Hope Rejects Sale of Ranches as Parkland : Property: Refusal to accept $19.5-million offer casts doubt on plan to preserve mountain acreage as open space. Proposed Ahmanson Ranch homes project is also jeopardized.

Bob Hope has rejected a last-minute offer of $19.5 million from parks officials to purchase two of his ranches, casting new doubt on a complex deal to preserve thousands of mountainous acres in Ventura County as open space.

If the entertainer does not agree to sell the ranches by Wednesday under an earlier agreement, Ventura officials said, an agreement to dedicate the land as a mountain park and allow development of 3,050 homes on nearby Ahmanson Ranch will fall through.

“I’m utterly dismayed,” said Ventura County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, one of the deal’s most enthusiastic boosters. “It’s going to be a real shame if this all falls through.”

Ventura County supervisors last December had approved the complicated arrangement to allow Ahmanson Land Co. to develop a mini-city on its ranch in the Simi Hills west of the Los Angeles County line. The deal called for Hope to receive $19.5 million and a share of profits in the Ahmanson project in exchange for his Jordan and Runkle ranches and property in Corral Canyon in Malibu.

Hope had accepted the deal but recently balked at closing escrow to complete the sale. In an effort to salvage a piece of the parkland deal, parks officials sweetened the offer by proposing to pay Hope the full $19.5 million for just two of the properties totaling 2,650 acres--Jordan Ranch and Corral Canyon.

Under the latest offer, Hope would retain the Runkle Ranch, a craggy 4,369-acre stretch of rugged cliffs north of the Simi Valley Freeway, if the Ahmanson Ranch development is never built.

However, officials of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a joint federal-state agency, said Friday that Hope had rejected the new offer. Their focus now shifts to the original package that Hope had agreed to but not completed.

If Hope does not close escrow by Wednesday, the $19.5 million that the National Park Service has held for months will be withdrawn.

Without federal funds to purchase Hope’s 7,037 acres as open space, the entire deal would collapse because Ventura County supervisors will not allow Ahmanson to begin construction unless the Hope properties are in public hands.

The complex deal was to have closed by Jan. 15. But it has stalled for several reasons.

Hope’s attorney, Payson Wolff, has been ill and has spent some time in the hospital over the past few weeks. Wolff was back in his office Friday but did not return phone calls.

Further complicating the deal, nine lawsuits have been filed against the Ahmanson development, which would include a commercial center, government buildings and two golf courses.

“We understand loud and clear that there is a deadline, and we are doing everything we can to respect it,” said Allen Camp, an Ahmanson attorney. “Everybody truly wants this deal to happen.”

Although environmentalists said they would be thrilled to see the deal dissolve and the Ahmanson project fade away, they fear Hope might then attempt to sell his land to other developers--or, in the case of sprawling Runkle Ranch, to Los Angeles County for a landfill.

The entertainer has long dreamed of building a luxury community and world-class golf course on oak-studded Jordan Ranch.

“Bob Hope might just decide, ‘To heck with you all, I’ll take this property with me to the grave,”’ said David Gackenbach, regional superintendent for the National Park Service, who set the March 31 deadline.