Red Hot Sale of Los Feliz Classic
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea has sold his Los Feliz home for about $3.5 million to John Getty, a son of Getty Oil heir Gordon Getty and a grandson of the late Jean Paul Getty, once the richest man in the world.
Flea, 37, is on a world tour with his band and due to appear this week in Norway, Sweden, Germany and England. The band played last summer at Woodstock 99. When in the L.A. area, Flea plans to split his time between leased quarters and a home he has in the countryside.
An actor as well as a musician, Flea has appeared in such movies as “Mascara,” released earlier this year, “Psycho” (1998), “The Big Lebowski” (1998) and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (1998).
Getty, a guitarist and patron of the arts who is about 30, has been living in the San Francisco area. He plans to restore the Los Feliz home, built in 1924.
The Moorish-style house, known for years as the Castle, was owned during the ‘60s by actor John Phillip Law, who rented out suites to Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and Barry McGuire of the New Christy Minstrels.
The 5,500-square-foot house has five bedrooms, stone-like columns, French doors, a circular gallery and city views.
The house is on about two acres, on which Flea built a sports court and developed cactus and tropical gardens. Flea owned the home for about three years.
Barry Sloane, who has joined Sotheby’s International Realty in Beverly Hills specializing in historic and architecturally significant properties, had the listing at Fred Sands Estates, Beverly Hills. David Raposa, broker-owner of City Living Realty, which also focuses on historic properties, represented Getty.
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Jim Burke, co-producer of the Matthew Broderick-Reese Witherspoon movie “Election,” has sold his Beverly Hills-area home to Laurence Mark, producer of “The Object of My Affection” (1998), for about its $1.4-million asking price.
Mark, co-executive producer of the upcoming Diane Keaton-directed movie “Hanging Up,” also was executive producer of the movie “As Good as It Gets” (1997), and he co-produced the movie “Jerry Maguire” (1996).
Burke, a former Rysher executive, also co-produced “Two Days in the Valley” and “Kingpin” (1996).
Burke bought a four-bedroom, 2,800-square-foot home in Brentwood with an ocean view for about the same price as his former home, which has five bedrooms in about 3,600 square feet. Both houses were built in the 1950s.
Deborah Moore of Coldwell Banker Previews’ Beverly Hills south office represented Burke in his purchase and sale, and Bridget Martens of Sotheby’s, Beverly Hills, represented Mark, sources said.
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Chuck Binder, co-producer of the TV series “Family Law” and manager of such stars as Sharon Stone and Faye Dunaway, and his psychologist wife, Lori O’Brien, have listed their Hidden Valley horse ranch at about $4.5 million.
Binder also was executive producer of the movies “Gloria,” released in January, “Diabolique” (1996) and “The Specialist” (1994).
He was prompted to buy in Hidden Valley a couple of years ago by his client, actor Robert Wagner, who had property in the area, near Sherwood Country Club.
“It was already built, but we did extensive work to it,” Binder said of his ranch, a gated compound on 40 acres known as “Springer Pond.”
The ranch has a manager’s house, two caretakers’ houses, a six-stall barn, riding arena, natural stream, man-made pond stocked with trout and bass and a three-bedroom farmhouse with a library and 600-bottle wine cellar.
There are also an infinity pool with waterfall and a tennis court on the ranch, listed with Rob Warner at Young Estates, in the Thousand Oaks area.
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Tom De Cerchio, a commercial and feature film director and writer who is in his late 30s, has purchased a Rustic Canyon home for close to its $2.4-million asking price and sold his nearby Pacific Palisades home for about $1.1 million.
De Cerchio has directed hundreds of TV commercials, most notably a Michelob spot for this year’s Super Bowl. Among the movies he has directed are Disney Pictures’ “Celtic Pride” (1996). He also has written screenplays for Disney and Columbia Pictures.
He bought a five-bedroom 4,000-square-foot-plus house on two-thirds of an acre on what was the 120-acre Uplifters Ranch after its purchase in 1913 by a group of influential men headed by Harry Haldeman, the grandfather of Watergate figure H.R. (Bob) Haldeman.
An offshoot of the Los Angeles Athletic club, the Uplifters built secluded getaways around a clubhouse, which is now a park. After World War II, the Uplifters sold off the land until 1953, when an anonymous philanthropist bought the remaining property and donated it to the city as a park.
About three dozen cottages and lodges--the weekend getaways--remain as private homes on the former ranch. Some of the houses have ballrooms. Others are log cabins hauled in from the sets of silent movies. Still others have card parlors and Prohibition-era basement bars.
De Cerchio’s home was built in the ‘20s but was extensively remodeled in the ‘60s. It was owned for years by an architect who redesigned much of it, although it still has one feature reminiscent of the Uplifters: a liquor cabinet hidden behind a paneled wall. The Uplifters were known to like hard liquor, even during Prohibition.
Gary Johns of Prudential-John Aaroe & Associates, Pacific Design Center office, represented De Cerchio in the purchase and co-listed De Cerchio’s former home.
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A Montecito house made famous in “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” the ABC series (1968-70) starring Edward Mulhare and Hope Lange, has been listed at slightly less than $2 million.
Known as “The Enchanted Garden,” the Victorian home, built at the turn of the century, has five bedrooms, six fireplaces and a guest apartment in 6,000 square feet. It is owned by artist James Paul Brown.
Ed Brown of Fred Sands Estates, Montecito, has the listing.
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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.
