“Casablanca” Director’s Former Beverly Hills Home Listed

Of all the mansions in Beverly Hills, a well-positioned buyer can walk into one with nearly a century of Hollywood history.

The mansion at 1017 North Roxbury Drive, once owned by “Casablanca” director Michael Curtiz, is for sale for just shy of $25 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. The home is being sold by Les Bider, former chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group’s Warner/Chappell Music publishing firm, and his wife Lynn Bider.

The 10,500-square-foot Mediterranean-style home was built around 1929 and purchased the following year by Curtiz and his wife, silent film actress Bess Meredyth. The Hollywood couple sold the six-bedroom house in 1934 and decamped for the San Fernando Valley, which was growing in popularity at the time with actors like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. “Casablanca” was released in 1942; Curtiz went on to direct more acclaimed films like “Mildred Pierce” and the Crosby-starring “White Christmas.”

Actress Jeanne Crain and her husband Paul Brinkman bought the home around 1955 for roughly $64,500, according to the Journal. The couple undertook extensive renovations including the addition of a pool to the property. They sold the home in 1963 for roughly $180,000.

The Biders eventually purchased the 0.7-acre estate in 2001 for $7.4 million. Under their ownership, they updated the home back to its original Mediterranean style and renovated it with a new kitchen, an elevator, a gym and a poolhouse, Les Bider told the Journal. The couple revamped the pool twice, initially creating a pond-like pool with a waterfall before turning it back into a rectangular pool. In total, the Biders spent approximately $9 million on renovations. During that renovation process, the construction noise drew the ire of next-door neighbor Madonna, leading Bider to give singing stuffed animals to the superstar’s children.

Single-family homes in Beverly Hills sold for an average of $9.1 million in the fourth quarter of last year, down 5.7 percent year over year, according to Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants data cited by the Journal. Deep-pocketed buyers have been increasingly interested in Beverly Hills because it is exempt from Los Angeles’ Measure ULA transfer tax, commonly referred to as the “mansion tax,” listing agent Rochelle Atlas Maize of Nourmand & Associates told the Journal.

— Chris Malone Méndez