Bono Hoping to Scale Down
SONNY BONO, entertainer-turned-Palm Springs mayor, and his wife, Mary, have made an offer on a Palm Springs home across town from their existing residence, which they’ve put on the market at $2.75 million.
The $1-million-plus offer, for a house in the Las Palmas part of Palm Springs, is contingent upon the sale of their current home in “The Mesa,” a neighborhood where such celebrities as actress Suzanne Somers and author Herman Wouk own property.
Sonny Bono has been on a book tour promoting his autobiography, which talks about his life as an entertainer when he was married to actress/singer Cher.
Earlier this year, he sold his Palm Springs restaurant, nightclub and 11 tennis courts to the owners of the hotel next door. The 5 1/2-acre property, appraised at more than $3 million, was originally part of the hotel.
“He wants to scale down,” said Krystyna Hynes of the Prudential Hampton Realtors, who has the listing on the Bonos’ home.
“His new home won’t be smaller in terms of square footage. It will still be a tennis estate, but it will be on about one acre instead of two, and now that he’s a family man with two babies, he wants all of his living quarters under one roof.” His fourth child, Chianna Maria, was born in February.
The Bonos’ current home, which they’ve owned since they were married about six years ago, consists of several dwellings totaling about 7,000 square feet.
“Sonny is a creative person, and that’s another reason he wants to buy the other home,” Hynes said.
He just finished remodeling his current home, which was built in 1925 for razor blade baron King Gillette. Now Bono wants to remodel the home he’s buying.
R. D. HUBBARD, the Dallas resident who recently became chairman of Hollywood Park Operating Co., and his wife, Joan Dale Hubbard, have settled into a Wilshire Corridor penthouse that they leased for a year at $12,000 a month, sources say.
Hubbard also recently established the Shoemaker Foundation to help pay medical expenses for retired jockey Bill Shoemaker, who was paralyzed in a car accident in April. The foundation also aims to help other jockeys and racing industry people injured in accidents or suffering from serious illnesses.
The two-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot penthouse is on the 18th and 19th floors of an 8-year-old building, but the condo also has a suite for the Hubbards’ guests on another floor.
Natalie Janger of Mike Silverman & Associates represented the penthouse owner, an insurance company executive, in the lease transaction.
A Palm Springs home built in 1936 for silent-screen star CLARA BOW, the famous “It Girl,” has come on the market at $399,000.
The Spanish-style house has three bedrooms plus a guest apartment in 3,000 square feet. It also has a wine cellar, basement, pool, spa, pond and covered cabana bar, which seats 12.
Bow, who died in 1965, owned the house until about 1950, according to D. Tom Hile, who has owned it for the past five years.
“I’m selling it, because I’m going to build a little ranch in Sky Valley, northeast of Palm Springs. I want some horses and some space,” said Hile, a pioneer in the resort time-share industry.
He is in the process of buying Eldridge Realty in Desert Hot Springs, where he has the listing.
GEOFFREY MURPHY, director of Morgan Creek Productions’ “Young Guns II” and the upcoming “Freejack” (starring Emilio Estevez, Mick Jagger, Anthony Hopkins and Rene Russo), has leased a house in the flats of Beverly Hills for two years. He was previously living in New Zealand.
Murphy especially liked the house because of its swimming pool, which is 18 x 40 feet.
“He likes to swim every day,” said Bobbi Ward of Asher Dann & Associates, who represented Murphy in the lease transaction.
The 4,000-square-foot house, with four bedrooms and maid’s quarters, was for lease at $6,500 a month through William Neely at Prudential Rodeo Realty.
Singer/songwriter HARRY NILSSON, whom late Beatle John Lennon called his “favorite American singer,” has reduced the price on his Bel-Air home to $4.5 million. “It was in the 5s,” he said.
Nilsson wrote such songs as the 1970 hit “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” and performed the Top 10 version of “Everybody’s Talkin’,” which became the theme of the 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy.”
A caretaker lives in the Bel-Air home, which he built on just under four acres in 1976. It has five bedrooms and seven baths in about 6,000 square feet. It also has a pool, spa, poolroom and canyon, ocean and city views.
“It’s ideal for someone with a smaller family,” he said. He and his wife, Oona, have six children.
Their Hidden Hills home has seven bedrooms in 6,000 square feet and was built in the ‘50s on about two acres. It was once owned by bandleader Harry James, who died in 1983, and his actress wife Betty Grable, who died in 1973. The late Lindsay Crosby, Bing Crosby’s youngest son, also owned the home at one time, Nilsson said.
