‘Mr. 500’ Wants to Hit the Road
Racing legend ANDY GRANATELLI, who gained fame as head of STP Corp. when the oil additive company sponsored Indianapolis 500 winners Mario Andretti and Gordon Johncock, is planning to sell his 12-acre home in Montecito for $25 million.
Granatelli, who wrote about his life from doing curbside car repairs during the Depression in Chicago to promoting STP in Indy during the 1960s and ‘70s in his book “They Call Me Mister 500,” also plans to sell all or part of his collection of 18 classic cars. It includes a red, 1930 Duesenberg owned first by actress Delores Del Rio, and said to be valued at $1.2 million, and a 1929 Pierce Arrow owned at one time by Charlie Chaplin.
“My wife and I want to travel around the world now and spend a couple of years in Italy,” Granatelli said.
Granatelli, 71, and Dolly, his wife of 37 years, have spent the past 5 1/2 years restoring and updating their 30,000-square-foot Italian villa in Montecito. The home was built in the late 1920s for a New York banker by George Washington Smith.
The Granatellis added an indoor pool with a 5- to 15-m.p.h. wave machine; a 6,000-square-foot, dust-free building for the cars; 600 rose bushes, 14 fire hydrants and four water wells.
“I spent over $100,000 cutting off the top of my neighbors’ trees to get the ocean view back,” he said.
The three-story home, surrounded on three sides by a creek, has two elevators, nine chimneys, eight bedrooms, a guest house, flower-arranging room, acres of gardens that the Granatellis survey by golf cart, and a place to park 225 cars. “We regularly entertain from 100 to 500 guests,” he said.
Lois Landau, Fred Sands Realtors-Montecito, was a guest at the Granatellis’ Christmas party when she learned of their interest in selling the house. “He said I could show it,” she said.
The Granatellis also have a beach house in Montecito and a 34-acre ranch in Scottsdale, Ariz., which they’ve owned for 17 years. The ranch has a 7,000-square-foot villa with a tennis court, stables and guest house.
DONALD TRUMP no sooner got married to Marla Maples last week than he bought a one-story home adjacent to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., for $700,000.
It’s the second home he has bought recently to add to his 118-room estate, which he plans to turn into a private club, sources say. The other house was bought for $1.2 million.
Pamela Hoffpauer of Martha A. Gottfried Inc. announced the latest sale. Seymour Rosing and Shary Hedrick, Gottfried listing associates, worked to close the deal.
PETER FORD, son of film star Glenn Ford and the late dancer Eleanor Powell, is completing a two-year construction project, creating his own home in the Craftsman style of Greene & Greene, architects of the early 1900s, in the Hollywood Hills.
Ford, president of Blackoak/Ford Construction & Planning, has been a “contractor to the stars” for 15 years, having worked on a variety of residential projects for such celebrities as Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews; Richard Simmons, Don Simpson, Steve Tisch, Sally Kellerman, Jo Beth Williams and Dean Martin.
“I’ve been a handyman since my early youth in the ‘60s,” reminisced Ford, who was also an actor before turning to designing and building houses. “My dad taught me to do carpentry. We had a full shop in our house. The first job I did was for Marion Davies.”
He has taken more time on his own home than he has spent on most stars’ projects, because his house is in the Greene & Greene style. “Nothing is off the rack,” he said.
The 5,500-square-foot, 18-room house features 23 species of exotic woods, intricate joinery and stained glass. Every door and window was custom made. Most of the house is handcrafted.
The four-bedroom house, valued at more than $2 million, has a garden room, gym, playroom and large exhibit area for his collection of Native American art. He’s still working on the media room with its surround sound and 15-foot high, vaulted ceiling.
He expects to complete the home for himself, his wife, Linda, and their three children within weeks, but another enterprise, begun in response to the Malibu fires, is taking time:
“We started CIRS (Contractor Information & Referral Service) to help people find good contractors. We’ll do background checks to see if a guy can perform the kind of construction work that is requested.” The fee: $350.
KEITH BARISH, film producer (the 1993 movie “The Fugitive,” “Her Alibi,” “Sophie’s Choice”) and New York-based Planet Hollywood chairman, has sold his Bel-Air home to Revlon chief Ron Perelman for almost $6.1 million, sources say.
The four-bedroom, 6,800-square-foot house, on slightly more than an acre, was built in 1926. Barish bought it in 1980 for a bit more than $2.1 million, according to public records. He relocated to New York, sources say.
