5BR + trapeze
Actress and Playboy model Bridget Marquardt has become a first-time home buyer with the purchase of a contemporary Mediterranean in Sherman Oaks for $1,725,000.
She had been traveling for her “Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches” Travel Channel show while intermittently house hunting for about a year.
“I had a big list of all the things I wanted,” she said, and “I wasn’t ready to settle.”
Her patience paid off. The new 5,922-square-foot home “literally had everything plus,” she said.
Among her priorities was enough room to store all the clothes for her work on the show “The Girls Next Door” and the parties she attended during her seven years in residence at the Playboy Mansion. She is making one of the bedrooms in the five-bedroom, 4 1/2 -bathroom house into a wardrobe.
Other items on her must-have list: a fireplace in the master bedroom and a swimming pool to which she plans to add a water slide.
But no doubt the most personalized touch she’ll be making to the two-story home is the installation of a swing trapeze and a lyra, or aerial hoop, in the soaring main entry hall.
“Trapeze is a great workout,” said Marquardt, who trains at Hollywood Aerial Arts in Inglewood. “It got me in the best shape in my life.”
The equipment, she said, will be “old school circus -- vintage-style -- with velvet on the ropes and shiny silver balls on the ends.” The apparatus can be tied off along the ceiling should she care to move it out of center stage.
Marquardt will be sharing the home with her boyfriend, Nicholas Carpenter, who directed “The Telling” (2009), a horror film anthology, and has been a music video director. He has worked as a set production assistant on TV as well as “Thank You for Smoking” (2005). His father, Scott Carpenter, was one of the original Mercury astronauts.
Despite having a dad who once defied gravity, Carpenter is “worried I will fall off the trapeze,” Marquardt said.
Marquardt, 35, co-stars in the E! cable network series “The Girls Next Door” (2005-present) as one of publisher Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends. The show will start its sixth season in October. She appeared in the February issue of Playboy.
Lisa Sockolov of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, represented Marquardt.
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‘Cracktown’ actor changes address
Actor Vondie Curtis-Hall and his wife, Kasi Lemmons, have sold their Hollywood Hills home for $2,175,000.
The single-story Spanish-style house, built in 1965, is gated and sits on about 1.25 acres. The hilltop site has 360-degree city, valley, mountain and ocean views.
The 3,188-square-foot house features three bedrooms and four bathrooms, three fireplaces, a deck and a kitchen that opens to the swimming pool. There is a flat lawn and a guesthouse.
Curtis-Hall, 52, appears in this summer’s “Life Is Hot in Cracktown” and in the upcoming 2009 film “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” starring Nicolas Cage. He directed episodes of “The Starter Wife,” “Gossip Girl” and “Boston Legal” last year, and directed and wrote the screenplay for “Waist Deep” (2006). His television acting credits include “Soul Food” (2004), “ER” (1994-2001) and “Chicago Hope” (1995-99).
Lemmons, 48, has acted on television for 30 years and directed “Talk to Me” (2007), “The Caveman’s Valentine” (2001) and “Eve’s Bayou” (1997).
Their house, on and off the Multiple Listing Service since 2005, came back on the market in March 2008 at $2,899,000. They purchased the property in 1998 for $675,000, public records show.
Ron Holliman of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, was the listing agent, according to the MLS. Rann Lee of Sotheby’s International Realty’s Sunset Strip Brokerage represented the buyer.
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Gold Coast retains its glitter
The former beach house of silent film star Douglas Fairbanks Sr. is for sale in Santa Monica at $7.9 million.
The area became known as the Gold Coast after Hollywood stars and industry giants built homes there in the 1920s. Neighbors included MGM head Irving Thalberg and his actress-wife, Norma Shearer, oilman J. Paul Getty and comic actor Harold Lloyd. Fairbanks’ street earned the nickname Rolls-Royce Row.
The two-story Mediterranean, built in 1922, has three bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms and formal living and dining rooms in 1,641 square feet. There are views of the grounds, the pool and the ocean. A wide brick terrace extends the living area off the back of the house and steps down to the swimming pool and spa, which are flanked by lawns lined with mature trees.
The property previously sold in 1994 for $1,815,000, according to public records.
“The Mark of Zorro” (1920) cemented Fairbanks’ stardom. The swashbuckling leading man was known for his athletic prowess, demonstrated in films such as “Robin Hood” (1922) and “The Thief of Bagdad” (1924).
Jeffrey Hyland of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, has the listing.
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Composer is changing keys
Update: Emmy-winning composer Lee Holdridge, whose four decades of credits include such early work as collaborating on the score of the 1973 movie “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” has sold his Beverly Hills home for $2,175,000.
The English Tudor-style house, built in 1926, retains much of its original ambience with a turret-like brick entry, a circular stairway off the foyer, hardwood floors on the ground floor and two fireplaces. The two-story home, with five bedrooms and four bathrooms in 4,774 square feet, has a pool. The living room, where Holdridge played his grand piano, overlooks the backyard.
The composer, 65, is downsizing to a contemporary rental in Brentwood with studio space. His Emmys include honors for his work on “One Life to Live” in 2005 and 2000 and “Beauty and the Beast” (1987).
The property, which Holdridge had owned for two decades, came on the market in late September at $3.2 million.
The listing agents were Gracee Arthur of Ewing & Associates, Sotheby’s International Realty, and David Findley, then with Sotheby’s International Realty, Brentwood, but now associated with Partners Trust Real Estate Brokerage & Acquisitions, Brentwood. Oleg Dymovsky of Westside Realty, Los Angeles, represented the buyer.
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latimes.com/realestate
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