‘Westside Price’ Asked in Orange County

Ever hear of a house for sale at $22 million in Orange County?

Now you have, because Bruce Nelson of Asher Dann’s in Beverly Hills has the listing. And get this: Nelson, who has seen plenty of eye-boggling houses on the Westside, said, “This is the most exciting home I’ve ever seen.” Not bad for Orange County, huh?

The place is on 26 acres, 10 miles from Newport Beach, on a knoll in Tustin Hills.

It has its own helipad, tennis court, two racquetball courts, $2 million in royal palms, 38,000 square feet under roof, waterfalls, grottos, pools, a disco, wine cellar with walls of stones imported from all over the world, a master-bedroom suite with a 30- to 40-foot ceiling, and seven other bedroom suites, each with a sitting room and fireplace.

About 1 1/2 years old, it’s owned by a young couple named Pat and Mike DiAngelo, who own 330 Clothes Time clothing stores in the United States and have six children. “They want to move to the beach or the Beverly Hills area,” Nelson said.

Actors Robert Wagner and Sidney Poitier will co-host a party Feb. 25 to introduce the local design/art/business community to “the first house of the 21st Century,” a creation in Encino of Michael Nouri, president of Santa Monica-based American Builder’s Assn.

The house is also called “the Charleston Estate.” Because it’s dancing into the 21st Century? Maybe, but Hope Boonshaft-Lewis, who represents the architect/builder, said it got its name “because the house is a blend of 21st-Century technology with the ‘20s-like feeling of a stately manor.”

It’s not for sale yet but is expected to eventually fetch $3 million to $4.5 million for such features as voice-controlled computers that operate fiber-optic and laser lights, large-scale sculptures (one, by Massoud Arabshai the size of a 6 by 8-foot exterior wall) and murals.

The late comedian Dick Shawn’s Santa Monica home has been sold for slightly more than $1 million, including Charles Laughton’s nightclub-sized piano.

Laughton and his actress wife, Elsa Lanchester, now both deceased, also once owned the little two-bedroom house with a private drive and view of the ocean.

The most recent buyer, a writer in the entertainment field, is the fellow who was leasing it after Shawn’s death in April, 1987. “He fell in love with it,” Caroline Lembeck of Stan Herman & Associates said.

Lembeck represented Shawn’s four children in the deal, including actress Wendy Shawn, who handles the family’s business. (Lembeck also just sold a $350,000 condo adjoining Beverly Hills for Wendy Shawn and her spouse, actor Joey Travolta, John’s brother. The young couple just bought a house in Encino.)

Ann Blyth and her husband, Dr. James McNulty, just sold the eight-bedroom Toluca Lake house, on half an acre with a pool, that they’ve owned for 36 years for a bit more than $1 million to entrepreneur Don Peterson.

The actress, who has a singing engagement in Palm Desert on March 31, and her husband are building a home at Fairbanks Ranch, near San Diego, and it is expected to be completed in May or June.

McNulty will then do consulting work, said Marie Thorpe with Coldwell Banker, Sherman Oaks, who represented the well-known couple. (McNulty, an obstetrician/gynecologist, delivered two of Thorpe’s babies.) Jack Sammons, with Merrill Lynch, represented Peterson.

One of the first houses to be sold for more than $4 million this year now belongs to New York financier Eli S. Jacobs, new principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, who bought a Bel-Air home listed at $6.5 million.

The home, on nearly an acre with a guest house and a tennis court, was sold by Harry E. and Kathy Sloan, who moved with their infant to Malibu. Harry Sloan is co-chairman of New World Entertainment.

The Sloans were represented by Nanda Hinds of Fred Sands Realtors, and Jacobs was represented by Jeanne Dobrin of the George Elkins Co., with financing by the Boston Safety Deposit & Trust Co. Public records confirmed the deal.

The only comment from anybody involved in the transaction came from Hinds, who said of the house, “It’s my piggy bank.” She has participated in its sale three times during the past 10 years.