Los Feliz ZIP for ‘90210’ Star

Actor JASON PRIESTLEY, who has been shooting his final episodes as heartthrob Brandon Walsh on “Beverly Hills 90210,” has purchased a Los Feliz home for about $1.7 million.

The Aaron Spelling-produced series is in its ninth year on Fox. Priestley, 28, has been scheduled to leave after four to six episodes this season, although observers have wondered if he will stay longer now that his old friend, actor Luke Perry, is returning. Perry left in 1995 to pursue a movie career but agreed to come back this season for a dozen episodes.

Priestley, who co-hosted the 1998 World Music Awards on ABC in May, will appear in the upcoming movie “Eye of the Beholder,” co-starring Ewan McGregor, Ashley Judd and k.d. lang. The movie finished shooting in June in Canada.

The Vancouver, British Columbia-born Priestley, who also co-starred with John Hurt in the 1997 movie “Love and Death on Long Island,” left Canada for Hollywood in 1987. Soon afterward, he joined the cast of “Beverly Hills 90210.” He subsequently directed more than 20 episodes and became an executive producer. He also directed a music video for the Toronto band Barenaked Ladies.

Priestley’s family still lives in Vancouver, and he keeps an apartment there.

In Los Feliz, he bought a four-bedroom 3,800-square-foot house built in 1929 but recently refurbished. The house has a pool, spa and what has been described as “a small city view.”

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Stand-up comedian CAROL LEIFER, who appeared on Jerry Seinfeld’s recent HBO special, has purchased a Hollywood Hills home for about $900,000.

Besides appearing on Seinfeld’s special, which aired in August and again earlier this month, Leifer was the star and executive producer of the Warner Bros. sitcom “Alright Already” (1997-98).

Earlier, she spent three years writing for “Seinfeld,” on which she once appeared, and she also wrote for “The Larry Sanders Show,” “The Naked Truth” and “Almost Perfect.”

A presenter at this year’s 12th annual American Comedy Awards, Leifer, 41, also has written, produced and starred in three comedy specials for Showtime.

She bought a contemporary-style home with three bedrooms, a maid’s room and a den in about 2,600 square feet. The home also has an atrium, studio / media room, pool and mountain as well as city views. The house, with floor-to-ceiling windows and high ceilings, was built in 1956.

Eric Lowry of Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas Co., Sunset Strip, represented Leifer in her purchase, and Verna Cornelius of John Aaroe & Associates, Pacific Design Center, had the listing.

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A Malibu house built in 1978 to resemble a 13th century Scottish castle has been sold for slightly more than $3 million to LILLY LAWRENCE, an international socialite and philanthropist who is moving to Southern California from New York City.

Lawrence is the widow of sportsman and financier Francis “Bunty” Lawrence, a descendant of a Massachusetts textile family. She eloped with him when she was 16 and still living in the palace of her father, Iran’s oil minister. After marrying Lawrence, she fought Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s dreaded secret police force by leaking information to reporter Jack Anderson and others in the U.S. press.

She plans to renovate the Malibu house and “make it comparable to the most elegant castles of Europe,” she said through her attorney, John D. Glynn of Glendale.

The five-bedroom 6,200-square-foot house, which sits on a 3 1/2-acre bluff overlooking the Malibu Civic Center, was built from man-made stones by Dr. Thomas Hodges, who had a dream of building a castle. Hodges and his wife, Patricia, are the sellers.

The house was been used over the years as a film location. The character Tattoo was imprisoned there in a “Fantasy Island” episode; actor James Garner’s character hounded a rock star there in “The Rockford Files” and a Toyota Celica was driven in its courtyard for a commercial.

Known to local residents as “the Malibu Castle,” the house has been on and off the market since 1981. It was recently listed at $5.75 million. The sellers, who long wanted to scale down, are moving to Santa Ynez.

Pamela Rodgers of Re/Max Estates, Beverly Hills, and Glynn represented Lilly Lawrence in buying the home, and Nancy and Marcus Beck of Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas Co., Malibu, had the listing.

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The largest single-family home sale in Lake Arrowhead history has been recorded at about $5.25 million with the closing of the sale of a home on Totem Pole Point, a gated peninsula where totem poles were first erected for the 1930 movie “River’s End” and again for the 1938 film “Spawn of the North.”

Built about seven years ago, the home, which includes a nine-bedroom main house and a two-bedroom gatehouse, was listed at just under $7 million. The home also has a library, sports bar, cigar room, spa, sauna and gym. It has two dock sites, seven garages and a private drive.

Bob and Jean Long, who built the home, were the sellers. He is co-creator of a gourmet rice company and was an inventor of safety valves for deep-sea diving. She was a concert pianist. The couple, who have four children and five grandchildren, moved to Palm Desert.

The buyer, Inland Pacific Development, plans to use the property as a corporate retreat.

Trish Friend with Century 21 High Country, Lake Arrowhead, represented the buyer, and Lynne B. Wilson & Associates, also in Lake Arrowhead, had the listing.

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Producer SY WEINTRAUB has sold a 2-plus-acre Holmby Hills estate for about $6 million.

Weintraub, who owned Panavision during the 1960s, produced and owned all of the “Tarzan” features for many years and went on to produce “The Sign of Four,” “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and other 90-minute Sherlock Holmes movies starring Ian Richardson during the early 1980s.

Architect Welton Becket built the home for himself in the late 1960s. Weintraub had owned the home for about 25 years. The estate includes a 10,000-square-foot house, a tennis court, pool house, pool, private driveway and rolling lawns.

Weintraub, who moved to Beverly Hills, sold the estate to a local investor.

Raymond Bekeris of John Bruce Nelson & Associates had the listing.

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A Hollywood Hills house built in 1935 and first owned by BELA LUGOSI, who starred in “Dracula” (1931), has been listed at just under $1.5 million.

The 3,700-square-foot main house plus guest and pool houses were built by Hollywood developer Charles Toberman, who intended them to be termite- and earthquake-proof. “He used a lot of steel in its rib cage and foundation,” said Beverly Hills investment banker James A. Allen, who owns the home with his wife, Debbie.

The Allens listed the home, on almost an acre, because they bought a two-acre tennis court estate on Point Dume. Lee Walter of Leeland Properties, Sherman Oaks, has the Hollywood Hills listing.