CLOSER TO HOME
Soap star Kate Linder tours Closer through her family’s gorgeous LA abode.
Kate Linder’s converted Los Angeles farmhouse holds tremendous personal meaning for the actress. “My husband and I bought it from my father in 1982, just after I started on The Young and the Restless,” Kate, 69, tells Closer. “Since it’s my 35th anniversary on the show — and living here — it’s a very special place for me.”
There’s a lot that’s special about the three-bedroom, three-bath house, from its stunning hillside views to the way nature envelops its 0.39-acre plot. “I love it because it’s quiet and secluded but close to the city,” she says. “It’s very peaceful, and all the greenery makes you feel like you’re in the park.”
Yet it wasn’t love at first sight. “If you told me I was going to buy this house, I would’ve thought you were crazy!” Kate says with a laugh. After her dad nabbed
it as an investment property, she and her husband of now-41 years, retired producer Ron Linder, 77, moved in to help get it ready to sell. “It was a big mess,” she says, but after they worked on it a bit, “I said, ‘I’m not leaving!’ My father said, ‘You can’t afford it,’ but after some creative financing, we were able to stay.”
While homeowners typically do major renovations by choice, the 1994 6.7-magnitude Northridge earthquake left them with no alternative. “The previous owner had taken out a lot of support upstairs and filled walls with soundproofing sand for a recording studio,” says Kate. “So while all of the other houses in the area were fine, ours was trashed.”
Fortunately, the four years they were forced to live elsewhere offered a golden opportunity. “I’m lucky to have a designer and an architect friend. I always said to them, ‘One day, I’d like you to design our house.’ Little did I know it would actually fall down!” she says. “But we got to change things that didn’t work for us.”
“We wed on Valentine’s Day, so I chose Valentine as my character’s
name. It turned out to be good luck!”
— Kate (with Ron)
That meant rebuilding and extending the decks outside, pushing one of the living room walls back a few feet and moving a bathroom to a better location. “I guess there was a silver lining!” she notes cheerily.
When it comes to daily maintenance, however, don’t expect Kate to replicate her Y&R housekeeper character, Esther Valentine. “I told Ron I’d only be a maid on TV,” she jokes. “I have a lovely lady that comes over to help, and Ron and I had this fake maid where he’d say, ‘Gertrude was here,’ when he did something around the house!”
She may have a fake maid, but Kate is still a real flight attendant for United Airlines. “People don’t believe it’s me! It keeps me grounded,” she says — and makes her appreciate her house all the more when she returns. “I let out a giant sigh and think, ‘Home!’ Then I kick off my shoes and relax.”
— Reporting by Steve Gidlow