CALABASAS FIGHTING L.A. OVER A PIECE OF HISTORY.

Byline: Michael Coit Staff Writer

Pulling off busy Mulholland Drive into bucolic Old Town Calabasas, visitors spot the Leonis Adobe amid the clapboard and batten board buildings - the rustic charm of the long-ago San Fernando Valley.

The original adobe - dating to 1844 - and its Monterey-style addition is a sentinel of this thriving city's past as a stagecoach stop on the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

It's featured prominently in guides and is a source of civic pride, history and prosperous Calabasas.

There's only one problem, the adobe and nearby Sagebrush Cantina are located within the boundaries of the city of Los Angeles.

When Calabasas incorporated as Los Angeles County's newest city in April 1991, the adobe property could not be included within the new city because its boundaries took in unincorporated county land. So the city's limits include Calabasas Road, but stop at the adobe property line.

Now, leaders of this booming town want to bring the cornerstone of the community's past within their city limits by annexing it.

``It's a traditional part of the area. Many think of that when they think of Calabasas,'' said Councilwoman Lesley Devine, who helped lead the long incorporation drive. ``It's needed from a historical perspective. This would be putting (Calabasas) back together again.''

The annexation bid would include The Sagebrush Cantina, a popular roadside establishment located on the six-acre adobe property.

The incursion into Los Angeles already is under way. Calabasas has quietly filed a request to annex 55 units of a condominium complex that straddles the Calabasas-Los Angeles city limits.

So far, the big city has resisted parting with the first historic-cultural monument protected by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board, when it was formed in 1962 to save such sites from freeway and suburban development.

``There's so few historical resources that you can look to, so any you can sort of call your own would be good to hold onto,'' said Linda Bernhardt, chief aide to Los Angeles Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, whose district includes the adobe property.

Los Angeles city officials rebuffed an initial request by Calabasas leaders to annex the site several years ago for that very reason.

Another factor is sales tax revenue the city might lose from the Sagebrush. Specific figures are confidential, but the restaurant, recently celebrating its 25th year, bills itself as ``L.A.'s favorite destination spot.''

``Those are important assets for the city of Los Angeles to maintain,'' Bernhardt said.

Both Miscikowski and her predecessor, Marvin Braude, have sent clear signals to Calabasas leaders to keep their designs off the adobe property.

But longtime civic activists like Devine and Mayor Robert Sibilia - who moved to Calabasas with the wave of new residents in the past decade, much of it flight from the Valley - hope to generate support for annexation.

``The adobe is the historic anchor for the city,'' Sibilia said. ``When you tell people they're sitting in the cantina and they're really in L.A., they can't believe that.''

Sibilia feels the same way when looking out the window of his Old Town law office. He is in Calabasas, yet the adobe property strewn with centuries-old oaks across Calabasas Road is in Los Angeles. ``It makes no sense the way it is,'' he said.

Calabasas has changed its strategy in hopes of changing the outcome.

The initial annexation request packaged the adobe property with the condominium project. The latest effort splits the proposals.

The Creekside Calabasas condominium annexation began moving forward following an initial Los Angeles City Council hearing Friday. The adobe bid will wait until that outcome is settled.

``Things are flowing in our direction so we need to keep the momentum going,'' Sibilia said.

Leaders of the Leonis Adobe Association, the private nonprofit organization that owns the property, would welcome being part of Calabasas. With some 20,000 annual visitors, the adobe clearly is a major attraction.

``We're the cornerstone of Old Town, there's no doubt about it,'' said Phyllis Power, the site's longtime director.

``There are very few examples left of what life was like in the 1880s. We tried to make it a slice of what it once looked like,'' she explained. ``It's a wonderful spot.''

Leonis Adobe Association President Ray Phillips said annexation could provide some ``tender loving care'' and younger blood for the association. ``There's a long future ahead. We hope to be there 100 years from now, 200 years from now.''

Calabasas already has spent $2 million to overhaul and restore the Old West charm to the stretch of Calabasas Road in Old Town. There are cobblestone and brick crosswalks and medians, boardwalks, reproduction antique street lamps, trees and a gazebo with classical music coming from an overhead speaker.

There is a Saturday morning farmers' market and the city trolley runs through Old Town.

Merchants include antique and cigar stores, a hair salon, travel agent, tennis shop, an accounting firm, and the Calabasas Chamber of Commerce, as well as a cafe, seafood and Italian restaurants, and the Sagebrush.

The Leonis Adobe Association also has restored Calabasas Creek Park next to the cantina. Its cast-iron fountain, chairs, benches, urns and drinking fountain date to the 1870s and '80s. Even older are the park's roses, dating to 1800s stock, and oak trees some 500 years old.

The adobe museum features a barn, blacksmith shop, corrals for draft horses, cattle, sheep, goats, chickens and guinea hens. The front portion of the Plummer House, once billed as the oldest house in Hollywood, was moved onto the site in 1983 and restored to become the museum's visitors center.

Calabasas was once a sleepy western town and Miguel Leonis, legendary for his acquisition of land and livestock in the West Valley, was ``The King of Calabasas.''

The adobe was the center of his small empire, valued at more than $300,000 when he died in 1889. Leonis fell from a wagon and was crushed by a wheel in the Cahuenga Pass while returning home after celebrating a court victory.

The property remained in the family's hands until the 1920s. A series of sales led to a variety of uses, with the adobe serving as rest home and restaurant, as well as residence.

Sticking like a sore thumb into Calabasas, the property is a reminder of Los Angeles' acquisitive past.

``It appeared that back in 1913, Los Angeles had that wonderful newfangled invention called electricity and the only way you get electricity is if you were in the city,'' Devine said. ``One of the Leonises was very upset that their friends could get electricity and they couldn't.''

So the adobe property became part of the city's western fringe, with suburban development pushing roads, homes and businesses into the void.

Bulldozers were ready to demolish the adobe for a supermarket parking lot when the city's new preservation board designated it as the first of the city's landmarks in August 1962. A stop order was rushed and only one oak tree was lost.

Kathleen Beachy bought the adobe in 1963 to preserve Old Town and left the property to the association following her death in 1982.

Calabasas leaders appreciate the city's foresight in preserving the adobe, but nevertheless contend the adobe's rightful place is in the city named after the pumpkins that grew from a load that spilled on the stagecoach route.

``I'm glad they did that, but that was then and this is now. It's nice that both cities have an interest in maintaining historical facilities, but we'd like to take that over,'' Devine said.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos, Map

PHOTO (1--2--Color--Photo 2 ran in Bulldog Edition only) Facility director Phyllis Power stands in the vineyard in front of the Leonis Adobe, a landmark site dating back to 1844.

(3--Color in Bulldog Edition) Goats and hay help preserve the rural character of a much younger San Fernando Valley at the Leonis Adobe near Calabasas.

(4) This horse at the Leonis Adobe historical site's barn never gets unhitched from the vintage buggy; it's not real.

John McCoy/Daily News

MAP: Calabasas (Leonis Adobe and The Sagebrush Cantina)