n its priciest purchase yet, the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) has promised to raise $39 million to buy 1,719 acres of prime coastal land, including 10 miles of unspoiled beachfront, that could otherwise be developed for 50 trophy homes.
Last week Menlo Park-based POST acquired an option to purchase three ranches owned by the Muzzi family along the south coast of San Mateo County, between Pescadero and Pigeon Point, for $39 million -- the most ever paid by a nonprofit land trust to purchase open space in the Western United States.
"It's thrilling, and it's scary," said Audrey Rust, president of the Menlo Park-based land trust. "We have to start getting that money."
POST has 18 months to complete the purchase. Payment of $13 million each are due on August 15 and then on January 15, 2001, and January 15, 2002, Ms. Rust said.
She is hoping that some of the dot-com people who might have built huge houses on the already subdivided lots will pitch in to help preserve the beautiful area, with its 10 miles of unspoiled beachfront.
"Because of the existing number of separate legal lots involved, these lands could have been developed into 51 very large, very expensive trophy homes," she said.
The Muzzi property, now known as Bolsa Point Ranches, consists of:
**Peninsula Farms, 141 acres just south of Pescadero Marsh, which is being farmed for leeks and artichokes.
**Bean Hollow Farm, 1,490 acres located adjacent to and inland from Bean Hollow State Beach, which includes the Lake Lucerne reservoir and nearby farms raising artichokes and Brussels sprouts.
**Lighthouse Ranch, 88 acres including three-quarters of a mile of beachfront adjacent to Pigeon Point Lighthouse.
Combined with nearby parkland and open space, including the adjacent Cloverdale Ranch bought by POST in 1997, the purchase will create nearly 54 square miles of contiguous open space, with 10 miles of hitherto private beaches.
The price POST is paying reflects the Peninsula's soaring real estate market; just two years ago, POST paid $6.7 million for the 5,600-acre Cloverdale Ranch, Ms. Rust noted. Even so, there were several offers.
San Mateo attorney and former county planning commissioner Vince Muzzi, whose family bought the properties in 1954, said they decided to sell to POST based on "tax issues, timing issues, and price issues." He added, "In looking at the alternatives, this was the better way to go."
Now, besides raising money, POST will engage in a planning process for the new property in conjunction with Cloverdale Ranch. Eventually, farming will be retained, possibly in private ownership subject to restrictions that keep the land rural; and the beach front land will go to a public agency, Ms. Rust predicted.
As part of the deal, POST has gained water rights from the Lake Lucerne system and Little Butano Creek, as well as half the water rights on Gazos Creek.
"It puts us in a position to help restore Gazos Creek for steelhead and endangered coho salmon," Ms. Rust said.
Since it was founded in 1977, POST has saved some 40,000 acres on the Peninsula for open space, agriculture, parks and natural resources. For more information, contact POST, 3000 Sand Hill Road, 4-135, Menlo Park, CA 94025; call 854-7696; or log on to: www.openspace trust.org.
