Karate Champ Falls for Site

JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME, the karate and kick-boxing champion-turned-star of such movies as this fall’s “Timecop” sci-fi action-adventure, has purchased a Beverly Hills lot for $1.5 million. He plans to build a home there.

Van Damme is in Pittsburgh filming the movie “Sudden Death,” to be released next year. His first PG-13 movie, “Street Fighter,” based on a video game, is due to open in December.

The actor owns a house in the San Fernando Valley, a source said. He married his fourth wife, model Darcy La Pier, in February, and he has two children by his third wife, bodybuilder Gladys Portugues, from whom he was separated in 1992.

The lot he bought is on nearly an acre with a view of the city. It had been owned by Thomas Pollock, chairman of Universal Pictures, who bought it in 1991 for $2.5 million.

“It’s a beautiful lot,” said an architect who was once asked to do some preliminary plans for the site. “It sits on a point, and there are some geological problems. So, a house can be built there, though with some difficulty.”

It wouldn’t be the first time that Van Damme overcame the odds. When he came to Hollywood from Belgium at the age of 22 to become an actor, he didn’t speak English and he slept in a rented car.

Now, the 33-year-old star, who called himself “The Muscles from Brussels” to promote his first, low-budget flicks, has been the lead in nearly a dozen movies, including several mainstream features, and he is said to command a salary of $8 million a film.

Emmy Award-winning actress MARIETTE HARTLEY and her husband, PATRICK BOYRIVEN, have put their Encino home of 15 years on the market at just under $1 million.

The couple, who have two nearly grown children, want to move to New York and keep a small place here so they can be bicoastal, said their listing agent, Cissy Wellman-Guydus of Jon Douglas Co.’s Bel-Air office.

Hartley, 54, was born in New York. Known for her film and TV roles as well as her stint as a CBS Morning Program host and her Polaroid ads with James Garner, Hartley is writing a book that she calls a “continuation” of her best-selling autobiography “Breaking the Silence.”

Boyriven, a French producer/director, owns Pacific Wings Flight School in Van Nuys.

Their house has four bedrooms plus maid’s quarters in 4,800 square feet. Built in 1953 but recently updated, the home is on almost an acre with a tennis court and black-bottom pool. There are also three fireplaces and a meditation room in the home, originally listed at just under $1.2 million.

The Venice condo where accused Hollywood madam HEIDI FLEISS had been living after her Beverly Hills home was sold last March has been listed at $399,000.

Fleiss, on trial now in Superior Court for pandering and possession of cocaine for sale, was arrested in August with her father, Los Feliz pediatrician Paul Fleiss, on federal charges of tax evasion and money laundering. She was transferred in September from a federal detention center to a drug rehab center in Pasadena.

Her father, who is scheduled to go on trial in January with Fleiss on the federal charges, owns the Venice condo. He also owned the Beverly Hills house, which was sold for just under its $1.8-million asking price.

He bought the condo in March, 1992, for $105,000, and put considerable sums into renovations, according to public records.

The unit, a penthouse facing the ocean, has two bedrooms and a loft in about 1,370 square feet. The condo, which also has two balconies, is in a gate-guarded project with a gym and pool. The 66-unit development was built in 1989.

Elaine Young and Paul Czako of Coldwell Banker, Beverly Hills, have the listing.

The Brentwood condo of NICOLE BROWN SIMPSON has been put on the market at $795,000.

The condo, which Nicole Simpson bought last January, was for sale in the $800,000 range when she was murdered. It was taken off of the market by her family. It is listed now with Pauline Rimp of John Aaroe & Associates, Brentwood.

Built in 1991, the unit, a townhouse, has four bedrooms and three fireplaces in 3,400 square feet. It’s also for lease at $5,000 a month.

Film director and actor HENRY JAGLOM has purchased a 9,000-square-foot home on three acres in Santa Monica for just under $4 million, sources say. The asking price was about $4.2 million.

Jaglom was an actor on such TV shows as “Gidget” and “The Flying Nun” before he edited “Easy Rider” (1969) and became a director of such films as “Eating” (1990), which focuses on women’s neuroses about food, and “Babyfever,” about a woman who hears her biological clock ticking. “Babyfever” stars Jaglom’s wife, actress Victoria Foyt.

Jaglom also distributes and finances his films through his Rainbow Film Co. in Hollywood.

10 Years Marked

The “Hot Property” column marks its 10th anniversary this week. The first celebrity lead item in the 1984 column was talk-show host Johnny Carson, with his purchase of a Malibu home at just under $9 million, still a record single-family home sale for the area.