
In his spare time (?), Griffin has been looking in on renovations for the rest of the Hilton, also being done by PCL Construction, and he told the breakfast gathering, “We want to bring it back to the greatness of 1955, when Conrad Hilton built it. . . . We’re redoing the front, the bar, the suites, and we’re putting in new landscaping facing Wilshire Boulevard.” (A porte-cochere is due to be completed by Oct. 7.)
Griffin told me, “While renovating, we have been finding the most unusual things--like a mirror that Conrad Hilton bought for $250,000 in 1955!” It was behind a wall covering.
Griffin got a chuckle when Jack Donovan, manager of PCL’s special projects, announced: “As you know, renovations are not what they are trumped up to be.” “Did you say Trump? “ Griffin interjected from the audience, referring to New York tycoon Donald Trump, the other party in the hotly contested Resorts deal.
Later, Donovan said, “Though this project will not be the Taj Mahal, it will be done on time.” Griffin laughed. “The Taj isn’t my project either,” he said, talking about the unfinished Atlantic City project that Trump won in the Resorts deal.
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Actor George C. Scott and his actress wife, Trish Van Devere, have purchased the home of radio personality/TV host Wink Martindale and his wife, Sandy, in the Serra Retreat area of Malibu. The Spanish villa went, I’m told, for $2.5 million.
Producer Ron Samuels, whose “Iron Eagle II: The Story Continues” is due out in October, recently bought a $2-million home in the Palm Springs area that is now being decorated and landscaped, and he has listed his Beverly Hills house with Elaine Young of Alvarez, Hyland & Young for $2.6 million. The Benedict Canyon abode has a gym, tennis court and pool.
