Beyond the gates, a public gateway

THE first time I drove up to Ramirez Canyon Park in Malibu -- the former Barbra Streisand ranch -- was for a journalism conference. The private gated road winds up Ramirez Canyon along a year-round stream flanked by gargantuan live oaks and sycamores. The park lies beyond a locked gate at the very end and most scenic stretch of the road, where the baby chaparral hills rise and narrow to form a steep gorge. I've been through the gates four times -- three invited, even -- and doubt that any of the gated canyons I have never seen in Malibu could be prettier, or any property within them more enchanting.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has occupied the ranch as its headquarters since the actress donated it to the organization in 1993. The offices are scattered through three of Streisand's five houses -- the former main residence (the Barn, with more aged wood than an average barn, and a bit more stained glass), the pink Mediterranean-style Peach House, and the lodge-like Barwood, named after her production company. Cactuses bloom under magnolia trees outside the unoccupied Art Deco House. Palm trees share the hillsides with pine trees and a citrus and avocado orchard. The 22-acre landscape also boasts a rose garden, bougainvillea, a redwood grove, copa de oro vines, the oaks by the creek, and a grand central meadow.

Like an uber-version of many estates throughout L.A.'s mountains, this Compound of Paradise combines touches of a Spanish villa, a backwoods cabin, Tahiti and a desert ashram, all exuding the virtually irresistible hybrid spirit of Thoreau's Walden and Louis XIV's Versailles.

On my third entry into the park, I attended a reception for Coastwalk, a nonprofit group that works to create a continuous walking trail along the entire California coast. The conservancy allows the public in only for scheduled events because the road is private. To establish this limited use, they had to fight the standard battle in Malibu for public access to public lands that are blocked by private access routes. Out came the neighbors' lawsuits, the city of Malibu's lawsuits, the paeans to private property and bitter denunciations of the state in the Malibu Times. The conservancy won, but only sort of. It has to adhere to daily quotas on vehicles and visitors.