‘Luxury’ Home Has Star Appeal

Oscar-winning actress/singer SHIRLEY JONES and her husband, comedian MARTY INGELS, have purchased singer Janet Jackson’s townhouse in the Brentwood development of Mountaingate.

Jones, who appears Dec. 11 in concert at the Palm Springs Desert Museum, has made at least 20 films, including “Oklahoma” and “Elmer Gantry,” for which she won her Oscar. Now 59, she starred during the 1970s in ABC’s “The Partridge Family.”

Ingels, 57, a longtime comedian, is also a producer who owns and operates a successful celebrity-talent agency.

The couple had planned to sell their Beverly Hills home and move to their house in Big Bear, while maintaining a modest condo in town. But in his search to buy a condo, Ingels found himself looking at Jackson’s “cul-de-sac beauty overlooking a succession of sweet, peaceful hillsides,” as he described it.

“It was a luxury we could surely do without,” he conceded, but the lure of Jackson’s three-bedroom townhouse--on slightly more than an acre near several private tennis courts, golf courses and a country club--was more than he could resist.

He made an offer but, expecting to be turned down, he included the stipulation that he could buy an adjoining easement with city views and expand the 3,000-square-foot townhome by 2,000 square feet. He had heard that the community association never approved so much as a broom-closet addition, and he was sure that he wouldn’t be able to buy the extra land.

To his surprise, the association said “yes,” and Jackson agreed to the sale. At the same time, Jones expressed reluctance in selling their Beverly Hills home, he said. Jones has had the home for 30 years, since she bought it with her husband, the late actor Jack Cassidy.

“So we have three homes now,” Ingels said, and construction on the addition is expected to begin next month. The townhouse was purchased for about $700,000, other sources said.

L.A. Clipper DANNY MANNING is leasing a house in Brentwood for several months at about $6,500 a month, sources say.

The Spanish-style villa, behind gates, has six bedrooms and 7 1/2 baths in 6,500 square feet.

Manning, an All-Star forward, was expecting to be traded in October to the Miami Heat when the deal fell through at the last minute. Manning, who was put on the injured list Nov. 15 for a finger injury, rejected a $25-million, five-year deal with the Clippers last summer, and he is due to become an unrestricted free agent after the season.

Sherry Kagin at Hilton & Hyland, Century City, had the listing on the lease.

Manning sold his Hermosa Beach house in August for $2.5 million, sources say. The house had been listed by Nina Michaels of RE/MAX Beach Cities Realty.

Tennis champ-turned-film producer ASHOK AMRITRAJ had a house-warming party earlier this month at his new home in Sherman Oaks.

Amritraj is executive producer of “National Lampoon’s Last Resort,” scheduled to be released in the spring. The movie stars Corey Haim, Corey Feldman and Roger Clinton.

Amritraj and his wife, Chitra, moved up, from a house in the hills of Bel-Air, which they sold in the $600,000 range, to the Sherman Oaks house, which they bought for about $1.8 million, sources say. The couple is expecting their first child.

Elaine Young and Paul Czako, both now with Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills, represented the Amritrajes in their real estate transactions.

STRAUS ZELNICK, who left 20th Century Fox as its president last June to head the Palo Alto-based video-game company Crystal Dynamics, has sold his Holmby Hills home to producer Nick Weschler (“Drugstore Cowboy”).

The three-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot home, which was built in the 1930s and has a city view, went for close to its asking price of about $1.7 million, sources say.

Ed Fitz of Dalton, Brown & Long had the listing, and Deborah Moore of Asher Dann & Associates represented the buyer.

Singer TONY BENNETT has a home in Beverly Hills that is for sale at $1.75 million as part of his property settlement in a divorce that occurred years ago, sources say.

The home, originally on the market at $2.75 million, has five bedrooms plus maid’s quarters and a pub with a wet bar. There is a 5,500-square-foot main house and a guest house.

The home is listed with Gary Velis and Rory Barish of Stan Herman/Stephen Shapiro & Associates, Beverly Hills.

RENDE RAE NORMAN, who had the recurring role of attorney Gloria Capshaw in the CBS soap “The Young and the Restless,” has purchased a $350,000, three-bedroom condo in Toluca Lake, sources say.

Norman stars in the film “Who Killed Baby Jesus?” The Penta Group feature, reportedly banned in 16 countries because of its title, was screened at the Seattle and Dublin film festivals and is expected to be released in the United States early next year.