Angel Slides Into Bel-Air

Angels right fielder DAVE WINFIELD has purchased a newly built home in a gated community in Bel-Air.

Since joining the Anaheim team in 1990, Winfield, 39, has looked more like the All-Star he was in his 20s than the played-out player the Yankees considered him to be when trading him for pitcher Mike Witt.

Overcoming back surgery two years ago and former-Yankees owner George Steinbrenner’s well-publicized tirades and lawsuits against him, Winfield is having a fine season, hitting around the .270 mark for the season. In April, he homered three times in one game.

“I am recharged,” he was reported as saying in July, after hitting his 394th career home run, more than any active major leaguer. Winfield also created a drug-education program called “Turn It Around,” which he introduced in Orange County in June.

He was renting an apartment in Anaheim when he purchased his Bel-Air home for about $1.5 million. The house has five bedrooms, five baths, an elevator and a wine cellar in 4,500 square feet. It also has a pool and room for a batting cage.

It’s situated in a new community known as Bel-Air Crest, where 1968 Olympic Gold Medalist pole vaulter Bob Seagren and actor Tony Curtis also live.

The 200-acre project, developed by Goldrich & Kest, is nestled in the hills and has five tennis courts, a swimming pool and a 5,000-square-foot clubhouse.

Winfield has moved into his new home with his wife, Tonya, whom he married three years ago. He has an 8-year-old daughter, but she lives with her mother in Austin, Tex.

Rock star ROD STEWART has purchased a 2 1/2-acre lot with city views at Beverly Park, the gated community overlooking Beverly Hills where such other celebrities as Alan Thicke, Pia Zadora and Magic Johnson own properties.

Stewart plans to build a 22,000-square-foot home for himself and his bride, New Zealand model Rachel Hunter, on the site, which had been for sale in the $4-million range, sources said.

The English-style estate will also have a guest house, tennis court, swimming pool and rolling lawns.

The Holmby Hills home that he has owned for about 15 years is still on the market through Beverly Hills real estate broker Asher Dann, though the price has been reduced to $9,995,000 from its original December asking price of $14.5 million.

A Sierra Madre house described as “a glass pyramid” withstood the June 28 earthquake, which registered 5.8 on the Richter scale, totally unscathed, said Ron Schuster of Century 21-Hunter Associates, Long Beach, who represented the woman who bought the house in May.

The house, which is sheathed in glass, was built in 1972 in the shape of a pyramid. It has one bedroom in 3,000 square feet.

“It might look fragile because of the glass,” Schuster said, “but it seemed to ride the quake out very nicely, probably because of the way it was built, with those large beams. Nothing even got broken in it.”

The four-level house, with a round front door, is on a 1 1/2-acre site, reached through iron gates, up a very steep driveway. The property also has a reflection pool, spa and three garages.

A county social worker bought the home in a one-day escrow for $450,000, Schuster said. “She just fell in love with it, and the seller, a lender who had taken it back through foreclosure, was motivated.”

DON SIMPSON--who co-produced such films as “Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Flashdance” and “Days of Thunder” with his partner Jerry Bruckheimer--has purchased a home three doors from the Hotel Bel-Air for about $4 million.

He’s putting another $1.5 million into remodeling, although the house, termed a “Craftsman contemporary” is in good shape, said his realtor, Heidi Lake of Mossler, Deasy & Doe. The house is on an acre of land.

Simpson also owns another Bel-Air home, which he considers a tear-down, but he has been too busy making movies to build, Lake said. That property is listed at $7.75 million.

He lives in still another home that he owns in the Beverly Hills Post Office area.

DIANE WARREN--who has written songs for such stars as Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Barbara Mandrell and the rock group Bon Jovi--has purchased a home on the beach in Malibu for about $850,000, said sources not involved in the transaction.

Her main residence is in Sherman Oaks.

In May, Warren, 34, was named “Songwriter of the Year” for the second consecutive year by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers. She’s written such songs as “If I Could Turn Back Time,” recorded by Cher, and “I’ll Be Your Shelter,” recorded by Taylor Dayne.

Warren fell in love with the two-bedroom, two-bath Malibu home mainly because of its views of the ocean and of dolphins playing in the surf, according to her real estate agent, Elizabeth Nifoussi of Prudential Rodeo Realty. The house is 1,500 square feet in size.