Dunphy Anchors in Encino Area
Veteran television anchorman JERRY DUNPHY is buying a new home in Encino. The house, listed at $1,995,000, is in escrow, which is expected to close in a couple of weeks.
Earl Rogoff, who developed Clark Gable Estates in the flats of Encino several years ago, built the Country French estate, which is being called “Southmont Gables.”
It has five bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, maid’s quarters and what have been described as “incredible views.” The 7,500-square-foot house sits on two-thirds of an acre, off Mulholland Drive. The gated property also has a covered lanai with service bar, a spa, a pool and a brick barbecue.
Dunphy is celebrating his 42nd year in the electronic media--29 in Los Angeles, the past 14 at KABC-TV. He is married to Sandra Marshall, a former Miss New Jersey who is a makeup artist with KABC. They have a 4-year-old daughter, and Dunphy also has an 18-year-old stepson and five grown children.
He raised his five children in the smaller Encino house where he and his wife, daughter and stepson now live. The six-bedroom, five-bath, 4,500-square-foot house--in the mountains just west of the San Diego Freeway--is for sale, through Jim Pascuci of Merrill Lynch Realty, at $925,000. Pascuci also handled Dunphy’s purchase.
RICHARD ZANUCK and his wife, LILI FINI ZANUCK, (who co-produced “Cocoon” and “Cocoon II: The Return”) have sold their late-1920s-era house on the Santa Monica Gold Coast for about $3 million.
The buyer is a Los Angeles real estate developer, but don’t worry: He’s not planning to raze the house, designed by the late architect Wallace Neff, although he will do some minor remodeling.
“Neff is his favorite architect,” said Joe Conns, of Merrill Lynch/Rodeo Realty, who represented both parties in the transaction.
The 7,000-square-foot mansion was built for Richard Zanuck’s late father, producer Darryl Zanuck. Joan Rivers leased it in recent years.
The house has beautiful grounds on the beach, a swimming pool, a living room that doubles as a projection room, maid’s quarters, two guest rooms and a couple of bedroom suites.
The Zanucks are building a house in Beverly Park, above Beverly Hills, with a view from downtown Los Angeles to Catalina.
Coons also represented Stephen Shagan, who wrote the screenplay for “Save the Tiger” and the novel “The Formula,” and Shagan’s wife, Elizabeth, in the sale of their house in the flats of Beverly Hills. The buyer, described as a local “society woman,” paid about $2 million.
The Shagans are purchasing another home, north of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills.
Two parties were to be held last week on Wilshire Boulevard’s Golden Mile to introduce one of the highest-priced condos in the country:
It’s the remodeled penthouse of the 7-year-old Wilshire House, where actress BRIGITTE NIELSEN and tenor PLACIDO DOMINGO own units. The penthouse is priced at $14 million.
Owner Steve Dunn, a developer who has owned as many as 21 units in the 66-unit building, planned the parties Thursday and Friday nights. The first was also planned to thank the largest donors and supporters of New York-based Phoenix House, the nonprofit organization that is planning the Nancy Reagan Center for drug rehabilitation in Lake View Terrace.
The Reagans were on the guest list, along with former U.S. Atty. Gen. William French Smith, former U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Z. Wick and Johnny Carson’s TV sidekick, actor Ed McMahon. By press time, all but the Reagans had confirmed.
The second party was to be filled with Dunn’s friends and people in real estate who wanted to get a gander at the $14-million unit. The price includes furnishings.
The penthouse is one of two in the 21-story building. They were offered, when new in the early ‘80s, with much fanfare at $11 million and $12 million, each with a Rolls-Royce. Neither sold for anywhere near those amounts, and the cars weren’t provided either. Dunn’s deal doesn’t include a Rolls.
Like other condo towers built on the boulevard during the recession of the early ‘80s, the building fell on lean times until the market heated up about a year ago. That’s when Dunn started working on the penthouse, adding a 3,000-square-foot rooftop garden with a fountain from a city in France.
The 6,000-square-foot interior is slightly larger than that of the other penthouse, which doesn’t have a garden. The smaller penthouse was for sale recently at $5.95 million, after being reduced from $9.5 million, but the owner took it off the market. It had been listed with Joan Bodensteiner with Douglas Properties.
Dunn’s penthouse is listed with his mother, Marilyn Dunn, and Gary More, both of Merrill Lynch/Rodeo Realty.
Question of the week: If the Hotel Bel-Air sells for $92 million, or $1 million a room, as its owner--the Texas oil baron’s daughter, CAROLINE ROSE HUNT--expects, can a raise in the $195-$1,300-a-night room rates be far behind? Bids on the hotel are due Monday to Morgan Stanley Realty in New York.
