The 3,184-square-foot house in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills where the late photographer Wallace Seawell lived for decades — alongside, for a time, actress Carol Channing and her husband — is on the market for $2,069,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on the listing of the longtime home of Seawell, who died in 2007 at the age of 90. The house has been on the market since mid-2008 (and is billed as a “celebrity owned home”), but we’ve never gotten around to writing about it until now. As we have been trying over the last few weeks to clean up a lot of overlooked items (both those that others have written about and those that others have *not* written about yet), we thought the time was appropriate to take a look at Seawell’s longtime home, which he owned and which he inhabited along with — for a time — Channing and her husband.

Built in 1953, the three-bedroom house, which is at 9301 Flicker Way in the Bird Streets area of the Hollywood Hills, has two baths, according to public records and listing information. The house also has a pool and sits on a 0.2-acre (8,777-square-foot) lot, according to public records.

Check out a cached version of the listing sheet for the Seawell house – complete with photos.

Flicker Way is a popular street for celebs (as is the entire Bird Streets area). As we noted back in October, Tori Spelling owned the house at 9366 Flicker Way from 1999 until 2002. And actress Joanne Whalley also lives down the street, in a 3,482-square-foot house that she purchased in 1996 for $750,000, according to public records.

Basketballer Shaquille O’Neal’s 19,440-square-foot mansion in Star Island in Miami is back on the market for $25,000,000 after having been off the market recently while a deal had appeared imminent.

The South Beach Real Estate Blog reported this past week that the mansion has come back on the market for $25,000,000 after having apparently gone to contract back in November for $19,000,000 when it was on the market for a higher, $29,000,000 price tag. The South Beach Real Estate Blog’s post last week was picked up by lots of media outlets, including the Huffington Post.

We had written back in early 2007 about the Phoenix Suns center’s listing of the mansion, back when it came on the market for its original $35,000,000 asking price. O’Neal (shown here with wife Shaunie) purchased the house in 2004 from South American soda magnate Juan Carlos Correa for $18,800,000, according to public records, with the 7-foot-1-inch Shaq reportedly paying another $1 million for the house’s furniture.

The South Beach Real Estate Blog noted that baseball star Alex Rodriguez in November 2007 backed out of a deal to buy the house for an undisclosed amount.

Built in 1992, Shaq’s eight-bedroom waterfront mansion has nine baths, an eight-foot arched doorway (we’re going to pass on a witty but totally too easy line here about comparing the doorway’s height with Shaq’s height), soaring volume ceilings, large open living areas, a gym, an indoor racquetball court, a steam room, a tennis court and a swim-up bar, according to listing information. Other features on the 2.45-acre property include 300 feet of water frontage on Biscayne Bay and a separate two-bedroom guest apartment, according to public records and listing information.

Check out a cached version of an online listing sheet for Shaq’s mansion – complete with photos.

Someone big — and important — paid $38,000,000 recently for an 11,407-square-foot, Mediterranean-style mansion in Los Angeles’ Bel-Air area.

But who? (and who was the seller, as well?)

The Wall Street Journal on Friday was the first to report on this transaction. The Journal correctly noted that the mansion, which is at 671 Siena Way in Bel-Air, once belonged to the family of Herbert Kalmus, “whose Technicolor Motion Picture Corp. provided the hues on many classic movies.” The paper also mentioned that 64-year-old Verna Harrah, the widow of hotel and casino magnate Bill Harrah and a film producer in her own right, also later owned the home, which had not been on the market.

But the Journal completely whiffed on who the buyer was — and for that matter, on the identity of the seller as well. (The paper noted only that the seller was the “Malibu Colony Trust” and the buyer was something called “Gacac LLC,” but it didn’t bother telling us who the people are behind these entities.) We find the Journal’s hand-waving particularly puzzling, given how very few residential properties in America ever change hands for more than $35 million. When one does, it invariably involves someone noteworthy. So, let’s try to get to the bottom of this, shall we?

And, let’s start with the seller. Records show that the seller actually was named the Malibu Colony Beach Trust (and not what the Journal wrote), a trust that has been very active over the years buying and selling expensive Los Angeles County properties. It wouldn’t have been hard for the Journal to figure out that the Nevada-based Malibu Colony Beach Trust (which has been described in a past “Hot Property” column in the Los Angeles Times as a “Nevada businessman”) has made the following purchases and sales over the years of very high-profile and newsworthy, former celebrity-owned properties:

–In February 1997, the Malibu Colony Beach Trust paid an undisclosed amount to buy a 6,696-square-foot oceanfront house on Malibu Road in Malibu, Calif.

–In September 2000, the Malibu Colony Beach Trust sold that Malibu Road house to Netscape founder Marc Andreesen for $17,000,000, according to public records and an October 2000 “Hot Property” column in the Los Angeles Times

–Also in September 2000, the Malibu Colony Beach Trust paid $9,900,000 to purchase the house at 27560 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu from movie and TV mogul Barry Diller, according to public records and that same October 2000 Los Angeles Times column

–In January 2005, the Malibu Colony Beach Trust sold the former Diller home at 27560 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu to two philanthropists for $21,000,000, according to public records.

–In February 2005, the Malibu Colony Beach Trust paid an undisclosed amount — reported (http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/13/realestate/re-hotprop13 ) to be in the $15 million to $17 million range — to purchase author Sidney Sheldon’s 18,806-square-foot home at 10250 W. Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles’ Holmby Hills area, which had been on the market since the previous year for $23,000,000. The Malibu Colony Beach Trust then quickly turned around and sold the former Sheldon mansion in July 2005 for $16,000,000, according to public records.

–And then in August 2005, the Malibu Colony Beach Trust paid $14,951,000 to purchase the mansion (that we’re discussing today) at 671 Siena Way in Bel-Air from Verna Harrah, according to public records. The trust then — in the current transaction that we’re discussing — sold the mansion at 671 Siena Way for $38,000,000 on September 20, with the deed being recorded on October 1, according to public records. The sale amount only recently became available in public records.

So who is the person behind the Malibu Colony Beach Trust? We can’t say definitively, but it sure looks to us like it’s Henry Carlson “Carl” Parmer, Jr., a former radio and TV station entrepreneur. It might also be a Las Vegas developer and real estate agent named Madison B. Graves II (and no, we hadn’t heard of him, either), but we’d lay our money on Parmer — he’s got the money for it (having negotiated the sales of two companies he founded to much larger broadcasting entities over the years), and we have pretty good evidence that 1) he was living in the Siena mansion in 2006; and 2) one property record from long ago actually shows him to clearly identified as the person behind the Malibu Colony Beach Trust. We’re open to other interpretations (and we’re sure that there will be some by our respected peers and competitors, once this post is published).

More tantalizing to us (and hopefully to you, as well), however, is the identity of the buyer of 671 Siena Way. Who — in this climate, no less — would cough up a whopping $38,000,000 for a mansion in Bel-Air? As we note above, the recent buyer is a limited-liability corporation called Gacac, LLC. Records show that Gacac, LLC also has purchased a smattering of other Los Angeles-area properties in recent years, including a 10,580-square-foot house at 1720 Green Acres Drive (a fairly celebrity-intensive street) in Beverly Hills, which it purchased in 2007 for $11,500,000, according to public records. In addition, Gacac, LLC’s post-office box in Beverly Hills is the same as a post-office box belonging to a company called SGH Investments, LLC.

So who is behind Gacac, LLC? State incorporation records show that a woman named Mary Ann Sigler — who is the chief financial officer of private equity Platinum Equity Group — formed the company, and they also show a Los Angeles attorney named Robert W. Shaffer as being part of Gacac, LLC. Could Sigler have been the buyer? It’s possible, but we wouldn’t say it’s probable. Read on for our thought process on who we think it is:

–Interestingly enough, Marc Andreesen himself could have been the buyer (although we highly doubt it). He certainly has the money for it, and the LLC company of his that continues to own that oceanfront Malibu property to this day is named Malibu CAC LLC. That LLC name s not *that* different of a name from “Gacac LLC.”

–However, we think it’s far, far more likely that the buyer behind Gacac, LLC is Platinum’s founder, chairman and CEO Tom Gores. Too many things fit on this one. Gores currently lives in a 10,479-square-foot mansion in the Mulholland Estates area of the Beverly Hills Post Office that he has been in for a long, long time by Los Angeles standards (since buying it in mid-1999 for $4,595,000, according to public records), since he was just 34 or 35. Isn’t it time for a trade-up to a more exclusive neighborhood? In addition, given Gores’ private equity background, he clearly is a man who likes big deals. Plus, the first letter of Gores’ last name matches the first letter of Gacac, LLC. And, records show that Gacac, LLC paid cash for the house — something that few chief financial officers that we have ever known (and we have known a lot of CFOs over the years) would have the ability to do; that tips the scales for us that Gores was the buyer, rather than one of his employees.

(Some of you may remember Gores’ name from our ill-fated March 2008 item that wondered if Gores had rented out his guest house up there in Mulholland Estates to Lindsay Lohan. Although that item ended up being untrue, Gores and his partners — when not doing leveraged buyouts — produced the 2007 Lohan stinker “I Know Who Killed Me,” with Sigler earning a “thanks” in that film’s movie credits as well.)

We almost forgot to mention features in the six-bedroom mansion at 671 Siena Way. They include 10 baths, a ballroom-theater and a pool, all on a 1.51-acre lot, according to public records and previous news accounts. Records show that Harrah had purchased it in 2000 for $8,500,000, according to public records and the Los Angeles Times’ Ruth Ryon’s October 2000 report. The Siena Way property is just across the street (and down a smidgen) from a 5,437-square-foot house on a little less than an acre (0.88-acre, or 38,328-square-foot) lot at 630 Siena Way that hairdresser/producer Jon Peters sold to a philanthropist in January 2008 (deal recorded in March 2008) for $8,200,000, according to public records.

Author Anne Rice has sold a four-bedroom house that she owned in Kenner, La. for $2,265,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on Rice’s sale of the house at 6 Oakland Road in Kenner, which is a large New Orleans suburb. We previously had written on December 19 about Rice’s other properties around the U.S., so please check out that post for more details about Rice’s divestitures of her houses in New Orleans proper, and also about the houses she now owns in southern California.

However, until recently, Rice also had owned a house in Kenner, La. Records show that Rice sold the house at 6 Oakland Road on August 21, with the deed being recorded on August 26. The buyer is not a celebrity. The house had been listed for $2,900,000. Details about the house are a little scarce (there’s not a ton of information in the listing information we were able to find), but we do know that the house has five full baths, two half baths, a grand salon, a study, a music room, an upstairs “gathering room” or den, and a home theater with “sophisticated equipment,” according to listing information.

Rice appears to have purchased this house in late 2004 or sometime in 2005.

Check out an online listing sheet for the house that Rice sold in August — without photos, we’re sorry to say.

Rice also has been shown over the years to have resided (for the purpose of campaign contributions, etc.) at another address in Kenner, a few blocks west of the house that she recently sold. However, our cursory read of public records indicates that that house has been owned by someone else for many years. Perhaps that’s the address of a manager of Rice’s (although that doesn’t appear to be the case), or maybe she rented the house for a time. However, nothing — at this writing, at least — indicates to us that Rice ever actually owned that other house, which is on Monte Carlo Drive in Kenner.

Public records have cleared on the purchase price for ex-model Heather Mills’ newly purchased, two-bedroom condominium unit in Manhattan’s West Village, and they reveal that the precise amount that Mills paid for the unit was $4,900,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on the exact amount that Mills — the ex-wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney — paid for the four-room unit in the glass-enclosed, Richard Meier-designed towers at 173 Perry Street in the West Village.

First, we have to give props to our friend and the New York Post’s fine celebrity real estate columnist Braden Keil, who broke the story of Mills going to contract to buy the unit, back on June 14. Keil then advanced the story further on July 31 by breaking the news of her closing on the unit for an amount that he said was “just under the $5 million asking price.” (The unit originally had been listed for $4,200,000, later was increased to $4,500,000 and then was jacked up again in late 2007 to its final listing price of $5,000,000.)

Indeed, public records show that Mills’ Equilibrium Bare Trust went to contract to buy the unit on April 1, with the deal closing on July 24. The deal wasn’t recorded with city officials, however, until August 5, so it was not until after that that the purchase price became known. (As we have noted previously, we’re taking time over the holidays to catch up on items that we should have gotten to during 2008.)

Mills purchased the ninth-floor unit (in the complex’s north tower) from Joseph Castaldo, who heads the textile and service design studio The Style Council. The unit measures 1,853 square feet, according to public records, or 1,808 square feet, according to listing information.

Features in Mills’ new unit — which covers an entire floor — include two baths, a 40-foot living room/dining area, an open kitchen, floor-to-ceiling windows with temperature-controlled shades, a built-in entertainment area, two balconies and a private elevator landing, Keil reported.

Check out an online listing sheet for Mills’ new unit.

The towers at 173 Perry have gotten a lot of coverage recently, including from us. Earlier this week, we finally got around to writing about actor Hugh Jackman’s purchase of his massive triplex spread in the complex. In fact, Jackman’s new spread is in the south tower of the complex at 173 Perry Street and is directly opposite Mills’ new unit.

Husband-and-wife actor-directors Vondie Curtis-Hall and Kasi Lemmons have significantly reduced the asking price of their 3,188-square-foot house in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills this past year, from $3,595,000 to its current $2,669,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on the celebrity couple’s massive price-cutting of their abode, which sits atop a private promontory in the Hills. Curtis-Hall is probably known most for his time acting on TV’s “Chicago Hope,” while Lemmons probably is known best for having directed the 2007 Don Cheadle movie “Talk to Me.”

Our friends over at the Real Estalker first wrote about the Lemmons-Curtis-Hall listing back in early 2007. Since that time, the house was pulled from the market and then came back on it again last year, this time at a much lower asking price of $2,669,000. (We have never written about the house before; we’re taking advantage of the price chop, which happened a while back, to do so.)

Built in 1965, the house sits on a 1.26-acre, oddly shaped lot at the end of their gated street, according to public records. Features in the one-story Spanish-style house include three bedrooms and three baths, according to listing information. Outdoor features include a guest house, a pool (the master suite opens to the pool), views of the city, ocean and valley, a flat, grassy yard, a meditation deck, and a pine forest, according to listing information.

The couple paid $675,000 to purchase the property in April 1998, according to public records.

No word yet on where the couple might be off to. When we find out, we’ll of course share that here.

Comedian and “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane has paid $13,500,000 to purchase a 5,152-square-foot mansion above Beverly Hills, Calif. that had not been on the market.

As we continue our clean-up of leftover 2008 items that we never wrote about but should have written about, we wanted to weigh in on MacFarlane’s new digs in the Beverly Hills Post Office before 2009 gets much underway. We know this is an old(er) item, but hey — it’s the holidays and it’s a lousy real estate market, and there’s not a huge amount of activity out there!

On top of all of that, MacFarlane’s new pad actually is a house that we’ve written about before — as part of our popular “Which celebrity’s house is this?” feature, back in early July (yes, we know the date on the post that we link to above now reads August 28, but that’s the result of our fall hacking attack that wiped out all of our archived posts; we had to restore them all by hand, and our programmers didn’t get all of the dates of our archived posts quite right). In early July, we did not know who the recent buyer of this house was, but we did know that the house was purchased through a whimsically named trust (celebrity purchase tip-off #1), with an alcohol theme to it. We also knew that the money manager whose name is on the deed is a woman who has represented all kinds of celebrities in their real estate purchases over the years (celebrity purchase tip-off #2), including Drew Barrymore and Nicollette Sheridan.

But, at that time we still didn’t know who the buyer was. So, we put the purchase out there to the world, to see what anyone knew. And we waited. Eventually, our respected peers answered the call — and did they ever. First off, our friends over at the Real Estalker broke the news on July 7 that MacFarlane was the buyer, although Your Mama at the Real Estalker did not conjure up a purchase price as “she” so often does. Three days later, the Los Angeles Times’ Ann Brenoff came to the rescue further, reporting that Seth had paid $13.5 million for the house. We still couldn’t independently confirm that purchase amount until some weeks back, when it finally cleared public records that $13,500,000 was indeed Seth’s purchase price.

Built in 1981, the three-bedroom house, which had not been on the market, sold to MacFarlane on May 30 (deed recorded on June 12). The seller was not a celebrity. Features in the house are scarce (since it had not been publicly listed), but they include five baths (according to public records) or three and a half baths (according to Brenoff). The house sits on a 0.88-acre parcel and has a tennis court and a pool, according to public records.

Also, the house is on the same street as the longtime home of actress Lisa Kudrow.

Basketball star Kwame Brown — who plays center for the Detroit Pistons and who played for the Los Angeles Lakers from 2005 until early 2008 — has placed his four-bedroom house in Playa del Rey, Calif. on the market for $2,999,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on Brown’s listing of the 6,329-square-foot house in Playa del Rey, which came on the market on November 28. The asking price is noteworthy, since Brown paid $3,375,000 for the house on August 25, 2005 (deal recorded on August 30, 2005), according to public records.

Built in 1989, the house has four and a half baths, high ceilings, wood floors, French doors, a camera security system, flat-screen TVs, custom stone floors and a large master suite with a fireplace, a sitting room with built-in cabinets and desk areas with ocean views, according to public records and listing information. Other features in the house include a gourmet kitchen with a breakfast bar that seats eight to 10 people and that opens into the dining room and living room, an office, a den, a fireplace in the living room, and a large master bath with a shower, two walk-in closets and a spa, according to listing information.

Brown’s house sits on a minuscule, 0.13-acre (5,558-square-foot) lot, according to public records.

This appears to be the only house that Brown currently owns. He sold a house in Jacksonville, Fla. for $440,000 in July 2007, according to public records.

Public records have cleared on the purchase price that actor Sylvester Stallone paid for two lots — one of them containing a 1946 house on it — in Thousand Oaks, CA, and they reveal that the “Rocky” and “Rambo” actor forked over a total of $6,350,000 for the two properties, which together originally had been listed for almost $7,200,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on the final amount that Sly paid for his newly acquired, 1.43-acre spread on Lake Sherwood in Thousand Oaks.

Back on July 23, we wrote about reports of Stallone having purchased the two properties on Lake Sherwood in Thousand Oaks. Two days earlier, the Los Angeles Times’ Ann Brenoff had exclusively reported that Stallone had purchased a lakefront property in Thousand Oaks with 500 feet of lake frontage that had been listed for $5.5 million and an adjacent lot (with another 150 feet of lake frontage) that had been on the market for $1.7 million. At the time, we scrubbed Thousand Oaks listings and determined that Brenoff had been referring to a house and 1.14-acre parcel on Lake Sherwood Drive that had been listed for $5,499,000 (with the house measuring either 1,987 square feet, according to public records, or 3,600 square feet, according to listing information), along with another parcel that we couldn’t find. However, the purchases hadn’t yet cleared public records, so we couldn’t independently verify that Stallone had made the purchases (although we had no reason to doubt that).

Now, however, we can be the first to provide details on Sly’s purchase amounts. Records show that Stallone’s Raven Trust paid $4,850,000 for the house and 1.14-acre parcel on Lake Sherwood Drive in Thousand Oaks on June 3, with the deal being recorded on July 15. And, records show that same trust paying another $1,500,000 for a 0.28-acre (12,100-square-foot) parcel on David Lane in Thousand Oaks on May 28, with that deed being recorded on July 1.

Check out our July 23 post for information on the other properties that Stallone has owned over the years.

Actor and upcoming Academy Awards host Hugh Jackman has paid a whopping $21,000,000 to purchase an 11,032-square-foot triplex loft condo unit in Manhattan’s West Village.

As we fast approach the end of the year, we’d like to tie up a few loose ends in the form of items that surfaced elsewhere in the last few months that we never got around to writing about but would like to still weigh in on before 2009 begins. The Jackman megapurchase is a good place to begin. Back in October, all of the New York real estate gossips were abuzz and atwitter over the fact that the 12-room triplex unit in the Richard Meier-designed building at 176 Perry Street in the West Village had gone to contract by an as-yet unknown buyer after being on the market for a $33 million. Then, the New York Observer’s Max Abelson broke the story on October 21 that Jackman apparently was the buyer, and that he’d be paying “somewhere above $25 million” to purchase the five-bedroom unit from its owner, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy.

We were interested in writing about the transaction at that time; however, as our regular readers know, we generally don’t like writing about reported buyers, and we far prefer to get our hands on public records to see what they reveal. Then, on November 12, Abelson reported that Jackman had closed on the unit for between “$20 and $23 million” — a range that still lacked the level of specificity that we’ve come to require of our own work here at Big Time Listings. The next day, the New York Post’s fine celebrity real estate columnist Braden Keil did one better, reporting that the triplex had closed for $21 million.

But still, the sale stayed out of public records. So we waited. And waited. Sure enough, the deal finally came through public records, and a deed recorded on November 25 showed that indeed, Jackman’s Maximilian Eliot Trust paid $21,000,000 to buy the massive unit (known as 10S, or also, as PIN # 637-1309, although it’s actually on the eighth, ninth and 10th floors of the building) from Joy’s Palo Alto, Calif.-based NJ Partners 15, LLC. Jackman had gone to contract to purchase the unit all the way back on September 11, with the sale closing on November 12.

Features in the triplex include five full baths; two half baths; three 51-foot-wide rooms: a double-height living room (on the ninth floor), a rec room (on the eighth floor) and a master bedroom (on the 10th floor); a 54.5-foot-long “dining room/gallery” on the ninth floor; a library (doubles as one of the five bedrooms and is on the eighth floor); a music room (also doubles as one of the five bedrooms and also is on the eighth floor); a pantry; a professional gourmet kitchen (on the ninth floor); a wet bar; an upstairs exercise room around the corner from a sauna and the master bedrom (on the 10th floor); a terrace off each floor; and a spiral staircase connecting all floors, according to listing information and the Observer.

Records don’t show what Joy paid for the unit in 2002, although Abelson reported that Joy had paid $17.57 million for it. Joy first had it on the market some months back for $40 million.

Hugh is moving into a building with quite the celebrity pedigree. Among its other owners, past and present:

–Hotelier and real estate developer Ian Schrager (currently owns a 3,785-square-foot unit on the third floor)
–Calvin Klein (currently owns the 9,856-square-foot penthouse)
–Actress Antonia Hawley (better known as Nicole Kidman’s sister) currently owns a 3,785-square-foot unit on the 12th floor that she purchasd from her Oscar-winning sister back in 2003 for an undisclosed amount (thanks to our friends over at the Real Estalker for noting this Hawley-Kidman connection first, back in February 2007)

Check out an online listing for Jackman’s new unit – complete with photos.