A LOOK BACK:

A Newport Beach house once owned by Ken Niles, a 1920s-era radio personality and movie actor who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, recently went up for sale.

The 36,000-square-foot property a few blocks from the Upper Newport Bay has been owned by James and Louise Barclay for the last four decades. Their son, James Jr., has put the home up for sale.

Niles began his radio career shortly after the first radio stations started broadcasting programming over the air waves. Working for the Don Lee Network, he created a series of radio dramas called “Theater of the Mind,” in 1928 according to his 1988 obituary in the New York Times, which describes him as a “pioneer” of early radio.

Niles built the house at 2400 Santiago Drive in 1955, said Jerri LeBlanc, the real estate broker who has listed the house for $2.3 million.

She first heard rumor of Niles’ connection to the house from the son, whose parents, he told her, mentioned it to him when he was growing up.

“I said I wouldn’t pass it along unless I could substantiate it,” LeBlanc said. Eventually she did just that by searching through title records and deeds.

James Jr. was young when his parents bought the house from the celebrity in 1963 and recalls little about him.

“I met him over on the patio when I was 10. My father was purchasing the home from him. He was a tall, white-haired gentleman from what I remember,” James Jr. said.

His uncle, a longtime Newport Beach yacht broker, told him that Niles also used to own a resort in town, he said.

The house is a relatively small, ordinary, white, two-story suburban home with blue trim. It only takes up a small portion of its 36,000-square-foot lot that is covered with overgrown grass and a variety of different trees and plants.

James Jr. said several local residents told him it’s the last original parcel of its size in Newport Beach, as many others have been subdivided or combined to form smaller or larger lots.

Out of respect for the neighborhood and its history he says he wants to sell it to a single owner, not a developer who would break it up.

Reporter ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.