A double play in Florida
Mike Piazza, the longtime Dodgers catcher and fan favorite who most recently played for the Oakland Athletics, has been living in Miami Beach during the off-season for quite some time. Now, he has left the Golden State behind.
Piazza and his wife, the former Alicia Rickter -- a 1995 Playboy Playmate -- have bought their second property in the Miami Beach area. The home, purchased for $10 million, had been listed at $12.5 million.
Mediterranean in style, the house was built in 2001 and sits on 100 feet of waterfront. There are eight bedrooms and nine bathrooms in its 9,600-plus square feet. Other features are a two-story living room with a marble fireplace and a cypress-wood-beamed ceiling, an elevator, a pool, fountains and a three-car garage.
The kitchen is state of the art -- perhaps because the seller is Sophia Marcovitz, ex-wife of Marshall Marcovitz, the founder of the Chefs Catalog.
Besides their two homes in the Miami area, the Piazzas have an apartment in New York.
Piazza, 39, is a free agent. After starting his career as the 1,390th player chosen in baseball’s 1988 amateur draft, Piazza went on to become one of the top major league catchers of all time. He was chosen for a dozen All-Star games and holds the record for most home runs by a catcher.
Piazza appears in the documentary “Champions of Faith,” which profiles Christian baseball players.
Scarlett Brooks and Elena Bluntzer of the Bluntzer Group represented the Piazzas; Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg represented Marcovitz.
An upwardly mobile home
Apparently there’s no celebrity-proofing against the slowdown in the housing market.
Jaime Pressly, who won an Emmy last year for her role as Joy in the NBC comedy series “My Name Is Earl,” has finished remodeling and has listed her Tarzana home at just under $1.3 million. It was listed in December 2006 at close to $1.4 million but was then taken off the market.
Now that the 30-year-old has found her niche as a comic actress, she and her boyfriend, Eric Cubiche, a DJ, want larger quarters and plan to move up.
Pressly oversaw a complete remodeling of the 3,000-square-foot house, which sits behind gates and is set back from the street. The house has three en-suite bedrooms including a master suite with a sitting area, two walk-in closets and a bathroom with a spa tub and steam shower.
The home also has wood and iron entrance doors, ebony hardwood and Spanish tile floors, bamboo window shades and three fireplaces.
The granite kitchen and family room open to a large deck that overlooks the gardens. On the grounds are a saline pool, spa, koi pond and gazebo.
Carol Wolfe of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Encino, has the listing, according to online listings.
Room enough for a little Grove
Rick Caruso, developer of open-air shopping malls including the Grove in Los Angeles, has purchased a Malibu home for just under $12 million.
Caruso has several retail projects in the works but was drawn to the beach last year with his purchase of the Miramar Hotel in Montecito.
Like the Miramar, the home he just bought is expected to undergo a major refurbishing. The contemporary-style house was built in 1964 and includes an estimated 81 feet of beach frontage and two two-car garages.
Its entrance is through a gated courtyard.
As configured, the 6,160-square-foot house has two master-bedroom suites, three family bedrooms, six bathrooms, a maid’s room, a living room with a wet bar and four fireplaces.
It has large decks and an indoor pool.
Patty Finkel of Sotheby’s International Realty, Beverly Hills, had the listing with Cecelia Waeschle of Sotheby’s in Malibu. Ken and Angel Margolis of Sotheby’s in Pacific Palisades represented Caruso in buying.
Producer’s house in turnaround
Lisa Hollingshead, a producer who worked on Madonna’s “Truth or Dare” movie and Woody Allen’s Italian TV commercials, has listed a Malibu house she owns near the Getty Villa.
The asking price is close to $3 million.
Hollingshead, who lives across the street from the house, bought it for $2.3 million when a physician’s estate put it on the market last year. She then remodeled it.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom, 2,662-square-foot home, built in 1968, has a private garden entrance, sweeping views of the coastline, cathedral ceilings, walls of glass, a wet bar, an updated kitchen, two fireplaces, a pool and a spa.
Ian L. Brooks, Rodeo Realty in Beverly Hills, has the listing.
A drive to sell Beverly Hills plot
Before his death in 1982 at age 84, car designer Howard “Dutch” Darrin had planned to develop 8 acres he owned in Beverly Hills. But Darrin, who designed the Packard Clipper and the Kaiser Darrin, only got some preliminary grading done at the site.
The undeveloped residential land was sold and is now available again. The asking price is $5.75 million.
The site could be used for up to 13 lots or five flat pads, according to Raymond Bekeris, who has the listing at John Bruce Nelson & Associates in Bel-Air.
To see previous columns on celebrity realty transactions, go to latimes.com/hotproperty.
