Champion Glides Into Home Ownership

Three-time world figure skating champion Michelle Kwan has purchased a Manhattan Beach townhouse for $575,000.

The youngest world champion ice skater in U.S. history at 15, Kwan, who turns 20 on Friday, had been renting the townhouse before she purchased it.

Kwan, who was born and raised in Torrance, attends UCLA, where she is finishing her freshman year this summer. Her parents live at Lake Arrowhead, where she topped the bill at the annual July 4 “Star Spangled Ice 2000” figure skating show at the Iceoplex Ice Castle.

Kwan lost the 1998 Olympic gold medal to Tara Lipinski, but in April she became the first American woman to win three world figure skating titles since Peggy Fleming in the ‘60s.

Kwan, who skated with Champions on Ice in May and plans to compete at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, bought a two-bedroom, 1,450-square-foot unit in a gated development. The townhouse was built about 14 years ago.

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Vic “The Brick” Jacobs, a Southern California radio and TV sports personality since he came to L.A. from Fresno in 1988, has purchased a home in Whittier. The asking price was $369,000.

Jacobs, who was a sports anchorman at KCOP-TV Channel 13 and later joined KIIS-FM’s (102.7) “Rick Dees in the Morning,” is co-host of the L.A. Dodgers’ pregame shows on sports station KXTA-AM (1150) on the XTRA Sports Network.

The sportscaster, in his mid-40s, got his nickname by throwing a fake red brick at TV cameras as he feigned anger.

He bought a three-bedroom, 2,125-square-foot home with city views. The aluminum-sided house was built in the ‘60s and has a kidney-shaped pool, three-car garage and an additional single garage. Jacobs plans to remodel the house.

Rose Simonian of Fred Sands’ Friendly Hills Realty in Whittier represented Jacobs.

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A Studio City home once owned by actor Lon Chaney Jr. has been listed at about $1 million.

Chaney was the son of the silent-film star known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces” because of his creative though often painful use of makeup. In “The Phantom of the Opera” (1924), the elder Chaney put wire inside his nose to tilt his nostrils upward, making his face look more like a skull.

The younger Chaney, who died in 1973, made his film debut in “Of Mice and Men” (1939) and appeared in horror films such as “The Wolf Man.” He was also in “High Noon” (1952).

The Studio City home, built in the ‘30s, includes a three-bedroom, 3,800-square-foot main house with a rosewood-paneled bar and a one-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot guest house with a living room, dining room, kitchen and den.

Patty Ray of Prudential-John Aaroe, Studio City, has the listing.

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Hot Property runs Thursdays in SoCal Living and Sundays in Real Estate. Ryon may be reached at [email protected].