Real Estate PaparazziFormer left fielder Cordova scores at Anthem

After spending three years in his Anthem home, former left fielder Marty Cordova is selling and planning to stay in the Las Vegas Valley, according to Bob Barnhart, owner of Red Rock Realty.

"In fact he had such a great experience building this custom home, that he is looking for the next best area in the valley to build the home of his dreams once again," Barnhart said.

Cordova didn't have to bat 1.000 to become American League 1995 Rookie of the Year. He was a .277 hitter with 24 home runs and 84 RBIs for the Minnesota Twins. The native Las Vegan returned after a nine-season career ended by back injuries and surgeries on his right elbow.

Cordova scores another home run with his 10,000-square-foot Tuscan-style villa on one acre in Anthem listed at $5-plus million. The detached two-story home located in Henderson is described in the Multiple Listing Service as a "picturesque golf course and mountain retreat" with "majestic views, kitchen with entertainer's (meaning party for hundreds of ball players) wet bar, marble floors and custom everything."

The home includes a custom game room, home theater and wine cellar. Cordova is said to have put both hands into the design of this estate built in 2003.

Racer Tagliani zooms to

One Queensridge Place

Champ Car driver, Alex Tagliani's move to Las Vegas in 2000 was a test run. He considered the desert climate best for training his cars and his body. With a temperature range below freezing in his native Montreal to the valley's searing heat, the driver as well as the car "were very affected by the temperature and feel very hot and two days later, the body doesn't have time to adapt to this change," said Tagliani, who started in 1987 at age 15 with a 100cc Junior Karting Championship in Québec.

The Grand Prix racer, who will be one of two locals entered in the Las Vegas event April 8, and his wife, Bronte Kok, an Australian model, television personality and fitness trainer, finished their home-hunting search with "our house in the sky," according to Tagliani.

The vertical move to One Queensridge Place, in the Queensridge master-planned community, at Alta Drive and Rampart Boulevard, across from Red Rock Country Club will be official this summer.

The eighth-floor condo model Unit E1 ran between $1.6- to 1.7-million with 2,638 square feet and two bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, dining and great rooms, study, island kitchen with nook and two covered terraces.

Frank Pankratz, president of Executive Home Builders Inc., the parent company of the developer, said, "We anticipated building homes for people looking for a primary residence, but not live on the Strip. We took the feel of a single-family home and built them vertically."

According to Tagliani, there are three elevator shafts for six units for each floor. "You put your key in and the elevator stops at your floor."

"Over the past few years, I used real estate to have additional income. I took a passion that I had, and turned it into something more. The hobby of remodeling, decorating, upgrading and changing homes was something that my wife and I decided to do together. I moved to Las Vegas in March of 2000, and from the couple of homes that I purchased during the last seven years, I made a profit of $700,000," Tagliani said.

Asian-influenced artist

lists Buddha-filled home

Dr. Phil to the Sultan of Brunai, who has three full-time art consultants, are among the collectors artist Michelle Samerjan calls her clients.

"My art is tranquil with the stimulus of fauna and flora. My work is figurative and abstract," she said.

The artist's home is "enveloped with color as you walk into a Buddhist shrine," Samerjan said. Serenity juxtaposed with a profusion of hues from her color palette -- Autumn in Paris -- Samerjan's Aurora View Estates home, off Oakey Boulevard and east of Buffalo Drive, is listed by James Beasley, president of Beasley & Devarreau Sotheby's International Realty.

"The interior design is a fusion of her vision and artistry. Ideally located between Summerlin and the Las Vegas Strip, it is close to fine dining, world class shopping and entertainment," Beasley said.

The purchase price she and husband, Peter, who handles publishing and business affairs, paid in March 2003, was $1 million. It is listed for $1.7 million, exhibiting a kitchen with Wolf range, three dishwashers, granite countertops, breakfast bar, pool and spa and three-car garage.

The second floor features the master bedroom with sitting room and private bath, with a life- size Buddha statue (not included).

In 6,000 square feet there are a total of five Buddha and two Kwan Yin, goddess of compassion, statues (also not included) interspersed among the five bedrooms, seven baths, office and game room with wet bar.

Samerjan said they are looking to relocate in the Midwest or southeast sections of the country, Knoxville, Tenn., Savannah, Ga., or Carmel, Ind. Her new home will receive her 300-year-old antiquities from China, Tibet, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.

Joan Schiller Travis can be reached at 338-9797 or JTwriter@cox.net.