He’d Like to Keep a Little Distance
Ben Affleck has listed his Hollywood Hills home at about $2.3 million.
The actor-writer, who has owned the home since late April 1999, is selling because he is said to be planning to spend more time in New York, and he wants more privacy at his L.A. home. The 7,500-square-foot house is large for its price but is not set back much from the street, area Realtors said.
Built in the early ‘90s, the five-bedroom, three-story house has been described as “huge but very vertical.” The living room is a floor up from the ground level; the kitchen and dining room are a floor up from the living room.
The living room has a professional movie-viewing theater and built-in entertainment center. The master suite has a library, spa and sauna. The kitchen was designed for catering large gatherings. There is also a rooftop pool.
Affleck, 28, has a leading role in the movie “Pearl Harbor,” due in May. He co-starred with Gwyneth Paltrow in “Bounce” (2000) and starred as an ex-con in “Reindeer Games” (2000). He also appeared opposite Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes in “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) and co-starred in “Armageddon” (1998) and “Forces of Nature” (1998).
Affleck and Matt Damon won an Oscar for best original screenplay for “Good Will Hunting” (1996), in which they also co-starred.
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Marcus Allen, football star-turned-CBS sports analyst, has sold his Montecito home to Troy Aikman, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, for about $6.5 million.
The home, which Allen sold earlier this year, is on an acre in the foothills with ocean and mountain views.
Allen had owned the property for about five years, and he did a major remodel on the one-story house, real estate sources said.
No other details were available on the house, and no Realtors were involved in the transaction.
In January, Aikman, 34, indicated that he wants to play football next season, although he missed five games and parts of three others last season with head and back injuries. He is scheduled to receive a $7-million roster bonus March 8, when the Cowboys could buy him out of the contract or extend his deal through 2007.
Aikman and his wife, Rhonda, also announced in January that they are expecting their first child. She has a daughter from a previous marriage.
Allen, the Heisman Trophy winner who went on to become an NFL Rookie of the Year, played for the L.A. Raiders before finishing his football career with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1998.
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Darren Star, creator and executive producer of the popular HBO series “Sex and the City,” has leased a Hollywood Hills house while refurbishing his nearby home.
Star, who also was the creator of “Melrose Place” and “Beverly Hills, 90210,” is leasing a 2,900-square-foot, Asian-style house with a Zen garden, a pool and canyon and city views, neighbors said. The house is behind gates and down a private drive.
Star, who also is writer, executive producer and creator of the TV series “Grosse Pointe” and “The $treet,” has owned his 3,000-square-foot Hollywood Hills home, built in the ‘60s, since December 1997, when he bought it for about $1.6 million. He also has had a home at the beach.
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Frank Sinatra Jr. has put the Westside home he purchased in December on the market at $3.5 million. He also listed his Brentwood townhouse at $1.25 million.
Sinatra, 56, has been performing as a singer, conductor and piano player with symphonies across the country. He also has his own orchestra, which entertained recently in Atlantic City.
The 7,200-square-foot home he bought in December has five bedrooms plus a detached guest house, an office, a tennis court and a pool, all on about two acres.
Sinatra purchased the Country English-style estate, built in 1979, for about $3 million, and then he refurbished it, real estate sources said.
Sinatra was living in the townhouse until he bought the house. The trilevel townhouse has three bedrooms in 3,500 square feet. Built in 1983 and updated, the unit also has a large patio and three fireplaces.
Michele Martin at DBL Beverly Hills has the listings; she also represented Sinatra in buying the house.
“Estate of the Nile,” a Mediterranean-style home in Dana Point with an Egyptian-style interior, has been sold for $1.8 million, including furnishings.
Designed to re-create an ambience of ancient Egypt, the 4,000-square-foot interiors were created over a four-year period by artist Abi Gorbani. Walls were covered with hand-molded, Egyptian-style bricks, and hand painted with 12 coats of watercolors. Leaded-glass windows depict Cleopatra boating on the Nile to journey across the desert.
Ceilings were painted to simulate a sunset behind Egyptian ruins. Fiber-optic lights above the ceiling create the effect of a star-lit sky. Hand-carved mantels and furniture continue the Egyptian theme.
The seller of the three-bedroom house, with ocean views, felt a kinship with ancient Egypt, and so she gutted and redesigned the house after buying it, newly built, in 1993.
The buyers’ five-bedroom, lakefront home in Mission Viejo is now on the market at about $1.4 million.
Carola Lueder of Coldwell Banker Previews, Laguna Beach, has the listing and represented both sides of the sale.
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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.
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Marcus Allen, Frank Sinatra Jr.
