Ciao to the family spread
Sophia Loren’s sons were just boys when the Oscar-winning actress and her husband, producer Carlo Ponti, bought their 38.5-acre Hidden Valley retreat in 1981.
Now Carlo Ponti Jr., 37, is the conductor of the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra, and Edoardo Ponti, 33, is a filmmaker.
The gated compound, where they spent summers as children with their parents and lived more recently while starting their careers, is on the market at $8.9 million.
Edoardo already has relocated. Carlo Jr. and his wife, Andrea, a violinist from Hungary, are planning to move soon. They say they will miss the property, which Carlo Jr. likens to “a little village,” with its low-rise buildings and a park filled with oak, pine and palm trees, bamboo groves, a rose garden and a persimmon orchard.
“There are still about 15 people living here, but you’d never know it,” Carlo Jr. said of the compound, which includes a four-bedroom, Craftsman-style main house with a stone fireplace, rock walls and beam ceilings. Sophia has an office and a boudoir in the house; her husband has a separate bedroom.
The well-used, 4,000-square-foot home also has three living rooms, a greenhouse pavilion and an enclosed central courtyard with a fireplace. There is a guest/pool house and two pools. The staff quarters are off a wide driveway in a redesigned, vintage barn. There are also stables on the equestrian-zoned grounds, but the Pontis never kept horses there.
Carlo Jr. and his father planted the now mostly abandoned garden and orchard, but much of the compound, called “La Concordia” (for unity and harmony), was built in the ‘40s. Many of the public records were destroyed in a fire, but actress Eve Arden sold the estate to the Pontis, and there is evidence that Roy Rogers once had an interest in the property, which is in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood.
The elder Pontis, who live in Europe, decided to sell the retreat because they don’t visit it much anymore. Carlo Sr. is 93.
Sophia has been busy helping to prepare a spring exhibition at the white marble Victor Emmanuel II Monument in Rome on the history of Italian cinema. The film icon, 71, will contribute some of her collection of objects she used on movie sets.
Stacy Richardson of Dilbeck Realtors in Westlake Village has the listing. Dilbeck is an affiliate of Christie’s Great Estates.
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More room to project her voice
Elizabeth Daily, who was the movie voice of Buttercup in “The Powerpuff Girls” and Tommy Pickles in several “Rugrats” films, wanted a bigger house with a better view. So she purchased a Sunset Strip-area home for $2.75 million through probate court, and she plans to put $1 million into refurbishing it.
The contemporary-style house has four bedrooms and 4 1/2 bathrooms in 4,100 square feet. The home, built in the 1970s, also has city-to-ocean views.
When she finishes work on the house, Daily plans to sell the nearby home where she now lives.
Heidi Thomas of Prudential California, John Aaroe division, represented Daily in buying.
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Not in a Wright frame of mind
A Studio City house owned by Hadley Davis, 33-year-old screenwriter of the Disney film “The Ice Princess,” and her husband, Lee Rierson, an ABC vice president, has come on the market at just under $1.3 million.
The two-bedroom, three-bathroom home was designed by architect James DeLong, who studied at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West. The home is a modernist interpretation of Wright’s “prairie” style.
DeLong conceived of his plan in 1962, but it wasn’t designed and built until 1979.
The 1,800-square-foot house was positioned near a canyon to ensure privacy. Wood, stone and cement are primary interior finishes.
Davis, who has written for “Spin City,” “Dawson’s Creek” and “Scrubs,” is the author of the 1999 how-to guide “Development Girl: The Hollywood Virgin’s Guide to Making It in the Movie Business.”
Crosby Doe and J.R. Davidson of Mossler & Doe, Beverly Hills, had the listing.
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Putting his spin on a Bel-Air modern
Ricardo Vinas, founder and president of the L.A.-based independent label Thrive Records, has purchased a two-bedroom, 1,900-square-foot home in Bel-Air for about $1.5 million.
Vinas plans to add a pool, a few more rooms and some decks while turning the ranch-style house into a contemporary compound. The house was built in 1962. It has walls of glass and is reached by way of a long, private drive.
Thrive’s next release is the self-titled debut album from Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders.
Karen Kennedy of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, represented Vinas in his purchase.
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Hills condo listed; she has 88 keys
Brogan Lane, actor-pianist Dudley Moore’s third ex-wife, has listed her penthouse condo in the Hollywood Hills at $639,000.
The 1,122-square-foot condo has two bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms and a private patio. The unit is in the foothills, just above the Hollywood Bowl. The complex, built in 1966, has no common walls. There are two pools for the 192-unit community.
Lane, an interior designer, remodeled the condo three years ago, and about two months ago, she opened an all-suite, boutique hotel in Hollywood called the Villa Delle Stelle.
Lane married Moore in the 1980s. The marriage lasted 2 1/2 years.
Moore died at 66 in 2002. His piano, bed and dining table are in the English Room of Lane’s hotel.
Michael Tunick of Sotheby’s International Realty, Sunset, has the listing.
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