text: Whoopi Goldberg Gives Up The Farm In Connecticut - tribunedigital-orlandosentinel
  Whoopi Goldberg Gives Up The Farm In Connecticut
  February 13, 2000|By Ruth Ryon, Los Angeles Times
  LOS ANGELES - Whoopi Goldberg, who has long had a home in the Los Angeles area, has sold her 13-acre Connecticut farm for $915,000.
  The Oscar-winning Goldberg (best supporting actress, ``Ghost,'' 1990), who produces and appears on the new Hollywood Squares game show, has owned the home, in rural Litchfield County, since 1991. She restored the five-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot Colonial-style farmhouse, built in 1860.
  The house has a sun room, workshop, two fireplaces and cathedral ceilings. Goldberg continues to own an adjacent 27-acre parcel of land.
  The farm was sold to an attorney with international clients. The asking price was $975,000.
  Goldberg, 44, sold the property because she wasn't using it. The stand-up comic and founding member of Comic Relief plays a nurse in the movie Girl, Interrupted and stars in the pilot of Strong Medicine, a television series that she will produce.
  DENZEL SPINS AWAY
  Denzel Washington and his wife, Pauletta, have sold their Toluca Lake home of about seven years for close to its asking price of about $2 million.
  The Oscar-winning Washington (best supporting actor, Glory, 1989) won the best actor-drama award at the Golden Globes in January for his portrayal of former boxer Rubin ``Hurricane'' Carter in the movie The Hurricane.
  The actor, 45, and his family moved to a gated community.
  Designed by architect Paul Williams and built in 1940, the 6,000-square-foot-plus Toluca Lake home, owned by the late actor William Holden during the 1950s, has five bedrooms, a guest cottage and a pool with a cabana.
  TEMPTATION CAN'T RESIST
  Otis Williams, the last living member of the original Motown group the Temptations and one of the singers in the current quintet, has purchased a home in Woodland Hills.
  The Temptations of the '60s helped to establish the Motown sound with such hits as ``My Girl,'' ``Pappa Was a Rolling Stone'' and ``The Way You Do the Things You Do.''
  Williams, 58, gave the original group its name and created many of its well-known vocal arrangements and its synchronized choreography, which also became synonymous with the Motown style.
  The Temptations of today not only carry on the original group's name but also its tradition of soul vocal harmony.
  Williams regularly performs with the quintet on the road, so he bought a low-maintenance home he could lock up and leave, sources said. He was formerly leasing in Encino. The so-called soul survivor of the original Detroit-based group has lived in California since the 1970s.
  The Spanish-style home, which he purchased for $485,000, has four bedrooms and five baths in about 3,800 square feet. Built in 1989, the house also has a pool. It is near the Woodland Hills Country Club.
  MANSON MURDER SCENE
  The 18,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style villa that was built on the site of the Benedict Canyon home where actress Sharon Tate and four others were murdered by Charles Manson's gang in 1968 has been sold in the $6-million range.
  The buyer was Jeff Franklin, executive producer of the movies Stuart Little and Love Stinks, which he also wrote and directed. He worked in TV for two decades and created the series Full House and Hanging With Mr. Cooper. He is also executive producer of the series Malcolm & Eddie.
  Known as ``Villa Bella,'' the house, on 3.3 acres, was originally listed in 1994, when construction had just begun, at $12.5 million. The owner-builder was Al Weintraub, who bought the property in 1991.
  Weintraub razed the house in which the murders occurred after it failed to sell in 1992, when it was listed at $4.95 million.
  For about a year before he tore down the house, however, he rented it to Trent Reznor of the synthesized-rock group Nine Inch Nails. Reznor set up a recording studio in the house and recorded an album there.
  After Weintraub razed the house, he extensively graded the property, creating a larger building pad.
  The newly built home has nine bedrooms, including two master suites, a wine cellar, screening room, elevator and tennis court.