A Laguna Seashore mansion on the location of the place the real-life Nelson household behind “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” went to flee the limelight is on the market.
The Wall Avenue Journal first reported that the three-level, 8,700-square-foot residence in gate-guarded Lagunita is listed for $40 million.
Designed by architect Brion Jeannette, the villa-styled house was accomplished within the early aughts. It combines Italian coastal-style structure with luxurious facilities like a house theater with a concession stand, ticket sales space, and marquis that includes film quotes like “Go Forward … Make My Day,” Clint Eastwood’s well-known catchphrase from “Sudden Impression.”
There’s a sport room with a bar and a wine cellar.
Different highlights embrace 5 bedrooms, a gourmand kitchen, and a central dwelling space. Flooring-to-ceiling glass doorways open to ocean-facing decks and grotto pool overlooking Victoria Seashore.
A non-public staircase gives direct entry to the sand.
Josh and Matt Altman of Douglas Elliman maintain the itemizing.
The luxurious house dwarfs its modest predecessor. Based on archival information tales, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson constructed the three-bedroom, single-story cottage within the mid-Fifties. The household used it totally on weekends.
Two years after Ozzie Nelson died in 1975 at 69, Harriet Nelson completely moved to the seaside. She died there in 1994 at 85.
The house remained within the Nelson household till 1997. Surviving son David Nelson and the grownup youngsters of his youthful brother, the one-time teen idol Ricky Nelson who died in a airplane crash in 1985 at 45, bought it for $1.85 million to Tony and Jane Ciabattoni.
They'd been renting and have been within the course of of shopping for the home two doorways down that the Harmon household as soon as owned, and it too had hyperlinks to the Nelsons.
Ricky Nelson married the late actress and painter Kristin Harmon, the sister of actor Mark Harmon and daughter of the late Los Angeles Ram star-turned-sportscaster Tom Harmon.and the late actress Elyse Knox. Their youngsters embrace actress Tracy Nelson and twins Gunnar and Matt Nelson of the rock band Nelson.
“Right here I'm two weeks away from closing on the Harmon home, once I picked up the telephone and known as David,” mentioned Tony Ciabattoni, who had turn out to be mates with the “Ozzie and Harriet” star. “It was essentially the most serendipitous factor I’d ever performed. I mentioned, ‘David, don’t let me purchase 18 if you happen to assume you’re going to promote 16.’”
Certain sufficient.
Tony Ciabattoni mentioned that David Nelson, who died in January 2011 at 74, preferred to reminisce about his household’s seaside days, from how Ozzie Nelson usually wrote scripts there to when phrase received out the Nelson boys likes to play volleyball on the seaside.
“Planeloads of ladies would fly into Orange County and discover a technique to get to the seaside simply to see my child brother, Ricky Nelson,” the vendor remembers David mentioned, with a chuckle.
“Adam-12” star Kent McCord, a buddy of the Nelson boys who had an occasional function on “Ozzie and Harriet,” later honeymooned on the seaside home.
And Tracy Nelson informed the Wall Avenue Journal that Ozzie Nelson used to swim from Victoria Seashore to Blue Lagoon and again. Whereas he made the two-mile-plus circuit, Harriet Nelson would stand on the window with binoculars and watch him.
Given the household’s emotional attachment, Tony Ciabattoni informed David Nelson earlier than taking possession that he deliberate to raze the previous home and change it with a brand new one.
As he put it, “I didn’t need him to be stunned or disenchanted.”
However David Nelson’s response was, “do what you’ve received to do.’”
Earlier than it was demolished, Tony Ciabattoni employed a Laguna Seashore artist to create an oil portray of the previous cottage. The unique portray went to David Nelson as a present, with Giclee copies for Ricky Nelson’s youngsters and McCord, who additionally lives within the neighborhood and has blogged about his time on “Ozzie and Harriet” and shared a photograph of the paintings.
Tony Ciabattoni additionally stored a replica for himself.
David Nelson, in the meantime, gave the Ciabattonis the household pictures that Ozzie Nelson stored on his desk within the authentic trifold body. A Hotpoint fridge, as soon as a prop on “The Journey of Ozzie and Harriet,” additionally stays in use. They’re not included within the sale.
“There was such a heat in regards to the previous home that carried to the brand new home,” Tony Ciabattoni mentioned. “Constructing a home in Laguna Seashore is just not simple, however Brion Jeannette did an excellent job of shepherding the challenge via the town and the neighborhood. And through development, I used to be right here on daily basis torturing Jeannette and my contractor, Tony Valentine, and I received an opportunity to do a number of the little issues.”
An instance was in the lounge, the place the underside of the steps was uncovered.
“They have been on the brink of cowl them up with drywall, and I mentioned, ‘No, no, no. Go away it open,’ as a result of that’s what you see in Italy,” he mentioned.
The inside’s wrought iron railing was one other thought picked up alongside his travels to Italy.
“It was a labor of affection, and it was a number of enjoyable,” added Tony Ciabattoni, who misplaced his spouse final yr to glioblastoma, an aggressive type of mind most cancers.
He established the Jane Ciabattoni Mind Analysis Initiative at Windfall Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo with a $1 million pledge in her reminiscence.
“Since my spouse died, the home now feels lots greater than it's and it’s very lonely at night time,” he added. “I’ve all the time embraced change so I’m going to maneuver on. However proper now, I’ve made the choice to promote.”
His hope for his house’s future?
“This may occasionally sound a bit of corny,” he mentioned, “however I hope that whoever buys this place understands and feels the Nelson legacy that was handed onto me.”