Ocean Views and Hoop Dreams
Phil Jackson, head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, has purchased a home in the Marina del Rey area for $1.8 million.
Jackson, 54, joined the Lakers in June. He was formerly head coach of the Chicago Bulls. Jackson had a 545-193 record with the Bulls, the highest winning percentage in NBA history.
In their last full seasons together, he and Michael Jordan won six NBA championships with the Bulls. Before he became a coach, Jackson was a forward with the New York Knicks.
The Marina-area house, where Jackson has been living since he bought it in mid-October, has four bedrooms and five baths in just under 5,000 square feet.
Built in 1991, the three-story house also has an elevator, four-car parking and city and ocean views.
The top floor has an open plan with a living room, dining room, kitchen and family room. The living room has a 10-foot deck and a fireplace. The master suite has an 8-foot deck and a fireplace.
James Merlino of MercerRealty.Com represented Jackson; Debra Berman and Patricia Kandel of Coldwell Banker had the listing.
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Frank Sinatra Jr. has put his Beverly Hills-area home on the market at $5.4 million.
The singer-pianist-arranger has completely refurbished the gated estate since buying it in January for about $3.5 million.
Sinatra, 55, a musician known for his big-band shows as well as for being the late singer-actor Frank Sinatra’s son, has been the subject of news stories this year relating to his kidnapping 36 years ago. Barry Keenan, convicted of taking part in the abduction, has been appealing an order secured by Sinatra to block a Hollywood studio from paying him for his story.
When he bought the Beverly Hills-area home, Sinatra planned to make it a family residence for himself and his wife, Texas attorney Cynthia McMurrey, whom he married in 1998, a few months after his father died. After moving into the house, however, the couple decided to list it for sale.
Built in 1980, the estate looks as if it belongs in the mountains of Switzerland, and it has many Dutch design touches. The home, on 3.5 acres, has six bedrooms in about 8,200 square feet. It has a detached guest house with two suites, a master suite with a fireplace, a pool and a lighted tennis court. The property also has city, mountain and ocean views.
Michele Martin of DBL Beverly Hills has the listing.
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TV and film producer Michael Manheim, who won an Emmy for NBC’s “Roe vs. Wade” (1989), and his wife, screenwriter Janus Cercone, have sold a Malibu horse property that they refurbished after buying it in 1996.
The home sold three days after it had been listed at $3.3 million; there were multiple offers.
Manheim and Cercone enjoy buying, refurbishing and reselling properties; however, Cercone said, “it takes us a long time to find a project.” The couple previously redid a beach house that had belonged to a silent movie star.
At the horse property, she said, “we had taken the buildings down to the studs.” The 1.5-acre property, in Serra Retreat, was part of studio chief Darryl Zanuck’s polo-pony ranch in the ‘20s. It has a main house, a riding ring, a barn and guest quarters.
The sellers are in New York, where Manheim has been working on the James Woods movie “Dirty Pictures,” scheduled to be broadcast on Showtime in May.
Cercone, who wrote the screenplay for Manheim’s co-production of the Steve Martin-Debra Winger movie “Leap of Faith” (1992), has been working on the stage play “Dead End in Person,” due to open in New York next spring.
Claudia Beck, with Coldwell Banker Previews in Brentwood, had the listing; Jeff Chertow of the same firm in Malibu was the selling agent.
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Art dealers Irving and Jackie Blum have purchased a newly built home in Bel-Air for about its $3.75-million asking price.
The house has a California style of indoor-outdoor living room with high ceilings and wide expanses of walls, naturally lit by skylights and other openings. Escrow closed within 15 days.
The Blums had been searching for three years for a house to buy in Los Angeles. They have a home in Bridgehampton, N.Y., and an apartment in Manhattan. Their Bridgehampton home was once a Victorian schoolhouse.
Rod Youngson was owner-architect of the newly built house. He was represented in the sale by Gary Gold of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills.
Judy Ross of Coldwell Banker Previews, Beverly Hills, represented the Blums.
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Cameron Silver, owner of the L.A. vintage-couture hot spot known as Decades Inc., has purchased the Elliot House, designed in 1930 by architect Rudolph Schindler.
Schindler was in private practice in L.A. from 1921 until his death in 1953. He collaborated for a time with architect Richard Neutra.
The trilevel house, in Los Feliz, sold for close to its $539,000 asking price.
The three-bedroom 1,600-square-foot house has walls of glass, a private garden patio in the rear and second- and third-level patios. Silver has engaged architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner to restore the house.
Silver, 29, retired from a concert career in 1997 to open Decades. As a cabaret singer, he had released an album on Hollywood Records titled “Berlin to Babylon: The Songs of Kurt Weill and Friedrich Hollaender.”
Decades, on Melrose Avenue, has been described as “the store du jour” for ‘60s and ‘70s fashions worn by such celebrities as Cameron Diaz and Courteney Cox.
Silver was represented in his purchase by Kathy Small of Goldstar and Jennifer Small of Prudential John Aaroe & Associates. The sellers were represented by Will Bright of Prudential John Aaroe.
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J.R. Smeed, head of a San Marino-based real estate investment company, is following in the boot-steps of country singer Kenny Rogers by selling his Hollywood Hills home on Wednesday at “absolute auction.”
In an “absolute auction,” there is no minimum bid, the auctioneers say. Smeed’s four-story 6,500-square-foot house with elevator, which he has owned since it was built about seven years ago, is assessed at $1.7 million.
On Nov. 4, Kenny Rogers sold his 360-acre Beaver Dam Farms in Athens, Ga., in an “absolute auction” for about $6.34 million. The estate--with a 32-room main house, five-bedroom guest house, 18-hole golf course and an equestrian facility--was valued most recently at $10 million.
The auctioneers acknowledge that there is the “lure of the bargain” in an “absolute auction” and that “most affluent people got that way because of their willingness to take a . . . risk.” However, they say sellers like the speed of the auction process. Rogers’ Beaver Dam Farms had been on and off the market for years; it was sold at auction in one day.
The National Auction Group in Gadsden, Ala., conducted Rogers’ auction and is handling Smeed’s.
Did you miss Thursday’s Hot Property column in Southern California Living? Want to see previous columns on celebrity real estate transactions? Visit https://www.latimes.com/hotproperty on the Internet.
