Rod’s Building a New Image
British rock star ROD STEWART has sold his longtime Holmby Hills home for about $6 million and is leasing in the Beverly Hills area while a house is being built there for him and his new family.
Stewart had put the home, which he had owned since 1975, on the market at $14.5 million just before his December, 1990, wedding to New Zealand-born model Rachel Hunter. At the time, his publicist said that Stewart wanted to move because “he’s starting a new life.”
After the wedding, Stewart, whose classic album “Every Picture Tells a Story” made him a star about 20 years ago, released a new album and went on a tour that ended earlier this year.
Last month, Stewart, 47, was nominated for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
In June, Stewart and Hunter, 23, had their first child. “Now he’s taking some time off to spend with his wife and baby,” a source said a few days ago.
They have a house in England and are renting a Beverly Hills-area home for about $25,000 a month until their new, English-style home there is completed, sources say. Stewart is hoping to occupy the home in time for the Christmas holidays, the sources said.
The new home will have 22,000 square feet under one roof, including a guest house. The two-acre site, which Stewart bought last year, has city views.
The house he just sold was built in 1926 and had nine bedrooms and nine baths in nearly 15,000 square feet. It’s on about two acres, with a paddle tennis court and fountain, which spills down nearly 90 steps.
The home was purchased by a young couple who are involved behind the scenes in the entertainment industry. “It needed some work, and they’ll do it before they move in,” a source said.
Stewart was represented in the sale of his house by Asher Dann, Asher Dann & Associates. The buyers were represented by Judy Leach, Jon Douglas Co., Beverly Hills.
The longtime Pacific Palisades home of the late MEL BLANC--the voice of Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and hundreds of other cartoon characters--has come on the market for the first time since it was built for Blanc and his wife, Estelle, in 1953.
Blanc died at the age of 81 in 1989. His widow continued to live in the house until recently when she decided it was too large for her. She has moved closer to the Beverly Hills home of their son, Noel, who is carrying on his father’s voice-over work.
The Blancs’ ranch-style, nearly 4,000-square-foot house--with three bedrooms and maid’s quarters--is listed at $1,575,000. It has 180-degree canyon and ocean views.
“The Bugs Bunny spa is one of the fun parts of the house,” said listing agent Andrea Ferraro of Fred Sands’ West Los Angeles office. There is a mosaic of Bugs in the bottom of the spa, she explained.
Former Columbia Pictures Chairman FRANK PRICE, who now heads his own production company, Price Entertainment, and his wife have purchased a vacant lot in Malibu with plans and permits for a 6,000-square-foot house.
The Prices, whose main residence is in Beverly Hills, have had previous weekend homes in Malibu and the Bahamas.
Their new property has 40 feet of beach frontage. The site, which had been owned by a Century City business couple, sold for close to its $4.9-million asking price, sources say. Carol Rapf of Jim Rapf & Associates handled both sides of the transaction.
HENRY GLUCK, chairman and chief executive officer of Caesars World, has purchased the former Bel-Air home of hotel developer/operator Horst Osterkamp, who is now living in Europe.
Gluck, one of the 100 best-compensated executives in California with an annual salary plus bonuses of more than $1 million, bought the nine-bedroom, nearly 8,000-square-foot house, built in 1931, for $4.7 million. A lender had taken back the home through foreclosure in March, 1991. The original asking price was $8.25 million.
The Huntington Estate, on about two acres in the old movie colony area of Palm Springs, is on the market at $2.9 million.
Built in the 1930s by Marian Huntington and Elizabeth Metcalf, daughters of Southern Pacific Railroad magnate HENRY HUNTINGTON, the property has a private lake, tennis court, pool, spa and sauna as well as a seven-bedroom, 11-bath main house and three guest houses.
There is an island and a pier on the lake, and there is a network of tiled walkways that runs through the tree-covered grounds.
The estate has undergone interior changes with subsequent owners, but the early California look remains, says listing broker, Southwest Realty owner Frederick W. Robertson. The current owner was described as a financier.
