Some Pitt Stop He’s Building

BRAD PITT, who proposed to actress Gwyneth Paltrow last month when they were in Argentina, where he is filming “Seven Years in Tibet,� is creating a compound on the site of an old Hollywood Hills estate, sources say.

He just bought a two-bedroom house neighboring his five-bedroom home of two years, and he bought a three-bedroom house last August in the same gated enclave. The three properties, on a total of three acres, are said to have been part of a turn-of-the-century estate.

Pitt, is co-starring with Harrison Ford in the soon-to-be-released “The Devil’s Own.� The actor will reportedly make $17.5 million plus a percentage of box-office receipts to star in “Meet Joe Black,� a remake of “Death Takes a Holiday,� scheduled to start shooting in May.

Pitt, 33, met Paltrow, 24, on the set of “Seven� (1995), in which they played husband and wife. Last year, he appeared in “Sleepers,� and she starred in “Emma.�

The two-bedroom house, which Pitt purchased for about $400,000, was originally the caretaker’s or gardener’s cottage of the estate, which included his five-bedroom home as the main residence, sources say.

The two-bedroom 2,200-square-foot house has a den, two fireplaces, a koi pond and three levels of gardens, meticulously maintained for 22 years by its owner, who sold because of a divorce.

Pitt bought the three-bedroom 3,000-square-foot house for $525,000 one day after it was listed by the late owner’s estate.

Pitt has owned the five-bedroom house since 1994, when he bought it for $1.7 million, sources have said. A Craftsman-style house built in 1915, it is about 5,000 square feet and has many trees and a pool.

Marilyn Rubin of Fred Sands Realtors, Beverly Hills, represented both the buyer and the seller in the sale of the two-bedroom house.

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Oscar-winning actor MAXIMILIAN SCHELL has sold the house he bought last spring as an addition to his Beverly Hills-area estate, sources say.

“He sold it because he has been spending more time in Europe,� said David Azouz of 1st London Realtors, Beverly Hills, who represented both sides of the transaction along with Martin Genis of the same firm.

The buyer is Joseph Kendall, an owner of the Beverly Hills hair salon Joseph Martin.

The Austria-born Schell, who appears in film and on stage in Europe and the United States, sold the four-bedroom 3,000-square-foot house with canyon and mountain views for $595,000, according to public records. Last April, Schell paid $750,000 for the home, public records also show.

Schell, 66, won a best actor Oscar for “Judgment at Nuremberg� (1961). More recently, he was in the films “The Eighteenth Angel� (1996) and “Little Odessa� (1995). He played Lenin in the HBO film “Stalin� (1992).

A four-bedroom 8,000-square-foot house in Bel-Air, which has been on and off the market for a bit more than 10 years, has been sold for $6.5 million, sources say.

Built in 1926, the Mediterranean-style house, on four acres, had been listed at $7.9 million. It was once on the market at $12 million, sources say.

The buyer was identified as STEPHEN F. BOLLENBACH, Hilton Hotels Corp. president and chief executive since last February.

Formerly an executive with the Walt Disney Co., Bollenbach, 53, has been credited with helping persuade chief executive Michael Eisner to buy Capital Cities/ABC Inc. He also played a major role in helping get tycoon Donald Trump out of his financial mess, sources say.

Valerie Fitzgerald of the Prudential-Jon Douglas Co., Beverly Hills, had the listing, and Clifford Rowe of John Aaroe & Associates, Brentwood, represented the buyer, other sources said.