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Merv Griffin's announcement last week that his wholly owned investment company has agreed to purchase the Beverly Hilton is evidence that the real estate market-in at least some upscale places-apparently isn't suffering from the stock-market crash.
Another sign: "I just closed a big one," Bruce Nelson of Asher Dann & Associates in Beverly Hills said. He represented some Japanese buyers who paid $7 million in cash for one Beverly Hills home, then paid $5 million more for the house next door. And Nelson was involved in the sale of the $7-million house just a year ago, when it went for $5 million.
"So they paid $12 million for a tear down," Nelson said of his Japanese buyers, who plan to build what he termed "a major estate." The two-parcel, six-acre site on Strada Vecchia is across the street from the famous Kirkeby (TV's "Beverly Hillbillies") Estate, owned since last February by Hollywood entrepreneur Jerry Perenchio.
The Japanese actually plan to only tear down one of the houses, using the $5-million one for guests and part of the parcel as an entry to the new estate. The $5-million property was once owned by the late actress/singer Jeanette MacDonald, and it was later called home by the '60s folk/pop singers, the Mamas and the Papas.
Nelson also just represented the buyers of a house on Elm Drive that he believes is the highest price ever paid for a home in an area known as the Beverly Hills flats: $5.6 million. It was for a new house with three stories and an elevator in 18,000 square feet. The property also has a...