Pickfair Getting New Celebrity Owners

Pickfair, the honeymoon home of film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr., is being sold, and the buyers are . . . celebrity Pia Zadora and her multimillionaire husband Meshulam Riklis.

Jerry Buss, who bought the Beverly Hills home in a 1980 probate hearing for $5.4 million, is selling the 3.1-acre property for just under $7 million. Escrow is due to close in March.

Buss--owner of the L. A. Lakers, the Kings and the Forum--restored the 42-room house, which was Pickford’s residence from the time she married Fairbanks in 1920 until she died there in 1979.

Fairbanks took title to the house, built in 1911 as a weekend hunting lodge, in 1919 for $35,000, including 14 surrounding acres, but the pair divorced in 1936.

The new owners plan further renovations at a cost of about $2 million, doing what Bruce Nelson of Asher Dann & Associates, who is representing the buyers, termed “some extraordinary things.”

“Many people are tearing down these old properties, but this has such history and tradition,” Nelson noted. Pickford and Fairbanks, then Pickford and her next husband--actor Buddy Rogers, entertained royalty and royally in the famous home, redesigned for Pickford and Fairbanks by the late architect to the stars, Wallace Neff.

Buss listed the house in 1986 for $11.5 million, saying the home was bigger than his needs. Its size, as well as its past, appealed to the young actress/singer and her tycoon husband.

Zadora and her husband, who now live in Trousdale Estates, have two children: Cady, 3, and Christopher, 1. “Pickfair is a paradise for children with its great privacy and room for youngsters to run and grow,” Nelson observed. And although there will be swings and a lot of toys in the backyard, Zadora’s manager, Tino Barzie, emphasized that “there won’t be any big parties that will cause the neighbors to complain.”

Marge Oswald of Rodeo Realty is representing Buss.

The 114-acre Mandeville Canyon ranch owned by actor Robert Taylor from 1958 until his death in 1969 (his wife owned it until 1972), has just been listed with Kathy Villa, also with Asher Dann & Associates, for $35 million.

Financier Ken Roberts, who sold Pasadena pop-music radio station KROQ-FM in 1986 for $45 million, is the seller of the ranch, which he has owned since 1975.

Roberts just completed renovating all the ranch buildings. Among them: office and guest compounds, stables and a 12,000-square-foot house.

It’s one of the biggest real estate auctions, if not the biggest ever--one where shopping centers, development communities, beach properties, hotels, medical centers and just plain land will be up for bid with a total value of almost $1 billion!

Orlando, Fla.-based Real Estate One Commercial (605 E. Robinson St., Suite 300) will hold the auction Feb. 11-12 at the Palace Hotel in Walt Disney World.

Remember the Beverly Hills apartments built for the late cowboy star Tom Mix?

The seven-unit building, across the street from Roxbury Park, was put on the market last October and has been sold for the full asking price of $1.7 million, says Bernice Gibbons of Gibbons Real Estate, who had the listing.

The buyers, husband-and-wife investors from back East, were represented by Anne Russell with Fred Sands’ Sunset Strip office and Doug Sharp of D. M. Sharp Co., Laguna Niguel.

The Brentwood Park home referred to by “Haywire” author Brooke Hayward as the house she “grew up in” is for sale at $2.65 million through Patty Mortensen in Jon Douglas Co.’s Brentwood office.

Hayward’s famous parents were actress Margaret Sullavan and agent-producer Leland Hayward (both now deceased), and “Haywire” is about the author’s life as a show-biz child growing up in Brentwood Park.

The gated, two-story traditional-looking house was built for Hayward’s parents, and it was later owned by actor Fred MacMurray.