Four Oaks property put up for sale by longtime owner.

After a successful stage career, Jack Allen came to Los Angeles to settle down with his family and attend law school. Instead, he bought the Four Oaks restaurant on a whim, and the eatery eventually became a Westside destination.

Now, after nearly 40 years, Allen has listed the property for sale--a decision that didn't come lightly.

"I couldn't stand to live near the place if I was going to sell it," said Allen, 75, who recently moved out of the house on the property and into a Brentwood canyon cottage. "I'm at an age now where I need to settle things down."

Allen discovered the property in 1967 when he went for an afternoon walk in Beverly Glen Canyon and happened upon the place. He fell in love and used his law-school tuition to buy the property, which over the years had been used for everything from a campground to a speakeasy.

At first, Allen opened a casual restaurant, where on weekends customers sat at common tables for brunch and to listen to live jazz. As the neighborhood evolved from an artist colony into a wealthy enclave, so did Allen's customers. He went from serving truck drivers and up-and-coming artists to Pat Brown, who helped Allen change the county's liquor laws so the not-yet-governor of California could sip wine on the restaurant's patio.

In 1987, Allen leased the restaurant to several partners at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, who turned the place into a high-end eatery. The partnership shuttered the restaurant in August, and the place has been empty since.

Allen hopes to sell the property, including the house, to a chef. There's a half acre of land, perfect for a garden. "It's got great potential for someone with imagination and guts," he said, "Mainly guts. It's a tough business."

While most restaurants fail in their first few years, the place has had a good run--just two operators in nearly four decades. "That success has a lot to do with the site," Allen said. "People want to get away from the busy streets. For years, it's been known as a very romantic place for young couples."

Allen has hired CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.'s Linda Boyer to market the property.

Storage Foray

Barker Pacific Group Inc.'s purchase of Cerritos-based Union Development Co. Inc. last week was largely aimed at getting the firm into the self-storage business.

Michael Barker, the firm's founder and managing partner, said that self-storage further diversifies his portfolio and gets the company into a fast-growing, highly-profitable market.

Though neither side would release terms of the deal, Union Development's 1.2-million-square-foot portfolio is likely to fetch in the neighborhood of $100 million.

Angelo Gordon & Co., a New York investment firm, was Barker Pacific's partner on the deal, which included cash and assumption of debt.

Other than 5,739 storage units, Union Development, which will be run as a Barker Pacific subsidiary, has a portfolio that includes warehouses, office building and apartments, which closely matches Barker Pacific's holdings. "Half the portfolio is in the self-storage business, as opposed to office or retail," Barker said. "This gives us a solid foothold in the self-storage industry."

And why wouldn't Barker Pacific want to be in the self-storage business? Through October, the industry posted 20 percent returns, as opposed to 1.9 percent for the S&P 500 and 9 percent for real estate investment trusts as a whole, according to a November report from research analysts at A.G. Edwards Inc.

Though Glendale-based Public Storage Inc. is the industry behemoth, the company has only a fraction of the total market share. According to the A.G. Edwards report, the five public self-storage companies combined only control 7.3 percent of the market.

"There's some large players but they only comprise a small percentage of the total industry," said Barker, who anticipates buying more self-storage facilities in the next year or two. "Over time we see it growing."

Government Grab

Sonnenblick-Del Rio LLC, an L.A.-based fund manager, has listed for sale its 452,000-square-foot Imperial Norwalk Centre, which could command a $90 million price tag.

The seven-story building at 12440 East Imperial Highway is expected to fetch bids of around $200 a foot, or a sale price of $90.4 million.

Along with the office building, which is fully occupied, a buyer would get the 21-acre site, where there's room for another building to be developed.

Federal, state and county government agencies occupy nearly two-thirds of the building, where rents average around $2 a foot.

The building opened in 1984 as Bechtel's Southern California headquarters. A partnership of Starwood Capital Group LLC and Transwestern Investment Co. LLC bought the property four years later and converted the site into a multi-tenant office building.

Investment fund manager Sonnenblick-Del Rio bought the property in 2003 for $49.3 million, according to Real Estate Alert, a trade publication that first reported the listing. Since buying the property, Sonneblick-Del Rio has sunk $3.6 million into renovating the building.

Buchanan Street Partners Inc.'s Ryan Smith has the listing.

Staff reporter Andy Fixmer can be reached by phone at [phone], ext. 263, or by e-mail at [e-mail].