Hunter Heads for Big House
FRED DRYER, who starred for seven years as Sgt. Rick Hunter in the NBC police drama “Hunter,” is building what he describes as a “Wallace Neff-style, California Spanish” mansion in Mulholland Estates, a gated development in the Beverly Hills Post Office Area.
The late architect Wallace Neff designed many movie stars’ mansions on the Westside during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Dryer’s detective show ended its run last spring, and Dryer formed his own company to produce several NBC Movies of the Week, in which he will also star. “We’ll shoot in Europe as well as in the U.S.,” he said, “so we’ll be busy the next six months.”
While shooting, he expects his home to be completed for a January move-in. “All the electrical and plumbing is in already, and we’re getting ready to wrap it,” he said.
His house will have five bedrooms and seven baths in about 10,000 square feet. It will also have a wine cellar, maid’s quarters, a swimming pool and a hydraulic lift that will allow six cars to be parked in his three-car garage.
Like Neff’s houses, Dryer’s home will have a simple, uncluttered front and a low-slung roof parallel to the ground. It will also have round, wide arches and a small, circular drive--both features of many Neff mansions.
“It won’t be all frilled up,” Dryer said of his new home. “It won’t have a bowling alley or a shooting range. Everything will be very usable. And there will be enough space for a grass tennis court if I later decide that’s desirable.”
Dryer bought his site--a double lot or nearly an acre--in 1988 for a bit more than $1 million through Joe Babjian and Judy Cycon of Fred Sands Estates. The completed home is estimated to be worth in the $5-million range.
Dryer, a bachelor and former defensive end of the L.A. Rams and New York Giants, currently lives in a condo in Brentwood.
“Anyone familiar with the legend of Fred Dryer knows that at one time, in his free spirit days with the Rams, he lived in a van,” said Dryer’s business partner, Tony Capozzola. “This house is a symbol of his achievement and hard work since he left pro sports.”
Dryer left the Rams after playing for them in the 1980 Super Bowl against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played college football at San Diego State.
Speaking of former football players, actor NICK NOLTE, who attended five colleges in four years on football scholarships, bought a Malibu house that he was renting, sources say.
Nolte stars in the film version of Pat Conroy’s book “The Prince of Tides” and appeared in the movies “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” “The Deep” and the TV mini-series “Rich Man, Poor Man.”
He closed escrow several weeks ago on a four-bedroom, four-bath house valued at about $2.4 million. The 6,000-square-foot, two-story house on about two acres was built in the early ‘60s.
Comedian DENNIS MILLER, who will have his own syndicated talk-show on Channel 5 starting in January, has put his Studio City home on the market.
Miller was on the Weekend Update desk of “Saturday Night Live” before appearing in a couple of his own HBO comedy specials.
He listed his four-bedroom, four-bath house because his one-year-old boy doesn’t have any place to play there, said Nancy Daum, who shares the $995,000 listing with her husband, Hal, at Douglas Properties, Encino.
“The house is really not a place for a baby, with its seven levels and many plate-glass windows,” she said.
The house was built in 1983 but was gutted last year and rebuilt as a contemporary with a peach exterior and turquoise entry with black and white interiors.
Miller is looking in Brentwood or Pacific Palisades for a home with a yard. He also has a home in New York.
The CAROLANDS, the San Francisco Bay Area mansion that is a Decorators Show House through Oct. 20, has been listed at $20 million with Bruce Nelson at John Bruce Nelson & Associates, Beverly Hills.
Two Los Angeles designers--Gary Wolper and Christopher Boshears--are among the 60 interior designers who refurbished the house, built in 1913 in Hillsborough.
As the Decorators Show House, the mansion--also known as Chateau Remillard--will benefit the Coyote Point Museum and new Wildlife Habitats in San Mateo.
Admission to the Show House is $20. More information: (415) 342-0984.
A Cape Cod-style home in Orange County’s Three Arch Bay with a saltwater pool and a lighthouse has been put on the market at $8.25 million, on a lease option.
The home is also available to lease at $10,000 a month or $84,000 a year.
The property has a two-bedroom house with portholes for windows. There is also a guest house, several garages, a carriage house, a cave, a private beach and a funicular, or mountain railway, on the property.
Known as THE GRIFFITH ESTATE, the home was built in 1929 for movie producer Edward Griffith and his former showgirl wife, America, who entertained such celebrities there as Lionel Barrymore, Claudette Colbert and Leslie Howard.
Ray McAfoose of Coldwell Banker, South Laguna, has the listing.
