Treasures From Hollywood’s Heyday Put on Auction Block : Art: David Geffen plans to sell off lavish furnishings from the former home of film producer Jack Warner. Christie’s estimates the sale will exceed $4 million.

Record producer David Geffen made the news earlier this year when he sold his record company to MCA Inc. in a deal then worth more than $500 million. Geffen then turned around and reportedly paid a whopping $47 million for a 10-acre Beverly Hills estate that belonged to the late film producer Jack L. Warner and his wife, Ann Page Alvarado Warner.

Geffen, whose MCA holdings could be worth as much as $900 million if MCA is acquired by Japanese electronics giant Matsushita Electric, acquired a grand residence designed in the 1930s by architect Roland Coate, but the deal also included a houseful of English furniture, decorative objects and porcelain, plus Warner’s collection of eight Oscars and all his leather-bound film scripts.

Geffen has already recouped a reported $3 million by selling the Oscars and scripts to Warner Bros. Now he plans to put the furnishings on the auction block, on Oct. 12 at Christie’s New York. Sales are expected to total more than $4 million, according to the Park Avenue auction house.

Geffen said that he decided to sell the Warner furnishings because the house was “much too much of a museum” and far too formal for his tastes. “I collect contemporary art, and I don’t live that way,” Geffen said in a telephone interview. Many of the ornate furnishings, architectural elements and decorative objects in the neoclassical mansion were selected for the Warners by Billy Haines, a decorator to the stars for more than 40 years.

Top lots in the auction include a pair of George III gilded wood mirrors (estimated at $200,000 to $300,000), a George II lady’s writing desk inspired by a Chippendale design ($200,000 to $300,000) and a Dutch neoclassical tulipwood and engraved glass cabinet ($70,000 to $100,000).

Architectural elements installed by Haines are also for sale. Among them are a set of early 19th-Century French panels of hand-painted wallpaper ($30,000 to $40,000) and a George III-style marble and lapis lazuli fireplace ($30,000 to $50,000). A portrait of Ann Warner by Salvador Dali (estimated at $600,000 to $800,000) will be offered separately, in Christie’s Nov. 15 sale of Impressionist and modern paintings and sculpture.

Geffen said he does not live in the Warner house and won’t do so for about a year because it is undergoing an extensive renovation. When he takes up residence there, he will install his art collection, including contemporary works by David Hockney, Sam Francis and Morris Louis and modern pieces by Rene Magritte and Fernand Leger.

Geffen holds 1 million shares of a special MCA preferred stock, which he received when he sold his record company to the entertainment conglomerate in March. Geffen’s preferred shares can be converted into 10 million shares of common stock, currently worth about $600 million but worth $900 million if MCA is sold to Matsushita for $90 a share. Unless MCA itself is sold, however, Geffen is limited in how he can convert his shares; under an agreement with the company, he cannot sell all of his stock at once or to a single buyer.

Warner, a founder of Warner Bros. Studio, died in 1978 at the age of 86. The child of a poor Russian immigrant family, he rose quickly in the entertainment field. He and his brothers--Sam, Harry and Albert--staged productions around their hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. Later, they opened a theater in Newcastle, Pa., and produced films in New York before coming to Hollywood. Jack L. Warner is credited as the producer of nearly 1,500 films. Three of them, “The Life of Emile Zola” (1937), “Casablanca” (1943) and “My Fair Lady” (1964), won Oscars for best picture.

Warner and his wife, who died last March at 82, often entertained at their lavish home during Hollywood’s heyday. “The glamour of the golden age of Hollywood was exemplified in the Warner home, and echoed in the exceptional number of high-quality English furniture and decorations,” said William J. Iselin, Christie’s head of European furniture.

Times Staff Writer Jube Shiver contributed to this article.