Paradise Lost for ‘Magnum’ Co-Star

JOHN HILLERMAN, who co-starred with Tom Selleck as Jonathan Higgins in the TV series “Magnum P.I.,” has put his Waikiki penthouse on the market.

“When doing ‘Magnum,’ it was my principal home for eight years,” he said, “but I am no longer working over there. I’d like to keep a foot in Hawaii, but I can’t quite justify owning anything so grand.”

The 10-room, 3,500-square-foot penthouse--on the 38th floor of a residential tower--has a 280-degree view from the ocean to the mountains, including Diamond Head. Asking price is $3.6 million; the penthouse is listed with Diamond Realty in Honolulu.

Hillerman is renting a penthouse near the Hollywood Bowl while negotiating with Universal Studios to do another series. “I’d love to do something again with Tom (Selleck),” he said, “and I will, if the opportunity ever arises, but he’s doing movies now, and I like the routine of a series.”

When Hillerman sells his Waikiki penthouse, he said, “I’ll buy a little place in Hawaii and a place here.”

Two years ago, he bought a home at Lake Arrowhead. It has an elevator and a floor-to-ceiling TV screening room. “I spend about three days a week here,” he said from his Hollywood apartment, “and I spend the rest of the time at Lake Arrowhead. I have a boat on the lake, and I love it there.”

JACK BENNY’S former estate, in the old movie colony area of Palm Springs, has been sold.

The late comedian used to live there in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, said Tom Ogle of Century 21/Van Lizzen Realty in Palm Springs, who represented the seller.

The 42-year-old home has been sold a couple times since Benny owned it, according to Ogle, and this time, it went for only $360,000 despite its amenities: a total of six bedrooms, including two in a guest house facing a swimming pool, and a circular drive and electric gates.

“It was considered a fixer,” Ogle explained.

He described the buyer as a corporate executive from Los Angeles, who plans to remodel the home and use it for entertaining large parties.

Speaking of party houses, a rumor streaked through the real estate community last week that the Sultan of Brunei is buying producer AARON and CANDY SPELLING’S still-unfinished, 56,000-square-foot Holmby Hills mega-mansion for $65 million.

But Spelling’s spokesman, publicist Warren Cowan, denied the rumor. “There is no truth to it,” he emphasized, “and Candy says, ‘No way. We have no intention of selling it now or forever.’ ”

MARGE DURANTE, widow of the late Jimmy Durante, was honored the other day with the dedication of The Durante Pub, off the lobby of The Inn at Del Mar.

The Inn, a $40-million development of Winners Circle Resorts International, will open July 28, about the same time as the July 26 opening of the Del Mar racing season.

The hotel, with 123 guest accommodations, was built on the site of the original Hotel Del Mar, which was a popular getaway place for Durante and such other Hollywood greats as Bing Crosby, Rudolph Valentino and Rita Hayworth. The Hotel Del Mar was razed in the late 1960s.

MARK HUGHES, founder and president of Herbalife International (manufacturers of vitamins, nutritional supplements and weight-loss products), has purchased a new, 10,000-square-foot home in Beverly Hills.

The Mediterranean-style house, north of Sunset Boulevard, was designed by David Ross and built by Martin Selko as a spec house for Columbia Residential Development. Hughes paid about $6.5 million, sources say.

Hughes sold his Bel-Air home, known as “Liongate,” last year to the daughter of billionaire entrepreneur Marvin Davis.

Hughes had purchased “Liongate” in 1984 from singer Kenny Rogers, who named the house for the decorative lions he installed at the front gate. Rogers sold “Liongate” to move into “The Knoll,” a Beverly Hills landmark he later sold to Davis.

SIR GORDON WHITE, chairman of the U.S. division of the British conglomerate Hanson Trust PLC, is putting more than $3 million into remodeling a new house he bought for $7 million, sources say.

He’s adding a guest house and redoing the existing house, which is in Beverly Park. That’s the posh subdivision overlooking Beverly Hills, but White’s house is one of the few with no city view, we’re told.

White owns homes in London and New York City, but this is his first purchase in California.

A Holmby Hills mansion will be the site today of an annual fund-raiser for the Culver City-based Los Angeles Coastal Cities Unit of the American Cancer Society.

Designed in 1939 by the late architect Paul Williams, the two-story, Colonial style mansion, behind gates, is nearly 7,000 square feet in size and has a tennis court, 50-foot-long pool, a pool house and a motor court, all on about 1.6 acres.

The exteriors were used in the 1981 movie “Mommie Dearest,” and the entire property was used in the ‘50s film “The Swimmer,” starring Burt Lancaster.

The house was also used in the final episode of the TV series “Moonlighting,” and it can be seen on an upcoming segment of the ABC-TV show “20/20.” But if you can’t wait for “20/20” and can afford a $200 donation, you can see it today at the garden party.

Dr. and Mrs. Robert Birndorf own the house, which is for sale for $9 million and is listed with Joyce Rey and Cecelia Waeschle of Rodeo Realty.