Sitting High and Dry Above Sunset Beach

If you’ve ever driven along Pacific Coast Highway through Seal Beach, you’ve probably seen one of the most unusual houses in Orange County.

It’s a landmark there, and as realtor Stephanie St. Pierre of Century 21 in Huntington Beach likes to say, “It’s up for grabs, but it’s quite a reach.”

The house is for sale at $3.5 million, but St. Pierre, who has the listing, was talking about its location: The house is perched 85 feet above the ground atop wooden stilts that once were part of the SUNSET BEACH WATER TOWER.

It looks like a redwood water tank on the outside and a playboy’s penthouse inside, and it’s owned by Bob Odell, an anesthesiologist, and George Armstrong, a math professor. They are selling because Odell moved his practice, St. Pierre said.

The two men bought the abandoned 1940-era tower in 1980, then built the three-level house at ground level while the tower was restored. The house was lifted by crane to the top of the tower in 1984, they same year they moved in.

Now it has such features as a marble-floored commercial elevator with piped-in music to the first floor, several wet bars, a spa, stained-glass cupola with fire-pit table that retracts to reveal a dance floor and two master bedroom suites.

TAMARA BANE, of the Tamara Bane Gallery on Melrose Avenue, and her husband, Robert, not only “surround themselves with beautiful art,” realtor Jana Jones says, “they also surround themselves with beautiful actresses.”

Jones just sold the couple a new house in the Hollywood Hills, not far from their gallery.

Cheryl Ladd, Vanna White and Cheryl Tiegs all live within a couple blocks of the house, which was purchased for close to its $2.9-million asking price, though the home hasn’t been completed.

“Everybody’s worried because the Banes bought this half-done house, but it will be finished to the nth degree,” said Jones, who had the listing with Alvarez, Hyland & Young in Beverly Hills. “Mr. Bane plans to complete it with the help of (architect) Gus Duffy in an Italian-Mediterranean style so it looks like a walled estate.”

Duffy also did original plans for the 6,200-square-foot home, which has what Jones describes as “a city view all the way to the ocean” and views from every room, including the master bath. The Banes will move from a house they own in Laurel Canyon.

TERRY MURPHY, former KCBS-TV Channel 2 anchor, and her Morocco-born husband, fashion designer David Timsit (president of Shanghai, a menswear firm), have purchased what Ruth Hoffman, of Mike Silverman & Associates, says is “a large hacienda with a lot of character.”

It has about 12,000 square feet of interior space, with seven bedrooms and 10 baths, and it’s in the flats of Beverly Hills.

It was built in the 1950s but is in super shape though the couple plans to do some remodeling, said Hoffman, who represented them in the purchase.

Murphy just had a baby boy and is not back yet to a news job. In a staff shake-up, she and John Schubeck, both longtime anchors, were fired from Channel 2 last December.

Producer TED FIELD, of the Marshall Field family, isn’t the only Southern Californian who owns a second home in Aspen, Colo., said realtor Bob Ritchie of Coates Reid & Waldron in Aspen.

But buyers now are finding that the average sales price is slightly more than $1 million. When Field bought there last year, the average was $930,000.

The average sales price was jacked up by Field’s purchase, Ritchie said. “I sold that house for (Hawaiian hotel developer) Chris Hemmeter at $16.3 million.” The least expensive lot in any Aspen neighborhood is now $500,000, he added.

And talk about a hot market: He listed a lot a few weeks ago at $2 million, and it sold seven days later for $1.9 million.

As for other big-name Californians owning Aspen property, he said, “Jack Nicholson has two houses here--an 11,000-square-foot guest house and a little home for himself. . . . He takes care of his friends.

“And Jim Stout has a very nice house here.” James D. Stout, a one-time Irvine real estate developer acquitted of charges of kickbacks in deals involving Beverly Hills Savings & Loan, was last reported living in Florida.

L.A. publicist Lee Solters added, “People here are talking about the retailing tycoon Leslie Wexner and his fantabulous house in Aspen.”

It has a pool and hot tub in the master bedroom, Solters said, and a pigskin floor and leather drapes in another room.

Wexner is chief executive officer and chairman of The Limited, a nationwide clothing chain and parent company of The Express, another clothing chain, and the small New York City specialty store Henri Bendel.