‘Gettin’ Jiggy’ in Hills of Malibu
Actor Will Smith and his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, have purchased a 100-acre ranch in the Malibu-Santa Monica Mountains for $7.5 million, according to local sources not involved in the deal.
The ranch includes an 8,800-square-foot house with an indoor pool. Besides the main house, which was built in 1990, the ranch has several guest houses, a tennis court, private lake, riding ring, equestrian trails and stables.
The Smiths have been living in a 4,900-square-foot home on five acres in an L.A. suburb, sources have said.
Smith, who made his acting debut starring on the NBC series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (1991-96), was recently named Actor of the Year by the National Assn. of Theatre Owners because of his box-office success. His movies, including “Independence Day” (1996), have grossed almost $1 billion just in the United States.
Smith also won a Grammy this year for “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” from his first solo rap album, “Big Willie Style.” His movie “The Wild, Wild West,” a sci-fi western based on the ‘60s TV series, is due out in July.
The couple was married in December 1997. They co-wrote the script for the romantic comedy “Love for Hire,” to be out in early 2000. She played the romantic lead opposite Eddie Murphy in “The Nutty Professor” (1996).
Andrew Manning of Fred Sands’ Studio City office and Steve Moritz and Richard Stearns from Sands’ Brentwood office represented the couple in buying the property, and Judy Cycon of Fred Sands Estates, Beverly Hills, and Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker-John Douglas, Beverly Hills, had the listing, other sources said.
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Los Angeles entrepreneur Eli Broad is planning to build a house designed by architect Richard Meier, who designed the Getty Center, on two parcels in Malibu, which Broad has purchased.
One of the properties was owned by Freddy DeMann, Madonna’s former manager. Broad paid $2.5 million for the parcel, which includes a three-bedroom 3,000-square-foot house built in 1952. The house also has 45 feet of beach frontage.
The other property, next door with 55 feet of beach frontage, was sold for about $2.6 million. It has an 1,800-square-foot house built in 1955.
Broad, 65, co-founded Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. and founded the L.A.-based retirement savings firm SunAmerica, which he sold this year for $18.3 billion, while remaining its chief executive. He also has led drives to bring another NFL team and the 2000 Democratic national convention to Los Angeles.
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Gwyneth Paltrow, who co-stars with Matt Damon in the upcoming movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” has gotten the city’s go-ahead to make some renovations to a three-story townhouse in New York that she bought in September for just under $2 million, real estate sources say.
The three-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath townhouse is in a building constructed in the 1840s, but her unit was recently refurbished and has four fireplaces, a huge skylight and a state-of-the-art media and entertainment room.
Despite the unit’s being described as “a mint renovation,” the Oscar-winning actress, 26, apparently still wants to make a few changes. “I’ve seen that happen a hundred times,” said a real estate broker who works in the West Village area, where Paltrow’s townhouse is located.
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Leonard Green, one of the country’s premier retailing dealmakers, known for engineering buyouts of such firms as Budget Rent-a-Car, has sold a Bel-Air home for about $5 million, according to public records.
Green, 64, combined the Thrifty and Payless drugstore chains, then went public before Rite Aid purchased them. Founded in 1989, Green’s L.A.-based firm has made investments valued at more than $5.6 billion in 18 companies.
Green had owned the Bel-Air home for about four years. It was built in 1990 and has six bedrooms in slightly more than 8,000 square feet. The contemporary home has soaring ceilings, a Zen garden and a master suite with an office and a gym.
Linda May had the listing with Coldwell Banker-Jon Douglas Co., Beverly Hills, and Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, represented the buyer, other real estate sources said.
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Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has taken his Beverly Hills-area home off the market. It was listed in September at $19.5 million, after Murdoch’s estranged wife, Anna, filed for divorce. Settlement talks are ongoing.
The Murdochs bought the house in 1986 from the estate of Doris Stein, widow of the late Dr. Jules Stein, physician, philanthropist and founder of MCA Inc., now known as Universal Studios. The Steins had owned the home since 1940.
The house, designed by architect Wallace Neff and built in 1927 for director Fred Niblo (“The Mark of Zorro,” 1920), has eight bedrooms in 8,600 square feet. It is on about seven acres.
Murdoch is chief executive of News Corp., which owns the Fox network, 20th Century Fox studio, newspapers, cable and satellite TV operations, and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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Mark A. Bryan, Julia Cameron’s co-author on the best-selling “The Artist’s Way” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992), is restoring his Westside home, “The Petal House.”
The four-bedroom 1,600-square-foot house, designed by architect Eric Owen Moss in a 1982 remodel of a 1940s tract house, has a rooftop spa protected behind parapets that look like petals of a flower. A pool sits between the main house and garage, which has an upstairs office.
Bryan bought the house last year. It was listed at $425,000 by Mike Deasy and Rick Grahn of Mossler, Deasy & Doe, Beverly Hills. Erik Lerner, of the same firm, represented Bryan.
Bryan, director of the Father Project in L.A. and author of “The Prodigal Father: Reuniting Fathers and Their Children” (Crown Publishing, 1997), is also co-founder with Julia Cameron of the Artist’s Way Workshops, and he wrote “The Artist’s Way at Work: Riding the Dragon” (William Morrow, 1998).
