More Room for ‘Friends’ in Encino
Matt LeBlanc, who plays Joey on “Friends,” has purchased a 2-acre hilltop home, including furnishings, in Encino for close to its $3.5-million asking price.
LeBlanc, in his early 30s, has been a regular on the NBC sitcom since it premiered in fall 1994.
Earlier, he played Vinnie on “Married . . . With Children.” He also co-starred in “Lost in Space” (1998), the first movie in 16 weeks to beat “Titanic” at the box office when it opened in April.
LeBlanc is engaged to wed model Melissa McKnight.
He bought a gated compound overlooking the San Fernando Valley. The estate has a 7,000-square-foot main house with four bedrooms, a media room, billiard room, 250-gallon saltwater aquarium and wine-tasting area with storage, in a former bank-like vault, for 2,000 bottles of wine.
The seller, an electronics engineer, spent four years designing and working on the contemporary-style home.
Its grounds have a tennis court that cantilevers over a 200-foot-long driveway. A railway winds through the rock gardens, and there is a tunnel under the tennis court. Other features are a reflecting pond, swimming pool, shop, plant nursery and two guest houses.
LeBlanc became a first-time home buyer in 1995 when he bought a three-bedroom house on an acre in the San Fernando Valley for about $399,000. He had plans to raze the house and build but changed his mind.
Ray Ross of Re/Max, Sherman Oaks, represented LeBlanc in his recent purchase, and Bob Hurwitz, president of the Hurwitz-James Co. in Brentwood, had the listing, other sources said.
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Michael Lerner, who plays Elizabeth Hurley’s father in the movie “My Favorite Martian,” has sold his Hollywood Hills home of 10 years to Patrick Dempsey, who played the killer Raskolnikov in the fall NBC movie “Crime and Punishment.”
Lerner, 57, plays a bad guy in the movie “The Mod Squad,” due out in April. The actor, nominated for an Oscar for his role in “Barton Fink” (1991), played the mayor in “Godzilla” and Dr. Lupus in Woody Allen’s “Celebrity.”
Dempsey, 33, played John F. Kennedy in a 1993 miniseries, portrayed a Harvard student in the movie “With Honors” (1994) and was featured in the NBC adaptation of “Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1997).
Lerner moved to a five-bedroom home with a city view in Bel-Air. He sold his Hollywood Hills home for about $700,000, according to public records. The three-bedroom home has a pool, which Lerner had built for the property.
June Davies of Hilton & Hyland in Beverly Hills had the listing.
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Former baseball star Dave Winfield, who was elected to All-Star lineups 12 times while playing for the San Diego Padres and the New York Yankees, and his wife, Tonya, are buying a home and selling one. Both homes are in the gated community of Bel-Air Crest.
The couple have 4-year-old twins who have needed more space “to romp around a little more,” Tonya Winfield said. The Winfields are buying a five-bedroom 9,000-square-foot house and selling a five-bedroom 5,000-square-foot home.
They have owned the home they are selling since 1993, when it was in the framing stage. “We were living in New York but loved California, and so we bought the place and then spent six weeks a year here,” she said.
During the last three years, they started living full time in the trilevel Mediterranean-style home with high ceilings and white carpets. “We put in a patio with a waterfall and Japanese tile, and added an office for Dave,” she said.
Winfield, 47, retired from baseball in 1996 after 23 seasons. He owns about 15 Burger Kings, mostly on the East Coast, and in August he started a light and energy management company specializing in exterior lighting for commercial buildings.
Raymond Bekeris of John Bruce Nelson & Associates has the listing, at just under $1.5 million.
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Peggy Day, widow of entertainer Dennis Day, has put her Maui, Hawaii, home on the market at $3.4 million. The Days were married in 1948 and had 10 children.
Dennis Day, the Irish tenor whose antics drove Jack Benny to distraction on his radio and TV shows for nearly 25 years, died at 71 in 1988. After he died, his widow closed her antique and gift business, sold their California home and moved to Maui. Now she’s moving to Orange County to be closer to her family.
Her Maui home has four bedrooms, including two master suites, in 4,900 square feet. It has views of the ocean and Kaanapali Golf Course. The home is being sold mostly furnished, including antiques and artwork.
Rod Ferguson, assistant manager of Coldwell Banker’s Tustin office, has the listing.
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Illustrator Gary Baseman, who is developing an animated series with Disney, and his wife, Mary Ellen, have moved back to his roots in Hancock Park, where they bought a house built in the 1920s. The couple had been living in New York City.
Baseman has been published in such magazines as the New Yorker, Forbes and Rolling Stone. He is known for his zany pen-and-ink drawings.
He and his wife bought a four-bedroom 3,500-square-foot house for $830,000.
Konstantine Valissarakos, director of historic properties at DBL Realtors in the Sunset Strip area, represented the Basemans in their purchase.
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Jeff Cook, 49-year-old founding member and lead guitarist of the country group Alabama, and his wife, Lisa, have listed their Alabama home, Cook’s Castle, at $4.82 million with Jeffery Patterson of Re/Max in Albertville, Ala. The 13,480-square-foot house, designed to look like a castle, is on 10 acres.
After 14 years in the home, the Cooks want to build a smaller house on the water, says Biz Read in the April issue of duPont Registry, which will be on newsstands this week.
In January, Alabama won its 21st career American Music Award and was nominated for a Grammy.
