Surf’s Up for Mickey’s Boss
Disney chairman MICHAEL EISNER and his wife, Jane, have purchased a couple of oceanfront lots and an adjacent home in Malibu for slightly more than $5 million, sources say. A building permit for “a major estate with a pool and a tennis court” was included in the deal.
Eisner, 53, who led Disney in acquiring Capital Cities/ABC last year, has been one of the highest-paid executives in the motion picture industry since becoming the CEO of Disney in 1984.
The Eisners, who have been married nearly 30 years and have three sons, live in a 60-year-old Beverly Hills house that they have owned since 1979.
They also have some land in the Beverly Hills area. They have decided not to build on that land but to build in Malibu instead, sources say.
The Malibu sites they bought are close to the Ventura County line, near the homes of such celebrities as Herb Alpert and Buddy Hackett. Dick Clark, Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito have ranches nearby, sources say, and Michael Milken rents a place in the neighborhood.
The Eisners purchased two parcels on a total of two acres with 140 feet of private beach for about $3 million, sources say.
One of the parcels has a run-down beach house at the surf’s edge. The last asking price for the two parcels was just under $3.5 million.
The Eisners also bought an older house with a guest house on a site next door to the two lots. It had been listed at $2.65 million, sources say.
IRV ROBBINS of Baskin-Robbins ice cream and his wife, artist Irma Robbins, have put their Rancho Mirage home of nearly 20 years on the market at $1.25 million. Robbins opened his first ice cream store in Glendale in 1945. By 1947, he and his brother-in-law, Burton Baskin, became partners, establishing Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors. Baskin died in 1967.
Baskin and Robbins were among the first to establish food franchises, selling stores to their managers while leaving product development and merchandising to the partners. They sold their first store to a manager in 1948. Today, there are about 3,500 stores in the United States and 1,500 shops overseas.
Robbins, 78, owned an Encino home with an ice cream cone-shaped pool before retiring to his desert home in 1979 to collect classic cars and serve on corporate boards. The Robbinses decided to sell their Rancho Mirage home because it is larger than their needs now, they say. They have a home on the Oregon coast and want to buy a smaller home in the desert.
Their Rancho Mirage home has five bedrooms, an artist’s studio and his and hers offices in 6,600 square feet. The home was built in 1971 and remodeled during the mid-1980s. The home, on slightly more than an acre on a fairway of the Tamarisk Country Club, also has a lighted tennis court, four-car garage and golf-cart garage.
It is listed with Nelda Linsk of Coldwell Banker, Eadie Adams Realty, Palm Springs.
RICHARD ROUNDTREE, who co-stars with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt in “Seven” and appears in the upcoming Disney sitcom “Buddies” but is probably best-known for his starring role in the 1970s “Shaft” movies and TV series, has purchased a gated equestrian-zoned home in Agoura. Roundtree, 53, is a grandfather, but he is also the father of two young daughters who are accomplished English-style riders.
The family plans to keep its horses in a barn that is being built at its new home, which is on about an acre, with trails to the Paramount Ranch and Santa Monica Mountains.
The family’s new residence has three bedrooms in 1,700 square feet. The Roundtrees plan to expand the house, adding a larger master suite and an office. They bought the home for about $400,000, sources say. The family had been renting in Agoura for about a year while searching for a ranch-style home to buy. Before renting in Agoura, the Roundtrees lived in Woodland Hills. Rory and Marc Shevin of the Prudential-Jon Douglas Co., Woodland Hills, represented the actor in his purchase.
Guitarist STEVE VAI, whose album, “Alien Love Secrets,” was released last year, has put a Chatsworth estate that he built on the market at just under $1.1 million.
Vai, 35, was in Frank Zappa’s band and then Whitesnake. He lives in a Hollywood house in which he built a recording studio in 1989. He built the Chatsworth home for himself in the early 1990s but then decided not to move into it. It is Mediterranean in style with five bedrooms in 6,400 square feet. Lynn Weiss of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Sherman Oaks has the listing.
