We Know What He Did This Summer
Actor Freddie Prinze Jr., who co-stars in the upcoming comedy-romance “Head Over Heels,” has purchased a San Fernando Valley home for slightly more than $3 million.
The rising star and teen idol co-starred in the movies “Boys and Girls” and “Down to You,” released earlier this year. He was also featured in “The Teen Choice Awards,” which aired on Fox in August.
Prinze, 24, proved to be a leading man in the 1999 teen film “She’s All That.” The same year, he played an action hero in “Wing Commander,” a sci-fi adventure based on the popular computer game. “Head Over Heels” is due out in February.
The actor bought a five-bedroom 4,000-square-foot home, built in the 1930s, with a guest house and a pool. The one-story home was described as Old World in style.
Son of the late star of the NBC hit sitcom “Chico and the Man” (1974-78), Prinze, who proudly carries his deceased father’s name, moved with his mother from L.A. to Albuquerque in 1980, three years after his father’s death at 22. The younger Prinze spent most summers as a child with his grandmother in Puerto Rico.
He returned to L.A. to make his network TV debut in 1994 on an episode of ABC’s “Family Matters.” In 1996, he had the lead role of a teenage father in “Too Soon for Jeff” on ABC, and he played Clare Danes’ boyfriend in the movie “To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday.” In 1997, he co-starred in the movie “The House of Yes.”
Prinze has been dating actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, who stars in the WB series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” since early this year. They co-starred in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (1997). He also appeared in “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” (1998).
Jeffrey Henley, CFO of high-tech giant Oracle Corp., has purchased a French contemporary-style home in Santa Barbara for $17.2 million.
Henley bought a six-bedroom 19,000-square-foot home. One of the rooms had been dismantled and reconstructed from a house in France.
The Santa Barbara house, on a 4.7-acre ocean bluff, was built in the early 1990s and is in a gated community.
Henley, 51, has had a home in Atherton, Calif., while working for Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle. The Phoenix-born executive earned his bachelor’s degree at UC Santa Barbara and his MBA at UCLA.
Gary Smith, who produced the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and numerous TV specials--including ones for such stars as Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond--and his wife, Maxine, have sold their Beverly Hills-area home of more than 20 years for about $3 million.
The couple bought a larger, newer home in the same area.
The Emmy-winning producer-partner in Smith-Hemion Productions and his wife sold their home to Stacey Sher, producer of such movies as “Erin Brockovich,” “Man on the Moon” (1999), “Out of Sight” (1998), “Living Out Loud” (1998) and “Get Shorty” (1995) as well as executive producer of “Drowning Mona,” “Reality Bites” (1994) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994).
The home that Sher bought was once owned by singer-actress Julie Andrews and producer Blake Edwards.
Situated on 1.5 acres with a pool, waterfall and tennis court, the Monterey Colonial-style house was designed by Wallace Neff and built in the late 1940s. The estate has a main house plus guest and pool houses for a total of about 7,500 square feet.
The Smiths bought an 11,000-square-foot contemporary-style house, built in the late 1980s. It also has a tennis court.
Drew Mandile and Brooke Knapp of Sotheby’s International Realty and Linda May of Coldwell Banker Previews, Beverly Hills North, shared the listing.
David Doyle, president and founder of Irvine-based Quest Software Inc., has purchased a five-bedroom house in southern Orange County for nearly its $8-million asking price.
The house, in a gated enclave known as Pelican Crest, is the largest sale to date in the master-planned community of Newport Coast, sources said.
The 8,000-square-foot house, which has a courtyard and a pool, is described as being “front-row Pelican Hill with views of the golf course, ocean and Catalina.” Pelican Hill is the golf club in Newport Coast.
The newly built home, designed by David Close of Pacific Design Group, had just come on the market when Doyle, in his 30s, purchased it.
Rich Meaney of Coast Newport Properties-Coldwell Banker, Newport Beach, represented the buyer; Ron Millar and Debbie Schlafani, of the same office, had the listing.
The longtime Beverly Hills-area home of former Ziegfeld girl-turned-Hollywood hostess Jean Howard, who died in March at 89, has come on the market at just under $2 million.
Howard, once the wife of powerful Hollywood agent Charles K. Feldman, entertained such movie-star legends as Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Tyrone Power, Greta Garbo and Judy Garland at the house, which she and Feldman bought in 1942 for $18,000.
Through the years, Howard turned her photos into two books: “Jean Howard’s Hollywood” (1989) and “Travels With Cole Porter” (1991), based on trips she took with the composer after his wife, also Howard’s friend, died in the mid-1950s.
Howard was divorced from Feldman in 1946, but they continued to live in the house and give parties together until his death in 1968, when she moved to Italy.
After about 10 years there, she returned to her house in Coldwater Canyon with her second husband, Italian musician Tony Santoro.
Built in 1935, the Spanish-style house has three bedrooms and staff quarters in about 4,500 square feet plus a large pool.
Kay Pick of Coldwell Banker Previews, Beverly Hills North, has the listing.
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