Offices, Condos Among O.C. Properties Up for Sale

WASHINGTON —  A small office building in Orange built by a defunct thrift whose former owners now are convicted swindlers. A $4-million “windmill” nestled in Malibu’s verdant Ramirez Canyon owned by a troubled Costa Mesa thrift. A $75-million hotel near Palm Springs that hosts world champion tennis. A sprawling equestrian center in Griffith Park.

These properties are among scores in California that were built, acquired or repossessed by savings and loan associations that went under.

On Tuesday, they found their place on the first comprehensive list of real estate put on the auction block by the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency that is seeking to recover some of the scores of billions of dollars that S&L; failures will cost taxpayers.

Much of the roster of California properties is unassuming. A vacant auto park in Oxnard. Condominiums in central Los Angeles. Time-share vacation properties in Carlsbad and Lake Tahoe.

But at least some of the pieces of real estate have acquired a degree of fame.

In Orange County, the former headquarters of the Ramona Savings & Loan Assn. is a small, garden-style office building in the city of Orange. A modest 8,000 square feet, it was built in 1981 by the then high-flying S&L.;

But Ramona collapsed in 1986 after owners John L. Molinaro and Donald P. Mangano, in the words of one federal regulator, began using it as a “personal piggy bank.”

Molinaro was found guilty Oct. 5 on 33 counts of bank fraud, conspiracy and causing false information to be entered on Ramona’s books. Mangano, 52, was convicted on 31 counts of bank fraud and conspiracy. Sentencing is scheduled for Monday in Los Angeles federal court.

After Ramona’s collapse, the building in Orange was acquired by Midwest Savings Assn. of Minneapolis. In February, 1989, after an expansion binge that saw it acquire two other failed thrifts in Iowa and Oklahoma, Midwest itself was declared in jeopardy and seized by federal regulators.

Other Orange County properties listed for sale are less glamorous: Lakeview Office Condos at 4676 Lakeview Ave. in Yorba Linda and Airport West Business Park at 245 Fischer Ave. in Costa Mesa.

A more high-profile property with Orange County ties is for sale in Malibu. It is also one of the most expensive of thousands of single-family homes on the Resolution Trust list.

The 19-room, windmill-shaped estate is tucked away in Ramirez Canyon, near property owned by singer and actress Barbra Streisand. One of the windmill’s recent residents has identified himself as “Sir” John Fairchild, although reporters were unable to verify his claim to knighthood.

According to real estate records, the owner of record is Pacific Savings and Loan Assn., the insolvent Costa Mesa thrift that was taken over by federal regulators last February. Pacific Savings was one of the first targets of the Bush Administration’s effort to clean up the nation’s troubled savings and loan industry.

The thrift was acquired in October by Royal Trustco Ltd., a Canadian financial institution, with $550 million in federal assistance. The S&L; is now part of Pacific First Financial Corp., Royal Trustco’s U.S. holding company based in Seattle.

But elsewhere in Southern California some high-brow real estate is on the block. The Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells, whose tennis courts have hosted the likes of Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg, is the site of the $700,000 Newsweek Champions Cup, which is played in the spring.

Built in 1986, the 336-room hotel is “awash with lagoons, swimming pools, fountains and waterfalls,” according to at least one travel writer, and offers guests books in their bathrooms and robes in their closets.

But Simi Valley-based Gibraltar Savings is now in “exclusive negotiations” to sell the resort to a buyer whom Richard Post, a Gibraltar senior vice president, declined to identify. Like many other troubled S&Ls;, Gibraltar has been taken over by federal regulators and its asset sales are being run by the RTC.

The resort, which cost about $120 million to build and opened in 1986, is 87% owned by Gibraltar. The other stockholders are three insurance companies, Post said. Resolution Trust listed the property’s current appraised value at $75 million.

Another financially troubled property is the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, built on land leased from the city of Los Angeles, and Gibraltar is involved in that deal as well.

The $15-million center was an albatross around Gibraltar’s neck for most of the 1980s. The financial institution assumed ownership of the property through foreclosure in 1988.

Built in 1981 on 70 acres of property in Griffith Park, the center has lost more than $27 million and been controversial from the time it opened. At one time, the property’s operators wanted to convert the rented horse stalls into condominiums, but the idea was turned down by the city.

Gibraltar Savings has agreed to sell the center for an undisclosed amount to a group of private investors led by Gene Harmon, a semi-retired banker from Burbank. The sale still needs the approval of the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department.

Another California property that may soon be disposed of is an 18,000-square-foot commercial lot in Napa that is home to a historic Victorian structure. Its sale is expected to close by the end of the month, according to the agent who listed the property.

At various times home to a bed and breakfast, a restaurant and a delicatessen, the property had been repossessed by Washington Savings & Loan of Stockton. Washington Savings, in turn, was taken over by federal regulators.

The buyer, a Napa company, plans to convert the building into office space. But there has been one hitch. The former owner constructed his restaurant kitchen and a bathroom on neighboring property without seeking the benefit of an easement.

Negotiations are in progress.

Times staff writers Tom Furlong and Ruth Ryon contributed to this story.