Everybody loves an ocean view
Ray Romano, Emmy-winning star of the CBS sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” has purchased an ocean-view Malibu home for about $8 million.
The newly built home, behind gates, is Cape Cod-style with five bedrooms and five bathrooms. The compound includes a main residence and two guesthouses.
The interiors have hardwood floors and beamed ceilings. The home also has a pool, spa and decks facing the ocean. There are fireplaces in the living room, master bedroom and one of the guesthouses.
Romano, 46, also stars in the movie “Welcome to Mooseport,” released in February. He made his feature-film debut doing the voice-over for a woolly mammoth in the animated “Ice Age” (2002). Romano’s sitcom, written to reflect the New Yorker’s middle-class upbringing and talents, first aired in 1996.
Vying for the role of a Bel-Air seller
Actress Reese Witherspoon has listed her former home in Bel-Air at just under $5 million. She and her husband, actor Ryan Phillippe, recently purchased a larger, newly built home on the Westside.
The Bel-Air home, designed by Gerald Colcord, was built in 1969 but has been refurbished. The Country English home, behind gates, is on nearly an acre of landscaped gardens and has a pool area with waterfalls.
The house has four bedrooms and 4 1/2 bathrooms in about 5,500 square feet. The master suite has a fireplace and a sitting area, a new bathroom with a steam shower, and massive closets and dressing areas. All of the bathrooms and the kitchen were updated. The home also has hardwood floors, French doors and cathedral ceilings.
Witherspoon, 28, starred in the “Legally Blonde” films (2001, 2003) and co-stars in the movie “Vanity Fair,” due out in September. Phillippe, 29, appeared in the film “Gosford Park” (2001) and co-stars with Robert Carlyle in the upcoming movie “Light in the Sky.”
Joyce Flaherty at Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills South, has the listing.
Downsizing on the Wilshire Corridor
Actress Rosemarie Stack, widow of actor Robert Stack, is in the process of buying a home on the Wilshire Corridor for about $3.5 million. The Stacks’ longtime Bel-Air home has been sold for about $8 million.
The two-bedroom Wilshire unit, in a luxury building, is being sold by the estate of a matriarch of one of Southern California’s pioneering families. The unit has a waterfall.
The Bel-Air home was built for the Stacks in 1958 and has five bedrooms and eight bathrooms in 5,300 square feet, according to public records. The house, on slightly more than 38,000 square feet of land, also has a pool.
Robert Stack, who hosted the TV series “Unsolved Mysteries” from 1987 to 2002 and played crime fighter Eliot Ness in the 1959-63 series “The Untouchables,” died last May at 84.
Giving up her court time
Kate Edelman Johnson, producer-philanthropist and daughter of the late producer Lou Edelman, has put her Beverly Hills tennis-court estate, designed by Paul Williams, on the market at $13.5 million.
Johnson was married to Deane Johnson, an entertainment lawyer and executive who died in 1999 of Alzheimer’s, prompting his widow to set up a foundation in his name to raise funds for Alzheimer’s research. She has held benefits for a variety of causes on the property. Actor Burt Reynolds, who stars in the upcoming comedy film “Without a Paddle,” is Johnson’s companion.
The restored and updated estate, built in 1933, has three bedroom suites, a paneled living room with a fireplace, a library with a fireplace, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a breakfast room, two maid’s quarters, a screening room, a wine cellar and an office with a bathroom. The traditional-style home is about 6,700 square feet.
The tennis court has a gazebo and a separate entrance to the estate. There is also a pool with a changing room and bathroom.
Johnson’s father produced such TV programs as “The Danny Thomas Show.” She was associate producer of the TV special “Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone” (1994).
Barbara Tenenbaum of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills East, has the listing.
Liberace’s home near the Strip sells
Liberace’s longtime Sunset Strip-area home has been sold for close to $7 million. The late entertainer lived there from the early ‘60s until the early ‘80s. He died in 1987 at 67.
The Spanish Mission Revival house has seven bedrooms and 11 bathrooms in about 10,000 square feet. The home also has three fireplaces, two offices, a ballroom, a staff’s quarters, a screening/media room, a billiards room, a large kitchen with adjacent family room, a seven-car garage, a banquet-sized dining room and a master bedroom suite with his and her bathrooms.
The home sits on nearly an acre of landscaped grounds with a gated drive and views from downtown to the ocean. There is also a pool on the property.
The seller, Peter J. Maurice of Coldwell Banker Previews in Beverly Hills, spent eight years renovating the home, built in 1926. Maurice had the listing.
Modernist’s desert home is listed
A Palm Springs home that Modernist architect Don Wexler designed for himself as a residence from 1955 until the mid-1990s has come on the market. The asking price is $899,000.
Wexler, in his late 70s, is one of several architects known for their work, especially in the ‘50s, in Palm Springs.
Last year, Wexler, who studied under architect Richard Neutra, designed four mid-century-style homes to be built on the Palm Springs site of the former Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball estate.
Wexler has designed more than 210 buildings in the Coachella Valley, including Palm Springs International Airport and the Palm Springs Police Center, but until the Desi-Lucy houses, he had not built a home in about 20 years.
The house that he designed for himself in 1955 has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a den. It also has a pool, spa and many aggregate-decked patios. It is post-and-beam construction.
Andy Linsky of Windermere Real Estate, Palm Springs, has the listing.
To see previous columns on celebrity transactions, visit latimes.com/hotproperty.
