Streisand Donates Estate to Mountains Conservancy : Philanthropy: Officials appraise the Malibu property at $15 million. It will become a conservation institute.

Entertainer Barbra Streisand has donated her lavish 24-acre Malibu estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for a conservation institute, a gesture conservancy officials are comparing to the historic gift of Will Rogers’ ranch to the state park system in 1944.

Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy, described Streisand’s Ramirez Canyon property as “the most valuable land ever donated to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area,” the network of mountain parkland established in 1978. He said Streisand’s property, which includes five houses, has been valued by state appraisers at $15 million.

The property, Edmiston said, will become the site of a new environmental research complex to be known as the Streisand Center for Conservancy Studies. He said a portion of the property will be open to the public and serve as a link in the Santa Monica Mountains trail system.

A spokesman for Streisand said she would have no comment about the donation of the property, which Edmiston said she has owned since the mid-1960s.

On the market from 1987 until last summer, the property had a listing price that reportedly started at $18 million and eventually dropped to $11.5 million. Edmiston said Streisand began talking to the conservancy about donating the property about three months ago.

“Recognition from such a major figure is a validation of the conservancy’s approach to land conservation. We are flattered and very proud,” Edmiston said. A state agency, the conservancy was formed in 1981 to acquire land in the Santa Monica Mountains and provide environmental educational programs about the mountains. Since its inception, the conservancy has acquired about 20,000 acres.

Streisand’s Arcadian retreat at the end of Ramirez Canyon Boulevard, a few miles inland from Pacific Coast Highway, is most famous for the benefit concert held there in 1986 to raise $1.5 million for Democratic senatorial candidates. Taped for cable television, the broadcast of the concert, Streisand’s first public performance in six years, raised an estimated $7 million for charities and liberal causes championed by the singer.

Edmiston characterized Streisand’s gift as one of the most important donations of land in the Santa Monica Mountains for conservation purposes in the past 50 years.

“There have been three major donations in the history of the Santa Monica Mountains,” Edmiston said. In addition to the Streisand property, he cited the 186-acre Will Rogers estate, valued at $550,000 at the time of the donation nearly 50 years ago, and the 10-acre oceanfront estate of actor Leo Carrillo, donated some years later and valued at $300,000.

Edmiston likened the grounds of Streisand’s property to an English country estate with an elegantly eclectic group of houses set around a large, tree-shaded quadrangle. He said the buildings, which total about 17,000 square feet of interior space, will house the new conservation center, which will focus on environmental issues and offer a scholars-in-residence program.

“This will give us the chance to offer a world-class venue for the study of land conservation, to bring in scholars at the Nobel laureate level,” he said.

The conservancy will take over the property Dec. 1, and Edmiston said the center plans to hold its first conference in February on the subject of greenways--converted rights of way, rail routes and other urban corridors that are used to extend urban parks.

According to Edmiston, there have been no restrictions placed on the use of the property. Streisand will play at least an informal role in planning the future of the center. “While she will not play a formal role in it,” said Edmiston, “she is vitally interested in what happens there.”

He said the singer-actress “came to us and said she was interested in making a donation to an organization either socially or environmentally conscious.” The creation of the center, he added, “was her idea.”

“She was determined that (the property) not be frittered away.”

One of the houses on the property, featured in a cover article in the December issue of Architectural Digest, is a monument “down to its door knobs,” according to the magazine, to Streisand’s fascination with Art Deco style. The magazine said her collection of Art Deco furniture and decor will be sold at a New York auction house in March.

Edmiston said, however, that the conservancy wants to keep the furniture, which he described as integral to the spirit of the house. “We’re gong to ask if she would donate that. Or, maybe some payment can be made for some of the pieces.”

Other houses on the property, according to Edmiston, include two “country-style dwellings”--one suggesting a sumptuously remodeled barn--and a Mediterranean-style villa with a 2,000-square-foot projection room.