Plot Thickens: Buy, Sell, Build

Novelist JOSEPH WAMBAUGH, whose long string of bestsellers includes “Fugitive Nights” and “The Golden Orange,” and his wife, Dee, have bought a San Diego home, put their Rancho Santa Fe house on the market and are building a second home in the desert.

“We’ve pretty much moved the furniture down there,” said the former Los Angeles police sergeant-turned-author, referring to his new home in San Diego.

While living in Rancho Santa Fe, he wrote “Fugitive Nights” and “Finnegan’s Week,” due to be published in October. Among the 56-year-old novelist’s TV ventures was “From the Files of Joseph Wambaugh: Jury of One,” which aired on NBC last fall.

“We really love Rancho Santa Fe,” said Dee Wambaugh. The couple, who met in high school, were married 38 years ago this November. “Our home there is beautiful, but it’s a little larger than we can handle, dividing our time as we do between places,” she said.

The Wambaughs have been living part-time in their 7,100-square-foot Rancho Santa Fe home and part-time in Rancho Mirage, where she is overseeing construction of a 6,000-square-foot home, which she described as “open and informal.”

“I’m a real desert rat,” she said. But they both like the harbor view of the older, 4,000-square-foot home they recently purchased in San Diego. And they love the outdoor areas of the home there for their giant schnauzer and Golden Retriever.

“We wanted a desert place and a harbor place,” she said, “so our move was to divide our time between two smaller places.”

Their Rancho Santa Fe home, which is on three acres, has four bedrooms, a library, exercise room, two family rooms and a wine cellar that is hidden behind a bookcase. It was built in 1984. The Wambaughs bought it in 1990 for $2.3 million. It’s listed at $1.95 million with Holly Manion of Rancho Santa Fe Realty.

They still own a home, on the water with a main channel view, in Newport Beach, where they lived on and off for 13 years before moving to Rancho Santa Fe. “We’d like to sell our home there for just under $2 million, but we have it leased out,” Dee Wambaugh said.

CASEY COATES-DANSON, officially separated from actor Ted Danson after 15 years of marriage, has completed the environmentally sensitive house in Brentwood that she started building in February, 1992. It is her first large-scale project as an environmental designer.

The 7,800-square-foot house has a solar-heated hot water system, which also heats the pool; a solar-voltaic electric system, an earth-cooled wine cellar, fan-cooled bedrooms and a drought-resistant garden.

The gated home--which has five bedrooms, a gym, guest house, lap pool, spa and vegetable garden--is listed at $4.5 million with Linda May and Joe Babajian of Fred Sands Estates, Beverly Hills. Babajian and Joan Duffy, of Sands’ Sherman Oaks West office, also represented producer Gale Anne Hurd in buying a Beverly Hills mansion for just under $4 million.

KENNY KINGSTON, who calls himself Marilyn Monroe’s “one and only psychic” and counts a sizable number of celebrities among his clientele, has purchased a Studio City home after a house hunt of seven years.

Kingston, who gives private readings to the British royals and claims to communicate with Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, is remodeling the three-bedroom, nearly 30-year-old house before moving there from his Sherman Oaks apartment.

He liked the privacy, views and use of glass in the home, which he purchased for close to its $449,000 asking price, said selling agent Joann Aslan of Aslan Realty.

A Beverly Hills house once owned by Fifth Dimension singers MARILYN McCOO and BILLY DAVIS JR. has come on the market at $3.95 million.

Designed by architect Paul Williams and built in 1937, the 9,000-square-foot, Tudor-style home has four bedrooms, a guest apartment, maid’s quarters and six fireplaces. There is also a tennis court and pool on the gated acre of grounds.

The home, which is being sold by a publisher of health magazines who is moving to a larger residence, is listed with Carol Russaco, Michael Cody and Rick Hilton of Hilton & Hyland in Century City.