George Clooney, Brad Pitt and an airplane finance tycoon are buying one of Laguna Beach’s best-known gay bars and plan to turn it into a ritzy restaurant and bed and breakfast, according to sources.

The actors have teamed with Beverly Hills billionaire Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, chief executive of airplane lessor International Lease Finance Corp., to buy the Boom Boom Room and its adjoining Coast Inn on Pacific Coast Highway, sources said.

The bar and hotel could be converted into a restaurant and the first bed and breakfast in a chain of such getaways to bear the names of Clooney and Pitt.
Clooney also has teamed with developers who are planning the $3 billion Las Ramblas condominium and hotel complex near the Strip in Las Vegas.

The real money behind the Laguna Beach deal, sources said, is Udvar-Hazy, who ranks 125th on Forbes’ list of richest Americans with an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion.

With a mansion in Monarch Beach, Udvar-Hazy also appears on the Business Journal’s list of the county’s “Weekend Wealthy.”

For more on this story, see the Oct. 31 edition of the Business Journal.