If there is one thing -- besides a great baseball franchise -- that Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt like, it's a fine home.
They bought one in Holmby Hills for about $25 million when they first came to L.A. from Boston in 2004. Now, they have purchased a Malibu house for close to its $33.5 million asking price. Escrow closed last week.
The sellers were actress Courteney Cox Arquette, of "Friends" fame, and her husband, actor David Arquette, star of the "Scream" series of films. They paid nearly $10.2 million for the home slightly more than six years ago and put it on the market in February.
The architectural trophy home was designed by John Lautner, who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright. Lautner, known for his modernistic designs, died at age 83 in 1994.
The four-bedroom, 5,500-square-foot house -- known as the Segel residence -- has ocean views from almost every room and sits on a double lot with 80 feet of beach frontage, according to the Multiple Listing Service. It has exposed concrete, natural wood, skylights, a curved roof line and a pool.
Among Lautner's best-known works is his Chemosphere House, resembling a UFO hedgehopping the Santa Monica Mountains. Encyclopaedia Britannica called the two-bedroom, 2,200-square-foot house "the most modern home built in the world." It's mounted on a single concrete column near Mulholland Drive.
Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, represented the McCourts in buying the home. Jonah Wilson of Sotheby's International Realty, Sunset, had the listing.
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G'bye, marriage and Hancock Park
It's a long commute to her work in Canada, and they are getting a divorce, anyway. So actress Anne Heche and her estranged husband, cameraman Coleman "Coley" Laffoon, have listed their Hancock Park home at close to $3.8 million.
They acquired the house nearly two years ago, for close to $3.2 million.
Since buying the home, they have done some renovating but not as much as a previous owner, who added a wing, upgraded the heating and air-conditioning systems and installed a screening room.
The architectural integrity of the house was maintained during all of the work, said co-listing agent Barry Sloane of Sotheby's International Realty, Beverly Hills. The Country English-style residence, built in 1928, was designed by architect Paul Williams. It is described in marketing materials as "a charming example of Williams' early English historic revival work."
