Even before they announced their engagement on March 8, ER's Noah Wyle and makeup artist Tracy Warbin were obviously marriage material. "They're very close people," says Los Angeles Realtor Jeff Chertow, who took them house-hunting last spring. "Tracy and Noah are two peas in a pod."

Fortunately they won't have to live in one. Though they haven't set a wedding date, Wyle, 27, and Warbin, 31, will settle into a secluded 45-acre spread nestled in the Santa Ynez Valley north of Los Angeles that the ER star bought from Bo Derek for about $2.5 million. "This is a very romantic house," says Chertow's colleague Diana Anderson of the 5,000-square-foot main dwelling, which comes with two caretaker apartments and two solar-heated pools. "They fell in love with it."

At first sight—just like they did with each other in April 1996 while making the movie The Myth of Fingerprints. Wyle was one of the stars and an associate producer, and Warbin was the key makeup artist. "She took my heart," Wyle told Premiere magazine. They quickly discovered their mutual passion for Bob Dylan, driving big, old, American cars and rescuing sweet-faced pound dogs. Soon, Warbin had moved into Wyle's Los Angeles home, and the couple merged their menageries, which included three dogs and four cats.

Blended families are nothing new to Wyle. After his father, Stephen, an engineer, and mother, Marty, a nurse, divorced and remarried others, Wyle shared space in Los Angeles with a sister, a brother, three stepsiblings and a half sister. Warbin, born in Texas and reared in Massachusetts, has been working in Hollywood for the past decade.

Like California real estate, relationships can crumble, but Chertow is betting that Wyle and Warbin's will last. "I deal with a lot of celebrities," he says. "And these are two really down-to-earth people."