Celebrity Real Estate 01/13
LandonEx
By Ruth Ryon, Times Staff Writer
Tennis champ PETE SAMPRAS has purchased a Beverly Hills home in the mid-$8
million range, according to real estate sources not involved in the deal.
The house wasn't on the market, but Sampras was said to have been drawn to it
by its quiet tennis court.
The five-bedroom, 8,000-square-foot-plus house, on slightly more than an acre
with a swimming pool, was described as being in need of refurbishing. The
house, with seven bathrooms, was built in the 1930s.
Sampras owns a smaller but newer home with a tennis court on 1.5 acres in
Benedict Canyon, where he and his wife, actress Bridgette Wilson, were married
in fall 2000. Sampras, 30, bought that property in 1998.
Sampras has been called the greatest tennis player of the 1990s. He has won a
record 13 Grand Slams, but, last year, he had his worst season in a decade,
finishing at No. 10, his lowest ranking since 1989. He was one of the top
three players in the world for nine straight years before 2001.
Last year was also the first since 1992 that he didn't win at least one major
championship, but he had a strong run at the U.S. Open when he became the first
player to beat three former champions consecutively at the tournament.
He recently changed coaches and now plans to play in the Davis Cup. He also
signed up as an investor and spokesman for the Tennis Channel.
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"Wheel of Fortune" hostess VANNA WHITE has purchased a home in the Beverly
Hills area for close to its $4.8 million asking price.
Built in 1992, the three-story villa, in a gated community, has two guest
suites, three bedrooms and a master suite. The home, on 1.3 acres, also has
five fireplaces, large verandas and a pool.
White, 44, separated from her husband, restaurateur George Santa Pietro, in
November. They were married December 31, 1990.
White has been a hostess and letter-turner on "Wheel of Fortune" since 1982,
when Merv Griffin chose her from more than 200 other hopefuls for the job.
Last March she signed another contract to extend her run on the show through
2006. She also appears on the Home Shopping Network.
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Actor LEE MAJORS has sold his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, penthouse for $1
million and moved into his new Las Vegas, Nevada, condo with his fiancee, model
Faith Noelle.
Majors had been living in Fort Lauderdale since 1991. He moved back to the
West to be closer to his work, sources have said. His mother, who lived in
Boca Raton, Florida, died last year.
The Las Vegas condo is in a high-rise Turnberry Place development. The asking
price for a unit comparable to Majors' is $650,000.
One of the biggest two-bedroom homes in the project, the 2,200-square-foot unit
has a spa and a private wrap-around glass balcony with a view of the Las Vegas
Strip. Each condo in the project has a private elevator entry.
Majors' unit is one of 185 in the first of four 40-story towers to be built.
The two- to four-bedroom condos range from $500,000 to more than $5.25 million.
Majors, best known for his starring roles in the ABC series "The Six Million
Dollar Man" (1973-78) and "The Fall Guy" (1981-85), appears in the recently
released movie "Out Cold," a comedy for Spyglass/Disney studios, and in the
upcoming "Big Fat Liar" for Universal Films. "Big Fat Liar" is due out
February 8.
No date has been set yet for a wedding to Noelle, 27. She has been Majors'
companion for about seven years. Majors was previously married to actress
Farrah Fawcett in the late 1970s.
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A member of the Walton family, heirs of the late SAM WALTON (founder of
Wal-Mart), has purchased a property adjacent to a Bel-Air home she bought in
October for $20 million.
The property has a house on it that was described as "basically a teardown."
The buyer was known to want the 1.7-acre site, which she purchased for $6
million, as a buffer to give her more privacy.
The home she bought in October had belonged to Freddy DeMann, Madonna's former
manager and co-founding partner of Maverick Records, and his wife, Candy.
The Art Deco-style home has five bedrooms, including a 2,000-square-foot master
suite, in over 20,000 square feet. The house, with a pool and a tennis court,
is on three acres with city-to-ocean views.
Michael Collins of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills East, represented the Walton
heir in buying, sources said, and Joe Babajian and Kyle Grasso of Prudential
Estate Properties, Beverly Hills, represented the seller of the adjacent
property.
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BRIAN K. ROBERTS, a prolific TV director and editor who also co-wrote the book
"L.A. Shortcuts: A Guidebook for Drivers Who Hate to Wait," has listed his
Hollywood Hills home at $839,000.
Roberts bought the house when he was single. Now married with three children,
he and his wife, Danielle, have decided to move to a larger home in Burbank.
The mid-century modern-style home in the Hollywood Hills has three bedrooms in
slightly more than 1,500 square feet. The remodeled home has an updated
kitchen, expansive walls of glass and a free-form pool with spa. The property
has canyon and mountain views.
Roberts has directed episodes of the TV shows "Everybody Loves Raymond," "The
Drew Carey Show" and "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch." He was an editor on "The
Best of the Tracey Ullman Show" (1990) and for an episode of "The Simpsons."
Gary Bergevin and Tess Nelson of Prudential John Aaroe & Associates, Los Feliz,
have the listing.
* * * * * * * *
DAVID BARENHOLTZ, owner of Apex Fine Art (a Los Angeles gallery specializing in
20th century American photojournalism), and his partner, Randy Arnold, vice
president of advertising and direct marketing for Universal Studios Home Video,
have sold the Nichols Canyon home they bought last year from actress Milla
Jovovich.
Jovovich sold the home to them for $730,000.
It sold this time for slightly more than $1 million after an extensive
refurbishing by Barenholtz and Arnold.
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Los Angeles Times
Sunday, January 13, 2002
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