In an uncertain housing market, leave it to a couple of Vegas boys to place big bets on OC’s gold coast. Jerry Herbst, 70-year-old chairman of Nevada gas station and gaming empire Terrible Herbst, recently paid a record $35 million for actor Nicholas Cage’s home in Bayshore, just across Newport Bay from Herbst’s longtime place on Linda Isle. The sale price was $10 million more than Cage paid two and a half years ago and shattered the short-lived record of $30 million that developer Kenneth Sullivan paid for a move-up house in Laguna Beach’s Irvine Cove. The Vegas press has been trying to guess what’s next for the cash-flush Sullivan and partner Jim Stuart. Since 2005, their Centra Properties has sold about $700 million in assets. The developer retains an interest in the $750 million Town Square Las Vegas complex …
Acting OC Sheriff Jack Anderson is a scratch golfer and a long driver. Three years ago in Rantoul, Ill., he made a hole-in-one on a par four hole, 342 yards …
Bravo says the season three finale of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” drew a record 2 million viewers; the season averaged 1.3 million viewers, up 21% from the prior year …
VCer John Garcia of Tustin-based Angel Strategies has joined the board of Stan Lee’s Beverly Hills-based POW Entertainment …
Restaurateurs Michael and Georgia Soares (La Fondue in San Juan Capistrano) traded in 124,000 Starwood Hotels & Resorts points for a night with John Travolta at the New York premiere of “Hairspray.” The unusual deal got them featured in the Wall Street Journal …
Former OCBJ reporter and neutral observer Howard Fine, now starring at our sister Los Angeles Business Journal, has 30 seconds and a screen credit in the anti-Schwarzenegger documentary, “Running with Arnold.” The film is narrated by Alec Baldwin and directed by former LABJ staffer Dan Cox …
Speaking of the Governator, he made the rounds of the Center Club, giving a pep talk to Lincoln Club prospects in one room, surprising the pro-choice Women in Leadership in another room and finally arriving at his scheduled session with the New Majority …
Dailies beware: Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch and now the OC Register are reportedly the largest papers to eliminate their pullout business sections. What do you know? EE RR has edited the business journals in both OC and Columbus …
California State University Chancellor Charles Reed addresses an OC Forum luncheon Thursday at the Hyatt Regency Irvine …
“Super Tuesday” analysis from Michael Dukakis at Chapman U on Feb. 12 and from Mike Huckabee campaign chief Ed Rollins at a UCI Center for the Study of Democracy dinner debate on Feb. 13 …
Mike Carona tormentor Scott Moxley of OC Weekly and Carona adviser Michael Schroeder square off at an OC Press Club discussion Feb. 13. EE RR moderates. Call (562) 983-8139.
