Vanna Turns a ‘W’ for Westside
“Wheel of Fortune” letter-turner VANNA WHITE and her husband, George Santo Pietro, have purchased a newly built home on the Westside of Los Angeles, sources say.
Since gaining fame on the TV game show, White has marketed a look-alike doll and her own line of fashions on cable television. She also starred as Venus in the 1988 NBC movie “Goddess of Love.”
Santo Pietro owns a chain of Italian restaurants in Los Angeles and is also a dealer in exotic cars.
The newlyweds, who were married last New Year’s Eve in Aspen, Colo.--where they have a pied-a-terre, bought an 8,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style villa with five bedrooms, a media room, a library/office and a basement.
The home, which has city and mountain views, also has a tennis court and is behind gates.
The asking price was $3.15 million, and the home sold for just under $3 million, sources said.
White formerly had a home in the Hollywood Hills, which she has retained as an investment property, other sources said.
Alan Khedari built her new home, and Joe Babajian of Fred Sands Estates handled the transaction, but neither would comment about the deal when contacted.
Speaking of Vanna White . . . her personal manager, RAY MANZELLA, has sold his Pacific Palisades home to Paul Brown, co-producer/writer of the NBC series “Quantum Leap.”
Manzella, who also represents such celebrities as Suzanne Somers and Robin Leach on a project basis, and his family moved to a larger home nearby 1 1/2 years ago.
He leased out his former home until it sold for close to its listing price of $947,000, sources said.
The two-bedroom home is a few steps from the beach and has an ocean view. It was on the market for three months with Kathy Barnes of Coldwell Banker’s Pacific Palisades office. Jon Douglas Co.’s Cheryl Platz represented the buyer.
MARTIN LANDAU, who was a regular in such TV series as “Mission: Impossible” and “Space: 1999” and co-starred in Woody Allen’s 1989 movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” has purchased a Hollywood Hills house that he had been leasing for a year.
The 1,800-square-foot house was built in 1958 but was totally redone a couple of years ago in a contemporary style. The home has a pool and a spa and was described as “very private.”
The property sold for close to its $795,000 asking price, said sources not associated with the deal. Landau was represented in the transaction by Candice Bloomberg of Fred Sands’ Hollywood Hills office.
DAVE COULIER, who co-hosts the ABC show “America’s Funniest People” and plays stand-up comedian Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom “Full House,” has purchased a Spanish-style house in Santa Monica, according to public records.
Coulier and his wife, Jayne, bought a house that was built in the ‘20s for just under $1.5 million, sources say.
The house has three bedrooms and maid’s quarters in about 4,500 square feet. It also has a music room and a swimming pool.
The home is in what a real estate source described as “a ‘Leave It to Beaver’ type neighborhood,” referring to the sitcom, which was on television from 1957 to 1963. “It’s an ideal neighborhood for families,” she explained.
Coulier, his wife and small child had been living in the San Fernando Valley, other sources said.
Charles Pence, Jon Douglas Co., had the listing, and Richard Aries of ESR Commercial Realty represented the buyers. Neither was available for comment.
The HORMEL meat-packing family estate in Bel-Air has come on the market for the first time in more than 60 years.
The 2.16-acre site was purchased in 1927 by George A. Hormel, family patriarch and company founder who has been called “The King of Spam.” Spam is the 100-year-old firm’s top-selling product.
Hormel and his wife, Lillian Belle, built a home on the Bel-Air property, which was razed by their daughter-in law, Germaine Hormel, in 1959, when she built the present home there.
Germaine Hormel, who died last January at the age of 94, built a four-bedroom, 9,200-square-foot home with four family bedrooms and three maid’s quarters. The estate also has an indoor swimming pool, two play houses, two motor courts, two dining rooms and a city-to-ocean view.
The meat-packing firm is headquartered in Austin, Minn., where George (Geordie) Hormel, a jazz pianist and one of Germaine Hormel’s three surviving sons, turned another Hormel family mansion into a hotel, which is now a school. Geordie Hormel was married in the ‘50s to actress Leslie Caron.
Craig Blanchard and Gary More of Rodeo Realty have the Bel-Air listing.
Though MICHAEL CAINE has purchased a Beverly Hills home for about $2.5 million, as was reported in this column last Sunday, he is not relocating his permanent residence here, says Caine’s longtime publicist Jerry Pam.
“He bought the home for vacation and investment purposes,” Pam said Monday. The British actor moved back to England in 1987 after living in California for about a decade.
