Spice in the Valley It's ever so Scary

By LAUREN BEALE

Oct. 31, 2009 12 AM PT

Singer Melanie Brown, also known as Scary Spice from her days with the Spice Girls, has purchased a gated home in the San Fernando Valley area for about $3.15 million.

The country French-style house has five bedrooms and eight bathrooms in more than 8,000 square feet of living space. Wrought-iron doors open to an entry foyer with limestone floors. The chateau, its 1,352-square-foot detached media house and a swimming pool sit on more than half an acre.

Designed by Xorin Balbes and built in 2006, the house has a fireplace in the family room, living room and master bedroom, plus three dishwashers and a yoga studio.

Brown and her husband, Stephen Belafonte, bought the home because they have plans to expand their family, said Charmaine DeGrate, an agent with Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, who also represented Brown in the $3.14-million sale of her Hollywood Hills residence in April. That house had four bedrooms and four bathrooms in 3,476 square feet.

Brown, 34, joined the all-female band in 1994. They had two multi-platinum albums and landed a movie. She has acted on stage and in film, and on television she has appeared on “Dancing With the Stars,” including a guest appearance earlier this month. She and partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy took second place in Season 5.

Brown also is involved in fashion design and supports philanthropies working to end world poverty, fight breast cancer and support children with cancer.

The former home of Carmen Jones

A Hollywood Hills home once owned by actress Dorothy Dandridge is on the market at $3,495,000.

The restored 1926 Mediterranean has three bedrooms and five bathrooms in 4,368 square feet. Three terraces with city views provide space for entertaining. There are arched doorways and windows, beamed ceilings and stained-glass windows. The master bedroom suite features a circular bathroom.

Dandridge, whose early work included an uncredited role in the 1937 Marx Brothers film “A Day at the Races,” was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in the title role of “Carmen Jones” (1954) and bought the home as her personal residence after that success. She starred as Bess in “Porgy and Bess” (1959).

A singer as well as an actress, Dandridge appeared on “The Colgate Comedy Hour” in 1951 and 1953 and on “Toast of the Town” (later known as “The Ed Sullivan Show”) from 1951 to 1962. She died in 1965 at age 42.

The property sold for $849,000 in 1998, according to public records.

The listing agents are Kathy Marshall and Delphine Mann of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills.

Bret Saberhagen makes his pitch

Former major league pitcher Bret Saberhagen has listed his gated Calabasas home for sale at $3.25 million.

The renovated and rebuilt compound includes a 5,600-square-foot, single-story Tuscan-style villa and two guesthouses on 1.2 acres. The main house has a home theater with a 90-inch screen and eight recliners, a wine cellar that can seat 12, five bedroom suites and six bathrooms.

Outdoors there is a cabana with a fireplace and television, a swimming pool with spa, a wet bar and a putting green.

Saberhagen, a two-time American League Cy Young Award winner, grew up in the San Fernando Valley and went to high school in Reseda. He went on to play for the Kansas City Royals, the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox. He won his two awards for being the AL’s best pitcher in 1985 and 1989.

“I moved back in 2002 after I finished my baseball career to watch my kid finish up high school at Calabasas,” said Saberhagen, whose youngest child is a senior there and will be going away to college in the fall. Saberhagen said he plans to stay in California and would like to move closer to the ocean.

His compound is about a 10-minute drive from the beach and the freeway, he said, and sits on a long dead-end street with no street lights. “So you always have plenty of stars and moon at night.”

The home, built in 1969, has mountain views and room for stables and horses.

“I also love to entertain,” said Saberhagen, whose in-home sports bar is equipped with five TVs. A sound system pipes music inside and outside the house. “It will be missed by the many kids and friends that have enjoyed it over the years here.”

Saberhagen, 45, was inducted into the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame in 2005. Today, he runs the Bret Saberhagen Make a Difference Foundation, which benefits children with diabetes and debilitating diseases.

Jim Pascucci of Rodeo Realty, Calabasas, has the listing.

More fun than living in an abbey

Nightclub impresario David Cooley, who started the Abbey Food & Bar in West Hollywood in the early ‘90s, has listed his Beverly Hills home at $9,195,000.

The gated Trousdale-area contemporary has four bedrooms and seven bathrooms in 6,350 square feet. The rebuilt and expanded 1964 house, designed and developed by Cooley’s real estate partner Scott Unger for indoor-outdoor living and entertaining, sits on nearly half an acre with city views visible through walls of glass. The 2,000-square-foot master bedroom suite contains a sitting room and cocktail bar, a massage room and dual walk-in closets. Outdoor areas include a swimming pool and a fireplace.

Cooley merged his business in 2006 with Los Angeles-based SBE, which has plans to reproduce the Abbey in other cities nationwide.

The listing agent is Barry Peele of Sotheby’s International Realty, Beverly Hills.

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