Rockford Closes the Ranch Files
Actor James Garner and his wife, Lois, have sold their 400-acre ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. The asking price was $8.75 million.
The Garners had owned the property since 1991, when they purchased it from director Herbert Ross (“Steel Magnolias,” “Funny Lady”) and his wife, Lee Radziwill, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The Garners had a home built there in 1997. Designed by architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen, known for his pyramid and prism shapes, the modern-style, 8,000-square-foot main house has six bedrooms, nine baths and a great room with two fireplaces.
The house also has a glass hallway, a temperature-controlled floor, electronically controlled window shades, a wine cellar and a media room. There is a slate patio with a pool and a remote-controlled spa.
The grounds have a three-bedroom manager’s house, a shop, a four-stall barn, a croquet court, koi ponds, a reservoir and valley views.
The ranch also has a 23-acre vineyard, planted to Chardonnay. The Garners’ private wine labels are White Rhino and Chateau Jimbeaux.
The buyers, from Europe, probably will plant more vineyards, a source said.
The Garners will maintain their residence in the L.A. area, where they have lived for about 30 years. They have been married since 1956.
They sold the ranch because of his busy schedule, sources said. He co-stars with Donald Sutherland, Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones in the movie “Space Cowboys,” due in August, and this spring he played a recurring role on the CBS medical drama “Chicago Hope” and was the voice of the Almighty in the controversial NBC animated series “God, the Devil and Bob.”
During the last few years, the Emmy-winning actor, 72, also has been reprising his role of Jim Rockford in “The Rockford Files” TV movies.
T. Hayer of T. Hayer & Associates in Solvang shared the listing with David Mossler of Mossler, Deasy & Doe, Beverly Hills.
Lois Landau of Sotheby’s International Realty, Montecito, represented the buyers.
Psychologist-author-syndicated radio personality Irene Kassorla and her mathematician-computer scientist husband, Norman Friedmann, just started a major remodel and expansion of the 8,000-square-foot Beverly Hills home they bought in January for about $5 million. The work will take about a year.
It has been about a year since they sold a 20,000-square-foot Holmby Hills house that they built. That house was purchased by singer-producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and his wife, Tracey, for nearly $13 million.
“Almost everything is going,” Kassorla said, referring to the house they bought this year. Among things to go from the 1950s house: bulletproof windows. “We think a former owner was in the Mafia,” she joked.
One thing that will stay: the clay tennis court, one of only a few in Beverly Hills, Kassorla says. As part of their renovations, Kassorla and Friedmann had new clay installed.
Kassorla, who counseled Monica Lewinsky during President Clinton’s impeachment hearings, likes to design and redesign houses. Her husband, who has helped make ailing companies financially sound, likes to design the landscaping and engineer water systems and other outdoor features.
They are adding a 50-foot pool with fountains and turning a counter into an outdoor kitchen. “I had five kitchens in my other house. In this house, we’ll have a small kitchen in the study, a small kitchen in the library, a main kitchen and the outdoor one.”
Kassorla doesn’t cook, but she and her husband like to entertain for charity. They say they are happiest, however, when they are doing or redoing a house.
“When I smell that wood and hear those hammers, I’m in ecstasy,” she said.
Emmy-winning choreographer Jeff Kutash, also known as a producer of the long-running “Splash” shows at the Riviera Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, has sold a home in Rancho Palos Verdes for $2.9 million.
The rock choreographer, now in his early 50s, has been a Los Angeles-area resident for several years. He arrived in Las Vegas in 1974 and started producing “Splash” in the ‘80s. Kutash’s Dancing Machine Productions, based in Los Angeles, was continuing to produce “Splash” into the 1990s.
Kutash has moved to the Westside. Built in 1961, the four-bedroom 4,300-square-foot house he sold is on a bluff and has an ocean view. The gated estate also has a pool and a four-car garage.
Valerie Fitzgerald of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills south, and Mitzi Ray of Coldwell Banker, Malaga Cove, represented Kutash in selling.
The longtime Rancho Mirage home of the late Emmy-winning radio and TV commentator Alex Dreier has come on the market at $2.85 million.
Designed in the shape of an Indian bird symbol, Dreier’s house, on 2 acres, was one of the first to be built in the posh desert community of Thunderbird Heights.
Built in 1969 by Dreier and his wife, Geraldine, the 8,000-square-foot house has three bedrooms, a sun room, dining room, wet bar, fireplace, built-in teak cabinets and a basement with maid’s quarters. The home also has seven outdoor fountains, a pool, a spa and a fire pit.
Dreier died at 83 in March. His wife also died about six years ago.
He was a World War II correspondent, covering the European theater from London on the radio program “News of the World.” Later, he worked for NBC and then ABC.
A popular TV news anchor in the ‘60s, he worked on KTTV in Los Angeles and commuted to his desert home. Later, he was a commentator on Palm Springs’ KESQ-TV.
Joan Weinger and Pat Smith at Dyson & Dyson, Palm Desert, have the listing.
Alfred T. Ferrante, president and CEO of the Internet service provider known as Earth2net.com, has put his Woodland Hills home on the market at $649,000.
Ferrante was a sound engineer for about 25 years, working on the TV series “Star Trek” and “Baywatch” before launching his Internet company in September as a division of Country Estate Enterprises, a specialist in marketing, Internet promotion and consulting.
Ferrante’s four-bedroom home has three fireplaces and a lagoon-style pool.
Rick Chimienti of DBL Estates, Beverly Hills, has the listing.
For the Record: The late Raymond Katz and his cousin and business partner Sandy Gallin were executive producers of the “Donny and Marie” show, but they were not creators of the 1970s TV variety series as was reported in Hot Property, July 9. Sid and Marty Krofft created and produced the show.
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 for more Hot Properties.
