Land on the Horizon

Actor Kevin Costner, 68, has mortgaged a ten-acre plot of prime undeveloped coastline on Padaro Lane in order to finance the development of his forthcoming Western movie franchise Horizon.

“I’ve mortgaged ten acres on the water in Santa Barbara where I was going to build my last house,” the Oscar winner tells Deadline. “But I did it without a thought.

“It has thrown my accountant into a f**king conniption fit. But it’s my life and I believe in the idea and the story.”

Costner, who has been trying to bring the four-part movie series to life for more than 30 years is thought to have personally raised up to $50 million of Horizon’s $100 million budget with the move.

But he says it will be the last time.

“I’ll tell you what. I’m never gonna do this again. I’m never putting my f**cking money into another movie after these four,” he fumed.

Costner has quite a property portfolio, including a 160-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado, and three side-by-side oceanfront properties in Carpinteria, plus the ten-acre parcel of land he just mortgaged.

He bought his first property in the town in the late 1980s, the second a decade later, and a third in 2017.

The parcel of land, which has a small cottage on it, was purchased in 2006 for $28.5 million. Part of the property was sold off in 2009, and he put the remaining ten acres up for sale for $60 million in 2017.

For the Love of Steve

TV talk show host and singer Kelly Clarkson has paid homage to Montecito funnyman Steve Martin, 77, and his role in the 2009 film It’s Complicated co-starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, which was filmed in Santa Barbara.

In her just released new single “I Hate Love,” Clarkson, the first American Idol winner in 2002, features a reference to Martin in her lyrics – and he is also playing banjo on the track.

“I hate love, and The Notebook lied,” she sings. “It’s Complicated is more like what happens, so you can keep Gosling and I’ll take Steve Martin.”

Clarkson, 41, saw Martin play banjo on live streamed videos during the early days of the pandemic and talked to her record producer about it. Martin quickly responded positively to coming on board with the project.

“My ideal moment is his coming on my talk show and then us performing it, but I’ll take him just coming on the show so we can talk and hang out so I can, like, meet him,” she says.

A dynamic duo, indeed…

Court Inquiry

The U.S. government will appear in federal court this week to answer questions regarding Riven Rock resident Prince Harry’s visa application after he admitted using illegal drugs.

The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C. based conservative think tank, is suing President Joe Biden’s administration to force officials to release the Duke of Sussex’s immigration files.

The organization wants to know how King Charles III’s youngest son managed to get into the U.S. considering his admissions in his bestselling memoir Spare to using cocaine, cannabis, and magic mushrooms.

The case is being held in front of a federal judge in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, with the U.S. Government also represented.

A decision to unseal immigration records could have major implications for Harry’s residential status in the U.S. given an admission of drug use can see a visa application rejected.

The Heritage Foundation is aiming to establish whether Harry’s drug revelations in Spare were mentioned in his visa application.

Stay tuned….

House on the Market

Billionaire Bruce Kovner, 78, has put his Carpinteria home on the market for $55 million.

The impressive house is one of two mansions in the Loon Point compound, which he originally marketed for $160 million.

Caxton Associates founder Kovner spent 14 years assembling The Summit, with several properties being swallowed up in the venture along the way.

The new property on the market is an 11,000 square foot Mediterranean-style house with five bedrooms and nine bathrooms, ensconced in more than five acres on a promontory overlooking the Pacific. It was completed in 2018 and is full of reclaimed and antique materials and fixtures.

Kovner’s net worth is estimated by Forbes at $6.6 billion.

Ranch Available

A 4.2-acre equestrian property next to actor Kevin Costner’s Carpinteria estate is up for grabs at $109 million.

The estate, Rancho Cariñoso, is owned by Artie Cameron III, a 40-year-old investor and avid polo player, who inherited the beautiful property that has been in his family for decades.

He built a modest ranch house in 2014 and used it as a beach retreat and riding getaway for his horses.

The original Padaro Lane property of nearly 18 acres was purchased by his father, also Artie Cameron, in 1978 for $1 million.

Both father and son used to play polo at the Santa Barbara Polo Club, just a gallop away. The son is now a regular player at Indio near Palm Springs.

Paying Homage to Paul

The late Santa Barbara actor Paul Walker’s brother Cody has named his newborn son with his wife Felicia after his late sibling as the tenth anniversary of the Fast & Furious star’s tragic death approaches in November.

Cody, 34, also an actor, has named his son Paul Barrett Walker, who is known as Bear by his friends. He was born in April in Arizona.

He joins a family that includes daughter Remi, 5, and another son, Colt, aged 2.

Walker died in 2013, aged 40, in a tragic car accident in Santa Clarita.

Happy Birthday Henry

On a personal note, I wish the former peripatetic U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger congratulations on his 100th birthday.

Kissinger gained global renown working in the administration of the disgraced President Richard Nixon.

I met the world statesman and his towering wife, Nancy, 89, through a dear friend, the late New York socialite Pat Buckley, wife of broadcast journalist Bill Buckley, and would see them often at the Buckleys’ ground floor two-story Park Avenue apartment, or the Kissingers’ opulent pad at Manhattan’s oh-so-tony River House.

At the height of his career, Kissinger was probably the most influential man on Earth.

I vividly remember when he spoke extemporaneously for almost an hour at a cocktail party at the Four Seasons Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

A true statesman, who presided over détente with the Soviet Union and a historic rapprochement between the U.S. and China.

Sightings

Former TV talk show host James Corden visiting Prince Harry in Riven Rock… Actor Orlando Bloom enjoying the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo… Former TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress wife Portia de Rossi shopping at Field + Fort in Summerland.

Pip! Pip!