A Tall Order: House That Fits
KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR, who will start a college basketball broadcasting career Monday for ESPN while co-producing two television movies, has purchased a Beverly Hills-area home on a private knoll with a view from downtown Los Angeles to Westwood and the ocean.
The greatest scorer in basketball history and the only player to have won the National Basketball Assn.’s Most Valuable Player award six times retired in 1989. Abdul-Jabbar established Kareem Productions shortly before his final season as a Laker center. His company is in a development deal with Warner Bros. to produce a feature film about the Negro Baseball League.
Abdul-Jabbar is also a co-executive producer of a TV movie that will star James Earl Jones as 1950s civil rights leader Vernon Johns and another TV movie based on the World War II experiences of the all-black 761st Tank Battalion.
In addition, Abdul-Jabbar, 45, is continuing to work on his many charities, including Kareem’s Kids, established by Athletes and Entertainers for Kids, to motivate children to stay in school.
His new home has three bedrooms plus maid’s quarters in about 4,500 square feet. The spacious, Japanese-modern-style house has huge windows, 20-foot-high ceilings and extra tall doorways. It was built in 1991.
“It was not built for him, so he was lucky to find a house that fits him so well,” said Abdul-Jabbar’s business manager Norman Marcus, who is a partner at the accounting firm of Ernst & Young. Marcus wouldn’t discuss price, but it was about $2.5 million, according to public records.
When asked what he likes best about his new home, Abdul-Jabbar said that he “enjoys being in the sun and totally out of the shade.” He had been living in the Stone Canyon area of Bel-Air in a house he had built in 1985 after an electrical fire destroyed his former home on the 1.5-acre site.
“I got tired of living in the canyon and realized that I didn’t need as much house as I had,” he said. He sold the nearly 10,000-square-foot, Bel-Air home several months ago for about $3.3 million, sources say.
“He was lucky to sell, considering the market,” said Lorin Pullman, vice president of Kareem Productions. Then, with prices continuing to drop and so many listings to consider, he was like a kid in a candy store, she said. “He’s such a perfectionist, he had an enjoyable time. He drove around and had a ball. Now he’s really excited (about his new home).”
Abdul-Jabbar also has a home in Hawaii. “Six weeks before the hurricane hit Kauai, he put a major addition on his glass house on a cliff there,” Pullman said. “The houses on each side had substantial damage, but he was very lucky. He was in his house while the hurricane was going on, but he and his house were basically unhurt. It was a good year for him.”
Ron De Salvo of Douglas Properties had listed the home that Abdul-Jabbar purchased, and Jana Jones of Alvarez, Hyland & Young represented Abdul-Jabbar.
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CHER has put the Malibu home that she bought in 1990 for $4 million on the market at $6.2 million.
She purchased the house, on 1.2 acres in Point Dume, to renovate and use as her main residence while building a mansion nearby.
In November, the actress/singer sued the city of Malibu, contesting the denial of her application to build the 16,000-square-foot complex on a bluff overlooking the beach. City officials have voiced concerns about the home being built too close to the top of the bluff.
Cher and her interior designer, Ron Wilson, redesigned the house she bought in 1990 and expanded it from 5,200 to about 10,000 square feet. They also transformed it from a Mediterranean- to Southwestern-style home, with four bedroom suites and a complete gym.
Photos of the house are shown in the current issue of Unique Homes magazine.
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WHOOPI GOLDBERG’S Malibu home has been sold for about $2.2 million, sources say.
The beachfront house came on the market in September at $3.25 million. The comedian/actor had owned the home since 1987. She has another home here but spends much of her time in New York.
The buyer was identified as an investment banker.
Richard Stearns and Katie Ribnick, with Fred Sands’ Brentwood and Malibu offices, had co-listed the home, and Alan Mark, also with the Sands firm, represented the buyer.
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PAT SAJAK’S Oxnard home has been sold for close to its asking price of about $1 million, sources say.
The game-show host put the three-bedroom home, a weekend getaway, on the market a couple of months ago because he was not using it. He and his wife bought a farm in the Carolinas, and he spends most of his free time there, when he’s not at their home in Encino.
The three-story, contemporary Oxnard house is in an area known as Hollywood Beach. Bob Krakover of Pacific Shores Realty had the listing.
