‘Look Who’s Talking’ Rehab
BRUCE WILLIS, star of the “Die Hard” movies, and his wife, “Ghost” co-star DEMI MOORE, are rehabbing a New York City penthouse that they bought for $8 million, sources say.
Willis, who will be heard but not seen in the upcoming “Look Who’s Talking Too,” worked last spring and early summer in Manhattan, shooting the “Bonfire of the Vanities,” expected to be released Dec. 21, but his roots in the city go back much further.
Before he came to Los Angeles to watch the 1984 Olympics and auditioned for the “Moonlighting” TV role, which made him famous, Willis worked in New York City as a bartender and a security guard, then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions.
During those early days in New York, he lived in an apartment that he still leases in the tough, seedy neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen. “To me, it’s a reminder of where I came from,” he has said.
Where he’s said to be going--with his wife, who has spent most of her life in the Los Angeles area, and their 2-year-old child--is the co-op building known as the San Remo.
New York sources describe the San Remo as “a prewar (World War II), well-established co-op” and “one of the nicest buildings on the West Side.” Actor Dustin Hoffman also owns a co-op there.
Built in 1929, the San Remo consists of twin, 27-story towers designed in Art Deco style by architect Emery Roth, who designed seven other buildings in the Central Park skyline.
Willis’ co-op, in the south San Remo tower, overlooks Central Park and is one of 140 units in the complex. Called “a triplex penthouse,” his co-op was originally three apartments that were later combined.
The 14-room co-op has five bedrooms, four maid’s rooms and several terraces. The unit has 360-degree views, with exposures on all four sides of the building.
Producer Robert Stigwood, manager of the Bee Gees, sold the unit to Willis, who is waiting for some remodeling to be completed before occupying it, sources say.
The Willises also have a two-story, contemporary home on the water at Malibu’s Carbon Beach, which he purchased in 1987, the year they were married, for close to its $2-million asking price.
Popular artist HIROMICHI YAMAGATA has purchased a house in Malibu with what a local broker described as “a drop-dead ocean view” for $2.3 million.
Yamagata uses acrylics to paint in a style called “naive art,” which has a childlike quality. His most recent works are “Boat Parade” and “Pool Party,” both released this year. Other subjects are colorful toys, umbrellas, magic castles and hot-air balloons.
His serigraphs sell for from $3,800 to $15,000 each; his original acrylics, in the $200,000 range.
Yamagata’s new Malibu home, on a bluff, is 15 years old and has three bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths in nearly 4,000 square feet.
The artist reportedly had been living in another house, still owned by his family, three doors away. There are no plans to sell that house, sources say.
Alan Mark and Rick Wallace of Fred Sands’ Malibu office had the listing on Yamagata’s new home, but they were unavailable for comment.
CLINT WALKER, who starred in the “Cheyenne” TV series in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and his wife, Gigi, have put a 93-acre property that they own in Agoura on the market at $3.2 million.
The land has some sandstone formations on it and a creek that runs five months out of the year, said Gigi Walker, a former singer and actress.
“We were going to build a home on 40 acres of it, but we’re in Grass Valley now, and we like it,” she explained.
The Walkers were married shortly after he was nearly killed in a freak, 1971 ski accident in which a pole punctured his heart.
Since then Walker, who appeared in “The Dirty Dozen” and a dozen other movies, has spent little time in Hollywood, although he has made some Kal Kan pet-food commercials during the last six years.
Underground parking for 22 cars is among the features of a house being built in the flats of Beverly Hills.
The house was also designed to have five bedrooms, 10 baths, six fireplaces, a ballroom, a billiard loft and an elevator in 11,300 square feet. In addition, a pool and a pool house are planned on the nearly one-acre property.
“We’re designing a lot of homes (in Southern California) with basements,” said Chris Firestone, a consultant with his father, architect Ronald G. Firestone, who designed the Italian Renaissance-style residence.
The Firestones are also developing the home, to be completed in about a year, on spec. The asking price is $11.5 million.
BRUCE HENDRICKS, who produced the TV movies “Fuzzbucket” and “Mr. Boogedy” for Walt Disney Television, has sold his condo at Marina del Rey and bought a newly built, Mediterranean-style house in the Studio City hills.
“It was really hard to oust him from the beach,” said Deborah Moore of Asher Dann & Associates, the Beverly Hills sales agent who represented Hendricks in his purchase. “But now he has a city view.”
He sold his condo for about $400,000 and bought his house for “in the vicinity of $750,000,” Moore said. The house has three bedrooms and three baths in 3,500 square feet.
