Chang Puts Net Profits to Use

Tennis champ MICHAEL CHANG, the 18-year-old from Placentia who won the French Open in 1989 and was on the U.S. team that won the Davis Cup last year, has purchased a newly built home in south Orange County for just under $1.4 million.

Chang, a first-time buyer, bought one of the first $1-million-plus tract homes in the 4,000-acre Coto de Caza, a gated community in the hills near Mission Viejo that is about half developed, mostly with custom homes.

He purchased a two-story, Mediterranean-style house with four bedrooms, a guest/maid’s room and exercise room in 5,300 square feet. Chang’s garage has room for five or six cars.

The home is on a 7 1/2-acre site, where the athlete will build a tennis court for his own use, sources said.

His lot is one of the bigger ones in a project within Coto de Caza known as The Arbours, where there are 28 homes on 64 acres with lot sizes ranging from half an acre to about 10 acres. Homes in the project have views of the countryside and ridges of Saddleback Mountain.

WILLIAM PETER BLATTY--who wrote the novel “The Exorcist,” produced the movie version and most recently wrote and directed the film “Exorcist III”--has closed escrow on a 6,000-square-foot west San Fernando Valley home.

He bought the six-bedroom, 15-year-old house on three acres for about $2 million and plans to expand it by 1,500 square feet, a source said.

Blatty also has a home in Connecticut. He sold another home in Beverly Hills six months ago and has been living since then in a rental in Montecito, sources say. Blatty is currently in the final stages of a new novel, “Dimiter.”

Vida Monify of Rodeo Realty represented Blatty.

After building a mansion in Pacific Palisades with the royalties from his bestseller, “The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure,” author ROBERT KOWALSKI, who is now working on “The 8-Week ‘Round the World Cookbook,” and his family decided they preferred their modest home in Venice.

So, after two years of construction, the Palisades estate has been put on the market at $4.4 million.

The English country-style home has five bedrooms in the main house, including a maid’s room and bath in an 800-square-foot basement. There is a sixth bedroom in a two-story guest house. The home also has a billiard room, children’s playroom, swimming pool and spa.

It’s listed with Claudia DeKoven and Jody Fine, both with Fred Sands Realtors, and Greta Hunt of Jon Douglas Co.

Actor RUTGER HAUER--who starred in last year’s films “Blind Fury” and “Blood of Heroes” and has appeared in “Blade Runner,” “The Hitcher” and a dozen other films--has sold his Laurel Canyon residence to live on his boat, sources say.

Hauer also has a home in the Netherlands, his native country.

He sold his L.A. home for slightly more than its asking price of $599,000, sources say. The residence was described by a source as “a gated, Swiss chalet-style mountaintop retreat, built in the 1960s.” Hauer had owned it since October, 1988.

Debby Berg of Fred Sands’ Beverly Hills office had the listing but was unavailable for comment.

GRAY FREDERICKSON, a producer of “The Godfather Part III” and an Oscar winner as producer of “The Godfather Part II,” has listed his home in Beverly Hills north of Sunset Boulevard for sale at $1,175,000 or for lease at $7,000 a month.

“He and his wife just had a baby, and they want to get into a more family-type home,” said Elaine Young, who has the listing at Alvarez, Hyland & Young.

Frederickson’s home is more of a bachelor pad, she explained. It has three bedrooms in 2,500 square feet, including a two-story master suite with a lanai overlooking a black-bottom pool.

A house in the Tustin hills that went on the market at $22 million in February, 1989, has been reduced to $14,950,000.

The 30,000-plus-square-foot contemporary mansion is on 26 acres with two racquetball courts, a tennis court, waterfalls, pools and grottoes. The estate was built in 1988 for Pat and Mike DiAngelo, owners of Clothestime.