Heavy Metal’s Silver Lining

Heavy metal rocker AXL ROSE, one of music’s most controversial figures, has sold his Hollywood Hills home and bought a Malibu mansion.

Rose, 30, is lead singer with Guns ‘N Roses, which last week released its first concert videos in a pair of tapes called “Use Your Illusion World Tour-1992 in Tokyo.” The Los Angeles-based band has sold more than 15 million albums since 1985, when Rose, who had come west from Indiana about five years earlier, joined it.

“Just as (Jim) Morrison hit a nerve two decades ago with counterculture fans who were looking for new social directions, Rose--a high school dropout--mirrors much of the restless anxiety of working-class youths who are trying to resolve contradictory impulses in their own lives,” The Times’ pop music critic Robert Hilburn wrote in 1991.

Rose, who has gone on tirades and stomped off stage during concerts, was given two years’ probation and ordered to pay $50,000 in charitable donations after being found guilty in November of assault and property damage during an aborted concert in St. Louis that escalated into a riot.

He sold his Hollywood Hills home for close to its $699,000 asking price and bought the Malibu mansion for nearly $3.95 million.

The Malibu house is a contemporary Mediterranean with five bedrooms and 8 1/2 baths in about 7,000 square feet. The home, on a three-acre promontory with ocean and city views, also has a guest house, studio, tennis court, pool and spa.

The house he sold has two bedrooms in about 2,000 square feet. It is on an acre-size bluff with views of the city and the Hollywood sign. The new owner is Mark Mazzetti, a vice president of A&R;, a division of A&M; Records.

Rose had owned the Hollywood home since November, 1990, when he purchased it for $800,000 with Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers. The April, 1990, Rose/Everly marriage was annulled in January, 1991.

Arleen Ruby of Prudential California represented Rose in both real estate transactions; Jim Muske of Fred Sands Estates represented the buyer of Rose’s Hollywood home, and Brady Westwater and James Respondek, both of Jon Douglas Co., co-listed the Malibu compound.

Teen heartthrob COREY HAIM and Hollywood promoter/manager Michael Bass have become partners in a lease/option, Bass said, of a Hancock Park house valued in public records at about $1.35 million.

Haim, 20, starred in “Lucas” and “License to Drive” (both 1986), and he co-starred in “The Lost Boys” (1987) and “Dream a Little Dream” (1989). He also played the young protagonist and performed many of his own stunts in “Prayer of the Rollerboys” (1991).

“I love Hancock Park, and I’m not the only actor who feels that way . . . Keifer Sutherland also just got a house around here,” Haim said.

Haim’s five-bedroom, nearly 7,000-square-foot home, built in 1922, will be a great place for his family, who lives in Canada, to visit, Bass said, “but we rushed to get this deal so we could hold our ‘Toyskis for Totskis’ party here this year.”

Bass initiated his “Toyskis for Totskis” last year as a way of gathering and sending toys to children in Russia. This year’s party, which will be held Saturday, will benefit children in Florida who are victims of last August’s Hurricane Andrew.

“After the party, Corey will fly to Florida to distribute the toys,” Bass said.

Producer BRIAN GRAZER (“Parenthood,” “Backdraft,” “Splash”) has purchased a home in Pacific Palisades for “well under” its $3.5-million asking price, sources say.

Designed by the late Cliff May for actor Gregory Peck, the California ranch-style home was built in 1940 and is in need of some cosmetic work, which Grazer plans to do. The one-story, 5,000-square-foot home is on a three-acre knoll with canyon and ocean views.

Matt Rapf of Jim Rapf & Associates, Malibu, and James Respondek of Jon Douglas Co.’s Pacific Palisades office represented Grazer, and Shel and Edie Kirshner of Fred Sands, Brentwood, represented the seller, described as “a college professor who moved on.”

SANDY HILL, ex-KNXT-TV anchor and former co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and her husband, Craig, have sold their 4,500-square-foot Santa Monica home of five years for $1.4 million.

She is currently reporting and taping interviews for the BBC, PBS and Family Channel. He is an executive with Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate.

They had restored the 1920s-era, New England-style house. Now they plan to buy a lot and build in the Palisades. The Hills have a 7-year-old son.

Songwriter DEAN PITCHFORD, who won an Oscar for the song “Fame” and two Oscar nominations for songs from the movie “Footloose,” has purchased a weekend home in Montecito for close to its $885,000 asking price.

The 3,000-square-foot home, which has three bedrooms plus a guest house, is off a private lane on a bit more than an acre with ocean views. Pitchford’s main residence is in the Hollywood Hills. Rebecca Riskin of Fred Sands Realtors, Montecito, represented him in his purchase.