Canceling his court time in Beverly Hills
Tennis champ Pete Sampras and his wife, actress Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, have listed a Beverly Hills home they bought early last year. The asking price is $8.9 million, close to what they paid for it.
The couple, married in 2000, had planned to completely remodel the house, built in 1933, but their priorities changed.
The Country English home, designed by John Byers, has seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms in about 8,200 square feet. It sits on slightly more than an acre and has mature trees, a pool, city views and a tennis court.
Sampras, 31, won his fifth U.S. Open in September. In the early ‘90s, he was the youngest player ever to win a U.S. Open. He was also the first man to win the U.S. Open, Wimbledon and the Australian Open in succession.
Wilson-Sampras, 29, played the bride-to-be who hires Jennifer Lopez in “The Wedding Planner” (2001). She made her film debut as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daughter in “Last Action Hero” (1993). Last year, she co-starred in the action thriller “Extreme Ops.”
Loren Judd of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, has the listing.
‘Beetlejuice’ sells his old haunt
Actor Michael Keaton has sold a Pacific Palisades homesite of nearly 2 acres for close to $3.7 million.
The buyer was ABC Entertainment Television Group Chairman Lloyd Braun.
Keaton had plans to build a house on the property, which has access to horse-riding trails. After he decided not to build, the actor listed the land, described as oak-studded with a stream running through it.
Keaton, 51, recently co-starred in the HBO movie “Live From Baghdad,” for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination in the category of best performance by an actor in a miniseries or TV movie.
He also starred in the movies “Batman” (1989), “Batman Returns” (1992), “Beetlejuice” (1988), “Pacific Heights” (1990) and “The Paper” (1994).
Urich’s widow ready to move on
Actor Robert Urich’s home in the gated community at Sherwood Country Club is on the market at just under $4.5 million.
Urich, who starred in many TV movies and such series as “Vega$” and “Spenser: For Hire,” died in April at age 55. His widow, Heather, is selling the Thousand Oaks-area house, which the couple had built in 2000. “He designed every bit of it with an architect,” she said. “He loved the golf and the camaraderie at Sherwood.”
She doesn’t play golf, and she doesn’t like commuting to meetings in Hollywood, where she is working on a documentary through her production company. As Heather Menzies, she played one of the singing Von Trapp children in the film “The Sound of Music” (1965).
“The house is vacuous to me,” she said, noting that two of their three children are in college. “His spirit filled it up, but it’s time for a change. I need to move on, and I want to move closer to my family in Sherman Oaks.”
The Cape Cod-style home has five bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms in 8,500 square feet. The home has a great room, a paneled library, a game room-theater and a country kitchen with a family sitting room, breakfast room, home office and butler’s pantry.
The home also has a two-story octagonal turret and a couple of verandas as well as a pool, a spa and a four-car garage. The house is on two fairways of the country club’s golf course.
Erin Pohl and Bob Pearson of Coldwell Banker Previews, Westlake Village, have the listing.
Princess slept here -- for a week
A Newport Coast home built for a princess from the Middle East has been sold for relatively close to its asking price of $11.5 million. The buyer was described as an international businessman.
The ocean-view house was completed in the Pelican Hill area in the fall of 2001. The princess lived there for only a week. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, her family summoned her back to the Middle East.
The house has eight bedrooms in 15,000-plus square feet. It has a commercial-sized kitchen with two dishwashers, two refrigerators and an eight-burner stove.
Other features include a sweeping staircase, a butler’s pantry and a game room, which leads to an infinity pool, a spa and a gym. The game room has a saltwater aquarium, a grand piano, a pool table and a big-screen TV. The four-level house also has an elevator and a 3,000-square-foot subterranean garage.
Marian Phillippi and Coleen Brennan at Prudential California Realty, Corona del Mar, had the listing.
Liberace -- and a whole lot more
Liberace’s former Las Vegas home has come on the market. It is available with a minimum bid of $3 million.
The home, which the late entertainer created in the ‘60s from two houses, has been a hot spot for weddings, parties and corporate meetings since it was purchased in 1989 from Liberace’s estate by Atlanta businessman Vance Turner and his wife, Jan. Liberace died in 1987.
The sale of the two-story, 17,000-square-foot mansion, in a modest neighborhood near the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, includes furnishings and catering equipment.
Most of the furnishings -- even many Liberace-style chandeliers -- were added by the Turners, who also built a banquet hall that can seat 250 diners or up to 600 meeting attendees.
The home still has what Liberace called his Moroccan Room and his Hall of Mirrors, or “Eternal Hallway.” It also has the pianist’s original bedroom with a replica of the elaborately painted ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. His former game room, where he kept slot machines for his mother to play, is now a bar. His guest suite is used for bridal parties. His closet is a reception area.
This is the third home owned by Liberace at the time of his death that has come on the market since early December. The other homes are in Palm Springs and Malibu.
Joe North Jr. and Jeff Boughrum of Colliers International in Las Vegas have the newest listing.
Encino home for ‘$20 Million’ star
Anjul Nigam, who starred in the movie “The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest” (2002) and has appeared in a number of series including “MDs” and “Providence,” and his wife, producer Anjalika Mathur Nigam, have become first-time home buyers with their purchase of a two-bedroom home in Encino for about $300,000.
Built in 1949, the house is in an area known as Encino Park, which was built in the late ‘40s for returning war veterans.
The actor, 37, recently played a taxi driver in the CBS series “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation.”
His wife is an executive at Baumgarten- Merims Productions, which recently produced the movie “Levity,” which stars Billy Bob Thornton and Morgan Freeman. It was screened at the Sundance Film Festival last month. She co-produced the 2002 art-house feature “Leela.”
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To see previous columns on celebrity transactions visit www.latimes.com/hotproperty.
