Views Strike Chord With Pop Singer
Singer Christina Aguilera has purchased a Beverly Hills-area home for $2.75 million.
The Grammy Award-winning pop star had been leasing the home with an option to buy. The lease expired, and when she couldn’t find another home that she preferred, she bought the house, which has spectacular city-to-ocean views.
Built in the 1950s, the house also has three bedrooms and four bathrooms in slightly more than 4,500 square feet. The master suite has two bathrooms, two walk-in closets, an office and a gym.
Among the other features are a library/den, state-of-the-art kitchen, dining area, breakfast bar and a pool.
Aguilera bought a newer and larger home in a nearby gated community in January 2001 for about the same price, but she never moved into it. She sold it before leasing the house she recently purchased.
A former member of the “New Mickey Mouse Club,” Aguilera, now 21, sang the hit song “Reflections” in the Disney movie “Mulan” (1998) before releasing her debut album in 1999 with the hit single “Genie in a Bottle.” A year later, she won a best new artist Grammy Award.
Her newest album, “Stripped” (RCA), is due out Oct. 29.
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Singer Engelbert Humperdinck has sold his Holmby Hills house as part of a 10-acre compound that includes two other homes owned by an international financier on his street, a cul-de-sac bordering the Los Angeles Country Club.
The compound’s selling price is in the low $30-million range, according to local Realtors not involved in the deal, who also identified the buyers as Roland Arnall and his wife, Dawn. He is the owner of Ameriquest Capital Corp., a financial services company in Orange, and a longtime Democratic supporter.
The compound includes a 40-room, 12,000-square-foot house owned in the ‘70s by Sonny and Cher, and a seven-bedroom, 8,300-square-foot home once owned by actress-swimmer Esther Williams. Actor Tony Curtis owned the Sonny and Cher house before the couple purchased it.
Humperdinck had his seven-bedroom, 8,200-square-foot home, on 1.5 acres just off Sunset Boulevard, on and off the market for years. In 1990, he was asking $8 million for it. Last year, it had been reduced to $4.75 million. Humperdinck had owned the home since the mid-1970s.
Known as the Pink Palace, it was formerly owned by actress Jayne Mansfield. It was built in 1935 for crooner Rudy Vallee.
The Sonny and Cher home is the centerpiece of the three-home compound. Built in 1936, the Tuscan mansion is in a parklike setting with a pond, pools, guest cottages and a tennis court. Marilyn Monroe occasionally stayed in one of the cottages as a guest of film pioneer Joseph M. Schenck, who owned the home in the early ‘50s.
The Esther Williams home was built in 1925 by Edwin Janss, developer of Westwood Village.
The compound, known as Owlwood, came on the market in 1999 at $58.9 million. At that time, Humperdinck’s home was not included in the price.
Drew Mandile and Brooke Knapp at Sotheby’s International Realty in Beverly Hills handled the transaction and had the listing since the two homes were initially packaged.
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Actor Dan Aykroyd and his brother, producer Peter Aykroyd, co-own a Hollywood Hills home that has come on the market at $2.3 million.
The brothers purchased the home about 14 years ago as an investment, but Peter Aykroyd has been living in the main house while his brother has used the two-story detached guest house when in town.
The brothers are selling the house because Peter Aykroyd is moving outside of the area, and Dan Aykroyd and his wife, actress Donna Dixon, have homes on the East Coast and in his native Canada. They also own a Hollywood Hills home that they lease out.
Built in 1922, the mini-compound that the brothers own has three bedrooms in slightly more than 4,000 square feet. The walled and gated Monterey Colonial-style home also has a breakfast area, patio, library, media room, basement and three-car garage.
The actor, 50, was an original member of the “Saturday Night Live” cast, and he starred in “The Blues Brothers” (1980), “Ghostbusters” (1984) and “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989). He recently played Britney Spears’ father in the movie “Crossroads,” and he portrayed Kathy Bates’ husband in the film “Unconditional Love,” released in August.
Peter Aykroyd was involved in the production of the animated series “The Blues Brothers,” and he provided the voice of Elwood Blues.
Maral Avakian at Re/Max, Sunset Boulevard, has the listing.
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Elvis Presley slept here:
The home in Palm Springs is listed at $2 million, including furnishings and Elvis memorabilia.
The house, on two acres in the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains, has five bedroom suites, a sauna and a steam room in 5,000 square feet. The living room, with a fireplace and cathedral ceiling, overlooks the pool. There is a room, with a wet bar, big enough to entertain 100 guests.
The home, owned by Presley when he died, was sold to one of his associates. The associate sold it to a Japanese hotelier who is an Elvis fan but is reluctant to fly to the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Presley also owned a Bel-Air home that was rebuilt from the ground up in 2000. It’s for sale at $12.5 million.
The French-style house, which has four bedrooms in 9,500 square feet, is on almost two acres. The estate, hidden from the street, has two master suites, a sunken tennis court, an artist’s studio and views of canyons and mountains.
Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, has the Bel-Air listing. Pauline Cheng of Re/Max, Arcadia, represents the Palm Springs home.
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Kevin Arkadie, a co-executive producer and writer during the first season of the hit cable TV series “The Shield,” has sold his Los Feliz home, once owned by the late Cecil B. DeMille, for more than its $1.3-million asking price. Arkadie has purchased a newer home with views of Hollywood and Griffith Park.
The home he sold was built in 1922 and is Georgian colonial in style. It has five bedrooms in about 3,200 square feet. The grounds also have a guest house and a pool with a dressing room.
Arkadie, 44, was a producer of “NYPD Blue” and “Chicago Hope.” He is writing the screen adaptation of his play “Up the Mountain,” which he plans to direct in West Virginia in 2003. “The Shield” premiered in March.
Merry Prestidge and Manvel Tabakian of Coldwell Banker, Los Feliz, represented Arkadie in his home sale.
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