Elusive Probst’s Mansion on Market

For The William Randolph Hearst In You! Huge hilltop home in ritzy North Ranch. More than 30 rooms, 11 bathrooms. Shooting range. Bowling alley. Iron fence slightly in need of mending. Hillside forest slightly in need of water.

Asking price: $18.9 million. Make that $14.5 million.

The long-running rumor is true. Charles E. Probst, the enigmatic businessman who pledged $2 million to the Civic Arts Plaza, only to miss $350,000 in payments, has put his North Ranch estate up for sale.

Probst, 53, agreed last year to deliver on his arts plaza pledge to settle a lawsuit.

But according to the wealthy few who have considered the mansion, he has been trying for months to sever his most personal tie to Thousand Oaks: his residency.

Valerie Fitzgerald of Rodeo Realty, the Beverly Hills real estate broker handling disposal of the mansion, said Probst has already left town.

“He is living up north, near Pebble Beach somewhere,” Fitzgerald said.

Not that she has ever spoken to the elusive millionaire. Fitzgerald said the firm’s only contact with Probst has been through his son, whom she declined to identify.

“He is very mysterious, there is no question about it,” she said of Probst. “He has been [secretive] with us too. It’s an arms-length kind of thing.”

Probst could not be reached for comment last week.

Before Probst permanently leaves Thousand Oaks behind, however, he may have a few more thorny matters to resolve.

* Public records show that he has fallen about $78,000 behind in his property tax payments on two North Ranch homes, the mansion and a house inside the gated “Tim Conway Nine” golf community near the North Ranch Country Club. The smaller house is also on the market, for $2.25 million, according to a real estate listing service.

* City officials said Probst has ignored numerous warnings to revive the half-dead jungle bushes and trees planted around his mansion at the northeast corner of Kanan Road and Westlake Boulevard and to complete a wrought iron fence. If he does not respond to Thousand Oaks’ latest demand by the end of the month, city officials said, they will take Probst to court to force him to fix the fence and water hundreds of trees and shrubs.

“I’m not real confident he will respond, to be honest,” said Assistant City Atty. Jim Friedl. “We haven’t heard from him.

“The problem in this case is, he only did half of what he said he was going to do,” Friedl added. “He seems to have abandoned it, so we have to consider our legal options.”

Since moving vans were spotted at his gated, fortress-like estate last year, speculation that Probst’s house was on the market has been rife in the upscale North Ranch section of Thousand Oaks, where the millionaire is generally regarded as persona non grata for his gardening accomplishments.

There was even a rumor that Los Angeles Lakers superstar Shaquille O’Neal was interested in buying the 25,000-square-foot mansion and 16-acre estate. But O’Neal’s real estate broker and Fitzgerald both quashed it last week, saying the Laker center had never visited the estate.

“We’ve had several prominent people who were interested in the property, but no one I can talk about right now,” Fitzgerald said, adding that she is still considering two intriguing offers.

Those who have seen the Probst estate say it is a remarkable sight to behold--but not exactly a cozy place to live.

*

Rick Caruso, developer of the Promenade at Westlake shopping center, said he looked at the mansion, contemplating a move from Brentwood to the Conejo Valley.

“It’s not the kind of home for my wife and I to raise our family,” Caruso said, choosing his words carefully.

William Rolland of Westlake Island, a real estate magnate who owns 32 properties in Malibu and the Conejo Valley, was more candid.

Rolland said he toured the Probst house six months ago and came away with the impression that Thousand Oaks’ height limits cramped Probst’s grandiose vision by forcing the millionaire to build a short third story.

“It was a dinosaur,” Rolland said. “The overall opulence and feeling of mass and volume are compromised by the master’s suite on the third floor. When entering the master’s suite, you felt it was almost on top of you, not in keeping with the rest of the home, which is large rooms, high ceilings, and lots of volume.

“He tried to get a third floor in a home that should have been two floors.”

Michael Slater, Rolland’s commercial real estate advisor, also checked out the house--and came away puzzled. The floor plan, he said, is so labyrinthine that one has to walk through some bedrooms just to reach others.

“It is awesome, but you wouldn’t want to live there,” Slater said. “ . . . There isn’t one window that isn’t beveled, so your eyes kind of go cross-eyed looking through them.”

*

A full-color brochure promoting the mansion touts it as an “Incomparable North Ranch Estate.” The cover features an aerial view of the property, capturing the ornate mansion, tennis court, putting green and swimming pool, all surrounded by a full concrete balustrade.

Inside are photographs of some of the mansion’s opulent rooms, lined from top to bottom with extravagant, meticulously crafted woodwork, “a blend of hand-selected fine woods including Honduras mahogany, oak, walnut, maple and mesquite.”

And there are florid descriptions of the estate’s many other assets, including its climate-controlled wine cellar, full gymnasium with ballet rail and mirrors, tanning room, two-lane bowling alley, eight-car garage and sophisticated surveillance system with closed-circuit television.

“It’s got lots of toys in it,” Fitzgerald said.

In short, the brochure declares, the house is “designed for grand entertaining,” pointing to its fully equipped poolside cabana and motor court area “large enough to handle stretch limousines.”

But for now, at least, the party looks to be over at the Probst estate. Probst’s Thousand Oaks acquaintances say they have lost all contact with him.

“I’m not keeping in contact with him,” said former Mayor Alex Fiore.

Calabasas attorney Paul Stansen, who said he still represents Probst on various matters, said he does not know Probst’s whereabouts.

“I haven’t a clue,” Stansen said.

Even Probst’s in-laws, who live in an Oak Park home owned by Probst, say they haven’t heard from the couple since Christmas Eve.

*

Kitty Probst’s stepfather, LeRoy Clark, said he sees the couple sporadically at best. His stepdaughter will say from time to time that she would like to go out to lunch with her mother “next week.” “But next week never comes,” Clark said.

After the Probsts moved out of their home a year ago, severing their ties with the Thousand Oaks political elite, they never looked back. “They’re through with that Civic Arts Plaza,” Clark said.

Chairman Bob Lewis of the Alliance for the Arts, the nonprofit fund-raising arm of the Civic Arts Plaza, said the group still keeps in contact with Probst regarding activities at the building’s main theater, the Charles E. Probst Center for the Performing Arts.

The payments on Probst’s $2-million pledge are now coming in on schedule, Lewis said.

“I haven’t talked to him lately, but our director talks to him through correspondence,” said Lewis, a former Thousand Oaks councilman. “Everything’s just fine. There are no problems with Mr. Probst.”

Probst first came into the spotlight in 1994 when he angered North Ranch residents with his plan to clear natural vegetation from the hillside below his mansion and plant more than 900 trees and shrubs.

Admonishing him for scalping the hillside, the city’s Planning Commission rejected Probst’s plans. Then--days before the City Council was set to consider his appeal--Probst agreed to donate $2 million to the Civic Arts Plaza.

When the City Council voted 3 to 2 to overturn the Planning Commission’s decision, critics charged that the timing and size of Probst’s gift created a conflict of interest for the council.

“He [Probst] literally thumbed his nose at the homeowner associations when it came to the requirements that we all have to live by,” said former Mayor Larry Horner.

“The city sent the wrong message by allowing him to do that. It told people that those with money play by a different set of rules.”

In fall 1994, Probst made his first $250,000 payment to the Civic Arts Plaza and was welcomed into the inner circle of the Conejo Valley arts community.

He and his wife, Florence, also became political players, making several large campaign contributions to City Council candidates in the November 1994 elections--candidates who said they had never even met the Probsts.

But just as interest in Probst’s background began to grow, he retreated, failing to appear at his own news conference to introduce himself to the community.

In 1995, the arts alliance revealed that Probst had failed to make two $175,000 installment payments on his pledge. Probst settled the case earlier this year, agreeing to make the payments on an accelerated schedule.

The millionaire also erected a large iron fence around his mansion--a violation of city codes, which require that such fences be at least 35 feet from Westlake Boulevard.

After Thousand Oaks threatened to take it down for him last year, Probst removed the section of the fence. The fence now comes to an abrupt end.

“It seems like everything we worried about came to pass,” Horner said. “ . . . I think this is something we would all like to forget.”

Bustillo is a Times staff writer, and Arevalo is a correspondent.