It’s the First Time for ‘Sliders’ Star
JERRY O’CONNELL, the 23-year-old star of Fox’s sci-fi series “Sliders” and co-star of the just-released horror film “Scream 2,” has become a first-time home buyer with his purchase of a Sunset Strip-area condo for about $250,000, sources say.
O’Connell, who made his film debut at age 11 in Rob Reiner’s “Stand by Me,” started playing Quinn Mallory, the physics grad student, on “Sliders” in 1995. Last year he played Frank Cushman, a quarterback handled by the sports agent portrayed by Tom Cruise in the movie “Jerry Maguire.”
The unit he bought has two bedrooms and two baths in about 1,200 square feet. It is in a condo building, built in the 1950s as an apartment complex, near the trendy Sunset Plaza area. A native of New York who graduated from the film school at New York University, O’Connell had been living in New York’s Greenwich Village before “Sliders” moved its home this year from Vancouver, Canada, to the Universal Studio lot in Los Angeles. “Sliders” is expected to air on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1998.
Jan Smith of John Aaroe & Associates, Beverly Hills, represented both sides of the transaction.
*
Pianist-composer DAVID BENOIT, a longtime recording artist who has been at the top of the Billboard jazz charts with such releases as “Waiting for Spring,” is planning to build a home in Palos Verdes, where he has put his current residence on the market.
Benoit, 44, performed at the Hollywood Bowl last summer with jazz veteran Dave Brubeck. He released the CD “American Landscape,” featuring his performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, in September and scored the music for the CBS-TV movie “The Final Descent,” which aired in October.
His wife, Kei, is also a pianist.
“We were looking to buy, but there was no house with a room large enough for our two Steinways, where we also could give concerts and hold salons,” he said. “Anyway, my hobby is architecture.”
So they bought a lot in Palos Verdes, where they plan to build their new home.
“I’ll start designing it after the first of the year,” he said, but he expects it to be about 4,000 square feet with a grotto, pool, music studio and 500-square-foot Japanese tea house in honor of Kei, who was born in Japan.
Meanwhile, they listed their existing home of seven years at just less than $750,000.
“It was built in 1954 by a captain of American Airlines in the shape of a wing,” he said. The Benoits renovated the ranch-style house, which has three bedrooms in 2,000 square feet and an ocean view.
Linda Fritz of Prudential California Realty, Palos Verdes, has the listing.
*
Record industry veteran IRVING AZOFF, former chief of MCA Records and longtime manager of the Eagles, has put his Malibu beach house on the market at $3.2 million.
In September, Azoff, who runs Revolution Records, and Nomura Capital, a national lender in real estate, launched the Entertainment Finance Group, an investment enterprise that will offer to buy royalties and publishing rights from artists, songwriters and others in entertainment.
Azoff, in his late 40s, decided to sell the beach house because he and his wife had a fourth child, and the home is a bit small for their family, sources said.
Built in 1956 but recently remodeled, the 2,600-square-foot house has three bedrooms plus guest quarters. It’s just a few steps from the sand.
The house is listed with June Scott of June Scott Estates, a Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas Co., in Beverly Hills.
*
Singer OTIS WILLIAMS, the only original member left in the Temptations, has sold his home in the Mount Washington area of Los Angeles for close to $300,000, sources say.
Williams, 56, has been a member of the legendary recording group since Berry Gordy signed the quintet to Motown in 1961. “My Girl,” the group’s first No. 1 hit in 1965, was reissued in the early ‘90s.
Nobody thought a doo-wop group from the ghettos of Detroit would last so long, Williams has said, but even with personnel changes, the Temptations’ tours are still in demand. Williams isn’t home much, so he decided to sell and lease nearby until he decides what to do next.
An insurance executive, a first-time home buyer, purchased the trilevel contemporary, built in 1988 on a hillside with city views. The house has three bedrooms in 2,340 square feet.
Peter Reyes of Fred Sands’ Los Feliz office represented both sides of the deal.
*
LYNDALL HOBBS, director and screenwriter of the upcoming Howard Stern-Melanie Griffith movie, “Jane,” has purchased the Hancock Park home of the late opera singer and voice teacher Giovanni De Surra for $1.1 million, sources say.
Hobbs made her debut as a movie director with “Back to the Beach,” co-starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, in 1987. Hobbs later was linked romantically to Al Pacino.
De Surra, who died in June, was survived by 10 of his 12 children and 32 grandchildren. This will be the first time in 34 years that the family will not gather in the large living room of the house to celebrate the holidays, a source said. De Surra bought the house in the early ‘60s.
Built in 1928, the 6,500-square-foot Spanish Mission-style home has four bedrooms, maid’s quarters and a guest house. The house also has a rotunda with a fresco, a balcony overlooking the living room, a wood-paneled library, a billiard room and a pool.
Jory Burton of the Sunset Strip office of Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas Co. had the listing.
A Pasadena house that was used in several movies, commercials and TV programs, including the popular nighttime soap “Dynasty,” has been in foreclosure but is being marketed now at just less than $3.6 million, as is.
A former owner tried to transform the 20,000-square-foot Palladian-style villa, known to TV viewers as the Carrington mansion, into an office building. The nine bedrooms and five baths were stripped of their fixtures, marble and parquet flooring. The house is a fixer.
Originally on nine acres, with seven formal gardens, the 17-room house was built in 1915. It was later subdivided to its current 2.5-acre size, but the grounds still have a pool, tennis court, pond with fountains, formal garden and circular drive.
The property is being marketed by Clark Estate Homes/T.R.E.O. in Lake Forest, Long Beach and Irvine.
