Ten Bathrooms? We Can Dig It

Actor Samuel L. Jackson and his actress wife, LaTanya Richardson, have purchased the Beverly Hills-area home of actress-TV talk show host Roseanne for about its $8.9-million asking price.

Jackson and Richardson have been living in Encino. Roseanne and her husband and former bodyguard, Ben Thomas, bought a home on the Palos Verdes Peninsula for $6.5 million in May. They had lived in the Beverly Hills-area home since 1998.

Built in 1987, the home originally was owned by a British lord who paid more than $7 million for it and then spent $3 million in remodeling and additions.

The estate, in a gated community overlooking Beverly Hills, has a total of nine bedrooms and 10 baths in 11,000 square feet, including a two-bedroom, 4 1/2-bath guest house. The two-acre property also has a pool, spa, tennis court and rose garden.

Jackson, 51, stars in “Shaft” and “Rules of Engagement.” A film actor since the ‘70s who has averaged five feature films a year since 1992, he has appeared recently in “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace” (1999), “The Red Violin” (1998), “The Negotiator” (1998), “Jackie Brown” (1997) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994), for which he received an Oscar nomination.

He and Richardson, married since 1980, acted together in the movie “Losing Isaiah” (1995).

She also has appeared in “U.S. Marshals” (1998), “When a Man Loves a Woman” (1994), “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993), “Malcolm X” (1992), “Lorenzo’s Oil” (1992) and “Fried Green Tomatoes” (1991). She also appeared recently on the TV series “Once and Again” and “Judging Amy.”

Barbara Robinson of DBL Estates, Beverly Hills, had the listing on the Beverly Hills-area house.

Talent agent-turned-producer Sandy Gallin has purchased a Beverly Hills-area home for about its $2.4-million asking price.

Gallin, co-producer of the upcoming movie “As Bees in Honey Drown,” managed such stars as Dolly Parton, Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Diamond before he became an executive producer of such movies as “Father of the Bride” (1991) and “Father of the Bride, Part II” (1995).

Gallin is an executive producer of the WB series “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and is pursuing various producing projects. During the last couple of years, he was also chief executive of Las Vegas-based Mirage Entertainment and Sports.

He has long loved to buy, renovate and sell houses. “He’ll tear this one apart as he usually does,” a real estate source said of Gallin’s newest purchase.

This is the 26th house he has bought in 16 years. He usually refurbishes the houses and lives in them. He lives in Malibu but bought this house because he wanted “a nice place in town,” a source said.

Built in the ‘60s, the house has three bedrooms in about 3,800 square feet.

June Scott of June Scott Estates, a Coldwell Banker Previews company in Beverly Hills, represented Gallin in this deal and in his other 25 home purchases.

Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, had the listing.

A condo in a 16-story West Hollywood complex that was the home of Emmy-winning TV producer and personal manager Raymond Katz, a cousin and business partner of producer Sandy Gallin’s, has been listed at $895,000.

Katz, who died in March at age 83, was a partner of Gallin’s from 1970 to 1985, when they created and produced “The Donny and Marie” TV series and TV specials featuring Mac Davis, Paul Lynde, Dolly Parton and Cher. They also produced the Emmy-winning special “Sold Out,” starring Lily Tomlin and the late Kate Smith, and a number of TV movies.

Katz produced several Broadway shows before joining with Herman Rush in 1991 to produce “The New Original Amateur Hour” for the Family Channel.

Katz completely renovated the condo in 1988, turning two bedrooms and a den into one large bedroom and creating a media room with a retractable screen. He also had a retractable sound wall built in the master suite to create a guest room when needed.

The 2,400-square-foot unit, with city views, is in a full-service building, constructed in 1964, with a rooftop pool, garden kitchen for parties, fitness center and tennis court.

Barbara Darnell at Key Properties, West Hollywood, has the listing.

The Palm Springs estate of former MCA/Universal chief Lew Wasserman, one of Hollywood’s most powerful men, and his wife, Edie, has been sold, by sealed bid, for a little less than $1.2 million.

The mid-century modern-style house, faced in stone with copper trim, was donated three years ago by the Wassermans, who are well-known philanthropists, to the UCLA Foundation, which just sold the house. The Wassermans, now in their 80s, had owned the home since about 1958.

Built in 1957, the 4,000-square-foot post-and-beam house was sold with its original furnishings to a next-door neighbor, “perhaps to be used as a two-house compound,” said listing agent Allen B. Miller, director of architectural properties for Realty Executives Prestige Properties in Palm Springs.

Compounds are not uncommon in the Old Las Palmas area, where the house is situated. Among the neighbors is author Sidney Sheldon, who owns a compound with four houses.

A Malibu home previously owned by Victoria Mudd, co-producer and director of the Oscar-winning feature-length documentary “Broken Arrow” (1986), has come on the market at about $2.5 million.

“Broken Arrow” was about the 1974 relocation of more than 10,000 Navajos who had been living for generations on Arizona’s Hopi Reservation.

Mudd, a former anthropology student and VISTA volunteer, is a member of the prominent Southern California Mudd family, which traces its roots through more than 200 years in America and includes the namesake for Harvey Mudd College in Claremont.

Victoria Mudd worked on “Broken Arrow” at the house, which has a film editing room. Between editing sessions, she learned to surf, a source said. The house overlooks Surfrider Beach and the Malibu Pier. Mudd sold the house to its current owner about six years ago.

Built in 1981, the house has four bedrooms in about 5,000 square feet. The master suite has two baths. The home also has a beach-side pool.

Bob Rubenstein of Coldwell Banker Previews, Malibu West, has the listing.

A new 6,000-square-foot home, built at a cost of $6.5 million, will open Thursday with six bedrooms, a forest, a stream and more than 100 square feet of decks that will enable observers to watch the inhabitants.

Another variation of “The Truman Show”? It’s the Red Ape Rain Forest at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Designed to be a more natural habitat for the zoo’s four orangutans, the Red Ape Rain Forest will enable the animals to move out of their 500-square-foot exhibit, with mounds of concrete, into a replica of a rain forest.

The orangutans--Eloise, 31; Bruno, 20; Rosie, 18; and Kalim, 17--also will have 1,920 square feet of indoor quarters, and their keepers will have a 1,280-square-foot facility with an exam room, a kitchen, a bath and a shower.

Visitors will be able to interact with the orangutans from the viewing decks, which will be separated from the apes by a safety glass.