O.C. star power: Clooney, Pitt will turn gay bar into restaurant.

George Clooney, Brad Pitt and an airplane finance tycoon are buying one of Laguna Beach's best-known gay bars and plan to turn it into a ritzy restaurant and bed and breakfast, according to sources.

The actors have teamed with Beverly Hills billionaire Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, chief executive of Los Angeles-based International Lease Finance Corp., to buy the Boom Boom Room and its adjoining Coast Inn on Pacific Coast Highway, sources said.

The bar and hotel could be converted into a restaurant and the first bed and breakfast in a chain of such getaways to bear the names of Clooney and Pitt.

Clooney also has teamed with developers who are planning the $3 billion Las Ramblas condominium and hotel complex near the Strip in Las Vegas.

The real money behind the Laguna Beach deal, sources said, is Udvar-Hazy, who has an estimated net worth of $3 billion, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.

International Lease Finance is the largest source of leased planes from Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS. Airlines are the bulk of the company's customers.

Undvar-Hazy also has his name on a Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum annex at Washington Dulles International Airport, which opened in 2003 after a $66 million gift from the Hungarian immigrant.

The Laguna deal also includes an oceanfront home across the street from the Boom Boom Room, according to sources, who speculated that Udvar-Hazy could convert that site into another vacation home.

The buyers are said to have paid cash--price undisclosed--for the property. The deal closed escrow in a matter of days. The sellers were a group headed by Cary Glenn and Richard Zona, sources said.

The buyers' plans mean that the Boom Boom Room, which has crossover appeal, will need to relocate in order to stay in business.

RICK REIFF Orange County Business Journal