Out of Ojai, and Back to the Hills

Comedian Ellen DeGeneres has sold the Ojai home she shared with actress Anne Heche before the couple’s breakup last August. The asking price was $2.75 million.

DeGeneres has been spending less time in Ojai because of her plans to host the 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards airing Sept. 16 and her return this fall to weekly TV on the new CBS comedy “The Ellen Show.” She will star in and serve as executive producer of the show, which is scheduled to run on Fridays.

The show is about an Internet executive who exchanges the stress of her big-city lifestyle for the slower pace of her quiet hometown. DeGeneres, 43, is trading Ojai for a busier life in her Hollywood Hills home, purchased after the final episodes of her hit ABC sitcom “Ellen” (1994-98).

DeGeneres, who won a writing Emmy for “Ellen,” and Heche moved to Ojai in late 1998. They maintained the Hollywood Hills home as a pied-a-terre . Heche, 32, moved from both places last fall. She is now engaged to 27-year-old cameraman Coleman Laffoon.

The Ojai home, which was sold to a family from Brentwood, has four bedrooms, including two master suites, in 4,000 square feet.

Built in the 1940s but substantially renovated, the house is on about 10 acres with avocado and citrus orchards, flower gardens, rolling lawns, a pool and oak trees.

The home, once used for a photo layout with Martha Stewart, is white and resembles a French farmhouse, with its beamed ceilings and porches. The house also has mountain and orchard views.

Barry Sloane, who specializes in historic and architecturally significant properties at Sotheby’s International Realty in Beverly Hills, and Joseph LaPiana of the same office shared the listing.

Renny Harlin, who directed the movie “Driven,” has sold his longtime home in the Beverly Hills area near the homes of actors Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson for close to its asking price of just under $1.3 million.

The director-producer-writer, 43, had owned the three-bedroom, 2,500-square-foot house since 1989, when he paid about the same amount for it. Harlin has been on tour promoting “Driven,” starring Sylvester Stallone, and so hadn’t used the house much since the movie was released in April.

Pasadena artist Crystalyn Fowler bought the two-story modern, which is on a private drive and has walls of French doors leading to an infinity pool with city and canyon views. The master bedroom has wraparound views and opens to a large terrace.

Harlin bought the house, built in 1962, about four years after he came to Hollywood from his native Finland. He kept it through his marriage and divorce from actress Geena Davis.

Harlin also directed the hits “Die Hard 2” (1990) and “Cliffhanger” (1993) as well as the box-office bomb “Cutthroat Island” (1995), starring Davis.

Chris Laib of Prudential John Aaroe, Los Feliz, represented the buyer, and Brett Lawyer of Nourmand & Associates, Beverly Hills, had the listing, sources said.

Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the eldest son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, has purchased a Bel-Air home in the high $6-million range.

Equatorial Guinea, in West Africa, is one of the world’s most repressive regimes, the State Department reported earlier this year. The current president seized power in 1979.

His son was arrested in February by New York police “for illegal possession of drugs and illegally taking $11 million to the U.S., including $4 million to purchase a house in New York,” reported Agence-France Presse.

Built in 1988, the Bel-Air house has eight bedrooms and 10 baths in slightly more than 13,000 square feet. The home, which also has a pool, is on six acres.

The buyer is also Equatorial Guinea’s army commander and minister of state for forestry, fishing and the environment.

Michael Beach, who plays Monty “Doc” Parker on the NBC series “Third Watch” and co-starred on NBC’s “ER” and in the movie “Waiting to Exhale” (1995), has purchased a Toluca Lake townhouse for slightly more than $400,000.

The seller was Bonneville International Corp., owner of several radio stations throughout the U.S.

The townhouse has three bedrooms, four baths, two fireplaces and a rooftop patio with views of the Hollywood Hills.

Barry Weiss of Re/Max on the Boulevard represented both sides of the deal.

The longtime home of the late husband-wife entertainers Bobby Troup and Julie London has come on the market at about $2.2 million. Songwriter-jazz pianist-actor Troup died in 1999 at 80. Singer-actress London died in October at 74.

Built in 1959, their Colonial-style home, on half an acre in the Royal Oaks area of Encino, was designed for London by famed Los Angeles architect Paul Williams and has six bedrooms in 5,800 square feet.

The house also has a grand circular foyer, a family room with French doors overlooking the pool, four marble fireplaces and a guest house. The master suite occupies the entire second floor.

Troup wrote the song “[Get Your Kicks on] Route 66.” He appeared as Dr. Early on the ‘70s medical series “Emergency!” and he was in the film “MASH” (1970). London, a torch singer known for her 1956 single “Cry Me a River,” played Dixie, a nurse, on “Emergency!”

Elizabeth Summers of Coldwell Banker Previews, Studio City, has the listing.

Actor Matt Lattanzi, former husband of actress-singer Olivia Newton-John, has listed his oceanfront Malibu home at about $1.8 million.

Married now to New Zealand physical therapist Cyndy Jessup, Lattanzi wants to move back to his hometown of Portland, Ore., to be closer to his family there. He and Newton-John were married in 1984; they were divorced after separating in 1995.

His house has three bedrooms in 4,200 square feet. The home is off a private, gated road and also has a garden. Built in the ‘70s, the house was updated this year by Lattanzi, who founded a construction company, which his brother, Chris, manages.

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

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