By Jack Flemming, Neal J. Leitereg and Lauren Beale / Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles businessman Ron Burkle has doubled down on Bob Hope estates, buying the late comic’s longtime Toluca Lake compound for $15 million.
Two years ago, the billionaire paid $13 million for a modernist home in Palm Springs that was designed and built by architect John Lautner for Hope and his wife, Dolores, the Los Angeles Times previously reported.
The Toluca Lake home was designed for the Hopes in the English traditional style by architect Robert Finkelhor. In the mid-1950s, the couple wanted a more contemporary style and commissioned John Elgin Woolf to remodel and update the 1939 house.
The property is composed of parcels totaling a little more than 5 acres.
The 14,876-square-foot house, which Burkle intends to restore, has a two-bedroom guesthouse and separate staff quarters and offices.
The structures combine to offer eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms.
A swimming pool, a one-hole golf course, mature trees, rose gardens and a large expanse of grass also lie within the grounds. An indoor swimming pool and spa sit adjacent to the guesthouse.
Bob Hope died in 2003 at 100. Burkle, 65, built his fortune buying and selling supermarket chains such as Ralphs, Fred Meyer Inc. and Food4Less. He has an estimated net worth of $2.3 billion, according to Forbes.
• Supermodel Cindy Crawford, 52, and her husband, businessman Rande Gerber, have sold their renovated compound in Malibu’s Encinal Bluffs area for $45 million, records show.
The couple bought the 3-plus-acre estate and an adjacent parcel of about 2.75 acres in 2015 for a total of $50.5 million.
Set behind walls and gates, the bluff-top residence features four bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in 5,300 square feet of living space.
The couple put the compound up for sale in 2016 for $60 million before dropping the price last year by $10 million. They own other property in Los Angeles, including a Beverly Hills home they bought last year from OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder.
• Russell Weiner, creator of the Rockstar energy drink, has put a Beverly Hills mansion that once belonged to pop icon Madonna back on the market for $35 million. The French country-style estate was offered last year for as much as $49 million.
A 500-foot tree-lined driveway enters the gated compound, which spans 1.25 acres of manicured grounds. In addition to the main house — an opulent space filled with cathedral-style ceilings and stylish chandeliers — there are two guesthouses, a tennis court and a 60-foot swimming pool.
Within 17,000 square feet of living space are nine bedrooms, 15 bathrooms and seven fireplaces.
Madonna owned the home from 2003 to 2013, records show, and Weiner picked it up two years later for $19 million.
Weiner, the son of radio host Michael Savage, created Rockstar in 1998. Forbes puts his net worth at $4.4 billion.
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