Basic Instinct: Cut Home’s Asking Price
Sharon Stone has listed her former home off Mulholland Drive at $739,000.
The actress, who co-stars in the upcoming movies “The Muse” with Albert Brooks and “Simpatico” with Jeff Bridges and Nick Nolte, has had the home on and off the market since 1995, when it was listed at $850,000.
Stone, 41, has owned the house since 1989, before she became one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses with her role in “Basic Instinct” (1992).
She moved into a larger home in the Beverly Hills area soon after she bought it in 1995 for about $4.5 million. She also lives in San Francisco with her husband, Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner. The couple married in early 1998.
The house Stone listed has one bedroom, a convertible den and walls of glass in slightly more than 1,900 square feet. Built in 1955 and renovated by Stone, the house also has private decks, gardens with a pathway, and mountain views.
*
The longtime Beverly Hills home of the late Sheldon Leonard, who directed and produced such TV hits as “The Andy Griffith Show” and “I Spy,” has been sold for about its asking price of $1 million.
Leonard died in 1997 at 89. He had owned the home for 30 years. His family continued to own it until now.
As an actor, Leonard helped to create the sly, Damon Runyon-type gangster stereotype in movies of the 1940s and ‘50s. His best-known role was probably as the bartender who threw Jimmy Stewart out of a bar in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Later, he won two Emmy awards for directing “The Danny Thomas Show.” He also produced “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” He was still working in his 80s, producing “I Spy Returns,” a 1993 CBS movie.
The one-story home in the Trousdale area was purchased by a neighbor.
Marge Oswald of Coldwell Banker Previews, Beverly Hills, had the listing.
*
The Baldwin Hills home of the late actress Esther Rolle, who starred as the strong-willed mother in the ‘70s CBS sitcom “Good Times” and appeared as the wise-cracking domestic in the earlier CBS sitcom “Maude,” has been sold for $395,000.
The three-bedroom, 2,800-square-foot house, built in 1955, was listed in March at $460,000. The house has a pool and city views. Rolle, who died in November at 78, had owned the home since 1974.
In 1990, she was the first woman to receive the NAACP’s Civil Rights Leadership Award for her work in improving the image of blacks.
Nadine M. Smith of Century 21, the Service Co., had the listing; Smith and Rhonda Sanders, at the same realty office, were the selling agents.
Hot Property is published Thursdays in SoCal Living and Sundays in Real Estate. Ryon may be reached by e-mail at ruth.ryon@latimes.com.
