Kasem Gives Wife Holmby Hills Gift

CASEY KASEM, co-creator and host of “American Top 40” the nation’s most widely syndicated radio countdown show--is buying a house as a birthday present for his wife, Jean.

They’ve been living at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for several months in a suite that is now for lease for $20,000 a month.

Their new home, which will close escrow later this month, is in Holmby Hills, north of Sunset Boulevard and across the street from producer Aaron Spelling’s home--not the nearly 60,000-square-foot one he has been building, but the smaller one where he has been living for some time.

The Kasems’ new home was built 34 years ago and has three bedrooms, five baths, a den, a family room and maid’s quarters. There is a tennis court and a pool on the 2.37-acre property.

“It will be interesting to see if they tear down the house, because it’s old and on such a big piece of property,” said a broker not associated with the deal.

The asking price was $7.9 million, but industry sources say the house is selling for $6.8 million. Realtors involved in the transaction would not comment.

The seller was Abe Lurie, said to be the largest landlord in Marina del Rey, with such holdings as hotels, strip shopping centers and 1,122 of the 6,000 boat slips in the marina. Lurie bought a home for himself in Bel-Air for about $8 million, sources indicate.

Before moving into the Beverly Wilshire, the Kasems owned a house in Bel-Air, which they sold.

Joyce Rey of Rodeo Realty is representing the Kasems in the current transaction, and Stan Smith and Judy Hanaver of Jon Douglas Co. are representing Lurie.

ROSCOE TANNER, whose tennis serve was once clocked at 153 m.p.h., has put his Santa Barbara home on the market for $1.5 million.

“He has been doing a lot of commentary for ESPN, and he travels so much, playing in the (age) 35-and-over tournaments,” said a spokesman for Tanner, who is 37. “Travel is a factor in his moving.”

Tanner and his wife, Charlotte, have lived in their Santa Barbara home, at Hope Ranch, since about 1985. The contemporary house, on a couple of acres, has what the spokesman described as “the most gorgeous tennis court you can imagine.” The property is listed with Jon Douglas Co.’s Montecito office.

The Los Angeles bungalow where four members of the MANSON FAMILY murdered Rosemary and Leno LaBianca in 1969 is for sale for $599,000, but the place is a mess, one of the listing agents and other observers agree.

The small (1,655-square-foot) main house, built in 1922 and remodeled in 1930, has broken windows, a passer-by noticed, and the guest house is a charred ruin. Cliff Claycomb, who shares the listing with Dee Yarnall at Jon Douglas Co.’s Los Feliz office, termed the home “a tear-down.”

It has been occupied primarily by tenants since the LaBiancas were slashed to death there 20 years ago this August. There have been several owners in recent years, including one who said he didn’t know it was the LaBianca house when he bought it in 1974.

“I was upset with the broker who sold it to me, because she didn’t tell me,” he said in a 1978 Times story, “but looking back on it, I didn’t get a bad deal. It’s a beautiful piece of property, three-fourths of an acre on a hill with a view.” It also has a pool.

(The house above Benedict Canyon where four members of the Manson gang murdered Sharon Tate and four others before killing the LaBiancas was also recently on the market; it closed escrow at nearly $2 million in January.)

The Grand Promenade, the 27-story apartment building that opened on Bunker Hill about two months ago, already has been the scene for a couple of movies, but the first TV crew to work there set up last week in a one-bedroom unit on the eighth floor that rents for $1,525 a month.

It’s supposed to be the apartment where actor LEE HORSLEY’S character lives in the TV movie “Single Women, Married Men,” produced by actress Michele Lee, who plays Horsley’s lover, and CBS Entertainment. It may air this fall.

Comedian LARRY MILLER didn’t pay more than $500,000 for his condo, as we were told by his publicist and reported last week, but he bought the unit, at Los Feliz Towers, for $187,500, said Geri Hurst of Twin Towers Realty, who handled the sale.

Miller’s spokesman responded that the comedian will have “way over $500,000” in the condo, with furnishings and renovations. “And he’s even having the doors reinforced with steel to protect his collection of Impressionist paintings.”