Perched on a mountainside with a panoramic view of the valley below, Johnny Carson's retreat is private, its precise location a generally well-kept secret.
The house sports a rough-hewn stone-and-timber look, covers 5,075 square feet and has a market value of $835,356. Its owner also holds title to three adjacent vacant lots that are worth $750,000 and serve as a buffer against snoopers. The home is in the American Flag subdivision of Deer Valley, the resort locale that harbors Utah's highest-priced real estate.It takes some digging to find them, but the particulars on Carson's abode - and pictures of it - are public information on file with the Summit County assessor's office in the tiny county seat of Coalville, 30 miles away.
That's where you have to go to find documentation on who among the rich and famous have homes in Park City, because those in the know around town won't talk about it.
And even the public record is limited.
"I suspect that a lot of people who choose to remain in the background don't use their real names on their property," said Ann MacQuoid, a local real estate agent who has sold homes to celebrities looking for an alpine respite from the rat race.
They find it, apparently, in the rustic playground for the rich that Park City and environs has become in the last decade.
Rank-and-file residents take the invasion in nonchalant stride.
"They can show up in Albertson's and people will recognize and not acknowledge it," said City Manager Toby Ross. "When people bug them, it's usually tourists, not locals."
"The other day I was at the movies when Robert Urich walked out right in front of me. He was able to casually get a drink of water, talk to somebody he knew and walk out without being accosted."
Carson for a time played racquetball regularly at the Park City Racquet Club.
"He'd walk in kind of nondescript, wearing a hat, play with the pro for half an hour and nobody would know he was there, nobody would bother him," said Ross.
"People who come here do so to keep a low profile," added Police Chief Frank Bell. "I think they are able to do that."
Nancy Volmer, communications director for the Park City Chamber of Commerce, said when she received a query from a Los Angeles journalist about a certain movie star's purchase of a local home, she figured it would be easy enough to verify.
She discovered otherwise.
"Everybody said, `Why are you asking?' " said Volmer.
Indeed, Park City - unlike Vail or Aspen, where celebrities often appear to make a serious effort to show off - is bereft of paparazzi. Even the local newspaper has a policy on photographing famous people - it doesn't do it unless they put themselves in the public eye at fund-raisers and such.
This, explained MacQuoid, is precisely Park City's star appeal.
"They don't have that constant harassment," she said.
The town's real estate ownership by famous or influential people typically is cloaked in the name of the landlord's attorney or a corporation. Many owners are of the variety who aren't especially well-known, though they wield considerable clout in the corporate world.
Film mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, owns a place in Park City, but you won't find his name on the title. The same is true of Richard Marriott, vice-chairman of the hotel giant Marriott Corp. John B. McCoy, chairman of the Ohio-based Banc One Corp., controlling 78 banks with 1,340 branches in a dozen states, does attach his name to his Deer Valley property. McCoy is owner of a 2,566-square-foot place in Sterlingwood Condominiums, valued at $432,450.
Famous property owners who appear in the public record include:
- Richard "Cheech" Marin of Culver City, Calif., of "Cheech and Chong" comic notoriety, owns a home - but don't confuse him with one comparatively obscure Richard Marin of New York who also owns a local home. Cheech Marin's 2,200-square-foot condominium is worth $631,000, according to the county assessor, and is at Stag Lodge in Deer Valley.
- Art L. Ulene, the doctor who offers advice to viewers of the "Today Show," claims title to a $520,000 Pine Inn Condominium unit about the same size as Marin's.
- Joe Regalbuto, the actor who plays Frank Fontana on television's popular "Murphy Brown," recently bought a house previously owned by Kate Jackson of "Charlie's Angels" fame. The home, on Telemark Drive at the bottom of Deer Valley, is a two-story, 2,774-square-foot place with a market value of $240,016, according to the county.
- Roger Penske, the race-car driver and co-owner of Deer Valley Resort with partner Edgar Stern, has his name on his own condominium, a 3,413-square-foot unit at Stein Ericksen Lodge.
- Urich, veteran TV actor of such shows as "Spencer for Hire" and "Crossroads," owns a 1-acre lot in Highland Estates worth $48,174, and shares a home with wife Heather in Park City, where - unlike most celebrity property owners - they have taken up residency. Their house, with 3,270 square feet, vaulted ceilings, a wraparound deck and a satellite dish in the yard, has an assessed market value of $340,500.
Tony Danza, star of television's "Who's the Boss?" also owns a home in Park City, though apparently in someone else's name. Danza this spring gained public attention when he sued developers for building a ski run near his Deer Valley house in the resort's Evergreen subdivision.
Some nationally known Park City property owners are longtime - and for all purposes permanent - Utah residents.
- Mark Eaton, the Utah Jazz player, lives in a Jeremy Ranch house with an assessed market value of $466,213.
- Debbie and Randall Fields, she of cookie-making Mrs. Fields Inc., have several parcels of real estate under the corporation's name scattered about Park City's central district. The most valuable is a 12,352-square-foot building divided 50-50 between commercial and residential use and valued at $745,776.
- Harry Reems, star in years past of numerous sex films, is a born-again Christian who for years has lived and sold real estate in Summit County. He owns two houses, valued at $130,562 and $155,562, as well as lots in Kamas, the Silver Spring subdivision and Summit Park worth a total of $136,603.
Bell, the police chief, said though many of Park City's most expensive homes aren't occupied by their owners all the time, full-time caretakers live on the premises when nobody else is around.
"Many are protected by private security forces," he added. "And by sophisticated alarm systems or big dogs."
Staff writer Alan Edwards contributed to this story.