Singer Pops for $4.7-Mil. Estate

NEIL DIAMOND, who released his three-disc retrospective “In My Lifetime” before the holidays, has purchased a Beverly Hills home for $4.7 million, sources say. Escrow closed just before New Year’s Day.

During a career spanning more than 30 years, Diamond, 55, became one of the Top 20 most successful recording artists ever in the U.S., and he has written many of the biggest hits in pop music, including “Sweet Caroline.”

Still one of pop’s hottest draws, the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter toured last year with songs from another of his 1996 albums, “Tennessee Moon.”

He bought an eight-bedroom, nine-bath house on almost two acres, behind gates. The 11,000-square-foot-plus home also has a tennis court, motorcourt and pool. There are five family suites and a 2,000-square-foot master. Built in 1979, the home was once listed in the $6-million range.

Diamond bought the house from Leonard Green, an acquisitions pioneer known for engineering friendly buyouts of such firms as Budget Rent-a-Car. Green, who heads the Thrifty Drug stores partnership, has been involved in acquisitions partnerships since 1969, sources say.

Diamond was leasing in the L.A. area before he purchased the house. He gave up an interest in his longtime Holmby Hills residence in 1995 as part of his $150-million divorce settlement. That house was sold last summer for about $5 million, sources said at the time.

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SAMUEL L. JACKSON, who co-starred in such 1996 films as “The Great White Hype” and “A Time to Kill,” and his wife, actress LaTANYA RICHARDSON, have purchased the house next door to their existing Encino home.

Through the acquisition, the couple created a 2.5-acre-plus Tudor-style compound, with two pools and a tennis court, worth about $2.5 million, sources say.

Jackson, 48, also co-starred in “Die Hard With a Vengeance” (1995) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994), for which he won the Society of Texas Film Critics Award and the Independent Spirit Award, both for best actor.

Richardson appeared in “Losing Isaiah” (1995), “When a Man Loves a Woman” (1994), “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993), “Lorenzo’s Oil” (1992) and “Malcolm X” (1992).

The couple and their teen-age daughter had been renting in Encino before they bought their first house there in mid-1995 for $1.1 million, sources said then. They will continue to live in that house, sources say. It is a 4,500-square-foot residence, built in 1971.

The house they just purchased will be used for guests, offices and common areas, sources say. It is a 7,000-square-foot home, built in 1985.

Michael and Tauheedah Pourmirza of the Prudential-Jon Douglas Estates office in Encino represented the couple in their recent purchase.

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Singer-pianist MICHAEL FEINSTEIN, known for his one-man performances of tunes by George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin, has purchased a Los Feliz house for close to $699,000, sources say.

Feinstein, who also has a house on the East Coast, made his debut at New York’s Algonquin Hotel in 1986. Since then, he has performed often on stage and on television.

Now 40, he was 20 when he started helping lyricist Ira Gershwin, then 80, catalog his music and memorabilia. Feinstein chronicles the experience in his 1996 biography “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (Hyperion: $24.95).

Feinstein’s Los Feliz house was built in 1935 and has five bedrooms plus a guest suite; a ballroom-size living room; city views and a pool, all behind gates.

Robert Rodriguez of Fred Sands Realtors, Los Feliz, had the listing.

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The Bel-Air home of the SILVERMAN family, who were all killed in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 last July, has been sold.

Eugene Silverman, 54, and his wife, Etta, 53, and two daughters--Candace, 22, and Jamie, 15--perished in the New York-to-Paris flight. He was a tax attorney and partner in the Westwood firm of De Castro, West & Chodorow.

The Silvermans’ country-English home sold for nearly its $775,000 asking price, sources say. The home has three bedrooms, maid’s quarters, three fireplaces and a pool.

The listing agent was Jeanne Valvo of Fred Sands Estates, directors office, Beverly Hills. The selling agent was Terry Hall, the Prudential-Jon Douglas Co., Brentwood.

Valvo, a friend of the Silvermans, gave her commission to a scholarship fund at USC, from which Candace Silverman recently had graduated.