Malibu Beach House

Creature comforts and creature sightings are the hallmarks of a sophisticated modern home that sits atop a bluff a stone's throw from the sea along a quiet stretch of the Malibu coast. The one-story home was designed by Santa Barbara architect Barry Berkus as the showcase property for MariSol Malibu, an 80-acre, 17-lot development just past the Ventura County line on land that was once part of Rancho Malibu. Pelicans, dolphins and the occasional gray whale are visible in the vast expanse of ocean that lies just beyond Pacific Coast Highway while deer, bobcats and the rare mountain lion wander down from the hills above.

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne have listed their oceanfront Malibu beach house for sale at $10 million, according to the Multiple Listing Service. The three-story midcentury home, entered through a walled garden, has five bedrooms and five bathrooms in its 4,500 square feet of living space. The main level includes a living room with fireplace, a dining room, a kitchen and a powder room. The master suite and a wood-paneled library occupy the second floor. The top level has two ocean-facing bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office and a roof deck.

A gated Mediterranean owned by actor Pierce Brosnan has come on the market in Malibu at $3.9 million. Designed as an artist's retreat, the two-story beach house includes a separate space that can be used as an office or media room. The living room has soaring wood-beam ceilings, walls of glass, a fireplace, plank oak flooring, built-in cabinetry and two balconies with ocean and mountain views. Skylights and picture windows bring light into the kitchen. The master suite includes a sitting area, balconies and a bathroom fireplace.

Moving to contain a public relations mess, Wells Fargo & Co. fired a top executive accused of using a bank-owned Malibu beach house to entertain her family and friends. Cheronda Guyton, a senior vice president responsible for commercial foreclosed properties, broke company rules barring personal use of bank property, Wells Fargo said in a statement Monday. The Times reported last week that Guyton had been spotted by neighbors spending time at the Malibu Colony home with her family this summer.

Just how much does it cost to be Britney Spears? A little less than $1 million a month, according to an accounting filed in L.A. Superior Court. Lawyers for Spears' father, who has permanent control of her personal affairs, submitted the document Friday to the judge supervising the conservatorship. The filing explains down to the penny how Jamie Spears and an attorney who helps him oversee her business interests spent more than $10 million on the singer's behalf over the course of 11 months last year.

WE'RE ON OUR porch, the baby and I, planning our escape. We've had it with cooking shows and family time. Last night, an argument over sleepovers woke bald eagles in tall trees 100 miles up the coast. When no one's looking, the baby and I plan on just walking away. "You go first," I tell him. "Me?" he says. "I'll be right behind you," I say. He is 2 now. When I comb his hair, pixie dust falls to the ground around his feet. His life so far is pretty much a fairy tale. Much like mine.

It looks like "Risky Business" minus Tom Cruise. A Malibu couple has left for the summer and, in their absence, their estate has been overrun by a slew of teen-agers and twentysomethings. They've painted the white house a multicolor melange of purple, orange, red and turquoise and turned the tennis court into a parquet floor, complete with movable basketball hoops. The once barren back yard now has an above-ground swimming pool and a sand volleyball court.

MEL GIBSON, who will play murdered CBS correspondent George Polk in an upcoming film based on Kati Marton's book "The Polk Conspiracy," has purchased a rustic, Malibu beach house for close to its asking price of about $2.5 million. Gibson--who co-stars in "Lethal Weapon 3," which is filming in Lancaster--starred in "Hamlet," "Bird on a Wire" and "Mad Max." The Australian native also narrated the 1991 TV special "Australia: Continent of Dreams."

Belabored best describes the humor of "The Supporting Cast" by George Furth, and the current production at Westminster Community Theatre plays right into all of its manufactured laughs. The forced feel of this play starts with the premise: A writer summons four friends to her Malibu beach house to read her new novel, which features all of them as thinly disguised characters. When they discover that she has revealed confidences and described them in less than flattering terms, they feel betrayed.