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Sellecks Buy in Hidden Valley

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Times Staff Writer

Tom Selleck has put down some roots in Hidden Valley, buying the former Fletcher Jones home, which the car dealer bought in 1969 for about $250,000 from singer Dean Martin.

Sure, the popular actor paid more--a bit more than $5 million.

He plans to keep a home in Hawaii, where he starred for so long as TV’s “Magnum P.I.,” but will sell his condo on Wilshire’s Golden Mile, where he was living before buying the house in Hidden Valley, between Westlake Village and Malibu.

Since he and his wife, dancer Jillie Mack-Selleck, are expecting their first child in mid-February, they needed more room. They’re sure getting it in their new home, which they moved into just before Selleck left for Baltimore, where he is working on the Warner Bros. film “Alibi.”

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Built in the ‘30s but remodeled and expanded with the help of architect George McLain about 20 years ago, the Spanish colonial-style ranch house in Hidden Valley has eight bedrooms plus staff accommodations.

It sits on 60 acres, with stables, corrals, a tack room, heliport, swimming pool, cabana, tennis court, three-hole pitch ‘n putt golf course and a practice green. Robin Masters, the fictional owner of the grand Hawaiian estate where Magnum worked, didn’t live any better himself!

The Sellecks also have some celebrity neighbors in their new neighborhood. Among them: multimillionaire developer David Murdock, actor Richard Widmark, actor Robert Wagner, entertainment entrepreneur/former Lt. Gov. Mike Curb, and rock ‘n’ roll singer Donna Summer.

It’s not far from Hollywood, but the Sellecks’ house is even closer to the actor’s Warner Center offices as chairman of the board of the 6-year-old Selleck Properties Inc., a real estate development and management company headed by Selleck’s brother, Robert (Bob) Selleck Jr.

Their father, Bob Sr., a real estate consultant since retiring from Coldwell Banker Commercial Brokerage, also has an office there, under the Selleck Cos. name, and he represented his actor son in acquiring the Hidden Valley property. Gaye and Don Rude (he also handled the house when Dean Martin bought it) of West Oaks Realty Group represented Jones.

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Just in time for the America’s Cup--Prince Johannes Thurn und Taxis, worth $2.7 billion by Fortune Magazine’s latest account, was in town last week for the start of the San Diego race.

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The prince, who owns the world’s largest privately owned single-family residence--a 500-room mansion in West Germany, docked his 145-foot-long, two-masted schooner in Long Beach, then headed for a small dinner party at the Holmby Hills home of Bruce Nelson of Asher Dann & Associates.

No, says Nelson, the prince’s mansion is not for sale, but his ship--at $6 million--is. Why? Does the prince want a little pocket money? “I think he just wants to get a larger yacht,” Nelson said.

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Beverly Hills real estate people and the homeless wouldn’t seem to have much in common, but they will on Oct. 4, when Cecelia Waeschle, a broker with Rodeo Realty (a division of Merrill Lynch Realty), and her husband, Clifford, host a dinner (at their expense) at the home of Joyce Rey, Rodeo co-founder, to benefit St. Joseph’s Center for the Homeless in Venice.

The $100-a-person donations will go entirely to the homeless, Cecelia said, and she expects more than 100 people to attend. About 130 showed up last year at the first homeless benefit held by the Waeschles. More details: 213/273-5064.

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Film executive Sherry Lansing, televangelist Robert Schuller and former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden will be speakers at the California Assn. of Realtors convention and trade show Oct. 2-5 at the Disneyland Hotel.

And Linda Ellerbee, author of the best-seller “And So It Goes” and former host and writer of ABC’s “Our World,” and Larry Wilde, a humorist who has written 40 books, will speak at the first convention of Women in Commercial Real Estate’s National Network Thursday through next Sunday at the Stouffer Concourse Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport.

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Ellerbee will be sponsored by Heitman Properties, a property management company. But what does she or any of the other “hot properties” (in terms of personalities) know about real estate? That should be fun to find out.

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