Proposed annexation of land sparks battle between cities. (Spotlight on Calabasas).

WHEN Bob McCord opened the Sagebrush Cantina on Calabasas Road in 1974, he was in the "Old West" of Los Angeles - a two-lane road lined with dirt and hitching posts. "I was the only game in town," McCord remembers.

Now, McCord's Sagebrush Cantina is perennially among the county's top grossing restaurants, seating 1,000 diners a day and generating more than $6 million in annual sales.

That success has helped make the blocklong stretch of Calabasas Road, now known as Old Town Calabasas, become a popular dining spot for Calabasas residents, among the wealthiest in the San Fernando Valley.

But the boom also has generated an oldfashioned standoff. This time, the gunslingers are the respective city councils of Calabasas and Los Angeles.

The showdown centers on a 7-acre parcel that sits at the north end of Calabasas Road in Old Town - land within the city of Los Angeles. The site, home of Spanish settler Miguel Leonis and owned by the Leonis Adobe Association, hosts 200 school tours a year where kids get a taste of Western life by feeding goats and chickens, and learning to churn butter and lasso steers.

It also is the home of the Sagebrush Cantina. Saying they are interested in property for historic preservation purposes, Calabasas City Council members met earlier this year with L.A. Councilman Dennis Zine to propose annexing the 7.1 acres from L.A.

"It's a manifest destiny thing," said Donald Duckworth, city manager of Calabasas. The existing lines do not represent "a logical or reasonable boundary."

But Zine is unconvinced it is in L.A.'s interest to sell the site to Calabasas.

"I asked them what the benefits are to the City of L.A. by giving it up? What does it gain by surrendering this territory, and what would they be willing to give us," he said. "We receive property and sales taxes. It's a beautiful project and brings in tremendous revenues. We're generous, but we're not giving away parcels of land."

Zine asked Calabasas city officials to determine a price for the 7.1 acres, and Duckworth said Calabasas has hired a consultant to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the annexation proposal.

Pumpkin patch

Legend has it that Calabasas was established when a load of pumpkins fell from a settler's wagon on what is now Calabasas Road. Calabasas comes from the Spanish word for pumpkin. (An alternate theory has it that the name comes from "calabaso," a Chumash Indian word for "where the wild geese fly.")

The wealthy moved to nearby Hidden Hills. "It was like Beverly Hills with horses", said Rosemary Hulle, a librarian with the Calabasas Historical Society.

When Calabasas incorporated as a city 11 years ago, officials created Old Town, complete with historic landmarks such as the city's original post office and the home of the first schoolteacher. Over the years, they have installed garbage cans that look like barrels, bicycle posts that look like hitching posts, and a plastic sidewalk that looks like wood-planked walkways.

Old Town has drawn considerable business in the last few years. Real estate investor C.J. Evron said the two restaurants on his property - Fins Creekside and Gaetano's Ristorante - have fared well because they draw different crowds from the Sagebrush Cantina.

Evron is in escrow to sell his two-acre property after 20 years to Syd Leibovitch, president of Paramount Properties, who is opening a Paramount Rodeo Realty office in old Town Calabasas this month.

Leibovitch said he was willing to pay $3 to $4 per square foot for his leased offices - about double the rent rates of nearby office space - to get the foot traffic he will find at Old Town Calabasas.

For the city, the cost benefit analysis is no less compelling. The study of the value of the 7-acre site will be complete within two weeks to a month.

Meanwhile, Calabasas officials are waiting for a promised assessment by chief legislative analysts at the City of L.A.

"It's our desire to annex them, so we have to come up with a number, but we're trying to do it in concert with them so we can do this together' Duckworth said.

Even if the price is agreed upon, the process of de-annexing and then annexing the land could take more than a year.