Canyon Land Too Steep for City : Parks: Los Angeles says it can’t afford to buy the four-acre Alan Handley estate to add to Runyon Canyon Park. Price tag: $4 million.

The Hollywood Hills home of the late Emmy Award-winning director Alan Handley has been offered to the city of Los Angeles as parkland, but city officials say they cannot afford the $4-million price tag.

The four-acre property, which offers spectacular views, includes a three-bedroom house designed by Lloyd Wright, the son of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It is surrounded by the city’s rustic Runyon Canyon Park, once the sprawling estate of supermarket magnate G. Huntington Hartford and the playground of actor Errol Flynn.

“It is a wonderful and virtually unknown treasure,” said Elisabeth Clark, president of Friends of Runyon Canyon, a volunteer group. “But we have been quite firmly told that there is not $4 million available.”

The city, with help from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, purchased the 133-acre Hartford estate from private developers for $5.16 million in 1984, leaving the Handley residence as the only private property within the park. The parcel originally belonged to one of Hartford’s financial advisers, who is said to have erected the Lloyd Wright home as a caretaker’s residence for a larger estate that never was built.

Handley, a bachelor, lived in Runyon Canyon for more than three decades before his death at age 77 in January. A Broadway actor in the 1930s, he later produced and directed television programs that starred performers including Dinah Shore and Danny Thomas. He won an Emmy for directing a 1965 Julie Andrews special.

“We were just told this week that they do not have the money to buy it, so we will have to put it on the market,” said Paul Handley, the late director’s adopted son, who is executor of his will. “It would be nice if it were kept pristine, but as executor I have to make sure it gets fair market value.”

An attorney for Handley offered the property to the city in a letter sent July 9 to the Department of Recreation and Parks, Councilman Michael Woo and Mayor Tom Bradley. David Conetta, supervisor of land and environmental management for the parks department, said the city sent its response late last week.

“It is very disappointing,” Conetta said. “It would have been an ideal acquisition for the park. We have visited the home, and we have spoken among ourselves that it would be a beautiful visitors’ center or ranger’s station.”

A preliminary appraisal by the city’s Department of Public Works shows the property is worth far less than the asking price--about $1.5 million to $2 million, city officials said. Barry Simon, a parks official who has led discussions over the property, said that the preliminary appraisal is only a “gut feeling” and that the city plans to conduct a full appraisal in case money becomes available to purchase the property in the future.

“I don’t think we are thwarting any possibility of Mr. Handley selling the property, but we would like to keep the doors open,” Simon said. “We would have gone ahead with the appraisal quite some time ago, but our biggest stumbling block is money. It doesn’t make sense to open negotiations if you don’t have the funds.”

Woo said the city has about $2 million in a trust fund set up to develop the park, which had deteriorated into an overgrown hideaway for transients, gang members and drug addicts before being purchased by the city. The park remains largely undeveloped, although the city has erected security gates and opened trails to hikers.

But the trust fund is not available for the Handley property because Woo wants to use it to help purchase a separate park in Fryman Canyon in Studio City. Woo, state officials and luxury home developer Fred Sahadi have been trying to work out a deal for a 63-acre park, expected to cost between $8.7 million and $13.7 million.

“Right now Fryman Canyon is really a marvelous opportunity to acquire a large parcel of land that is so accessible to the public,” Woo said. “But even if the Fryman Canyon deal didn’t go through, I don’t know where we would get the other $2 million to pay for the Handley property.”

Clark said her group, Friends of Runyon Canyon, wants to see the Handley property added to the park but supports Woo’s move to borrow the trust fund money for Fryman Canyon.

“We are very much in favor of building coalitions of parkland activists,” Clark said. “If we can help out Fryman Canyon activists now, at some later point they may join with us when we need something.”

A master plan for Runyon Canyon Park approved by the city in 1986 calls for adding two parcels to the park, including one acre of Handley’s property needed for improved access to the park. The city purchased the one-acre parcel for $181,000 last year, but the plan makes no recommendation about the remaining four acres or the Lloyd Wright house.

Clark said drafters of the master plan were more concerned about protecting the natural boundaries and views of the park than about acquiring land already within its borders. The Handley property, while in the center of Runyon Canyon, is on a secluded peak.

“You can’t see it from anywhere in the park,” said Jenifer Palmer-Lacy, a Friends of Runyon Canyon member who recently toured the property. “But if you are standing on the terrace, you can see the entire park. It would be perfect as a caretaker’s cottage for a ranger to live in. They could spot fires. They could see everything.”

Clark King, deputy director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the state park agency that contributed $4.1 million toward the purchase of Runyon Canyon, said the Handley property’s seclusion is one reason state officials do not consider its purchase a high priority.

“That is a pretty damn expensive piece of property, it seems to me, considering the scarcity of funds and its somewhat limited public use because of its isolation,” King said.

Although Woo said he has not given up on eventually acquiring the property for the city, members of the Friends of Runyon Canyon said they are hoping a private deal will come along that would include public access to the property. Clark said her group wants to interest a wealthy individual or corporation in buying the property as its “philanthropic headquarters.”

“That is fairy-tale thinking,” she said, “but one can always hope for fairy godmothers and that sort of thing.”

Members of Friends of Runyon Canyon said they are preparing to nominate the Lloyd Wright house as a city cultural landmark, which could delay plans by any potential buyer to demolish or renovate the home. Palmer-Lacy said the house is not fancy and “needs a lot of work,” but said it should be preserved because of its historical ties to the Hartford estate and its architect.

The property could accommodate another house, but city officials said they would scrutinize any plans to build on the property. Kathy Godfrey, an aide to Woo who handles issues involving Runyon Canyon, said the city would be able to restrict building on the property because it owns the access road.

“We would definitely not be in favor of the area being developed because we would like to acquire it at some point,” said Simon, the parks official.

Paul Handley, who works as a conservation specialist for the city’s Department of Water and Power, said he does not have the financial means to offer a special deal for the property--to the city or anyone else. Under the terms of his father’s will, proceeds from the sale will go to him, his older brother and a cousin, he said.

“This is my inheritance,” he said. “By the time the federal government gets through with it, anything we get is cut down. If I just won a $56-million lottery, I wouldn’t worry about this. But this could be my retirement.”