COLUMN ONE : For Rent: Pieces of Paradise : Guest houses give the not-so-rich a chance to live in the lap of luxury. Tenants find love, intrigue and sometimes tragedy.

It was the ultimate Southern California fantasy for a struggling young actor from the Midwest: a rent-free stay in the guest house of O.J. Simpson’s multimillion-dollar Brentwood estate.

Brian Kaelin, the tan, blond-mopped Hollywood hopeful better known as Kato, gave a tantalizing glimpse of that world when he testified during Simpson’s preliminary hearing about the good fortune of finding discount accommodations in one of the city’s toniest enclaves.

“To live in a star’s guest house, especially for people who aren’t from here, is like, oh God, the ultimate dream,” said Jennifer Young, an aspiring Beverly Hills songstress and daughter of realtor-to-the-stars Elaine Young, who sold Simpson his Rockingham Avenue mansion in the mid-1970s.

In a region where real estate is a measure of fame, where a mere ZIP code is nationally renowned for its cachet, guest houses have long permeated the mythology of Southern California.

Greta Garbo stayed in one during West Coast visits, as did a young Bill Clinton, who for years enjoyed a place in Brentwood owned by the parents of his longtime friend, Occidental College professor Derek Shearer. A guest house on John Barrymore’s estate--used by the cavorting Errol Flynn for many of his escapades--is now home to Butterfield’s, a trendy West Hollywood eatery. In the haunting 1950 movie “Sunset Boulevard,” a down-on-his-luck screenwriter meets an untimely end when he accepts an apartment in the Mediterranean villa of an aging and demented silent film star, Norma Desmond.

“Coming to town and finding a guest house is a grand old Hollywood cliche,” said one publicity-shy real estate agent. “It’s as old as coming to town on a Greyhound bus and being discovered at Schwab’s. The reality is you’re probably going to end up in some dreadful sublet with plastic over the furniture, no air conditioning and lots of cottage cheese on the ceiling.”

Rental agencies say they are deluged every day with calls for the treasured guest houses, pool houses and carriage houses that dot many large Westside estates. Some agencies devote more than half of their listings to such properties. An exclusive word-of-mouth network controls the choicest locales--richly landscaped haciendas with hot tubs, tennis courts and panoramic views.

In more modest neighborhoods, such living quarters tend to be known as granny flats or, even more pointedly, bootleg garages.

But in Los Angeles’ moneyed communities, from Hancock Park to Whitley Heights to Bel-Air Estates, guest houses represent a foothold in paradise--a chance for Tinseltown wanna-bes to savor the amenities of success at a fraction of the price.

“It’s like, why take a Pinto if you could have a Mercedes?” said the 29-year-old Jennifer Young, whose friends pepper her for help in the guest house market.

David Lewman, a thirty-something comedy writer from Chicago, was lucky enough to score at least a Volvo of a place.

Last fall, he called his old friend, actress Lisa Darr, to announce that he was heading to Los Angeles to seek fame and fortune. Darr, who starred in the murder-mystery play “Tamara” and has appeared on TV’s “Murphy Brown,” “Wings” and “Northern Exposure,” offered him the small cottage behind her rustic Sherman Oaks ranch house.

“For the first time in my adult life, I have my own little house without anyone walking over me or walking under me,” said Lewman, who is living off his dwindling savings and probably would have found himself in a seedy bachelor apartment.

For $500 a month, he gets full run of the onetime chicken farm, which features a Jacuzzi, hammock, fruit trees and lush garden patio, all shaded by a forest of towering pines. For her part, Darr enjoys the extra cash, as well as the security of knowing that a friend is always nearby.

“The writer out in the guest house and the actress in the big house--it’s classic,” Lewman said shortly after rushing out to audition for a beer commercial. “It’s a cliche . . . but there’s something very romantic about that.”

Over in Hancock Park, on a 1920s-era Mediterranean-style estate not far from the Getty House, a coveted guest house with French windows has never failed to attract creative souls.

The owners, both retired veterans of the New York theater, have asked not to be identified because the rental unit violates city zoning law--despite the fact that such codes seldom are enforced. But they take glee in recounting the tenants who later became celebrities, including Andy Summers, guitarist for The Police, and Patrick Stewart, Capt. Jean-Luc Picard of TV’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“Our place is the lucky guest house,” said the family matriarch. “Every one of them has been our friends, except for one little snot.”

Summers, she said, was their first tenant back in the early ‘70s. A then-unknown musician, he agreed to teach guitar to their teen-age son in exchange for lodging.

Years later, she said, they rented the guest house to the niece of famed director-producer Sydney Pollack. Their son, by then grown and living on his own, fell in love with her at the Christmas dinner table.

“He called me one day and said, ‘Ma, would it be OK if I moved into the guest house with her?’ ” his mother recalled. “He got music lessons and a wife.”

America’s best-known guest house denizen, Kato Kaelin, certainly got more than he bargained for.

The 35-year-old Milwaukee-born actor, who came to California a decade ago, had struggled through a series of low-budget films and a stint producing cheesecake calendars of swimsuit-clad models. Among his previous addresses, according to public records, was a shabby East Hollywood duplex wedged against the freeway. Then, at the end of 1992, he took a ski vacation to Aspen and met Nicole Brown Simpson, who later invited him to a party at her spacious Gretna Green Way home in Brentwood.

He couldn’t help but notice a vacant cottage behind the house, Kaelin later told Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark during O.J. Simpson’s preliminary hearing.

“Did that give you some idea?” the prosecutor asked.

“To move in,” replied Kaelin, his bluntness triggering a chorus of courtroom chuckles.

Paying $450 to $500 a month, Kaelin lived there for most of 1993, occasionally taking care of the Simpsons’ two young children in exchange for a break on his rent. At the beginning of 1994, Nicole Simpson moved into the Bundy Drive condominium where she later was killed. She had no separate guest quarters there, and O.J. Simpson was uncomfortable with Kaelin living inside her home while the divorced couple was trying to reconcile.

By then, Kaelin had become a friend to the entire family, so it was not considered odd for Simpson to invite him to his Brentwood mansion. Kaelin lived in one of the estate’s three guest houses--a feature treasured by Simpson, according to realtor Elaine Young, because they provided the ideal natural light that his first wife, Marquerite, needed for painting.

Now that Simpson faces trial in the deaths of his ex-wife and a friend, Kaelin’s relationship to both suspect and victim has made him one of the most intriguing figures in the closely watched Simpson saga. He held a nation transfixed recently as he described how he spent the day of the murders--using the former NFL star’s Jacuzzi, riding with him in a Rolls Royce to McDonald’s, then hearing a suspicious thud against his guest house wall.

But Kaelin, who has since moved to an undisclosed location, has tried to remain discreet. He has turned down numerous interview requests, according to his attorney, including an offer of $100,000 from the National Enquirer.

“Kato had a good perspective on who he was and what his role was,” said a source close to Kaelin, who asked not to be identified. “It’s not like he was a groupie who went around telling people he lived with O.J. Simpson.”

In a few tragic cases, guest house residents have lost far more than their privacy.

The 1991 shotgun slayings of three teen-age girls in Pasadena’s affluent Annandale district occurred at a pool house owned by one of the victims, who hosted frequent beer blasts.

British filmmaker Duncan Gibbins, the first fatality of last fall’s firestorms, died after trying to rescue his cat from the guest house he rented on a 10-acre Topanga Canyon estate.

Earlier this year in Glendale, a guest house tenant was charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of his landlord, an 89-year-old grandmother who allowed him to stay free in exchange for odd jobs. A search of the suspect’s bedroom, according to court testimony, revealed a collection of more than 100 books on satanic practices.

Little could be said about guest houses, however, to dampen Stefanos Polyzoides’ enthusiasm. The USC professor of architecture is one of the most ardent champions of such living arrangements, both for personal and professional reasons.

“Apartment living is just completely depressing,” said Polyzoides, who took out a newspaper ad with his wife five years ago in search of guest house quarters.

They ended up in a delightful three-room cottage behind a $1-million Spanish-style home near the Rose Bowl. They had trussed wooden ceilings, a view of the San Gabriel Mountains and their own vegetable garden, all for a rent that Polyzoides said was a fraction of what such luxury would otherwise cost.

“It was an extraordinarily pleasant experience,” he said. “We actually felt sorry about leaving.”

Some communities, such as Whittier and Ojai, have tried to tighten the rules on such back-yard structures in response to complaints about congestion. But Polyzoides is more inclined to side with the handful of affluent cities, such as San Marino and Rolling Hills Estates, that have sought to use maid’s quarters and caretaker’s cottages to meet state-mandated quotas for affordable housing.

“It’s a rather wonderful, ancient way of having people live,” he said. “It increases the density of a city without taking away any of its livability or single-family character.”

The only greater tale of guest house devotion comes from a real estate agent who was trying to sell one of Hancock Park’s most elegant estates.

A young music critic was living in the guest house and feared relinquishing his privileged pad should the estate be sold. One day, while some prospective buyers were inspecting the house, the tenant struck back: He waited for the agent to wander off, then ambushed the newcomers, telling them fabricated horror stories about muggers lurking in the bushes.

It was a valiant effort, the agent said, but not enough to block the tenant’s eviction.