Hot Property: Former 49er Joe Montana lists 500-acre wine country spread for $49 million

Football great Joe Montana and his wife, Jennifer, have listed their 500-acre estate, with acreage in Sonoma County’s wine country, for $49 million.

[Note, an earlier version of this post referred to the estate as only being in Sonoma County. It has acreage in Sonoma and Napa counties.]

The Calistoga property includes a 9,700-square-foot Tuscan-inspired main house, an equestrian center, two year-round creeks, a pond, a regulation-sized basketball court, a skeet shooting range, a caretaker’s residence, a guesthouse, a swimming pool with a spa, a gym, a bocce court and a producing olive farm.

The main house has a loggia open to the outdoors, a sitting room in an upstairs tower and a climate-controlled wine cellar and tasting room. There are three bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms.

Designed for indoor-outdoor living, the home has an outdoor courtyard with hand-painted frescoes, antique statues and fountains. An outdoor viewing tower has 360-degree views of Mt. Saint Helena and Knights Valley.
 
-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Coldwell Banker Previews International and Pacific Union / Christie’s Great Estates have the listing at www.villamontanaestate.com. Credit: Jim Bartsch

Self-help guru James Arthur Ray lists Beverly Hills house

Motivational speaker and author James Arthur Ray, the subject of the L.A. Times article "Sweat lodge deaths a new test for self-help guru," has put his Beverly Hills home on the market for $5,495,000. From the report last month:

Three people collapsed in a sweat lodge during one of his $9,695-a-person "Spiritual Warrior" retreats outside Sedona, Ariz., and later died. The sheriff considers it a homicide investigation; no one has been charged.

Ray originally bought the 7,234-square-foot contemporary Mediterranean for $4 million in March, according to public records. Purchase details were reported in Hot Property. 

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Hot Property: Reggie Bush lists Hollywood Hills home

 
Reggie Bush, former USC tailback turned New Orleans Saint, has listed his Hollywood Hills home at $5,099,000.

The tri-level contemporary, which has an elevator, sits at the end of a cul-de-sac and has 360-degree views encompassing Long Beach, Catalina Island, Malibu and the mountains. There are four bedrooms and 5 1/2 bathrooms in 4,831 square feet. Glass entry doors open to a soaring living room. Designed for entertaining, the home has a theater, a swimming pool and a spa.

The entire penthouse level is devoted to the master bedroom suite with his and her bathrooms, an over-sized closet and a deck.

Bush, 24, has been with the Saints since 2006 when he left USC before his senior year and was the No. 2 pick in the first round of the NFL draft.

The 2005 Heisman Trophy winner purchased the home for $4.7 million in 2007 for use as his off-season home, according to reports at the time.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Reggie Bush Hollywood Hills home has a swimming pool and a spa.The listing agent is Joshua Altman of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills. Credit: Marc Angeles

Hot Property: Larry Hagman lists his 43-acre Ojai estate at $11 million

 Actor Larry Hagman ("Dallas," "I Dream of Jeannie") and his wife, Maj, have listed their longtime mountaintop home in Ojai for $11 million.

The nine-bedroom, 14 1/2-bathroom Mediterranean-style estate was designed and built for the couple in 1992. Sitting behind iron gates, the 18,000-square-foot main house has an open floor plan with walls of sliding glass doors, painted murals, an indoor grotto-style spa and a retractable roof over a 40-foot saltwater lap pool in the grand room, which has accommodated parties of up to 200 people. Glass walls on three sides provide unobstructed views from the bed in the master suite. There are ocean, Channel Island, mountain and valley vistas.

The compound includes a two-bedroom guesthouse, a separate office, an outside pool connected by streams to two ponds, a private heliport and more than 200 avocado trees.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: The home has ocean, Channel Island, mountain and valley vistas. The listing agents are Natalie Grubb of Village Property Realtors, Montecito office, and Wayne Natale of the firm’s Santa Ynez office. Credit: Courtesy of Village Properties

Hot Property: Tony Curtis' former home for sale in Palm Springs

 

A Palm Springs home originally owned by actor Tony Curtis and his first wife, Janet Leigh, is for sale at $1,295,000.

Built in 1960, the gated, 3,204-square-foot house sits on about one-third of an acre in the Movie Colony neighborhood. The post-and-beam single-story has five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a detached guesthouse.

The property, which has been available for rent in recent years, sold in 2003 for $1.16 million, according to public records.

There are more photos at latimes.com.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: The home in the Movie Colony neighborhood. Credit: Clark Dugger

 

Hot Property: David Hasselhoff's Encino home back on the market

Actor David Hasselhoff (“America’s Got Talent,” "Baywatch," "Knight Rider") has relisted his Encino home at $4,195,000.

He had put the 8,947-square-foot Southern Colonial on the market at $5.95 million in early January, according to the Multiple Listing Service, then withdrew it about a week later. What a difference seven months makes -- about 29.5% in price.

The five-bedroom, five-bathroom home sits on nearly 1.5 acres. The two-story home has a great room with soaring ceilings (three stories plus of open air), a formal dining room, a screening room and an office. There is a tennis court, a swimming pool with spa and two guesthouses.

The property was purchased in 1996, and published reports at the time put the sales price at $1.5 million.

Hasselhoff's 91316 ZIP Code has recorded 101 existing single-family home sales in the first six months of this year at a median price of $490,000, according to MDA DataQuick. That's only a 3.9% price drop from the first half of 2008. 

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Hot Property: Hugh Hefner sells his Holmby Hills residence for $18 million

 

Playboy Enterprises founder Hugh Hefner and his wife Kimberley have sold their personal residence, next door to the Playboy mansion in Holmby Hills, for $18 million. It had been listed since early March at $27,995,000.

The 7,300-square-foot English Manor-style house, built in 1929, has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms. The two-story home sits behind private gates on 2.3 flat acres that back up to the Los Angeles Country Club.
 
The Hefners bought the property in 1996 for an undisclosed sum. It had been listed then at $17.25 million.

Joyce Rey and Stacy Gottula of Coldwell Banker Previews International, Beverly Hills, had the listing. Jeffrey Hyland and Rachel Maslan of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, represented the buyer.

No word yet on who bought.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Rooms include a formal living room, dining room, library, his-and-her powder rooms and a media room with film projector and built-in screen that drops from the ceiling. The master suite overlooks garden and grounds, which include a swimming pool. The home was designed by Arthur R. Kelly for the sister of Arthur Letts Jr., the original owner of the Playboy mansion. Credit: J. Elson

Hot Property: Cher redecorates and relists her Malibu digs at $41 million

Now that the interiors are redone, Cher has put her ocean-view Malibu estate back on the market for $41 million.

The singer-songwriter-actress had listed the home at $45 million in August, but withdrew it in early May while the work was going on, according to her listing agent, Robert Kass of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills.

The Italian Renaissance-inspired house, which Cher built in 1999, has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a theater and a gym in 13,126 square feet. It sits on 1.7 acres of bluff top with a tennis court, an infinity pool and a guesthouse.

The updated look is "light, Zen, bright, beachy and beautiful," Kass said. Unfortunately, we can't see it. The Oscar, Grammy and Emmy winner, who keeps busy a concert schedule in Las Vegas, is not releasing any photographs.

The reason for this relisting has been the subject of media speculation elsewhere. When I saw the withdrawal in May, I thought it might have sold, as sometimes large sales are sometimes withdrawn before closing to divert attention from people like me. But calls then and now tell the same story: It has a fresh face now and a nearly 9% price reduction.

--Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: A 2006 file photo of Cher's Malibu villa. Credit: Sotheby's

Hot Property: 'Gossip Girl' executive producer lands in Hollywood Hills

 

"Gossip Girl" executive producer Bob Levy has purchased a Hollywood Hills-area home for $1,005,000.

The updated 1965 house has two bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms in about 1,620 square feet. The two-story house previously sold for $759,000 in 2004. Asking price was $1,125,000. The listing agent was Crystal Heatherly of Deasy/Penner & Partners, Beverly Hills. Konstantine Valissarakos of Sotheby’s International Realty, Los Feliz, represented the buyer.

The 90068 ZIP Code had 13 single-family home sales in May at a median price of $670,000, down 34.8% from the same month in 2008, according to MDA DataQuick. That worked out to $542 per square foot.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: The listing described the house as a "modern reinterpretation" design by L.A.-based architect Chet Callahan. Credit: Brian Thomas Jones

Neverland: Celebrity shrine or stigmatized property?

Even though Michael Jackson sold Neverland in a $22.5-million deal this year when the property was in foreclosure and his latest residence was a $100,000-a-month rental in Holmby Hills, both properties are strongly associated with the pop icon who died yesterday.

I put together a story about whether the Jackson ties will raise, lower or not affect the value of these homes.

Check it out and tell us what you think.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: A 2003 picture of the Neverland Ranch Railroad Station near Los Olivos. Credit:  Mike Eliason / Santa Barbara News-Press