Smaller Digs Will Light Up Her Life
Singer-actress Debby Boone and her husband, artist Gabriel Ferrer, have put their Sherman Oaks home of 14 years on the market at just under $800,000.
Now that their son is in college, the couple want to move into a slightly smaller house closer to their three daughters’ school in Studio City.
The Grammy-winning singer took her live show to Branson, Mo., in December, where she and her father, singer Pat Boone, performed at the Andy Williams Moon River Theatre. They were joined in a few songs by Debby’s daughter Tessa.
The same month, Debby appeared as David Cassidy’s manager in “Come On Get Happy,” an ABC movie about the Partridge Family, and in January she co-starred in “Treehouse Hostage” on the Disney Channel.
At 21, her 1977 recording of “You Light Up My Life” became one of the longest-running No. 1 hit singles, at 10 weeks, and it won an Oscar for best song. She soon married Ferrer, son of singer Rosemary Clooney and actor Jose Ferrer, and made Christian music albums while raising their children.
During the ‘90s, she also appeared onstage in such musicals as “Grease” on Broadway, and she and Ferrer collaborated on six children’s books, which she wrote and he illustrated. Among them was “Counting Blessings” (1998).
Their Sherman Oaks house has five bedrooms, including a master suite with a sitting area and a fireplace, in nearly 4,000 square feet. The Tudor-style home, built in 1972, also has a library, a pool, a waterfall, a spa and a family room with a fireplace.
Rodney Johnson at Century 21 All Properties in Chatsworth has the listing.
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Jim Long, chairman and CEO of OneMusicCorp., and his wife and business partner, Deborah DeBerry Long, are finishing up a major remodel of the longtime Beverly Hills home of the late ventriloquist and puppeteer Shari Lewis and her husband, book publisher and TV producer Jeremy Tarcher.
The Longs bought the four-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot home for $2 million in September. Lewis and Tarcher had owned the property since 1967. The Emmy-winning Lewis, known for her puppet Lamb Chop and her PBS series “The Charlie Horse Music Pizza,” died in 1998 at 65.
The home, built in 1928, has a maid’s quarters, two guest houses and a pool. “Shari had her production offices in the back,” Jim Long said.
The Longs added a media room, gym and guest suite while focusing on preserving the original Spanish design with the help of architect David Applebaum and interior designer David Rodin.
“We like houses,” Long said. He and his wife were going to build in the Palisades but changed their minds and sold another Beverly Hills property, where they had planned to live while building.
“This house is just perfect for us,” he said. It is close to OneMusic offices. “And Lamb Chop was here for 31 years, so the house has great vibes.”
An L.A.-based music publishing group, OneMusic provides compositions from its original music libraries for film (Jimmy Smits’ “Price of Glory”) and TV (“Frasier,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “The Tonight Show.”)
Jim Long is also president and CEO of the Gold Label, a record label partnership with Pat Boone, featuring such artists as Glen Campbell and Lou Rawls.
The Longs’ main offices for OneMusic, the record label and Web site, are in Nashville, where they also own a 200-year-old log home.
Elizabeth and Victor Leon of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, represented the Longs in their Beverly Hills purchase; Susan Monus and Beth Styne of Coldwell Banker had the listing.
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A Malibu home listed in 1997 at $29.5 million has come back on the market, this time at $32 million.
It is owned by Karen King O’Connor, one of five children of the late Charles King, who founded the syndication company King World in 1964. King World Productions is the New York-based distributor of such syndicated TV programs as “Jeopardy” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
The Mediterranean-style home, on about 16 acres, was built in 1991. It has an estimated 20,000 square feet-plus in several buildings, including two gatehouses, a guest house and a four-bedroom main residence. The home also has a library, gym, media room, tennis court, putting green and pool.
Joyce Rey of Coldwell Banker Previews, Beverly Hills, has the listing.
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Businessman Thomas O’Gara and his wife, Victoria, have put the Holmby Hills home they bought in April on the market at $15.9 million.
O’Gara is vice chairman of Kroll-O’Gara Co., an Ohio-based security services company that had agreed in the fall to a $435-million buyout from an affiliate of the New York investment bank Blackstone Group and Jules Kroll, the security company’s chief executive.
The Blackstone offer would have bought out O’Gara and his brother, Bill, Kroll president, and it would have left Kroll as chairman and CEO. However, the Blackstone Group terminated its offer in April, and Kroll-O’Gara shares dropped 23%.
With the offer canceled, the O’Garas may now need to move to New York, a source said. They have been living in Sun Valley, Idaho.
The 15,000-square-foot Holmby Hills home has a screening room, a guest house and a tennis court. The O’Garas’ $12.5-million purchase was the highest for a single-family home in the L.A. area so far this year.
Don Ellis and David Perry of Prudential-John Aaroe, Beverly Hills, have the listing.
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Former West Hollywood City Manager Charles Makinney has sold his home near Hancock Park for about $750,000.
The buyer was described as a French marquis who was renting in Santa Monica.
The four-bedroom home, behind gates, was built in the 1920s and has a fireplace, pool and cabana.
Makinney, 56, announced his retirement in August. He is moving back to Portland, Ore., where he has purchased a new home.
Makinney, a native of Hawaii, was director of the management services branch for the Portland Police Department before moving to West Hollywood.
He was appointed West Hollywood city manager in May 1997. He also served as the city’s representative to the Gay and Lesbian Festival Coordinators Conference.
Vivian Zimmerman of DBL Realtors, Sunset Boulevard, represented Makinney in selling.
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Beaucrest, an estate on 15 acres in Riverside County, has been listed at $3.2 million.
International designer John Birdsell, who once designed toys for Mattel, and his wife, Barbara, want to downsize but stay in the area. Their estate is in Cherry Valley, 15 miles east of Redlands.
The original house, on a peony farm, was built in 1904 and was damaged in a 1993 fire. The Birdsells built a new home there in 1994.
The estate includes a 7,400-square-foot main house with four bedrooms plus maid’s quarters; a music room; a library; a screening room; office; and four fireplaces. There are also two guest cottages, a tennis court, pool, pool house, lake, orchard and two horse barns. The Birdsells breed Arabian horses.
Kurt Meyer of Fred Sands’ Redlands office has the listing.
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Clarification: Mike Richmond of Nelson Shelton, Beverly Hills, was the buyer of actress Sharon Stone’s former home, and Richmond represented himself in the transaction (Hot Property, May 21).
In the same column, the Pasadena house designed for the son of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Millikan by architect Wallace Neff is co-listed by four Realtors, including Virginia and Robin Stever of Coldwell Banker Previews, Pasadena.
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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 for more Hot Properties.
