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.