Sunday, November 12, 2006

Merv Griffin's Carmel Valley Estate For Sale

Merv Griffin, best known for his long-running TV series, "The Merv Griffin Show" is selling his Carmel Valley Estate for $6.2 million. The Monterey County Herald stated that from the late 1970s into the 1990s Griffin entertained Lucille Ball and other celebrities at his estate.

One weekend, industrialist Armand Hammer flew down in his private jet, with Lucille Ball and her husband, Gary Morton, and Cary Grant and his wife and daughter. Also around for the weekend was Arthur Murray, the famous dance instructor, and his wife, Kathryn, and Eva Gabor of "Green Acres" fame.

Griffin wrote about the weekend in his 2003 memoir, "Merv: Making the Good Life Last." The group spent the weekend lounging around the pool, playing board games and relaxing.

"Grant wandered around draped in a large caftan, looking like a Tibetan holy man," Griffin wrote, prompting Ball to keep calling him the "great High Lama."