Supermodel Tries Home On for Style
Supermodel-actress Naomi Campbell is leasing a Beverly Hills home at $20,000 a month with an option to buy at just under $3 million.
The house, behind gates, has four bedrooms in about 5,000 square feet. The home also has a pool.
Campbell has been keeping an apartment in the TriBeCa area of New York City, and in December she also rented a two-bedroom flat overlooking the Thames in London, sources said. The high-rise complex, with gym and tennis courts, was completed last year, according to the British press. Campbell, 31, was born and raised in London.
She appeared in such films as “Quest for Fire” (1981) and on such TV series as “The Cosby Show” (1988) and “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (1990), but she became a supermodel in 1989 after posing as the first black woman on the cover of French Vogue.
Since then her acting career has largely taken a back seat to modeling, although she has been called a black Marilyn Monroe or Brigitte Bardot. Campbell appeared on stage for the first time in the fall, starring in “The Vagina Monologues” in San Francisco.
She is also known for her support of Nelson Mandela and his Children’s Fund, and the Dalai Lama in his efforts toward building kindergartens for poor children around the world, including those in Jamaica, where Campbell’s mother, a ballet dancer, was born. Campbell studied ballet in London.
Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, handled the Beverly Hills lease, sources said.
Actress Crystal Bernard, who co-starred in the sitcom “Wings” (1989-97), has sold her Beverly Hills-area home in the mid-$4-million range.
The home has six bedrooms in 10,000 square feet, behind gates. The home, on more than an acre, also has a pool and a motor court.
Bernard, 40, replaced Reba McEntire last year in the lead role of Annie Oakley in a Broadway production of “Annie Get Your Gun.”
Bernard put her home on the market about a year ago so that she could buy a smaller home here and a place in Nashville. She is a country and western singer and songwriter as well as an actress.
Brian Green, who played David Silver--Tori Spelling’s love interest on the Fox series “Beverly Hills, 90210”--has listed his former Hollywood Hills home at $1.2 million.
Built in 1983, the house was recently remodeled and has two bedrooms, including a master suite, in 3,130 square feet. The Mediterranean-style home also has a wet bar and music studio.
Green purchased another home on the Westside last March for about $1.7 million, sources not involved in the sale said at the time.
Green, who played a record producer on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” has been a rapper as well as an actor in recent years. His first album, “One Stop Carnival,” was released in 1996. He was cast to play the love interest of a series regular last year in eight episodes of the Showtime series “Resurrection Blvd.” Last year, Green, 28, reportedly dropped Austin as his middle name.
Dolores Blumenfeld of Paramount-Rodeo Realty has the listing, real estate sources said.
The Beverly Hills home of the late producer Lester Persky has come on the market at $5.9 million.
Persky, who died in December at 76, produced such movies as “Equus” (1977), “Hair” (1979) and “Yanks” (1979). He also was executive producer of such Emmy Award-winning TV miniseries as “A Woman Named Jackie” (1991).
His home has four bedrooms plus staff quarters and a guest apartment in about 8,800 square feet. Situated on nearly an acre, the house also has a tennis court and a pool.
Persky owned the classic contemporary-style villa for a few years. Iris Cantor, women’s health-care advocate and widow of the late Wall Street veteran B. “Bernie” Gerald Cantor, previously owned the house, which she extensively refurbished. Actor Gene Hackman owned the home before Cantor.
The office of John Bruce Nelson & Associates has the listing.
Kevin Kelly Brown, executive producer of the TV series “Roswell,” has purchased a two-bedroom home, with a den, in Sherman Oaks for $709,000.
The home, with valley views, is on a half-acre lot with a basketball court.
Brown’s two sisters, brother and both parents have been dancers with the American Ballet Theatre. The family’s fame formed the basis for the 1977 Fox film “The Turning Point,” according to Brown.
Brown, the only nonprofessional dancer in his family, also lives part-time in New York. He has more than a dozen TV projects in development and is co-producing several films.
Rick Chimienti of DBL, Beverly Hills, represented Brown in buying; Diana Hanson of Coldwell Banker, Studio City, had the listing.
Now that the figures are in, 2001 almost rivaled the banner year of 2000 in terms of high-end home sales on the Westside, and more houses were sold last year at $20 million each.
Cecelia Waeschle, who tracks Westside sales for Coldwell Banker Previews in Beverly Hills, gave these stats:
In 2001, there were 199 sales of homes at more than $3 million each; in 2000, there were 210. Of the 199, 66 were for houses at more than $5 million each, in contrast with 69 for the previous year. In 2001, 15 houses sold at more than $10 million each; in 2000, there were 17.
At $20-million-plus, three sold last year, two in 2000.
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