Worthy Scores on a Palisades Home
Los Angeles Lakers star JAMES WORTHY has purchased a home with a tennis court in a gated, Pacific Palisades community for $2,675,000.
The house is about 10 years old but has been extensively remodeled. It has five bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths, a library, family room, high ceilings and bleached hardwood floors in nearly 5,000 square feet of interior space.
Outdoors, it has a large swimming pool with a spa and a championship north/south tennis court. The home also has a three-car garage.
The veteran forward closed escrow in time to move there for the holidays from his home near L.A. International Airport, west of Fox Hills. Industry sources who did not participate in the transaction revealed the details of Worthy’s purchase.
Fronen Investment Co. of Beverly Hills had the listing at $2,699,000.
A Holmby Hills mansion that CHRISTOPHER SKASE, head of Qintex Australia Ltd., was buying is back on the market, at $10.5 million, after falling out of a five-month-long escrow.
Skase’s company went into receivership last month after failing to acquire MGM/UA film studios.
Known as the Goetz estate, the 17,000-square-foot Georgian-style mansion was built in 1934 and was owned for many years by Edie Goetz, daughter of movie mogul Louis B. Mayer. She died in 1988, and her two daughters listed it last spring.
Skase opened escrow in June on the 2-acre property, which had been listed at $12 million. The transaction was due to close in August, but Skase reportedly received an extension. He was paying in the $8-million range, sources said.
The property was listed with another realty firm when Skase was the buyer. It is listed now with Jon Aaroe and Joan McGoohan of the Jon Douglas Co.
Songwriter DESMOND CHILD bought a house in Santa Monica called Casa Paloma for $2.5 million, but it’s in his budget:
Child, who makes about $1 million a year, is one of the highest paid songwriters in the business, and he has produced or written hit songs for Cher, Alice Cooper, Cyndi Lauper and more than a dozen other recording artists.
He was living in West Hollywood but moved to Santa Monica for its “small-town feel and better-rated air quality.” Two of his best friends, who are also his writing collaborators, also live in Santa Monica. Child will continue to work primarily from his office in West Hollywood but is creating an office in his new home.
The house was built in 1926 and has 14 rooms, including six bedrooms and eight baths. Joe Coons of Rodeo Realty represented Child.
BOB HOPE’S daughter, independent producer Linda Hope, is building a house across the street from her dad’s in Toluca Lake and has listed her existing home, across the street on another corner, at $885,000.
“Her father has first right of refusal,” said Jack Sammons, who has the listing with Fred Sands’ Sherman Oaks office. “That means, whatever the offer, Mr. Hope could either meet or better it, because he has an interest in what goes on in his neighborhood.”
Linda Hope is also negotiating to buy land in Ireland, where she wants to build a castle, Sammons said. The Toluca Lake home that is for sale is Spanish style with three bedrooms and a family room.
Glasnost came to Hollywood last week when PETER EYLES, chairman of London-based Norfolk Capital Hotels, announced that a St. James Club will be built in Moscow.
Eyles was in town visiting the St. James Club, one of three membership-only hotels owned by his company and the only St. James Club in the United States. The other two are in London and Paris.
“We’re in negotiations,” he said, “to build a St. James Club and golf club on a 125-acre site in a joint venture or small consortium with European and Russian partners.”
The resort would have about 100 bedrooms, four indoor tennis courts, two squash courts, a swimming pool and gym, an 18-hole golf course, a business center and conference and banquet facilities. Construction is expected to begin next year, and the project would cost an estimated $64 million to $96 million.
Norfolk owns and operates 15 hotels in Great Britain besides the St. James’s Clubs. The local St. James opened in 1988 in the restored, Art-Deco Sunset Tower apartments.
The three-story, 150-room Arizona house, which was for sale in 1986 at $14 million, was sold at auction a week ago Saturday for $3.95 million.
“There were 43 bidders, and the Resolution Trust Corp. (RTC) accepted the (winning) bid on the spot, saying it exceeded expectations,” said Aleda Nelson of Eric Nelson Auctioneering, the auctioneer. She wouldn’t identify the buyers but indicated that escrow will close in early January.
Known as the McCune Mansion, the 53,000-square-foot house was owned by shopping-center developer Gordon Hall before it was taken through foreclosure by Southwest Savings and auctioned by the RTC, a new federal agency created to operate failed thrifts.
