Rapper Takes Hit on Mansion Sale

Rap singer M.C. HAMMER has sold his mansion in the Fremont foothills overlooking San Francisco for $5.3 million, sources say.

The buyer was identified as a television producer from Singapore, who paid cash and took title in the name of a corporation.

Hammer, 34, built the home six years ago on 12 acres with a view of the bay from the Oakland side. The home has six bedrooms in 11,000 square feet plus two pools, a pool house, guardhouse, exercise room and two saunas.

Assessor’s records value the home at $9.4 million. It was listed in May at $6.8 million. Hammer’s manager said then that the singer would be happy to sell because he was “letting go of the old,” marking “a new beginning.”

Hammer filed for bankruptcy in 1996 with debts of nearly $14 million and assets of $9.6 million. He was estimated to have earned $33 million in 1991, the year he built his Fremont home, but he also is said to have had such expenses as a racehorse that ran in the Kentucky Derby, a 17-car collection, a Boeing 727 and a large staff for his record label, Bust It Productions.

Hammer and his wife, Stephanie, and young daughter have scaled down but are still living in Northern California, sources say. Hammer’s new album, “A Family Affair,” is due in October, and earlier this month, he starred in the Showtime movie “Right Connections.”

Elaine Young of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, Beverly Hills, and Faye Carlson of the firm’s Fremont office shared the listing.

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KCBS-TV anchor MICHAEL TUCK has sold his Bel-Air home of four years for close to $1.8 million and is leasing a penthouse in Beverly Hills, sources say.

He wanted to be more centrally located, within walking distance of restaurants and other services, and he didn’t need such a large home, a source said.

Completely refurbished in 1990, the Bel-Air home has four bedrooms and four baths in about 4,000 square feet. It also has a pool and city and ocean views.

A former anchor in San Diego, Tuck, who has won a dozen Emmy Awards, was hired by KCBS in 1990 and now co-anchors the CBS 2 news at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. with Ann Martin. Tuck, about 50, is originally from Houston.

Ron Carlton and Rick Hilton, both with Hilton & Hyland in Beverly Hills, represented Tuck in selling his house.

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Academy Award-winning film producers RICHARD D. and LILI FINI ZANUCK have listed a two-acre site, adjacent to their Beverly Hills-area estate, at just under $3 million.

They have owned the site, with city and canyon views, since buying their four-acre estate, where they built their 17,000-square-foot house eight years ago, a source said. The site to be sold is across the street from a home that actress Barbra Streisand sold in June for nearly $4.9 million.

The Zanucks produced “Mulholland Falls” (1996), “Wild Bill” (1995), “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989), “Cocoon: The Return” (1988) and “Cocoon” (1985). In the ‘70s, he produced “Jaws” and “Jaws 2.”

Paul Czako of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, has the listing.

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Model-actress KELLY HARMON, in her 17th year as the spokesperson for the breath mint Tic Tac, and her husband, publishing magnate BOB MILLER, have purchased a five-acre Malibu home for just under $3 million, sources say.

Harmon, the sister of actor Mark Harmon, and Miller, whose partnership publishes Spin and Vibe magazines, bought a beach house with room for her horses, a source said.

The couple also owns a home, which she redesigned, in the Hamptons town of Sagaponack, N.Y., and they have a Cliff May-designed ranch-style house in Los Angeles.

Since she married Miller in 1984, Harmon has redecorated several of their homes and recently established her own Kelly Harmon Interiors & Design.

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A Brentwood home owned by the late art director and set designer HENRY C. LICKEL has been listed at $1.2 million. Lickel created sets for “All in the Family,” “Family Feud,” “Password” and “Jeopardy!”

He designed his home, built in 1987, in an Old World European style, surrounded by a 7-foot-high wall. The 2,900-square-foot house also has three bedrooms, floor-to-ceiling fireplaces, a fountain and a pool. The house is listed by Sabine Krueger & Associates, Valencia.

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The Witch’s Cottage, built by set designer Henry Oliver in 1921 as a film production office in Culver City and moved five years later to become a Beverly Hills home, has been listed again, this time at about $1.4 million.

Oliver, who also designed the famous Van DeKamp bakery windmills, designed the house to resemble the home of the fairy-tale witch who tried to eat Hansel and Gretel. The four-bedroom, nearly 3,800-square-foot house has an empty moat, waterwheel and drawbridge. Some windows were designed to look as if they are covered in cobwebs.

The house has been on and off the market several times, although it has been owned by the same owner for more than 30 years. She and her husband purchased it in the mid-1960s from the woman who bought and relocated it with her husband in 1926. It was once listed at $2.9 million.

Martin Geimer of the Prudential-Jon Douglas Co., Beverly Hills, has the current listing.

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CORRECTION: The Malibu home listed at $29.5 million (Hot Property, Aug. 17) is on about 16 acres and has more than 20,000 square feet under roof, in several buildings.