MUSIC CENTER GIFT KEEPS ON GIVING : Donation by Disney widow pleases Philharmonic leaders, and settles a political dispute.

“You can’t tell the donor where the building should be,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman, after the widow of Walt Disney made a $50-million offer this week to build a new concert hall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a specific plot of land across from the Music Center.

“The donor isn’t going to give the money unless she’s happy with the location. If she’s convinced it’s Lot K, for $50 million or $60 million, that’s OK . . . “

Besides bringing delight to Philharmonic leaders who call the prospect of a new concert hall “a dream come true,” the gift by Lillian B. Disney appears to have settled a major political dispute here, involving whether the Music Center should expand on a site on Grand Avenue or on Lot K across from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on First Street.

The gift, which could appreciate to $60 million through investment income, also raised the question as to whether it is, outside of donations of works of arts, the largest ever given a cultural institution. And it provoked interest in the 87-year-old donor, who preferred to stay in the background when the offer hit the front pages. Reportedly she was visiting a family-owned vineyard in the Napa Valley. “Her wishes,” said a spokesman, “are to let the gift speak for itself.”

The Disney offer is something no one wants to refuse. Two major conditions Mrs. Disney attached are that the concert hall be built on Lot K and that approval by the county, the Music Center and the Philharmonic Assn. come within 30 days. Rushing to meet the 30-day deadline, Edelman will bring in a resolution at the board’s regular meeting Tuesday “to get it (the process) going.”

Edelman said his resolution will ask County Administrative Officer Richard Dixon and County Counsel DeWitt Clinton “to meet with the representatives of Mrs. Disney and work out some of the details. We want to get preliminary approval so that we can come within that 30-day period. We want to meet her time schedule.”

From Washington Friday, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, indicated he saw no obstacles. “I am hopeful everything will be worked out; I don’t know why it can’t be.”

The dispute over Music Center expansion, which the Disney gift apparently resolved, pitted certain county officials against the Music Center. Caught between were the supervisors.

On one side were those officials who wanted to see Music Center expansion on a Civic Center mall site between the county courthouse and the Hall of Administration, because as they faced a $170-million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year they preferred using Lot K for commercial and revenue-producing purposes.

On the other side were Music Center officials who wanted Lot K, saying that the 3.6-acre site would better attract major donors than the other site flanked by two government buildings. Moreover they pointed to the promise by county officials of Lot K back in 1968. F. Daniel Frost, now the Music Center’s chairman and chief executive officer, helped draft the original agreement for Lot K as a senior partner at the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm. (He is also Dorothy Chandler’s son-in-law.)

Neither Edelman nor Antonovich expects opposition to a speedy resolution of the situation. Indeed, in the Music Center’s original release Wednesday evening announcing the Disney offer, all five supervisors indicated their approval. However, that resolution could center on satisfying both the supervisors and the Music Center involving some commercial use of Lot K.

“I’m going to do everything I can to get the county to reach an amicable agreement,” Edelman said. “We’re still interested in using the portion that may not be needed for the Philharmonic hall--or the Disney hall--for commercial purposes. If it’s still possible. We would not be doing our job if we did not (try to include that). The land is public land. It’s worth millions of dollars. Every attempt will be made to design (the area) in such a way as not to impede the county’s revenue potential. A smart architect could do the whole thing. Have a plaza area, some commercial activity and cultural activity.”

However to specify in advance what that commercial feature might be, Edelman said, “would be wrong.”

Antonovich said the board “is directing Dixon and Clinton to work with Mrs. Disney so that this facility will not have a negative impact on taxpayers.”

Still to be resolved are questions involving maintenance and operation of the new complex which the offer specifies should include not only a concert hall but related facilities including a ticket office, rehearsal space, and office space. Edelman said the county would build parking facilities, whose cost would be met from the parking revenues.

According to the Music Center’s release, the Disney offer leaves open the possibility that an additional commercial structure or structures producing revenue may also be built on Lot K subject to its compatibility to the new concert hall, architecturally and aesthetically.

Frost disclosed, according to the Music Center release that “since Mrs. Disney’s desire is to build one of the finest concert halls found anywhere in memory of Walter E. Disney . . . certain donor approvals relating to location, architectural design, environmental aesthetics and maintenance and operations of the concert hall are part of the offer.”

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, in a special statement Thursday, called the gift “the largest single gift in the history of the United States for a cultural building” while Ernest Fleischmann, executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn., said he didn’t believe there was a gift “ever as large to any musical organization anywhere in the world.”

It could not be immediately determined whether this was “the largest” to a cultural organization outside of donations of works of art.

Ronald Gother, Lillian Disney’s attorney for 23 years, and a senior partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, who played a key role in the negotiations leading to the offer, said he is already working with Dixon and Clinton on plans for the site.

“Lot K was her idea and her selection,” Gother said Friday. “The 30 days (condition), that was primarily mine. This is something which we want to get done soon. You’re either for it real quickly, or it festers . . . “

Gother said that the idea of some sort of bequest had been in her mind since 1982 following the sale of the commercial rights of the name Walt Disney to Walt Disney Productions. At the time, he said, the family “stated . . . (they) intended to use the proceeds from that sale to form a major foundation in honor of Walt Disney.”

The sale amounted to $47 million, Gother said, with about a third going to Lillian Disney and a third to each of her daughters Diane Disney Miller and Sharon Disney Lund. “Periodically,” Gother continued, “there were discussions about doing something major in Walt Disney’s memory. For a bunch of reasons that never got to fruition.”

Several months ago, Gother said, “the subject came up again, triggered by something in the paper about Music Center expansion.” Mrs. Disney told Gother to look into it, he said, and then he discussed the matter with his fellow partner Frost.

Gother added that the selection of the architect to build the hall “will be hers (Lillian Disney), the selection of the contractors, selections of landscaping contractor, all architecture and aesthetic control. She will do that in consultation with the Philharmonic and the Music Center and the county. Without her concurrence, they’re not going to build it.

“The plan,” Gother went on, “is to have an international competition with submissions by world-renowned architects. It (the arrangement) is set up so that she has a voice. It allows her to appoint a representative. My guess is some sort of committee will be formed.”

Meanwhile Fleischmann, who broke away from the orchestra’s European tour for several days to conduct business here and to receive an honorary degree late Friday from the Cleveland Institute of Music, pronounced himself “on cloud nine.” (Friday morning he was meeting with Edelman at the Hall of Administration.)

“It’s the kind of dream come true that happens very seldom in anyone’s lifetime,” Fleischmann said. “We’ve been playing in some extremely wonderful halls. In Berlin, (we played at) the Philharmonie. And the musicians were so envious of their colleagues in Berlin. It went on and on like that, with each great hall.

“Of course there are enormous problems,” he added. “The upkeep of the place is going to be expensive, and also we have to look 20, 30, 50 years ahead. What’s happening to music. How do we provide for the new audiences, the new music? Nothing is standing still, nothing is static. This is an incredible challenge. We want the best best best place for music that’s ever been built.”

Fleischmann said he only learned of the complete details while changing planes at Kennedy Airport about 3 p.m. EST Wednesday. “I knew something was on the go for some weeks, but I didn’t know the details, I didn’t know the amount until last weekend. I didn’t know who and the final conditions” until he phoned the Music Center from the airport.

The Music Center made every effort to keep the negotiations and the agreement a secret until it was announced Thursday. However there was a leak, believed to come from a high county source, and the Music Center had to advance the announcement a day. They were playing it so close to the vest that a public relations spokeswoman, Claire Segal, did not learn what was happening until she came home Wednesday night after attending a performance at the Joffrey Ballet and heard about the Disney gift on her home telephone machine.

Asked who had been in on the arrangements from the beginning, Esther Wachtell, executive vice president, answered simply, referring to Frost: “Dan.”

Wachtell, noting that the deal “happened very quickly,” said the “Disney family has been a part of the Music Center family for years. They are founders and founding contributors. Walt was very active in the initial stages and Mrs. Disney was a founder of Blue Ribbon. And her daughters are very active on various boards.”

Miller recently pledged $200,000 to the Joffrey to put on its new version of “The Nutcracker.” An honorary governor of the Music Center, she is a member of the Music Center Education Division. Lund is on the board of the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

As for Lillian Disney, sources close to the donor say she prefers privacy. She’s a very private individual,” said spokesman Richard B. Lippin. “Her goal was twofold: Because of her deep love and admiration for her husband, she wanted to find a way to honor him, as well as to give something to Los Angeles which will have lasting quality.”

The Disneys had been married for 41 years when he died on Dec. 15, 1966 at age 65. His widow lives in Holmby Hills.

Gother said she is “in wonderful health and she is ecstatic” about her gift.