A House Call for ‘Dr. Quinn’

JANE SEYMOUR, an Emmy Awards nominee for her starring role in the CBS series “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” and her husband, James Keach, who directed the Emmy-nominated performance, are putting their country house in England up for lease at $10,000 a week.

“I’ve owned it for almost 12 years now,” Seymour said by phone from her Malibu home, “and I do miss not going there this summer.”

The couple, married about a year ago, has been busy with their children, charities and work. When not with her own two children and two stepchildren, Seymour has been assisting Child Help USA and City Hearts, for abused and urban youths. A watercolor and sketch artist, she produced a series of note cards to benefit the nonprofit organizations.

Now Seymour is getting ready for a new season of “Dr. Quinn,” while actor/director Keach has been doing post-production work as director of “The Stars Fell on Henrietta,” a comic drama about the early days of wildcat oil drilling, starring Robert Duvall.

“With the series and James’ work, we were in a dilemma over whether we should sell it or lease it out until we can use it again,” Seymour said about their country home, St. Catherine’s Court, which is on about 13 acres near Bath. “We decided to rent it out to people who want a British experience that they can only get by living in a house such as ours.”

The nine-bedroom house was built primarily during Henry VIII’s reign, though parts date back to about 950, when a Benedictine monastery was there, Seymour said. The house, which has been refurbished, has five reception rooms, a ballroom with near-perfect acoustics and an Elizabethan-style dining room.

“There are also Elizabethan grass steps, 500 trees, terraced gardens. And the house is covered with white roses,” Seymour said.

Wendy Wachtel of Overseas Connection in Sag Harbor, New York, is handling the property.

The Calabasas house that JOSE and KITTY MENENDEZ were building when they were murdered in their Beverly Hills home in 1989 will be sold at a probate hearing at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Beverly Hills Courthouse.

There is an accepted offer on the property, and overbids may open at $1,391,750, according to public records.

The nearly 8,000-square-foot mansion, which is on 14 acres, was last listed at $1,925,000. It was originally on the market before the murders at more than $3 million, a source said.

Proceeds will go to heirs of the estate. If acquitted, either or both of the Menendezes’ sons, accused of killing their parents, will be the heir or heirs; if both are convicted of murder, Jose’s mother and Kitty’s stepmother will be the heirs. However, liens and loans against the property total about $1 million, a source said.

Jose and Kitty Menendez paid about $1 million for the estate and put an additional $500,000 into upgrades, which Kitty was supervising at the time of her death. The house, where the couple had planned to move but then decided to sell, has seven bedrooms, five fireplaces, a guest house, tennis court and plans for a par-three, six-hole golf course.

Stephen Goldberg of Spierer and Woodward, Redondo Beach, is the attorney handling the sale. The home has been listed with Bernie Uechtritz of RE/MAX West Realty, Woodland Hills.

Comedian YAKOV SMIRNOFF--who plays a pilot on the N.Y. Skyride, a virtual reality theater debuting this fall in the Empire State Building--has re-listed his Pacific Palisades home, which he first put on the market in January.

Smirnoff, who moved with his family to Branson, Mo., last December, took his ranch-style house overlooking the Riviera Golf Course off the market for awhile but has just listed it at $2.15 million, or $6,900 a month to lease. He was asking nearly $2.3 million in January.

Smirnoff performs regularly in Branson and participated, with Johnny Cash and Barbara Mandrell, in the special “Star-Spangled Branson,” which aired July 3 on the Family Channel.

His 3,300-square-foot Pacific Palisades home has three bedrooms plus maid’s quarters and is listed with Jackie Fronen and Raquel Kaufman at Nourmand & Associates, Beverly Hills.