‘Becker’ to leave Malibu breakers

Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen have put their oceanfront Malibu home on the market at just under $9.8 million.

The celebrity couple leased the house in August 2000 and then purchased it for $4 million, Malibu sources said. It has been refurbished and redecorated under Steenburgen’s supervision.

The Cape Cod-style house has five bedrooms and six bathrooms in about 3,500 square feet. The two-story home also has a room with a media system; a large, updated kitchen; and an oceanfront master suite with a fireplace and a sun deck. The house was built in 1930.

Danson, 55, stars in the CBS series “Becker.� He won two Emmy Awards for his role as Sam Malone in the popular NBC sitcom “Cheers� (1982-1993).

Steenburgen, 50, has appeared on London and Los Angeles stages as well as on Broadway, and she won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in “Melvin and Howard� (1980).

She co-starred with Danson in the two-part CBS miniseries “Living With the Dead� (2002). They also co-starred in the miniseries “Gulliver’s Travels� (1996) and in the movie “Pontiac Moon� (1994).

In January, they agreed to play an unhappily married couple in “Rediscovered Love,� a TV movie in development at CBS. Danson and Steenburgen were married in 1995. Since then, they also have had a home in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Pitcher’s new dugout in the hills

Barry Zito, the Oakland A’s left-handed pitcher who won the Cy Young Award last fall, has purchased a Hollywood Hills home for $2 million.

Zito, 24, bought in the L.A. area because his family lives here. He grew up in San Diego but was drafted into the A’s at the end of his college career at USC. Zito, who is single, also has a home in the Marina area of San Francisco.

His new home has four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in 4,800 square feet. The contemporary-style home, built in 1990, also has walls of glass with mesh shades that automatically drop when the windows reach a certain temperature. The home has some magnificent views, including one from the San Gabriel Mountains to downtown L.A.

The two-level house is on a hillside with a pool.

Sharon Hills of Prudential California-John Aaroe, South Lake office in Pasadena, represented Zito in his purchase. Joe Babajian and Michelle Ficarra, of the same firm in Beverly Hills, had the listing.

Musical couple selling gated home

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Pat Benatar and her husband, guitarist-songwriter-producer Neil Giraldo, have listed their Malibu home, behind gates, at just under $5 million.

The bluff-top, recently remodeled home has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in about 3,400 square feet.

There is a main house and a detached guest studio with a bathroom. The home, on nearly an acre, also has a grassy yard with a spa and stairs leading to a sandy beach. The house, which has walls of glass and vaulted ceilings, was originally built in 1958.

Benatar, 50, first appeared on the rock scene in 1979 with the hit single “Heartbreaker.� She departed from her rock beginnings with the release in 1991 of her album “True Love,� a collection of blues compositions.

Benatar’s angry-sounding opera-trained voice and her looks -- with her shag haircut, dark eye makeup, spike heels and skin-tight pants -- were imitated by female rockers for years. Her powerful performances have been credited with paving the way for many women to enter the male-dominated rock field.

She and her husband have been married since 1982.

Leaving Big Apple for L.A. home

Stand-up comic Stephanie Miller, who hosted a syndicated radio show at KABC-AM in Los Angeles until she moved to New York in 2000, has returned to Southern California, where she has been appearing at the Laugh Factory.

Miller, who previously owned a Hollywood Hills house, will be looking to buy a new property in L.A. as soon as her 2-year-old New York home sells, she said. The four-bedroom, 7,300-square-foot house on 8.5 acres is listed at $1.8 million.

“I put in a 2,000-square-foot gym,� Miller said. The gym, in the basement of the Nantucket-style, cedar-shingle house, also has a spa.

The home overlooks Miller’s private beach and dock on a lake called Blueberry Pond. The lake belongs to Miller and three other owners of properties around the lake. The comic’s property is also surrounded by the 759-acre Teatown Lake Reservation, Westchester’s nonprofit nature preserve education center.

Miller’s home is 37 miles from Manhattan, where she was on the Oxygen Network, hosting 120 episodes of “I’ve Got a Secret� and performing as the morning host of the 30-minute magazine show “Pure Oxygen.� She also co-produced a pilot that she has been shopping as a cross between “The Carol Burnett Show� and “Politically Incorrect.�

Jean Cameron-Smith of Coldwell Banker-Perry Kennedy in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., has the listing.

Celebrity snoop spies Studio City

Jake Schmidt, owner of the Clandestine Investigation Agency, or CIA, and his wife, Grace, have sold a Valley Village home for $475,000 and purchased a Studio City home for $940,000.

The private eye has had such celebrity clients as George Burns, George Foreman, Vanna White, Bob Barker and Candice Bergen, he said. He has played some bit parts in movies and on TV, but he has most recently been a technical advisor for spy and detective shows.

The Schmidts sold a 3,000-square-foot home, built in 1952, with four bedrooms and a pool. They bought a 4,000-square-foot home on a hill with a private drive and city views. The house, built in 1997, has five bedrooms, three fireplaces and a pool.

The investigator is turning two rooms into a sitting room and office area for his clients. “My wife gets the rest of the house� to design, he said, “except for the carport. That’s where I park my Hummer.�

Paul Bilski and Alexandra Degraeve of Re/Max on the Boulevard, Studio City, represented the Schmidts in their real estate transactions.

New landlord has some lofty goals

Anjelica Huston has a new landlord, not where the Oscar-winning actress lives but where she keeps an office.

The 1923 Westside building, with its used brick, original cast-iron columns and capitals, was purchased by Jack V. Hoffmann of Venice Properties.

Hoffman owns considerable real estate in the Westside area. In fact, he also bought a four-unit, trilevel loft property, built in the 1920s, when he purchased the office building. He paid about $1.6 million for both properties, according to public records.

The office building was gutted, redesigned and rebuilt in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s by the late L. Anthony Greenberg, a designer of the popular Maple Drive Restaurant in Beverly Hills. Each office has a 17-foot-high ceiling, a kitchen, a loft and a full bathroom.

To see previous columns on celebrity transactions visit www.latimes.com/hotproperty.