His Mission: Sell Malibu Site
Pierce Brosnan, who is in London filming the James Bond movie “The World Is Not Enough,” has listed a 6-acre ocean-view site in Malibu at just under $1.2 million.
Brosnan, 46, had planned to build a home on the site, near Paradise Cove, but he has been focusing instead on making movies. This is the 19th Bond film and the third in a row in which Brosnan has starred as Agent 007.
Brosnan also stars in a remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair,” which just finished filming and is due to be released June 11.
The actor has owned the land for several years. Late last year, he realized that he wasn’t going to build on the site, and he bought a three-bedroom Malibu home for under $1 million as a place to “keep rooted,” said Bob Rubenstein, a longtime friend and local Realtor.
Brosnan has lived in Malibu for about 15 years, first with his wife, actress Cassandra Harris, who died in 1991, and now with environmental journalist-TV news correspondent Keely Shaye-Smith. The actor has two children and two stepchildren.
Rubenstein, of Coldwell Banker’s Malibu West office, has the listing on the land, which has unobstructed ocean views, and he represented Brosnan in the recent home purchase.
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Herbalife founder and owner Mark Hughes, who bought Merv Griffin’s 157-acre site on a knoll overlooking Beverly Hills in 1997 for about $8.5 million, is building his 45,000-square-foot-plus home there and making wedding plans for Feb. 14.
He plans to marry Darcy LaPier, ex-wife of actor Jean-Claude Van Damme, said Hughes’ spokesman, Conrad Klein.
As for the building project, Klein said, “We’re moving along, getting entitlements. We’ve applied for permits and expect to break ground at midyear.”
Then, he said, the Italian Mediterranean-style home, with a million-gallon lake and two swimming pools, will take at the most three years to build. “We’re not changing the 14-acre pad except for some cosmetic grading,” he said, “and the main house will be in almost the exact location as the one planned by Merv.”
While waiting for the house to be completed, Hughes, in his early 40s, and his new wife plan to live in his 20,000-square-foot-plus Beverly Hills home known as Grayhall, which he has expanded since purchasing it about five years ago by buying three adjacent houses at more than $1 million each.
“We bulldozed two of the houses, and that gave him a nice backyard,” Klein said. The third, 4,000-square-foot house, was turned into a guest house.
Built in 1909, Grayhall was leased by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. while he renovated Pickfair, and it was later owned by actor George Hamilton and then financier Bernie Cornfeld.
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Kevin Wendle, a founder of CNET: the Computer Network and a former producer of the sitcom “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” has put his Bel-Air home on the market at $16.8 million.
Wendle, in his late 30s, purchased the home two years ago for close to its $2.8-million asking price. He just completed a total refurbishing, designed by Waldo Fernandez, who designed the interiors of Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hilton hotel and Griffin’s Moroccan-style home in La Quinta.
Built in 1934, the original 5,200-square-foot house owned by Wendle was expanded to about 7,500 square feet and has five bedrooms plus a guest house. The Spanish-style home, on a 1.2-acre promontory, also has a screening room, city views and a pool.
Jeff Kohl of the Prudential-John Aaroe Co., Beverly Hills, has the listing.
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Music producer and publisher Jay Landers--who has worked with such recording stars as Neil Diamond, Julio Iglesias, Celine Dion, Billy Joel and Frank Sinatra--has moved from New York to L.A., where he has purchased a three-bedroom home with a wine cellar for about its $819,000 asking price. The seller of the home, which is in the Hollywood Hills, is moving to New York.
Both sides of the deal were represented by Ronna Brand of Brand Realty in Beverly Hills and David Bailey of First City Realty.
A Holmby Hills home owned during the ‘50s and ‘60s by the late actor Vincent Price is on the market at $7.9 million.
The current owner, a local businessman, bought the house about four years ago and completely restored it. Built in 1926, the Mediterranean estate is on about 1.8 acres behind gates.
The estate has a main house, pool and cabana, tennis court, gym and guest house. The home also has an art studio with a 12-foot ceiling.
Baths in the main house have heated marble floors, and there are two refrigerated wine cellars, one in the family room with a 1,000-bottle capacity, the other in the kitchen capable of holding 250 bottles.
Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland shares the listing with Joe Babajian and Judy Cycon of Fred Sands Estates.
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Michelle Lintel, who stars in Roger Corman’s upcoming syndicated TV series “Black Scorpion,” has purchased a 3,500-square-foot home on 2 1/2 acres in Flagstaff, Ariz., for $600,000.
Lintel, a former Miss Kansas, is leasing a Santa Monica condo to be close to the Venice studio where Corman has been filming his series.
CLARIFICATION: In buying singer Rita Coolidge’s former home (Hot Property, Jan. 17), John Aaroe was represented by Darrell Wallace, Prudential John Aaroe, Beverly Hills.