Moseying on out of Malibu
Dennis Weaver, who costars in the new ABC Family series “Wildfire,” and his wife, Gerry, have sold their Malibu home for $5 million.
Selling the beachfront home they had owned for 22 years gave him “a little emotional tug,” he admitted, “but the market was right.” The 2,500-square-foot home was built in 1957. “It wasn’t on the market long,” the actor said.
The Spanish-style post-and-beam home includes a four-bedroom main house with an open floor plan, a guesthouse with a kitchenette, an expansive deck with a fireplace and a wet bar, and tropical grounds with a tiled patio and a private spa. Upstairs, the living room has picture windows and a fireplace. There’s also a bonus room with a private entrance.
Weaver was pleased about the sale, he said, because he and his wife have been known to buy high and sell low. He referred to an Encino tennis-court estate the pair sold in the late 1960s for $285,000. Two years later, it sold again -- that time, he said, for $2 million.
The Weavers, who will mark their 60th wedding anniversary in October, have been living in Ridgway, Colo., for most of the last decade. Last year, they were going to sell that home, which they built in 1989 out of recycled tires and tin cans, but changed their minds.
“Wildfire,” in which Dennis Weaver plays the owner of a racehorse ranch, films on location just west of Albuquerque. The actor is also about to start his eighth year as a daily host on the Starz channel’s Encore Westerns. He starred in the popular series “McCloud” from 1970 to ’77 and played Chester on “Gunsmoke” from 1955 to 1964.
The actor, 81, puts on his environmentalist hat when he’s at home in Ridgway, across the mountains from Denver. He founded the nonprofit Institute of Ecolonomics to encourage businesses to improve the environment while making a profit. He takes credit for coining the word “ecolonomics,” a combination of ecology and economics.
Weaver promotes the use of hydrogen and other alternative fuels for cars and explores the uses of eco-friendly materials, such as straw bales, for construction. He is a partner in the company Ecosense Solutions, which plans to start construction this summer on a prototype 4,000-square-foot office building in Missouri that will use a wind-generation system to create electricity.
The Weavers also keep three or four llamas as pets on their 20-acre Ridgway property and camel-sit for a friend. “They’re wonderful animals,” the actor said of the three camels in his backyard. “They eat thistles and all the bad stuff.”
Kerry O’Brien of Coldwell Banker Previews, Malibu, had the listing on the Weavers’ Malibu home.
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Home to wealthy coupon clipper
Joel Wachs, a student body president at UCLA who went on to become a Los Angeles city councilman from 1971 to 2001, has sold his Studio City home of more than 30 years for $984,000.
Wachs, 66, has run for L.A. mayor three times, most recently in 2001, the year he became president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York City. For years, he has been known as a well-heeled art collector. At the same time, it was observed that he used coupons to save money on groceries. While a councilman in L.A., he decried the waste of money in government.
The house he sold is ranch-style and modest in size but is in the upscale neighborhood of Wrightwood Estates. It was once the guesthouse for an adjacent residence, built for the daughter of the neighborhood’s developer.
Wachs’ former home, built in 1952, has two bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms in about 1,700 square feet. The living room has hardwood floors and a fireplace. A second fireplace is in the den, which also has a built-in bar. The breakfast room in the kitchen opens to the backyard and pool.
Karen Weiss and Ross Carter, both with Coldwell Banker in Los Feliz, had the listing.
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This Valley home for ‘That ‘70s’ star
Wilmer Valderrama, a regular on the Fox sitcom “That ‘70s Show,” has purchased the gated Tarzana home of action-adventure star Chuck Norris for slightly more than $3.5 million.
The compound, on about 2.2 acres, has a 5,000-square-foot-plus main house on a knoll overlooking the pool, a three-bedroom guesthouse with three separate entrances and a detached office-recreation room. The home also has a tennis court and parking for at least 25 cars.
Norris, who had owned the property since 1988, listed the compound in November, saying he planned to live full time in Texas, where he has a home in Dallas and a ranch in the Houston area. The actor, in his early 60s, married his wife, Gena, in 1998, and they have a combined family of seven children, three of whom are grown. Norris, longtime star of “Walker, Texas Ranger” on CBS, is getting ready to film a TV movie based on the series, which ended after eight years in 2001.
Valderrama, 25, is one of several hot young actors being considered as a possible host for the next generation of MTV reality shows. In Valderrama’s case, the show under discussion is “Yo Momma,” a comedy showcase featuring the country’s most outrageous trash talkers. It’s in development.
Valderrama, who made his film debut in “Summer Catch” (2001), has been linked romantically with Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson and Mandy Moore.
Brad Prepon of Brock Real Estate, Silver Lake, represented Valderrama in buying, and Lillian Wall of Wall Street Properties, Tarzana, had the listing.
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Sale is latest plot twist at 007 house
The longtime Beverly Hills home of Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the late producer of most of the James Bond 007 films, has been sold for close to its $28-million asking price.
The buyers are Kelly Wearstler, designer of such hip hotels as the Viceroy Santa Monica, and her husband, Brad Korzen, chief executive of the Kor Group, which owns the Viceroy and other boutique hotels.
Broccoli died in 1996 at age 87. His widow, Dana, died last year when she was 82. The house, listed in May, had been owned by the Broccoli family since 1969.
It was built in 1928 for silent-screen star Hobart Bosworth, who sold the property to actor William Powell in 1933. Powell, star of “The Thin Man” (1934), hired architect James Dolena to turn the Spanish-style estate into the Georgian manor it is today.
The home, on 3.2 acres of manicured grounds, has a 9,000-square-foot main residence with eight bedrooms and two staff quarters. The gated estate also has a courtyard, a pool, a screening room and a tennis court.
The buyers also own a Malibu home that once belonged to Grammy winner Janet Jackson. The couple bought the beachfront house, with five bedrooms in 5,600 square feet, last summer for about $9 million. The house, built in the ‘60s, had a media room and a gym when the pair bought it. Most likely, Wearstler has redecorated the Malibu home by now.
The 35-year-old designer is known for creating fun and irreverent but elegant interiors through her firm, Kwid. Husband Korzen, 43, is recognized for his business savvy.
Not all of Wearstler’s design projects are for her husband’s hotels. Early on, she did some home decorating for actor Ben Stiller; more recently, Peter Morton hired her to redesign the high-roller suites and nightclub at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
Stephen Resnick of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, represented the buyers in the Broccoli transaction. Delphine Mann of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, had the listing.
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There’s one less Ram in Bel-Air
Georgia Frontiere, co-owner of the St. Louis Rams, has sold her Bel-Air home of 30 years for just under $9 million. The buyer is a developer who plans to rebuild it.
The house, designed by architect Paul R. Williams, was built in 1931 and has 10 bedrooms in 10,000-plus square feet. The estate, on nearly 2 acres, also has park-like grounds with a tennis court and a pool.
Frontiere listed the property in January 2003. She decided to sell it because she was spending most of her time at her homes in St. Louis and Sedona, Ariz.
Frontiere, in her mid-70s, inherited 70% of the Rams from her sixth husband, Carroll Rosenbloom, who drowned while swimming in 1979. She moved the Rams from L.A. to Anaheim in 1980, the same year she married Hollywood producer Dominic Frontiere, whom she divorced in 1988. She moved the Rams to her native St. Louis in 1995.
Loren Judd and Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, handled both sides of the deal.
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To see previous columns on celebrity realty transactions visit latimes.com/hotproperty.
