Panel Unexpectedly Rejects Hilltop Home

The Los Angeles City Planning Commission on Thursday unexpectedly rejected a proposal to build a 10,000-square-foot home on a prominent ridge overlooking Runyon Canyon Park, which City Council staff workers hailed as a historic reinforcement of a 3-year-old city law protecting the Santa Monica Mountains.

“I’m not crazy about the idea of building on top of ridges at all,” said Commission President George Lefcoe, a real-estate attorney and law professor, following his announcement of the unanimous decision by the five-member panel.

Lefcoe’s position stunned veteran observers, who expected the property owner’s proposal to be quickly approved.

“Given the way Mr. Lefcoe has voted on similar issues, this was a pleasant surprise,” said Renee Weitzer, a deputy to City Council President John Ferraro. “This was a very significant, historic recognition that city ordinances should not be contravened.”

The decision came after an hour of comments from the property owners’ representatives, conservationists and council staff workers that focused on whether the landowner should be granted exceptions from provisions of the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan.

The plan, adopted in 1992 after 21 years of intense debate, bars the construction of homes atop prominent ridges half a mile north or south of Mulholland Drive. It also prohibits the erection of structures within 200 feet of a public park in those boundaries.

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The property owner, Beverly Hills jeweler Robert W. Lyons, sought to be excused from those restrictions, contending they created a hardship that prevented him from developing a 4.8-acre parcel he purchased in 1991, a year before the law took effect. The wooded spur of land, which is surrounded by popular city-owned Runyon Canyon Park, rises to a crest that offers a stunning, panoramic view of the Los Angeles Basin.

A Planning Department hearing examiner in effect agreed with Lyons, issuing a report earlier this month that called his case “unique.” The examiner recommended that the city allow Lyons to build on the ridge top so long as he cut the home’s height from 26 feet to 18 feet, installed landscaping as a screen and had all plans approved by a citizens review board.

Speaking first, Lyons’ representatives asked the board to reject even those restrictions, declaring that lopping off the home’s top floor--its master suite--would require design changes that might make the home’s appearance on the ridge more noticeable. Architect Frank Glynn said his low-slung, dun-colored design blended harmoniously with the mountains and required minimal grading--basically just a hole for a sunken three-car garage--that would not alter the shape of the ridge.

The only other person to speak in favor of the project was Paul Handley, whose family has been long associated with the land--the last undeveloped canyon in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains.

Runyon Canyon passed through numerous owners before winding up in the hands of A&P; supermarket heir and arts patron George Huntington Hartford II in 1942. He lived in a mansion built by an Irish opera singer at its base while deeding the ridgeline parcel in 1945 to sidekick and adviser George Headley. Headley commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, Lloyd, to design a house on the ridge--but got only as far as building a stable and garage before running out of money.

The garage was converted to a cottage by its next owner, Emmy-winning television producer Allan Handley. He lived there 35 years, rearing two sons, while the mansion and exotic gardens far below him crumbled into ruins. Paul Handley, one of the producer’s sons, told the commission Thursday that he sold the property to Lyons because the jeweler promised to fulfill his father’s dream of creating a single-family home there.

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But park enthusiasts differed with the hearing examiner’s report and mocked the ambitions of Handley and Lyons:

* Joan Luchs, representing the Cahuenga Pass Homeowners Assn., contended that Lyons’ hardship was self-imposed. “He simply didn’t do enough research before buying this property,” she said.

* Jerome Daniel, a board member of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said granting the exception would circumvent “clear rules” established by the City Council. He also called the hearing examiner’s finding that the ridge-top house “would not be be detrimental” to Runyon Canyon Park “comical--just a joke.”

* Corin Kahn, an attorney representing the mountain advocacy group Mulholland Tomorrow, observed that Lyons would not be deprived of his constitutional right to use his property because he can inhabit the 1,900-square-foot Headley/Handley House which is already there. The cottage was designated a Los Angeles cultural monument three years ago because it was designed by Lloyd Wright.

Lefcoe agreed with Kahn’s position, declaring before announcing his rejection of his staff’s recommendation that he found it “hard to make a case for what amounts to a second house” on a site that is “dead-center on top of a ridge.”

Gary Ward, one of Lyons’ representatives, said he had erred by not bringing a lawyer to the hearing and vowed to appeal the decision to the City Council. “This is not a dead issue,” he said. “It’s a matter of bringing bigger guns with us next time.”