Trackster Gets Room to Run
BRUCE JENNER, the former world record-holder in the decathlon, and his wife, Kris, have purchased about 100 acres in the Santa Ynez Valley, where they plan to build a 10,000-square-foot, Mediterranean-style home.
Jenner has raced on the Trans Am circuit for Firestone, worked part time for NBC, made Wheaties commercials and invested, as a partner, in a personal blood-storage business since he won his gold medal at the 1976 Olympics. His business interests include a new line of running shoes called the “AAU Bruce Jenner Gold Medal Series.”
He also originated the Bruce Jenner Classic Track Meet, now in its 14th year in San Jose.
Jenner, 43, married Kris, his third wife, in 1991. Each had four children from previous marriages.
The couple--who live in a leased, oceanfront home in Malibu with five bedrooms and maid’s quarters--bought the 100-acre parcel in the Santa Ynez Valley for about $1 million and have plans to build on it soon, sources say.
“They flew up here in their private jet many times looking for property,” a local realtor said. Jenner is a commercially rated pilot.
The Jenners considered buying a home called Westerly--a 24,000-square-foot house on 103 acres that is for sale at $6.7 million--but decided instead to purchase the 103.7-acre site next door.
Lois Landau of Fred Sands’ Montecito office had the listing on the land that the Jenners purchased. Her husband, Kenneth, completed Westerly, which they own, after it sat half built for nearly 20 years following the 1972 death of its former owner, financial wizard Fletcher Jones.
Actress ELLEN BARKIN and actor GABRIEL BYRNE have just returned to their home in Connecticut after leasing a house in Brentwood for several months, while he was filming the upcoming movie “Dangerous Woman,” co-starring Debra Winger and Barbara Hershey.
Barkin was in “Sea of Love” (1989), “Switch” (1991), “Man Trouble” (1992) and “Into the West,” in which Byrne also appeared and was associate producer. Byrne also starred in “Cool World” (1992).
The husband/wife actors had their second child while leasing in Brentwood, sources say. The three-bedroom, New England-style house, which leases for $7,500 a month, is listed for sale at nearly $1.3 million with Chrys Stamatis of Douglas Properties.
MIKE NICHOLS, who produced and directed “Regarding Henry” (1991) and “Postcards From the Edge” (1990) after winning an Oscar for directing “The Graduate” in 1967 and six Tony awards, has sold his 150-acre Santa Barbara ranch, which he had owned for about 10 years.
Now Nichols, who has another ranch in Connecticut, and “PrimeTime Live” anchor Diane Sawyer, whom he married in 1988, are reportedly looking to buy another home in Santa Barbara.
Nichols’ Santa Barbara ranch sold for “reasonably close” to its asking price of $4.2 million, sources say. It was known, during the 1980s, for its Arabian horse auctions. The new owner, a producer/director from Germany, plans to breed and raise ostriches there.
The property, on the shores of Lake Cachuma, includes a Cliff May-designed main house, a red-tile barn, an office complex, four adobe homes, employee apartments, a 30,000-square-foot multi-use building, and more than 100 horse stalls.
Kerry Mormann and Randy Ophaug, both of Kerry Mormann & Associates in Santa Barbara, represented both the buyer and the seller in the transaction.
Singer-pianist-actor GEORGE BUGATTI, who will appear in the title role of the upcoming four-hour miniseries “The Dick Haymes Story,” and his wife, Sherry, have purchased a Tudor-style North Hollywood home once owned by the late film director King Vidor. The Bugattis’ first child, Isabella Gianna, was born last week.
The couple, who moved to California from New York about a year ago, had been renting a condo in Beverly Hills, where he was discovered, playing piano at the Peninsula Hotel, by Gene Corman.
Corman--who produced the 1982 miniseries “A Woman Called Golda,” starring Ingrid Bergman--will produce “The Dick Haymes Story,” based on the life of the late vocalist who rivaled Frank Sinatra as one of the big names of the Big Band era. Haymes died at 64 in 1988.
The Bugattis bought their new home, which was built in the 1930s and is on an acre of land, for $850,000.
A Long Beach house that was featured in “Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not” as “the country’s thinnest house” when it was built in 1932 has come on the market at $149,900.
The historical landmark, which is 10 feet wide, was built by draftsman Newton Rummond and a group of unemployed craftsmen who gained employment from publicity that the house generated.
Rummond, who had acquired a 10-by-50-foot lot in payment for a $100 debt, built the home on a dare by friends, who said that the site was too small for a house. The end result was a three-story, 860-square-foot home with two bedrooms, one bath and a sink in one of the bedrooms. The Tudor-style architecture includes half timbers and beams.
The owners, Ed and Tia Rayl, are selling the home because they have been transferred to Virginia, said Mardella Newkirk, who shares the listing with her husband, Fred, at Dolphin Properties in Long Beach. The Rayls have owned the house since 1985.
