A Gift Well Worth Receiving : Streisand donates 24-acre estate to parkland conservancy

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy--and indeed, all in this region who love the outdoors--received a gift before the holiday season even began. Entertainer Barbra Streisand has donated her 24-acre Malibu estate to the conservancy, the state agency charged with acquiring public parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains and promoting environmental education. The property, which includes five houses, has been valued by state appraisers at $15 million. Streisand’s home was on the market from 1987 until last summer, when she began talking to the conservancy about donating the property.

The house and grounds will become the site of a new environmental research complex to be known as the Streisand Center for Conservancy Studies. A portion of the property will be open to the public and serve as a link in the Santa Monica Mountains trail system. The property, which resembles an English country estate with an eclectic group of houses set around a large, tree-shaded quadrangle, will house the new conservation 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,” said conservancy director Joseph T. Edmiston.

The conservancy could use some happy news. Efforts to acquire a Calabasas parcel, now owned by Soka University, for a park visitors center are stalled. And the recent Malibu/Topanga Canyon fires, so devastating to homeowners, also cut a broad swatch through state and national parkland. Facilities and land were ravaged at several park sites, with 13,686 acres burned at Point Magu State Park alone.

Streisand’s extraordinary gift won’t repair the fire’s damage. But it does give this region a place to plan for such vital conservation and restoration work in the future.