Gretzky’s Goal in Home Game
Hockey superstar WAYNE GRETZKY and his wife, actress JANET JONES, have purchased a lot at Sherwood Country Club at Lake Sherwood in Thousand Oaks and are building a 7,000-square-foot home on the golf course there at a total cost of about $1.6 million.
The L.A. Kings center, who overtook Gordie Howe’s all-time National Hockey League goal record last spring and won his 10th league-scoring title, and his wife, who starred in “The Flamingo Kid” (1984) and “Police Academy 5” (1988), currently live in the Beverly Hills area.
They chose to build in the gated, 1,900-acre Thousand Oaks development because of its security and family-oriented life style, they said. The Gretzkys have three young children.
Proximity to the Forum in Inglewood, where the Kings play, also has become a secondary issue with growing talk of his retirement. “The Great One,” 34, said in May that he wants to return for another season, but last December, he announced plans to build some ice rinks and to launch some sports-themed restaurants with Joe Montana, Andre Agassi and Shaquille O’Neal.
The world’s most famous hockey player also shifted his sports focus during the 3 1/2-month hockey lockout, which ended in January. “I played golf every day at Sherwood,” he said.
Due to be completed in September, the house that he and his wife are building is “regal Mediterranean” with five bedrooms, a guest house, free-form pool and poolside kitchen.
There will be hand-painted dome ceilings in the entry and the master bedroom. The home also will have 11-foot ceilings, a number of balconies and a large family/recreation/foyer room that can be divided into three rooms. The recreation room will have a bar and mountain views.
The Gretzkys were represented in their Sherwood purchase by Gary Jones of Fred Sands’ Brentwood office. Jones, the hockey star’s brother-in-law, also has the listings on the couple’s Beverly Hills-area home, at just under $3 million, and a two-acre lot in the development known as Beverly Park, where the Gretzkys once thought they might build. The lot is priced at slightly more than $2 million.
Canadian tycoon JIMMY PATTISON, who bought Frank and Barbara Sinatra’s Rancho Mirage compound in May for close to its $4.9-million asking price, said last week by phone from his Vancouver headquarters that he hasn’t “really decided yet” what to do with the home except that “we’re going to have some guests in there from time to time.”
Pattison, who has been described as the richest Canadian west of Toronto with a net worth of $390 million, owns the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums and a wide-ranging business empire with annual revenues of more than $2.1 billion. His empire has been said to be the largest in Canada owned by a single person.
Pattison, 66, is known for not taking vacations, but he and his wife have had a Palm Springs home for some time. “Maybe this [buying the Sinatras’ compound] will prompt us to go there more often,” he said.
A Bel-Air home that was owned by actress GREER GARSON for about 25 years until she sold it in 1973 has been purchased by David L. Elliott, whose firm specializes in hotel, hospital, digital telecommunication and transportation construction. His company just completed a major renovation and rebuilding of the 17-story, 463-room Warner Center Marriott Hotel.
Elliott bought the 8,000-square-foot home, built in 1929, from a couple who had purchased it from Garson. She won a 1942 Academy Award for her performance in “Mrs. Miniver.”
Garson, now 86, and her late husband, oilman Buddy Fogelson, made Dallas their principal residence for 40 years, though they also had homes in Palm Springs, Pecos, N.M., and Los Angeles. In 1990 Garson received a replacement Oscar for the one destroyed in a 1989 fire in her L.A. apartment building.
The six-bedroom Bel-Air home, with an acre-plus of park-like grounds and a natural stream, was sold for close to $2.85 million, sources say. Its original asking price was $5.5 million.
Elliott can’t move into the home for awhile and has listed it for lease at $19,200 a month with Craig Blanchard of Rodeo Realty, Beverly Hills, who represented both parties in the sale.
Horse owner/trainer CRAIG LEWIS, whose Larry the Legend won the Santa Anita Derby in April, has bought an equestrian-zoned home in Bradbury for $600,000, sources say.
Lewis bought his Derby-winning horse for $2,500 at a bankruptcy hearing of a client who owed him thousands of dollars in training and boarding fees. The colt’s unexpected victory at Santa Anita was worth $548,525. Lewis named the horse for his brother, coach of the two-time Little League World Series champions from Long Beach.
Built in 1987, Lewis’ new home has four bedrooms and three baths in a bit more than 3,100 square feet. It is on nearly 1.7 acres with a pool, spa, waterfall, fire pit and gardens.
Andrew Cooper of Century 21 Val Realty, Arcadia, had the listing, and Ann Lewis of L & C Better Homes and Gardens, Arcadia, represented Lewis.
