Tinseltown Northwest
GREGORY HARRISON, who plays newspaper reporter Jack Reilly on the CBS series “New York News,” has leased an apartment in Studio City for a year while working on projects in the L.A. area.
Harrison maintains his primary residence in southern Oregon, which has been a magnet for celebrities for decades. Clark Gable is said to have gone trout fishing during the 1930s and 1940s at a resort on the Rogue River near Grants Pass called We Ask You Inn, and Ginger Rogers owned a 1,000-acre ranch for more than 50 years on the way from Medford to an area called Shady Cove. Patrick Duffy and Kirstie Alley are among the current property owners, sources say.
Harrison, who co-starred earlier this month in the CBS miniseries “Nothing Lasts Forever,” appears in the upcoming film “It’s My Party,” starring Eric Roberts.
Harrison, 45, played Dr. Gonzo Gates on the CBS series “Trapper John, M.D.” Earlier this year, he narrated Kevin Costner’s documentary miniseries “500 Nations,” about the tribes of North and Central America.
An advocate of environmental causes, Harrison also enjoys surfing, river rafting and mountain biking near his home on the Oregon coast.
He and his wife--former actress-model RANDI OAKES--built the eight-bedroom, nine-bath cedar home in 1992 on a 55-acre site on a 425-foot-high bluff, facing the ocean. The couple, who also rent a home in New Jersey, have four children.
Their Studio City apartment is in the 160-unit complex L’Estancia, a new Ring Financial project. Designed for the entertainment community, the complex has a concierge who waters plants and grocery-shops for the tenants.
Harrison’s 1,300-square-foot apartment, which rents for $2,400 a month, has a washer and dryer, security alarm, telecommunications system for up to six phone lines and a video monitor to survey the main entry.
GINGER ROGERS’ ranch-style home in Medford, Ore., is for sale at $485,000. She died in April at age 83.
The Oscar-winning actress (“Kitty Foyle,” 1940), who made 10 movies dancing with Fred Astaire, had owned the home since 1990, when she sold her nearby ranch, which she had owned since the 1930s.
The 3,400-square-foot home, in the Dark Hollow Pioneer Hills area, is on a four-acre site with a gated entry. The asking price includes a 5.6-acre parcel of land next door. “You can’t see the house from the street,” said listing agent Harry Arnold of Realestaters, Better Homes & Gardens in Medford.
There are four bedrooms in the main house, built in 1976 and upgraded in 1985, and there is a 2,600-square-foot deck with a swimming pool in the center. The deck has views of the Rogue River Valley pastureland and city lights. There is also a 2,000-square-foot building with an office.
HOWARD W. KOCH, the executive producer of “Ghost” (1990), who has been in the film industry for about 60 years, and his wife, Ruth, have listed their 6.7-acre estate on the Rogue River, 12 miles from downtown Medford, at $825,000, including furnishings.
The producer/director, 79, received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1989 and was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the 1970s. Among the films he produced was “The Odd Couple” (1968).
The Kochs’ retreat includes a 4,000-square-foot house with cathedral ceilings and two guest houses. It also has an indoor/outdoor lap pool and 300 feet of river frontage.
“This is our seventh year [of owning it],” Koch said, “but we just don’t go up there anymore.” They live in Beverly Hills. Don Rist of Lorber Real Estate in Ashland, Ore., has the listing.
JOHN SOLIE, a portrait artist who is a member of the NASA art team and has half a dozen paintings hanging at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, and his wife, Shirley, have completed building a 2,800-square-foot studio at their 2.5-acre oceanfront home near Newport, Ore.
The artist, 58, and his wife lived in Southern California for 30 years before they headed to Oregon seven years ago. He worked as an artist in the film industry for 20 years and also did about 15 covers for TV Guide.
“We miss California,” Shirley Solie said, “but we could build his dream studio for less up here, and you can’t swing a cat here without hitting an artist or a poet.”
It cost about $125,000 to build his studio, which is the same size as their house, she added.
DAVID OGDEN STIERS, probably best known as Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester on TV’s long-running “M*A*S*H,” has listed his house in the Newport, Ore., area at $850,000.
He wants to move inland to be closer to his parents, said listing agent Harriette Small, Realty World, Newport. “He’s looking in the Willamette Valley,” she said.
Stiers, 52, plays Judge Winton Myers in the Andy Garcia-starring romance/comedy “Steal Big, Steal Little,” released in September. He was the voice of Wiggins and John Ratcliffe in “Pocahontas” (1995), and he was the narrator and voice of Cogsworth in “Beauty and the Beast” (1991).
Stiers’ home has three bedrooms in about 2,000 square feet on nearly three acres, facing the ocean. The all-cedar home has two floor-to-ceiling windows on the ocean side.
The house was built in the mid-1960s, and Stiers has owned it for about eight years.
