Taking Their Act to Hills

Jason Bateman, who appears in the upcoming NBC comedy series “It’s Not About Me,” and his actress wife, Amanda Anka, have purchased their first home since their marriage last year. The couple sold the house where Anka had lived before their wedding.

“It was our plan for me to sell my house in Santa Monica and Amanda to sell her house in Hollywood, and we would get a house together,” said Bateman, who sold his bachelor pad several months ago. “We finally found a house we both liked.” It closed escrow last week. Anka’s home sold a few days earlier.

The house they bought for close to its $900,000 asking price has four bedrooms and 2 3/4 bathrooms in nearly 3,000 square feet. It is a mid-century post-and-beam house in the Hollywood Hills with walls of glass, and it is surrounded by a bamboo forest. The two-story house also has a private guest wing with a separate entrance and parking for six cars.

Anka’s former home sold for close to its $625,000 asking price. The Spanish-style, one-story house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms in slightly more than 2,000 square feet. Built in 1925, it has high ceilings, a fireplace, original tile, French doors, a laundry room and parking for four cars.

Bateman and Anka plan to do a little remodeling before moving into their new home, which “might be ready by Thanksgiving or even Halloween,” he said.

“Amanda is up to her ears in getting everything organized, and I am trying to help as much as possible. I wrap a glass when she tells me, I pack a box when I’m told. We’re best when she’s steering the boat.”

Bateman, 33, appeared in the movie “The Sweetest Thing,” starring Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate, and was a regular last year in the TV series “Some of My Best Friends.” He has worked in TV since the early ‘80s and played Bob Newhart’s son on “George & Leo” (1997-98) and the eldest son on “The Hogan Family” (1986-91).

Anka, daughter of pop singer Paul Anka, has appeared in such series as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Diagnosis Murder.” She also worked on the movie “Undercover Brother,” which was released in May.

Richard Ehrlich of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, represented the couple in buying and selling. Tom O’Rourke of Prudential John Aaroe, Pacific Design Center, had the listing on the home they bought.

The Ventura beach house owned by the family of actor Richard Dreyfuss, who in August was filming a movie called “Coast to Coast” with Judy Davis in Toronto, has been sold. Details of the sale were not disclosed, but real estate sources say that the house sold for close to its $1.4-million asking price.

The house was designed and built in 1982 by the actor’s writer-producer brother, Lorin. “We had wonderful family gatherings there for 20 years,” he said. “It was our mother’s favorite spot, and it will be hard to replace emotionally.”

The death of Geraldine Dreyfuss, who died in October 2000, prompted the family to sell the house.

The Mediterranean-style home, on Pierpont Beach, has six bedrooms and four bathrooms in about 3,500 square feet. It also has two fireplaces and 500 square feet of decks and patios.

“I was looking for a place in the Ventura area to replace the family beach house, but even little ocean-view condos were a fortune,” Lorin Dreyfuss said. “So I bought a 53-foot yacht.” After all, he said, you “can’t get any closer to the ocean than in it.”

Geraldine Dreyfuss played the mother of Richard Dreyfuss’ character in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” (1986). Among his writing projects, Lorin Dreyfuss co-wrote at least one episode of the recently canceled TV series “The Education of Max Bickford,” which stars his brother.

Richard Dreyfuss, 54, will make a stage appearance in the upcoming off-Broadway season when he stars with Kyra Sedgwick in the drama “The Exonerated.”

Gary Winnick, chairman of the Bermuda-based Global Crossing telecommunications company, has sold a Malibu home for about its $9.8-million asking price.

The buyer was Alec E. Gores, an L.A. buyout specialist whose firm submitted a joint bid for Global Crossing before two Asian companies struck a pending deal to pull the company out of bankruptcy. The Asian firms are offering to buy a majority share of the company for $250 million. Global Crossing was once valued at more than $50 billion.

Winnick purchased the Malibu home in March of 2001.

Originally built in 1931, the remodeled Cape Cod-style home is on slightly more than half an acre and has landscaped lawns and ocean views.

The main house has a master suite upstairs on the water, a large kitchen, two other bedroom suites, a living room, a dining room and an attached teahouse on the sand. The property also has a two-bedroom guest apartment and a gym.

A Napa Valley home and vineyard owned by the estate of the late Joseph Judson (“J.J.”) Cohn, one of the five founders of MGM studios and an original member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has come on the market at $25 million.

Cohn died at age 100 in 1996 in his Beverly Hills home. He was a major player in the film industry but preferred anonymity, rarely giving interviews.

His former Napa Valley home is on more than 200 acres and includes a house built in the 1860s by Serranus Clinton Hastings, California’s first chief justice and founder of UC Berkeley’s Hastings College of the Law.

The house has seven bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms in about 7,000 square feet. More than 80 acres of the estate are planted with grapes used to make Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

The property also has three barns, a caretaker’s house, two wells, a reservoir, mountain springs and another detached house and barn.

The estate is in the Rutherford Bench Appellation.

Clifford Rowe and Andrea Tzadik of Prudential John Aaroe, Brentwood, have the listing.

Arcona, holistic beauty therapist to stars such as Sharon Stone and Anjelica Huston, has listed her Toluca Lake penthouse at just under $1.1 million. Arcona, who goes by her first name only, is selling the unit because she plans to buy a nearby ranch.

Her 4,000-square-foot penthouse has three bedrooms, including a master retreat with a fireplace, spa tub, shower and bidet. The unit also has a 1,200-square-foot patio with views of the Hollywood Hills and San Gabriel Mountains.

Arcona, who has owned the penthouse since it was built in 1991, saw to it that toxin-free paint, hardwood floors and tile were used in the unit in an effort to reduce allergens. She also consulted a feng shui specialist when furnishing the Southwestern-style unit.

Arcona studied premed and worked as a medical technician in Munich before moving to L.A. in the early ‘70s. She began giving holistic facials out of her house in 1986 and developed the Arcona Skin and Beauty Therapy line in 1989.

Her clients have included Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Eddie Murphy, Al Jarreau and Stevie Wonder. Her studio is in Valley Village.

Meredith McKenzie of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills North, has the listing.

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