Hot Property: Cartoonist Exiting from the Frame

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed has listed his mountainside retreat in Santa Barbara for $4.95 million.

The 25-acre ocean-view estate, which includes a single-level custom home, a swimming pool, fruit trees and a guesthouse, was designed as a creative environment. Avocado ranches sit on both sides of the property.

Features include solar power, an art studio and a screening room where Breathed worked for the last 12 years on Hollywood projects including “Mars Needs Moms” (2011) and “Secondhand Lions” (2003). There are five bedrooms, five bathrooms and 5,241 square feet of living space.

He is selling the contemporary Mediterranean to be closer to his children’s school.

“I’d gotten quite used to working high above the Santa Barbara clouds in a Xanadu-like studio that appears designed for Captain Nemo,” Breathed says. “Their particular school forced a painful decision to come back to downtown Earth.”

Breathed, 55, won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 1987 for “Bloom County.” Among the author, novelist and screenwriter’s other comic strips were “Outland” and “Opus.” His most recent film project is his novel “Flawed Dogs,” presently in development at DreamWorks Studios.

His Latest Biscuit Lofts Production

Actor-director-producer Vincent Gallo is in escrow to sell a downtown Los Angeles loft priced at $1.295 million.

The 2,610-square-foot loft in the former National Biscuit Co. building features three levels, two patio/garden spaces, an exposed brick wall, two bedrooms and three bathrooms. Building amenities include a 24-hour doorman, a saline swimming pool, a gym and gated parking.

Gallo starred in such independent films as “The Legend of Kaspar Hauser” (2012), “Essential Killing” (2010) and “Tetro” (2009).

Public records show he bought the property last year for $825,000.

The avant-garde Gallo has bought and sold multiple units in the 1925 building, where he serves on the association board, including a penthouse that last year went for $2.6 million.