Newsletter: Hot Property: Pick your price point
Celebrity homes come in as many styles as they do price ranges. There’s the Normandy-inspired mansion once owned by Michael Jackson being offered for $67 million; the contemporary Spanish home built on the site of Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s former General Electric house that was sold for $22-million; and the Mediterranean in Bel-Air for which a hotel magnate just pocketed $16.5 million.
For your reading pleasure, we’ve lined them up this week from most to least expensive.
Once you’re done checking out these star-studded home deals, visit and like our Facebook page, where you will find Hot Property stories and updates posted seven days a week.
– Neal J. Leitereg and Lauren Beale
Never at $100 million
The Santa Ynez Valley estate that will forever be associated with the name Michael Jackson will no longer be associated with a $100-million asking price.
Neverland, the onetime ranch and private playground of the late pop icon, has returned to market at $67 million.
The property, encompassing 2,700 park-like acres outside Santa Barbara, centers on a Normandy-style mansion built in 1982. The roughly 13,000-square-foot house features exposed beams, parquet floors, five fireplaces and a master wing with its own garden.
A 50-seat theater and dance studio, a four-bedroom guesthouse and a separate two-bedroom guesthouse are among nearly two dozen other structures on the site. Also on the property is a swimming pool, a sports court and a red barn originally built to house Clydesdale horses.
Jackson, who died in 2009 at 50, bought the property for $19.5 million in the late ’80s. He was in default on the loan on the ranch when it was bought by Colony Capital about eight years ago for $22.5 million.
Presidential roots
The Westside mansion built on a site once owned by presidential couple Ronald and Nancy Reagan has sold for $22 million.
The 12,000-square-foot house occupies the two-thirds of an acre property in Pacific Palisades where the Reagans had a ranch-style home built in the 1950s. At the time, Ronald Reagan was the host of “General Electric Theater,” and GE outfitted the home with the latest in home technology: all-electric kitchen appliances.
The new house, built on speculation by Jaman Properties, features a 2,000-square-foot master suite with luggage and shoe closets, a temperature-controlled fitness center and a powder room clad in peacock feathers.
The living room retains the original wet bar from the Reagan home. The door of the shower from which he emerged to learn he had won the presidency in 1980 was also preserved.
The 12,000-square-foot spec house built on the site of Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s onetime home in Pacific Palisades has sold for $22 million.
Magnate hits the payline
Hotel and casino magnate Steve Wynn has checked out of Bel-Air, selling his Mediterranean estate for $16.55 million. He bought the house three years ago for $16.25 million — one would think real estate would have been a better gamble.
Set behind gates, the 11,027-square-foot home includes a sweeping double staircase in the foyer, a family room with wet bar, a wood-paneled study, a media room and a gym equipped with a sauna and steam room. There are five bedrooms and eight bathrooms.
A putting green, a swimming pool and spa, waterfalls and a koi pond complete the one-acre setting.
Wynn, 75, has a net worth of $2.6 billion, according to Forbes.
Taking a shot on the Peninsula
Retired basketball player and coach Paul Westphal has put his Palos Verdes Estates home of more than a decade on the market for $3.499 million.
Sitting on about half an acre, the Hacienda-style home has a castle-like rotunda entry, beamed ceilings and stone and hardwood floors. The home has 4,500 square feet of living space, including an attached casita.
Westphal, 66, is a former Celtics and Suns guard who played 12 seasons in the NBA, making five all-star teams.
As a head coach, Westphal led Phoenix to the NBA Finals in 1993. He also coached the Seattle SuperSonics and Sacramento Kings.
Inspired by his ’hood
Actor Adam Sinclair of the TV show “Rizzoli and Isles” has listed his duplex in Culver City for sale at $1.898 million.
Tucked behind hedges, the 1925 character-filled home has arched doorways, a clay-tiled roof and double-hung windows in keeping with the original style.
Within the 1,562 square feet of living space are a living room with a fireplace, three bedrooms and one bathroom. The kitchen has a farmhouse sink and a wall of open shelving accessed by an attached library-style ladder.
There’s a second unit on the site and a two-car garage updated as an entertaining area.
Sinclair, 39, bought the house more than a decade ago for $920,000. He is currently writing and producing a television series based on his experiences living in the neighborhood. He will appear in the upcoming film “The Vicar’s Wife.”
Scene of a crime?
Actor Jeremy Ratchford, known as detective Nick Vera on the crime drama “Cold Case,” has sold his home in Valley Village for $1.38 million.
The 1940s house is set on close to a quarter-acre lot containing mature trees and lawn. Beyond the red front door, the living space of roughly 2,900 square feet includes two fireplaces, living and dining rooms, a family room, four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.
The detached garage was converted into a rec room with checkerboard tile floors.
Ratchford, 51, has television credits that include “Bones,” “NCIS” and “The Practice.”
He bought the house in 2007 for $1.35 million. Seems a crime that he didn’t make money on his investment.
My favorite room
Singer-songwriter Jake Miller got his start posting YouTube videos of himself taken in his Florida bedroom when he was a teen. These days, the pop star lives in a Hollywood apartment and, just like a decade ago, he enjoys making music in his bedroom. Check out his favorite room here.
“I’m always in here practicing guitar and piano and learning, practicing my craft,” says the singer-songwriter.
From the archives
Ten years ago, magician and headliner Lance Burton was building a six-bedroom fortress outside Las Vegas complete with parapets. The 15,000-square-foot contemporary castle was set on a 10-acre hilltop.
Twenty years ago, ABC sitcom star Ellen DeGeneres bought a Beverly Hills-area home for about $3 million. The three-bedroom, nearly 5,000-square-foot house was set on a gated three-acre site with a long driveway and a pool.
What we’re reading
Despite the local building boom, more people want to live in Los Angeles than there are homes being built. And because of a recent surge in population, the city has been adding housing, relative to resident growth, at the lowest rate in at least 40 years, state records show.
LoanDepot, a Foothill Ranch mortgage lender, is unveiling new tech tools that allow customers to apply for home loans online or from a smartphone. The new service would bring LoanDepot in line with one of its chief competitors, QuickenLoans, the nation’s largest mortgage originator that is not a bank.
Just stop it. Leave it to Estately.com to find a napping cowboy skeleton in the décor of a $624,900 home for sale in Kingsbury, Texas.
