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After almost two decades in Wilmington, N.C., and then a decade in midtown Manhattan, stage and screen star Linda Lavin has packed up her trove of prestigious theater awards — they include a Tony Award, two Obies and a pair of Drama Desk Awards — and hightailed it to Los Angeles.
Tax records show the still-hoofing-it octogenarian actress, a Broadway veteran probably best known to TV watchers of a certain age for her two-time Golden Glove winning role on the groundbreaking 1970s hit sitcom “Alice,” and her 20-years-younger third husband, Steve Bakunas, have paid $2.2 million for a character-filled 1920s Spanish bungalow in an unsung pocket of L.A.’s celeb-favored Toluca Lake neighborhood.
Walled and gated for security, and all but hidden from the street behind prickly clouds of hot-pink bougainvillea amid grassy gardens, the white-stucco and red tile-roofed home retains many original architectural charms, as well as some period-appropriate updates. The arch of the wooden front door is mimicked in the arched windows in the living room, while the adjacent dining room spills out to the entry courtyard, and the kitchen sports rustic, reclaimed wood cabinetry, along with a hammered copper sink and Talavera accent tiles.
There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms in the 2,300-square-foot home. One of the bedrooms is en-suite, and the hall bath is emblazoned with black and minty green vintage tile work. A bonus room with built-in media console is attached to the back of the detached two-car garage.
Filled with succulents, fruit trees and lush lawns, the gardens are quintessential southern California. A bougainvillea-draped trellis spans a courtyard terrace with a tiled water feature, while a second trellis-shaded patio includes an outdoor kitchen, and a tile-accented spa tub is nicked way in a quiet corner.
The property was listed with Ron Viola and Darcy Kaye, both of Sotheby’s International Realty; Lavin and Bakunas were represented in the transaction by Howie Nicoll, Gregg Silver and Dafna Milstein of MS Property Partners at Keller Williams Beverly Hills.
Lavin, who most recently held down a main role on the just canceled series “B Positive,” and Bakunas appear to have sold off most if not all their East Coast holdings. For a number of years, they maintained two one-bedroom apartments directly across the hall from each other in the same building on New York’s Central Park South. One of the units was sold in 2017 but they held on to the other until last year, when it went for $1.1 million. They also owned a bucolic retreat in Chatham, N.Y., about 125 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, which they shed in 2019, and just last month they took in $850,000 on the sale of a bed-and-breakfast in nearby Austerlitz.
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