Pop Diva Goes for New Key

Singer PATTI LaBELLE, preparing for a tour following her one-woman show on Broadway in January, and her manager-husband, L. ARMSTEAD EDWARDS, have sold their Westside condo for about $500,000 and bought a larger, more expensive one nearby, sources say.

“Their main residence is in Philadelphia, so this is still a second home, but they expect to spend more time here,” a source said.

LaBelle, 53, and her seven-piece band went from their Broadway stint to a February run in Washington, D.C. Her spring tour is expected to extend into the summer.

She toured last year with her Grammy-nominated MCA release “Flame,” her 53rd album in her 30-plus-year career. Known for her R&B; tunes, bluesy ballads and pop hits, LaBelle is also famous for her spiritual songs. She may release a gospel album this year.

LaBelle and Edwards sold a 1,800-square-foot penthouse in a 30-unit 6-year-old building to a local businessman, sources say.

The couple bought a two-bedroom unit that is half again as large and about twice the cost, other sources said.

Sue Ann Simon of Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas Co., Beverly Hills, represented the singer and her husband in selling and buying. Judi Schryro of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, represented the buyer of the couple’s former condo.

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The Beverly Hills house where mobster BENJAMIN “BUGSY” SIEGEL was murdered 50 years ago last June is for sale at $3.5 million. The owners, who have lived in the house since they bought it in 1951, are ready to move.

“My husband will be 91 in two weeks, and this great big house of ours has become very difficult for us to live in,” said Shirley Davidson, a retired lawyer. Her husband, M.M. Davidson, is a retired surgeon.

Built in 1928, the 7,000-square-foot house has five bedrooms plus two maid’s rooms (one converted into a laundry room) and a third-story room that could be used as an artist’s studio.

“It needs work, but it’s a dramatic-looking house in a good location in the flats of Beverly Hills,” she said. “When we bought the house, it had been vandalized, but the bones were good.”

When they bought the house, the Davidsons didn’t know that it had been where Siegel was gunned down. He was killed by a spray of bullets fired through a window of the living room, where he had been reading The Times.

“Disclosure laws [in real estate] weren’t as stringent as they are now,” she said. “We moved in with our baby and then found out about the murder. So we called the police and asked if we were safe. They laughed, saying, ‘That was four years ago. Bugsy is dead and gone.’ ”

And sometimes forgotten. Although the house was owned at one time by actor and comedian George Jessel, “tour bus drivers have been known to say [erroneously] that it was once owned by Clark Gable or Cher, because some people don’t know who Bugsy was,” she said.

Some who know ask if his spirit haunts the house, which his lover, Virginia Hill, was renting at the time of his death. “I get asked a lot about his ghost,” Davidson said with a chuckle, “and I always say, ‘Yes, and Bugsy, Elvis and I play cards together all the time.’ ”

Larry Witherspoon of Torrance is representing the Davidsons in selling their home.

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Actor-singer IVAN RUTHERFORD, who plays the leading role of Jean Valjean in the Broadway production of “Les Miserables,” and his wife, Heather, have sold their Laguna Niguel condo for close to its $228,000 asking price, sources say.

The actor alternates with actor Robert Marien in playing Valjean at Manhattan’s Imperial Theatre.

The condo has two master bedrooms, a fireplace and glassed-door entries to a patio and a private yard. It is close to the ocean and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

While he has been performing on Broadway, the actor and his wife leased out the condo before selling it. The couple had owned the unit since it was built about five years ago.

Linda Hopp of Fred Sands’ Coastal Properties in Monarch Beach represented the sellers, who decided to make New York their home.

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Speaking of New York, the Manhattan penthouse of JANET ANNENBERG HOOKER, who died in December at age 93, is on the market at $15 million.

Hooker, a philanthropist, was a daughter of Triangle Publications founder Moses Annenberg and a sister of former U.S. Ambassador Walter Annenberg, who has an estate in Rancho Mirage. A gallery of gems, minerals and geology that was named for her opened last fall in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

She had lived in the apartment since she bought it in 1963. It occupies the entire top floor of the block-long One Sutton Place South, built in 1926. The 6,400-square-foot unit has 6,000 square feet of terraces; two 1,600-square-foot living rooms and a dining room large enough for Hooker’s 17-foot-long table.

Lee Waldman at Stribling & Associates in Manhattan has the listing.

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RICHARD McWILLIAM, founder and CEO of Carlsbad-based Upper Deck Group, a sports trading card and memorabilia company, has put his Encinitas home on the market at just under $2.6 million.

The Carlsbad-based company was created in the late 1980s with the introduction of an upscale line of trading cards. Since then, the firm has expanded into global markets and has developed entertainment and interactive multimedia products in addition to its core business.

McWilliam, in his 40s, plans to sell the Encinitas home, which he has owned for five years, because he is building a larger house in Rancho Santa Fe, sources say. The entrepreneur also has a home at Lake Tahoe and a penthouse in Chicago, a source added.

The Encinitas home has four bedrooms in 6,300 square feet. It was built in 1983 on 1.5 acres with 300 feet of ocean frontage and has six fireplaces, a wine cellar, staff quarters, a solar-heated pool, a spa and a sauna.

The house is listed by Tricia O’Brien and Katie Ritto at Prudential California Realty in Del Mar.