Rocker Is Batty for Beverly Hills
Rock star Ozzy Osbourne has purchased a Beverly Hills home for about its $6.5-million asking price.
Osbourne, 50, was lead singer of Black Sabbath, a band that helped to define heavy metal in the 1970s. After a two-decade hiatus, the band temporarily regrouped last summer and enjoyed one of the season’s highest-grossing tours.
Osbourne has had a solo career since the band broke up in 1979. He became infamous in 1981 for biting off the head of a live bat while on stage.
He bought his new Beverly Hills home the first day it went on the market. He wanted more space and a better location, sources said.
Osbourne had been living in a smaller Beverly Hills home, which he had purchased in January 1998. Before that, the British-born singer was living in a Beverly Hills hotel. He also leased actor Don Johnson’s Beverly Hills home.
Osbourne’s new home has five bedrooms, two maid’s rooms and guest quarters in 11,000 square feet. The Mediterranean-style house was built in 1989.
He has put his former home on the market at $4.5 million. The 9,000-square-foot home has four family bedrooms, a maid’s room and a guest house. Among other features are a steam shower, sauna, pool and English garden.
Kurt Rappaport of the Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, represented the sellers, sources said.
Lowell (Bud) Paxson, chairman of West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Paxson Communications Corp. and co-founder of the Home Shopping Network, and his wife, Marla, have closed escrow on a Beverly Hills home for about $8 million.
The newly built, French chateau-style house has five bedrooms, a maid’s room and guest quarters in 11,000 square feet. The grounds, which have fountains and an infinity pool, are behind gates atop a private promontory.
The Paxsons decided to divide their time between Palm Beach and Beverly Hills after NBC acquired 32% of Paxson Communications for $415 million in September.
Paxson Communications owns and operates more than 70 TV stations across the United States. Its Pax TV network airs reruns of such family-oriented shows as “Touched by an Angel.” In April, the company chairman, 64, said he planned to add more original programs. By teaming with Paxson, NBC gets a second network to air its programs and share the cost of creating original shows.
Betty Lethe of Sotheby’s International Realty, Beverly Hills, had the $8.9-million listing.
Beverly Sassoon and Marie Healey of Prudential-John Aaroe, Beverly Hills, represented the Paxsons.
L.A. Lakers forward John Salley has put his Beverly Hills-area home on the market at $3.65 million.
Salley, 35, signed with the Lakers in October after being away from basketball for three years. During that time, he was a commentator on NBC. He was a member of the Chicago Bulls’ 1996 championship team, and he also previously played with the Detroit Pistons.
Salley has decided he doesn’t need as much house and is looking to buy smaller quarters in the same area, a real estate source said.
Built in 1992, the Mediterranean-style house, on one acre in a gated community, has been owned by Salley for about two years. It has five bedrooms and six baths in 8,200 square feet. The three-level home also has a gym, game room and pool.
Nick Segal of DBL Realtors, Sunset Strip office, has the listing.
Mike Simpson, one of the hottest producers in the music business, has purchased a hacienda-style home in Pasadena for about $1.9 million.
He also has listed his former Pasadena home for about $1.4 million.
Simpson, 35, and his partner, John King, started the Dust Brothers in 1988 with hip-hop acts and went on to produce for Beck, the Beastie Boys, Hanson and the Rolling Stones. This year, the Dust Brothers wrote the score for the movie “Fight Club.” Simpson is also an A&R; executive producer for DreamWorks, where he is producing the band Artificial Intelligence.
“I bought a home in Pasadena that is like a ranch, but I’m selling a piece of art in the Arroyo,” Simpson said. “I was fascinated with the architecture of the house I first owned, and that’s why I bought it, but it had no place for a recording studio. My new place has an extra building that I can turn into a studio.”
His new home was built in the 1930s by architect Garrett Van Pelt for Robert Knapp, a professor of hydraulic engineering at Caltech, and his wife, Pearl, who lived there for several years after the professor died in 1957.
“When we bought it five years ago [from Pearl’s estate], it hadn’t been lived in for a while,” said Leslie Libman-Williams, who sold the home to Simpson. She is a director on the Barry Levinson-Tom Fontana police series “The Beat,” premiering in January.
Libman-Williams arranged for actress-director Diane Keaton to use the house as a set for Keaton’s movie “Hanging Up,” due out in February.
Simpson’s new home has several buildings on two acres. The buildings are connected by a loggia. “One building is a maid’s room and sitting room,” Libman-Williams said. “One, a 1,500-square-foot room with a lab where Mr. Knapp invented things, we turned into a bedroom.” (Knapp served during World War II as an official investigator with the federal Office of Scientific Research and Development, studying air and water trajectories of rockets, bombs and torpedoes.)
Another building is for dining, the kitchen and a breakfast room, she said, “and the largest has a living room, powder room and guest apartment.”
The house that Simpson is selling also underwent substantial work after he bought it in February 1998. “We refinished the wood and did a lot on it,” he said. He described the kitchen as “state-of-the-art ‘50s, with laminated surfaces and stainless steel appliances.”
Built in 1954, the house is reminiscent of architect Lloyd Wright’s work in the same period. The four-bedroom, 4,500-square-foot house also has a pool.
Barry Sloane, head of the historic and architecturally significant property division at Sotheby’s International Realty in Beverly Hills, has the listing with Steve Davis of Fred Sands Realtors, Pasadena. Sloane also represented both sides of the transaction involving Simpson’s new home.
Film producer Laurence Mark (“As Good as It Gets,” “Jerry Maguire”) is having a home he recently purchased off Mulholland Drive in the Beverly Hills area redesigned and rebuilt, including the addition of a second story.
Designer Michael Smith--whose clients have included Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman, Cindy Crawford and David E. Kelley--is overseeing the project. He also designed Mark’s current home, his previous office at Walt Disney Studios and his current office at Sony Studios.
The house, which Mark bought for close to $1.5 million, has city and mountain views that he has described as “amazing.” “You feel as if you are in the country,” he has said.
Mark plans to turn the 3,600-square-foot house into a 5,200-square-foot Cape Cod, a style in keeping with the original architect’s intent when the house was built in the 1950s. The architect for Mark’s project is Michael Kovac.
Ultimately, the house will have a master suite with sitting room, a screening room, a gym with a meditation deck, a darkroom, two smaller bedrooms, and a spacious guest quarters. Construction is due to be completed by June.
The Oscar-nominated Mark produced the upcoming movies “Bicentennial Man,” starring Robin Williams, and “Hanging Up,” starring Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow. He also produced “Anywhere but Here,” starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman.
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.
