MVP Scores on $2.5-Mil Home

San Francisco Giants outfielder BARRY BONDS, who has the highest average salary for a major league baseball player at about $7.3 million, has purchased a home in Atherton, in Northern California, for an estimated $2.5 million, sources say.

Bonds--who signed a six-year, $43.75-million contract as a free agent with the Giants last December--won the National League’s most-valuable-player award in two of his last three years with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The new owners of the Giants took Hall of Famer Willie Mays’ uniform No. 24 out of retirement so that Bonds could wear it. Bonds had always worn the number anyway, but the legendary Mays is also Bonds’ godfather.

Bonds, who played high school baseball in San Mateo and college ball at Arizona State, idolized Mays and often visited the Giants’ clubhouse as a child when his father, Bobby, was a star outfielder with the team. Bonds’ father is now the Giants’ batting coach.

The 28-year-old Bonds, his wife, Sun, and their two young children moved into their Atherton home last week. They had been living in Temecula, where they will maintain a home.

Their Atherton residence is a newly built Tuscan-style villa with five bedrooms in 6,500 square feet on about an acre, with large trees and expansive lawns. The master suite has a room-sized, walk-in closet with two windows.

There is also a separate cabana for entertaining, near the swimming pool. Bonds’ hobbies are dancing, weight lifting and martial arts.

Clive Egdes and Paul Skikne, both of Jon Douglas Co.’s Studio City office, represented Bonds in his purchase.

KENNY and MARIANNE ROGERS have put their 360-acre Beaver Dam Farms in Georgia on the market at $13 million.

The country singer/actor and his wife moved there from Los Angeles in 1987, after buying and selling a number of L.A.-area properties. Their most memorable transaction was the $22.5-million sale of their Beverly Hills-area mansion to oil baron/real estate investor Marvin Davis, and his wife, Barbara.

This isn’t the first time that they have listed their Georgia ranch. It was for sale at $11 million before they relocated there, reportedly as a better place to raise their son.

The couple decided to sell the ranch this time “because they are creative folks and just want to move on,” said listing agent Margie Hancock. There were some published reports earlier this year that they have had some marital problems.

Their Georgia compound has a 16,000-square-foot contemporary house with 11 bedrooms, including a 3,000-square-foot master suite, and 13 baths. There is also a five-bedroom guest house with two kitchens; a 72-hole golf course and an equestrian complex on the ranch.

The equestrian complex consists of a 73,000-square-foot barn with three apartments, a media and screening room, 44 stalls, offices, feed rooms, a tack room, breeding rooms and a laboratory.

Gerry Whitworth shares the listing with Hancock through Upchurch Realty, a Coldwell Banker Previews property, in Athens, Ga., according to the April/May Unique Homes issue.

The Montecito home of PAUL SCOTT, retired founder and president of the Ernest Strauss clothing line, and his wife, Carol, a model featured in Vogue, has been sold to golfer Anne Sander and her husband, Steve, for about $2 million.

Anne Sander won the Women’s Western Amateur in 1988, 32 years after winning it for the first time.

The Scotts are moving to a two-acre, French Normandy-style estate on the Valley Country Club, which they just bought for close to its $2.2-million asking price.

Lois Landau of Fred Sands Realtors, Montecito, represented the Scotts in their sale and purchase, and Roger O’Connor, of the same office, represented the Sanders.