Pulling Up Stakes in the Valley
Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and actor Freddie Prinze Jr. have put their San Fernando Valley houses on the market and moved into a home on the Westside.
The couple, who will co-star in the upcoming live-action movie adaptation of the Saturday morning cartoon classic “Scooby-Doo,” were engaged in April but have not yet announced wedding plans. “Scooby-Doo” is due out in June.
The house that Prinze listed, at $3.3 million, is in Toluca Lake. It is on nearly an acre of landscaped grounds and has a tennis court, pool and grassy yard. The gated, 4,000-square-foot hacienda, originally built in 1947, has two master suites with his-and-her bathrooms and closets plus a two-bedroom guest house.
The house that Gellar listed, at just under $2.2 million, is in Sherman Oaks and has valley views. Built in 1942, the one-story traditional-style house, behind gates, has a pool, spa, guest house/cabana, sports court, motor court and outdoor barbeque/kitchen. The house has four bedrooms and seven bathrooms in slightly more than 3,600 square feet.
Gellar, 24, has starred on the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” since March 1997. She appeared in the 1997 movies “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Scream 2” before starring in the 1999 movies “Simply Irresistible” and “Cruel Intentions.” She also appeared in the 1999 movie “She’s All That,” starring Prinze.
Prinze, 25, met Gellar on the set of “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” in which he also appeared. He co-starred in the movies “Wing Commander” (1999), “Boys and Girls” (2000), “Head Over Heels” (2001) and “Summer Catch” (2001). Prinze is the son of the late actor-comedian Freddie Prinze, who co-starred in the ‘70s series “Chico and the Man.”
Both San Fernando Valley houses are listed with Monty Iceman of Prudential California Realty, John Aaroe Division, in Encino.
Iceman also has the listing on the Studio City home of actress Michelle Trachtenberg, 16, and her family. She’s on Gellar’s series, playing Buffy’s little sister.
That house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a den with a fireplace. Built in 1948 and recently remodeled, the 1,630-square-foot house with a large pool and a gated drive is on the market at $539,000.
Joe Namath, the former Alabama All-American and New York Jets quarterback who has been said to have “elevated the Super Bowl into the nation’s consciousness in 1969” when the 17-point underdog Jets beat the Baltimore Colts, has purchased a Brentwood condo for $610,000.
Namath bought a two-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot unit in a contemporary, four-story building.
The condo has plantation shutters, a stone fireplace, a rooftop pool and views of the ocean, city and mountains. There is also a well-equipped fitness room in the building, constructed in the 1990s.
Namath, who also has a home in Florida, bought in the L.A. area because his children attend private school here. He is helping to raise his daughters from a marriage that ended in divorce. His former wife moved to Southern California in 1999 when she filed for divorce.
Known in his youth as “Broadway Joe” for his flamboyance, Namath, 58, is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A few years ago, he became a spokesman for a struggling pre-Internet dial-up sports platform with stats, scores and news. The company, SportsLine.com Inc., in which he is a board member, became a multimillion-dollar entity and a popular sports Web site.
Namath also works with Boehringer Ingelheim and Abbott Laboratories, marketers of medicines for osteoarthritis, from which he has suffered since he was 23.
Christiana Capetillo of Coldwell Banker, Marina del Rey, had the listing.
David Murdock, chief executive of Castle & Cook, has sold the four-acre, Bel-Air site of the former estate of the late Henry Salvatori for $15 million, according to real estate sources not involved in the transaction.
Murdock took ownership of the land slightly more than a year ago as part of a complex exchange initiated by Gary Winnick, founder of Global Crossing, to acquire Murdock’s Bel-Air home. The real estate and other assets traded by Winnick for Murdock’s house have been estimated to be worth from $60 million to $95 million.
Winnick, whose Global Crossing filed last week for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, had planned to build on the land but changed plans after razing the 12,000-square-foot house, designed by architect Paul Williams for Salvatori, who was a confidant of Ronald Reagan’s.
Murdock, who purchased another house in the area after trading his home to Winnick, sold the Salvatori land to a local businessman who plans to build on the site.
Rick Hilton and Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, represented Murdock in selling the land, and Hyland also represented the buyer.
Producer Bill Sheinberg has purchased a Beverly Hills-area home owned for more than 25 years by the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery for $6.5 million, according to real estate sources not participating in the deal.
Sheinberg, in his early 40s, formed the Bubble Factory production company in 1995 with his brother, Jon, and father, Sid Sheinberg, former MCA chief operating officer.
The house had an interim owner who totally restored it after buying it from actor Robert Foxworth, the late actress’ husband. Foxworth listed the house at just under $3.9 million in 1999. Montgomery, who starred as Samantha on the sitcom “Bewitched” (1964-’72), died at 57 in 1995.
The house was built in 1932 for Howard Hawks, who directed such movies as “Scarface” (1932) and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1953). The house was designed to look like a country house in England in which Hawks had lived.
On nearly two acres with a tennis court and a pool, the 7,000-square-foot-plus home has a library with a wet bar, a banquet-sized dining room, a breakfast room, a butler’s kitchen, a cook’s kitchen and a guest house.
Joe Babajian and Kyle Grasso of Prudential Estate Properties, Beverly Hills, had the listing.
Michael Concepcion, one of the founders of the Crips who went on to start his own label--Grand Jury Records--and became a gang mediator, has listed his Ladera Heights home at about $1.1 million.
Concepcion, who is in his early 40s, wants to move to a larger home. He has owned the Ladera Heights house since it was built in 1997. The house has six bedrooms in about 4,500 square feet. It has a marble entry, family room with media center, master suite with sitting area, a spa tub, 20-foot-high, vaulted ceilings and a park-like yard.
In 1990, Concepcion organized an all-star contingent of West Coast rappers called All in the Same Gang, which led to a truce between gangs. Last year, at the Russell Simmons-organized Hip-Hop Summit in New York in June, Concepcion led the conflict-resolution meeting with Louis Farrakhan.
Kerri Jones of Re/Max, Beverly Hills, has the listing.
For previous columns on celebrity realty transactions, visit www.latimes.com/hotproperty.
