Singer’s Latest Cause: Housing

Folk singer JOAN BAEZ is planning to develop 140 acres of farmland that she bought more than two decades ago in Northern California, not far from her home in the Palo Alto area.

Baez, who recently signed with Virgin Records and is working on an album to be released later this year, has spent much of her 30-year career advocating various liberal social and political causes.

“She always put most of her money into the causes she has espoused. So this (the farmland) and her own house are the only things she’s gotten to provide for her in her old age,” said Jeanne Murphy, the 49-year-old singer’s business manager.

Baez put a 25% interest in the land into a trust for Humanitas International, a nonprofit human-rights group that she heads, Murphy added.

Baez and three other investors expect to build 600 homes, offices, shops, a day-care center, parks, a lake and a church on the property, located in the East Bay city of Brentwood, near Antioch in Contra Costa County.

“We leased the land to farmers over the years, but eventually the farmers begged us to get out of their leases because they weren’t making it on farming,” Murphy said.

“So the land sat vacant for a while, and then we had some row crops on it when a farmer growing tomatoes there came to us with the idea of using the site for housing.”

The farmer and two other men became Baez’s partners in the mixed-use development, which they decided should be “walkable, diverse, affordable” and “as socially responsible as possible,” Murphy said.

“The important aspect of this project is that it will be a major departure from regular developments, which are oriented around the automobile,” said Peter Calthorpe, a San Francisco architect/community designer commissioned to develop the plan.

There will be some homes with garages in the rear and rental units over the garages, said Tom Lodato, Baez’ partner, who is overseeing the project. There will also be low-income senior housing, Murphy said.

Ron Rowland, community development director of Brentwood, said, “We’re reviewing preliminary applications, which the city council has discussed once, and the general reaction here so far is favorable. Approval could be granted before the end of 1991.”

What realtors are calling “the biggest home sale ever in Orange County” closed escrow earlier this month at about $13.8 million.

The home, on Harbor Island, has eight bedrooms and 13 baths in 12,000 square feet. It also has a 6,000-square-foot garage, a subterranean wine cellar, 300 feet of water frontage and a dock large enough for a 160-foot boat.

Leroy Carver III, the owner of a failed savings and loan in Escondido, built the house on part of an estate owned at one time by the late banker and arts patron HOWARD AHMANSON and at another time by the late violinist JASCHA HEIFETZ.

George Yao, co-owner of the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Irvine, was identified as the buyer. Public records show a loan amount of $6.75 million. The remainder apparently was paid in cash.

When the property was listed in October, 1988, its $14.5-million asking price was a record for a single-family home in Orange County. The home has been in escrow since June, 1989. Sale was contingent upon completion of construction, William Cote, the listing broker, said at the time.

“For all intents and purposes, the house is finished now, and the new owners can move in,” another source said last week. “The house was just finished,” still another source said. “Construction took a couple of years.”

JOHN SCALIA--who starred in the USA Network movie “Deadly Desire,” which aired last Tuesday, and the 1989 series “Wolf”--and his wife, Karen, have bought a house in Calabasas on 1 1/4 acres “so their two children can have a park of their own,” a source said.

The Scalias paid nearly $900,000 for the four-bedroom home with a pool, spa and gazebo, according to the source, who was not involved in the transaction.

The Scalias’ former residence, a three-bedroom house with a spa on about a third of an acre in Tarzana, is on the market at $599,000 with Susan Weidman of Fred Sands’ Tarzana office. Weidman also represented the Scalias on their purchase.

Controversial rapper ICE-T, whose album “The Iceberg” was ruled obscene last year by a Florida grand jury, has purchased a house off the Sunset Strip with a city-to-ocean view from almost every room, a hot tub and a large garden.

He paid nearly $700,000 for the two-bedroom, three-bath house, built in 1949, sources say.

The 2,500-square-foot gated home, reached by a private drive, was once part of a larger estate. The estate was subdivided years ago and, except for the house that Ice-T bought, replaced by apartment buildings.

The singer had been renting an apartment in Hollywood.

He was represented by Janet Factor and Jonah Wilson of Prudential Rodeo Realty, and the house had been listed with Roxanna Auer of Dalton, Brown & Long. None of the parties were available for comment.