It Was Very Good Year for Major Home Deals
Like the lyrics in that Frank Sinatra hit song, 1988 “was a very good year” for major residential deals, particularly involving big names or famous houses, in the L.A. area.
In December alone, Eddie Murphy bought Cher’s Beverly Hills-area house for slightly more than $6 million; Tom and Jillie Selleck purchased a Mandeville Canyon home for a bit more than $2.5 million (they bought a 60-acre Hidden Valley spread late last summer for about $5 million), and Julian Lennon took possession of a mountaintop estate in the Santa Monica Mountains for an estimated $1.5 million.
1988 was the year Lakers owner Jerry Buss sold Pickfair (the Beverly Hills honeymoon home of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks) to entertainer Pia Zadora and her multimillionaire husband Meshulam Riklis for just under $7 million. It was also the year the home above Benedict Canyon where actress Sharon Tate and four others were murdered entered escrow.
“It closed early!” an excited Adam Jakobson of Mike Glickman’s firm said last week of the Tate murder house. Due to close last Thursday, escrow closed instead on Tuesday night at just under $2 million. (Asking price was $1,999,000!)
Industry sources indicate that $1-million plus home sales were about 30% stronger for Greater L.A. in ’88 than in ’87. Rodeo Realty closed an estimated $100 million more in volume than the previous year, said Gary More, of that Beverly Hills firm.
Still, nothing topped the $20.25 million that tycoon Marvin Davis paid Kenny Rogers for the singer’s Beverly Hills home in 1984, though there were higher sales elsewhere in the country: the $22-million September purchase, by a Japanese group, of the 170-room, New York mansion (listed last February for a measly $22 million); the $21-million March buy, by a Japanese firm, of an Oahu home, and the April announcement of a $40-million deal for another Hawaiian property by Japanese billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto.
Among the top home sales in the L.A. area last year were $14.5 million for a house in Bel Air, purchased by a couple from Hong Kong; $10.2 million for a place in the Beverly Hills Post Office area, by a Japanese corporation, and $8.9 million, for a Beverly Hills home, by the Italian Giancarlo Parretti, executive vice president of the Canon (Film) Group.
“Sure, the Japanese are buying, but so, especially now, are the Italians,” Stephen Shapiro of Stan Herman & Associates said, “and there are also a lot of wealthy Americans moving around.” Shapiro sold two houses for more than $6 million each and one at more than $7 million--all to local rich people, “trading up,” he said.
On the lease scene, Eddie Murphy was paying in the $35,000 range (per month!), and Paul Hogan (“Crocodile Dundee”) rented actress Joan Collins’ Beverly Hills abode for $55,000, but Shapiro, who once specialized in such outrageous rentals, said: “It was not particularly a good rental year, because as leases came up, people sold their properties. With the tax law change, there’s hardly any shelter from owning a rental.”
Norman Lear bought a 7.85-acre Brentwood home for $7 million, Linda Ronstadt sold her Brentwood house for $3.4 million, Mark Harmon bought a Mandeville Canyon house for $4 million, Sylvester Stallone sold his Pacific Palisades house for about $4 million, Gene Roddenberry (creator of “Startrek”) bought a Bel-Air home for $6.9 million, and Marcy Carsey (co-executive producer of “The Cosby Show”) not only bought a Malibu home for about $7 million but also purchased a Brentwood Park house for $3.7 million.
These were some of the big-name sales kept quiet in ’88.
Just under the wire as an ’88 sale:
Courteney Cox, who plays Michael J. Fox’s girlfriend on the hit TV show “Family Ties” and a marine biologist in the movie “Cocoon: The Return,” purchased a home from producer Alan Barnette in the Hollywood Hills. The Tudor-style house, with pool and spa, was purportedly singer/songwriter Carole King’s at one time and Gypsy Rose Lee’s at another.
It sold for $800,000 with the help of Joe Coons, who represented Barnette, and Scott Sandler, who represented Cox. Coons and Sandler are with Merrill Lynch Realty.
And what of ‘89? Despite some predictions of an economic turndown, L.A.-area brokers of high-end homes seem optimistic. Shapiro said: “I see more people making more money and coming to California to spend it.” An example? “British financier James Goldsmith is secretly living here now.”
More billionaires are finding they can live as well as work in here, he continued. “And they’re putting megabucks into houses. The sheik who bought (former San Diego Chargers owner) Gene Klein’s Beverly Hills house now has more than $40 million in it.”
Merv Griffin, who is building a huge estate for himself on top of the Santa Monica Mountains, is optimistic enough to list his Beverly Hills home for $20 million. The former talk-show host/turned tycoon purchased it in 1986 for only $5 million.
Realtor Jon Douglas sees a general slowdown compared to 1988 in the areas his 31-office company services in three Southern California counties, but he still expects a 10% to 15% increase in the cost of housing. Last year, he figures, the value of residential real estate on L.A.’s Westside appreciated at a whopping 30%.
