Far from Alabama, a sweet home

Actress Reese Witherspoon and her husband, actor Ryan Phillippe, have purchased a Westside home in a gated community for about $5 million.

Witherspoon, star of the “Legally Blonde” films (2001, 2003) and “Sweet Home Alabama” (2002), and Phillippe, who co-starred in Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park” (2001) and appeared in the comedy “Igby Goes Down” (2002), bought a Spanish-style home with six bedrooms and 6 1/2 bathrooms in slightly more than 7,000 square feet.

The newly built home also has several fireplaces, an exercise room, a pool, a grassy yard and a motor court.

The actress, 27, filmed the movie “Vanity Fair” in England last summer. It is due to be released in September.

Phillippe, 29, is co-starring with Robert Carlyle in the upcoming movie “Light in the Sky.”

The couple, married in 1999, appeared together the same year in the movie “Cruel Intentions.”

Grayhall estate is off the block

Grayhall, the former Beverly Hills home of late Herbalife founder Mark Hughes, has been sold for an estimated $18 million, according to area Realtors.

The 2 1/2-acre estate has been on the market since October 2000 and was originally priced at $29 million.

Grayhall was sold by Hughes’ estate. He died at 44 in May 2000. Hughes had meticulously renovated the English-style main house, built as a hunting lodge in 1909. He also expanded the property, buying three adjacent homes.

Hughes razed two of the homes and built a sports court, then turned the third house into a guest quarters.

The compound has nine bedrooms and 20 bathrooms in about 22,000 square feet.

The original structure was built for Harry Lombard, actress Carole Lombard’s godfather. Silsby Spalding, the sporting goods magnate and the first mayor of Beverly Hills, owned it next. He added a ballroom in 1919. The same year, actor Douglas Fairbanks Sr. leased the house while building Pickfair, his home with actress Mary Pickford. Later owners included actor George Hamilton and financier Bernie Cornfeld.

Heidi Tabib of Coldwell Banker represented the buyers, and Jeffrey Hyland and Rick Hilton of Hilton & Hyland and Jerry Jolton of Coldwell Banker had the listing, sources said.

Paul Williams changing keys

Oscar-, Grammy- and Golden Globe-winning songwriter Paul Williams has put his longtime Hollywood Hills home on the market at just less than $2 million.

Williams, who is working on a DVD to be released this spring and a Broadway-bound musical based on Garry Marshall’s sitcom “Happy Days,” is selling the home as part of his divorce settlement.

The house, in the Sunset Strip area, has three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms in slightly more than 2,400 square feet. The home also has city views, a pool, spa, sauna and master suite with a den/office.

Sidney Toler, who played Charlie Chan in movies in the late ‘30s and ‘40s, built the house on a private knoll in 1933. At various times, the Cape Cod-style home also had such celebrity occupants as Orson Welles, Peter Lorre and then-married actors Howard Duff and Ida Lupino.

Williams’ songs for “The Muppet Movie” (1979) and “A Star Is Born” (1976) were written on a piano in the guest room. The songwriter bought the home in the early ‘70s and has lived there most of his career. He added the pool and spa.

A prolific lyricist and composer, Williams, 63, has written songs that have been sung by such icons as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby.

Williams also has composed music for such other films as “The Sum of All Fears” (2002), and he has appeared as an actor in movies and TV, where he was a recurring guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

John and Maureen McCormick of Prudential/John Aaroe, Brentwood, and Bennett Carr, of the firm’s Beverly Hills office, share the listing.

Music man heads to Holmby Hills

John Ottman, who wrote the music for films including “Gothika” (2003) and “X2: X-Men United” (2003), has purchased a Holmby Hills home for nearly $2.7 million. The asking price was just under $2.6 million.

The house, built in 1956, has four bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms in 3,700 square feet. It’s a one-story ranch-style house in need of a total remodel, but it’s in a neighborhood of multimillion-dollar estates.

The home also has a gated driveway and mature palm and banana trees.

Jeff Greene, a real estate mogul with extensive holdings, was the seller.

Ottman, 39, in 2000 composed and conducted the score for “Urban Legends: Final Cut 2000,” which marked his directing debut. His break-through scores were for “The Usual Suspects” (1995) and “The Cable Guy” (1996).

Deborah Moore of DBL Realtors, Sunset, had the listing, and Curtis Tanner of Prudential California, Los Feliz, represented the buyer.

Legal eagles are selling their nest

Entertainment attorneys Don and Judy Engel have listed their home in Somis, about 50 miles from Los Angeles in Ventura County, at $8.9 million.

Since coming to Beverly Hills from New York in 1975, their law firm, Engel & Engel, has represented such celebrities as the Dixie Chicks, Cher, Van Halen, Donna Summer, Olivia Newton-John, Robert Wagner, David Duchovny, Rod Stewart, Don Henley, Luther Vandross and Madonna.

The Engels’ home is on 50 acres with stables, acres of avocado and lemon groves, a tennis stadium, a pool and views of mountains and orchards.

The Engels built the house over a six-year period; it was completed two years ago. It has five bedrooms and 10 bathrooms in 12,000 square feet.

A French country chateau in style, the house has a turret entry, 18-foot living room ceilings, hand-carved doors and beams, a large media room, an office, wine cellar, beauty parlor, gym and elevator. The home comes fully furnished and includes a three-bedroom, two-bathroom guesthouse.

The Engels, in their early 70s, want to retire and move to the Stanford University area. They sold a Beverly Hills home in 2002 for about $3 million. That home had been built in 1927 for actress Loretta Young’s mother.

Mike Gratland of Troop Real Estate, Westlake Village, has the listing.

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