$15K/Mo. Lease No ‘Bronx Tale’
Oscar-winning actor ROBERT De NIRO has leased the Beverly Hills-area home of British actor ROGER MOORE and Moore’s estranged wife, Luisa.
De Niro, 51, is expected to start filming later this month on the movie “Heat,” in which he plays a criminal being pursued by an LAPD homicide lieutenant portrayed by Al Pacino.
De Niro, who starred most recently in “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” has appeared in more than 40 films and won Academy Awards as Best Actor in “Raging Bull” (1980) and as Best Supporting Actor for “The Godfather Part II” (1974).
Known as a champion of New York film production and his Tribeca Film Center in downtown Manhattan, where his own Tribeca Films company is based, De Niro started producing movies in the past few years and made his film directing debut in 1993 with “A Bronx Tale.”
He leased the Moores’ country manor-style house for six months at $15,000 a month, sources say. The house, which is behind gates and has four bedrooms plus an exercise room, is on 1.5 acres with a tennis court and a pool.
Moore, 67, succeeded Sean Connery as secret agent James Bond in seven films, from “Live and Let Die” (1973) through “A View to a Kill” (1985). Moore also played crimebuster Simon Templar in the 1960’s TV series “The Saint.”
The Moores, married for 27 years, announced their separation earlier this month.
The lease was handled by Shirley Wells of John Aaroe & Associates, Beverly Hills.
Actress MIMI ROGERS, actor TOM CRUISE’S former wife, has purchased the Brentwood home of music arranger/composer DAVID McHUGH and his wife, Karen, for just under $2 million, sources say.
Rogers, who had a recurring role on “Hill Street Blues,” appeared in the ’94 movies “Monkey Trouble” and “Bulletproof Heart.” She was divorced from Cruise in 1990.
She bought a nearly three-acre compound with a four-bedroom main house; guest house and barn, which has a recording studio and an office. The barn also has stalls for horses.
McHugh and his wife, who was a top model, had made an offer on a Malibu home contingent upon selling their Brentwood estate. Among McHugh’s film credits are “Mystic Pizza” and “Moscow on the Hudson;” his TV credits include the 1991 series “Brooklyn Bridge.”
Fiora Aston of Fred Sands’ Brentwood office had the listing.
Now that the books are closed, the biggest private home deals of 1994 in the U.S. were:
* In Palm Beach, Fla., Lowell (Bud) Paxson, Home Shopping Network co-founder, paid $12 million for a 17,000-square-foot estate on three acres with 268 feet of ocean frontage. The seller was John Pomerantz, CEO of Leslie Fay Companies. J. Richard Allison handled the deal.
* In Honolulu, developer Chris Hemmeter sold his oceanfront home at Diamond Head for $12.5 million to a new corporation of investors. The 22,000-square-foot home cost $40 million to build, sources say. The home has five bedrooms plus staff quarters; two kitchens, a theater, waterfall and lagoons. It was sold through Howard Sher at Kennedy-Wilson International, Santa Monica.
* And in Montecito, racing legend Andy Granatelli sold his 30,000-square-foot villa on 12 acres for $14 million in cash plus a house in the Dominican Republic that he now has for sale at $7 million, he said. The island house has 12 bedrooms, two pools and a tennis court.
Montecito also had a couple of $7- to $8-million home sales during 1994, as did the Westside of L.A. and Orange County, where there was a nearly $8.95-million sale on Harbor Island. That house was sold by former Allergan Pharmaceuticals executive Richard Hausman.
Merv Griffin’s $7.5-million sale of his Beverly Hills house to Ticketmaster chairman Frederic Rosen, including a $2-million house in trade, and California Pizza Kitchen co-owner Rick Rosenfield’s $7-million purchase of a Bel-Air home topped the Westside list.
The Westside generally scores No. 1 in the nation for high-end home sales, but last year, there were only seven sales of homes at more than $5 million in contrast with 11 in 1993, said Cecelia Waeschle of Rodeo Realty, Beverly Hills. She has tracked big-ticket sales since 1987.
