Dodger Manager Leases in Downtown

Tommy Lasorda has joined yuppies and others living in downtown L. A. The Dodger manager and his wife, Jo, leased an apartment at the Promenade Towers.

In a prepared statement, he said:

“I’ve been making the 25-mile freeway commute from Fullerton for years, always uncertain of exactly when I’d arrive at the stadium. Living at the Promenade Towers solves that problem.”

The Lasordas will use the apartment primarily during the baseball season and retain their Fullerton home, where they’ve lived for 27 years.

Their apartment is one of about 120 units in the 489-unit complex developed by Goldrich & Kest and Shapell Industries that features two master suites and two entrances. (The smallest units are studios that start at $525 a month.) The units with two master suites were designed to encourage apartment sharing, which the Lasordas plan to do with their son, Tommy.

Their unit, one of 42 penthouses that rent for $1,450 to $1,875 a month, is also near the project’s helipad, which could make Lasorda’s commute from Fullerton even easier.

The commute from his Dodger Stadium dugout to his downtown home base is a bit longer than a home run, by the way. It’s a healthy three-mile walk.

First, the Grand Dame of Hollywood (the Roosevelt). Now a Crown Jewel of Palm Springs: the nation’s first Maxim’s De Paris Suite Hotel under the banner of renowned designer Pierre Cardin and the Pratt Hotel Corp. of Texas.

The renovated Roosevelt, site in 1929 of the first Academy Awards, made a bow on Dec. 26 but plans a grand opening on March 7 (just a couple of weeks before this year’s Academy Awards.)

Now Maxim’s will hold its “soft opening” on Wednesday with a grand opening Feb. 21-22. A “soft opening,” if you didn’t know already, is hotel jargon for an opening with little hoopla. The big event at Maxim’s in February will feature Cardin himself and a host of other luminaries.

One nice feature of Maxim’s “soft opening:” Rates until Feb. 13 will be discounted by $100 a room. That means you’d better have deep, deep pockets to stay there any other time. Regular rates will be $225, $295 and $350 a night!

There isn’t another hotel in the world, though, that has its entire staff outfitted in uniforms designed by Pierre Cardin, and he is keeping those designs top secret until Wednesday.

Robert Redford, Linda Evans, Julio Iglesias, John Travolta, Ursula Andress, Elton John, Ann-Margret, Oliva Newton-John and the late Peter Sellers are just a few of the stars who have been entertained at a home in Hawaii that is being called “a jewel against the backdrop of Diamond Head.”

Also known as “Rakuen,” meaning “Paradise,” the hideaway is almost as private as its owner, an unnamed but “noted Hollywood producer,” who bought it in 1981. That, per Sotheby’s, which is marketing the place for $5.75 million. Said James P. Retz, executive vice president of Sotheby’s, working in the firm’s Beverly Hills office: “Rakuen is one of the most important residential waterfront properties in the world, exceptional by any standard.”

It has a saltwater swimming pool, outdoor spa, screened gallery halls with views of gardens and ocean, sliding silk-paneled doors or shojis and 16th- to 18th-Century sculptures from Japan throughout its grounds. Completely renovated in 1970, the home was originally built in Japan about 1890 for the famous Dillingham family, and it was disassembled and shipped to Hawaii, where it was reassembled in 1912 by a team of Japanese artisans.

Sotheby’s has several waterfront listings of note, and among them is Montsorrel in Palm Beach, Fla., which--at $25 million--was believed to be the world’s most expensive single residence on the market until now.

Last week, there was talk that the Kirkeby estate in Holmby Hills, that area between Beverly Hills and Westwood where there are such exclusive properties as Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion West, has been put up for sale, also at $25 million!

Carlotta Kirkeby, who had been living in the 50-plus year-old mansion known unofficially as the Beverly Hillbillies House (because it was featured in the television program that ran on CBS from 1962 to 1971), died Nov. 19, and her heirs are apparently interested in selling it.

There is also talk in real estate circles these days about the largest single-family residential sale in Holmby Hills for 1985.

The sale involved the home of Burton and Betty Borman (he’s president of Pennsylvania Life Insurance Co.) to Irving Azoff, president of MCA Records Group. The purchase price: about $6 million.

Turns out Steve Shapiro of Stan Herman & Associates in Beverly Hills represented the buyer, and the Beverly Hills office of the Jon Douglas Co. represented the seller.

Here are some unusual projects to look for in 1986: The McMahon/Jones/Ray Partnership, an architectural firm in Santa Ana, is planning to design Pacific Spaceport, a resort/recreation area that will be built on the ocean front in Oxnard with a life-size mock-up of the space shuttle, and the company is also involved in the design of Shekinah, a tourist and educational attraction outside Phoenix that will recreate scenes from the Bible. In addition, the firm just got the go-ahead to design Phase 2 of Billabong Family Village, an entertainment complex in Victoria, Australia.