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No Joke--Marty Is Moving to Vegas

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Comedian MARTY ALLEN and his musician wife, KATIE, have put the Century City condo they’ve owned for a dozen years on the market and are planning to move to Las Vegas.

“They’re both on the road a lot, working on and off in Las Vegas, so Vegas is where they will go and live,” said Ron Abrams, who shares the $795,000 listing with Rhonda Sokolow at Fred Sands Estates.

The Allens’ unit has three bedrooms in about 2,000 square feet, with a large terrace off the living room.

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“Marty has a room that he uses as an office and for his trophies and clown memorabilia, and Katie has a studio with a grand piano where she writes music,” Abrams said, “but the most remarkable thing about the unit is its views.”

There is a view on the west side from Hillcrest Country Club to the ocean, and on the north from Avenue of the Stars to the Hollywood Hills.

The condo is on the 24th floor of one of the twin, 28-story Century Towers, built as apartments in the early 1960s and converted to condos in the early ‘70s. Each of the towers has men’s and women’s gyms. The buildings are on a 4.5-acre gated site with a tennis court and swimming pool.

Sean Connery, Cantinflas and Burt Lancaster are among the residents of the 308-unit complex, and other celebs who have lived there include Jack Benny, who rented a penthouse before it was turned into a condo; Gig Young, George Raft, Karen Carpenter and David Janssen, whose widow still lives there.

Singer/songwriter BILLY JOEL’S Manhattan apartment on Central Park South was for sale at $2.8 million when he first listed it about a year ago, then it was dropped to $2 million and then to $1.4 million. Now he’s asking $1.1 million and still can’t find a buyer, reports a Southern California realtor who was in New York a few days ago.

ZSA ZSA GABOR hasn’t been able to find a buyer for her Bel-Air house, either, and she’s had it on the market since June, 1988. Unlike Joel, who keeps reducing his price, however, Gabor kept raising hers, from $6.95 million to $10 million in July, 1988, up to $15 million five months later.

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She’s still asking $15 million, but she just changed brokers. The house is listed now with Elaine Young at Alvarez, Hyland & Young.

Actress CHRISTOPHER NORRIS, who went from playing a nurse for six years on “Trapper John” to a vamp on the daytime soap “Santa Barbara,” and her husband, WALTER (BUD) DANLEY, are spending their first holiday season in a home it took 10 years to build in Beverly Hills.

Danley, a general partner in the real estate syndication firm Consolidated Capital until 1985 and now a principal in the financial entertainment firm Marble Arch Capital, said: “We bought the lot in May of 1979, and then we designed three different houses, using a number of architectural firms.” It was a tough job because of the slope of the lot.

“The good news is that the house turned out beautifully,” he said. Valued at more than $6 million, the 8,500-square-foot home has an Old English-style library in Honduran mahogany without nails and a family room based on the design of a hotel the owners fell in love with on Sardinia.

It was designed in a California Mission/Italian Riviera style by architect Ron Firestone and was built by Fred Uttke’s Heritage Builders. “We wanted the house to look old, and it does, thanks in great part to Fred, who is a fifth-generation master builder,” Danley said.

The Danleys moved from their 3,000-square-foot Malibu home, which they sold to an attorney and his wife for close to its $1,895,000 asking price.

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EILEEN and NORMAN KREISS, who own the California-style furnishings firm--the Kreiss Collection--have sold their 15-year-old Malibu home, with a spa in the living room, for $1,625,000 and bought a seaside villa on Fisher Island off the coast of Florida for $1.4 million.

“We sold in Malibu because we’re building a ranch in Rancho Santa Fe,” Eileen Kreiss said. The ranch will have an 11,000-square-foot main house with a tennis court and pool on 3 1/2 acres.

The Kreisses bought in Florida because they keep their yacht there, and they also opened a showroom in Palm Beach in late November, when they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

They’re opening a showroom this Friday in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“And we’re taking the whole family--our three sons, their wives and our four grandchildren--there for New Year’s Eve,” Eileen Kreiss said. The Kreiss Collection’s main showroom is on Melrose Avenue near the owners’ Beverly Hills home.

A Santa Monica house built in the 1920s by DONALD W. DOUGLAS, late co-founder of McDonnell Douglas Aircraft, has just undergone $700,000 in renovations, not including new landscaping.

“The new owner, a Los Angeles entertainment attorney, decided to keep all existing historic features,” said J. Ronald Reed, who spent months completing the restoration.

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The attorney bought the house last April for $1.3 million, and it was considered a tear-down then, Reed said.

“But the finest materials of the day were used,” he said, “including solid walnut baseboards, moldings and carved doors. Two of the rooms have secret doors hidden in the wood paneling. And five of the wood-coffered ceilings are embellished with hand-painted decorations.” The property also has a chauffeur’s house and a movie theater.

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