Pop Entertainer Goes Country

Pop singer JANET JACKSON has purchased a newly built home in northern San Diego County, which closed escrow a few days ago at about $4 million, sources say.

Jackson, sister of singer Michael, agreed to buy the home while it was under construction last summer during her “Rhythm Nation” tour, which is in Osaka, Japan, this weekend. Jackson also has a townhouse at MountainGate in Brentwood.

Her new home, in a largely rural area, was advertised at $4,485,000, with six or more bedrooms and 6 1/2 baths in 10,000 square feet. It also has a swimming pool, tennis court and what local realtors describe as “beautiful sunset views.”

The home sits on a 2.1-acre hill overlooking Rancho Santa Fe Farms, a new community that is contiguous to Fairbanks Ranch.

The house is near the Del Rayo Downs residence of actress Ann Blyth and the Rancho Santa Fe homes of the late actor Victor Mature, country-rocker Juice Newton, longtime “Miss America” host Bert Parks, astronaut Wally Schirra, novelist Joseph Wambaugh and retired football commissioner Pete Rozelle.

None of the agents involved in Jackson’s transaction was available for comment, but the home had been listed with Prudential California, and Jackson was represented by Fairbanks Ranch Realty.

KIM BASINGER, who is co-starring with Alec Baldwin in Disney’s forthcoming “The Marrying Man,” has sold her Hollywood Hills house in a one-day escrow for about the same price that she paid for it last May--nearly $1 million.

“She sold it because she’s never here,” one of the sources reporting the sale said, “but four other people besides the buyer, a theatrical agent, wanted it.”

The house was in demand, he said, because of its spectacular city view. The one-story, 1,700-square-foot hideaway has only one bedroom but is behind gates, on half an acre and has a spa.

Last January, Basinger bought the 1,728-acre town of Braselton, Ga., with a Chicago company, and plans were announced to develop a film and recording center there.

Cheryl Crane of Alvarez, Hyland & Young represented both sides in the Hollywood Hills deal but couldn’t be reached for confirmation.

Comedian/actor LENNY CLARKE is settling into his new Marina del Rey home while waiting for CBS to reschedule his sitcom, “Lenny,” which premiered in September but was pulled in October, with a new time period “to be announced shortly.”

Clarke and his wife, Ferd, were renting in the Marina and liked it so much, they decided to stay when they bought their first home--a newly built house with three bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths in about 4,000 square feet on a lagoon with a water view.

“They have a great deck with a view of the ocean and city,” said Mark Litman with REMAX West in Woodland Hills, who represented the Clarkes.

He wouldn’t disclose the purchase price, but public records indicate that the Clarkes paid $1,185,000 for their new home.

British writer/director CLIVE BARKER has purchased the Beverly Hills-area home of actor ROBERT CULP and his wife, Candace, who bought a home in Brentwood, it was just learned.

Barker, who wrote and directed the 1987 horror movie “Hellraiser,” based on his novella “Hellbound Heart,” recently adapted his own horror novel “Cabal” for the screen.

He paid $1.95 million, public records show, for the Culps’ home, which was built in 1926 and has four bedrooms and five baths in about 4,000 square feet.

The Culps listed the house in January, at $2,495,000, because they wanted to move farther west to be closer to their young daughter’s school.

Their new home has three bedrooms and two baths in slightly less than 2,000 square feet, built in 1952. They bought it for $1.25 million, according to public records.

Robert Culp, probably best known for his 1960s “I Spy” series with Bill Cosby, was reunited on television last June with Cosby on a segment of “The Cosby Show.”

The buyer of movie mogul CECIL B. DE MILLE’s Los Feliz compound (Hot Property, Oct. 14) has been identified as a Japan-based firm headed by an entrepreneur named Shinji Ichimura who collects ‘30s and ‘40s Hollywood memorabilia, including the piano from the 1942 film “Casablanca.”

He also has a nightclub called “Casablanca” in Tokyo, according to Vivian Hanover of the Jon Douglas Pacific Palisades office, who represented the buyer. The De Mille compound is being turned into his personal museum and American headquarters, other sources said.

Ichimura’s firms, Ichimura International and Nikken USA, buy completed nightclubs and shopping malls, but the $3.9-million home purchase was reportedly the first real estate acquisition for either company in the United States.

Emmy-nominated character actor TIGE ANDREWS, who played with Henry Fonda in the movie “Mr. Roberts” and more recently appeared in CBS-TV’s “Murder She Wrote,” is selling 72 acres of Calabasas land that he has owned for some time.

He put the land on the market as seven 10-acre home sites, zoned for horses and houses and priced from $1.5 million to $1.6 million. Robert Friedman in the Woodland Hills office of Fred Sands Realtors has the listings.