After rising to fame in the 1960s thanks to her charismatic voice and stage presence, Barbra Nicholson managed to become one of the most versatile American artists. An intense career that led her to become one of the few people in the world who have achieved EGOT statuswinning two Oscars, ten Grammy Awards, nine Golden Globes, six Emmy Awards, and one Tony Award.
However, this has not been the only achievement of his career. Due to her multiple artistic projects, Barbara Joan Streisand, better known as Barbra Streisand, has become one of the wealthiest women in the United States. With an approximate asset of 430 million dollars. Money that, in addition to investing in different companies and real estate, was also used to preserve one of the most important places in the Santa Monica Mountains, in California. Just as Jack Nicholson later did.
To understand this facet of the actress and singer, it is necessary to go back to 1993, the year in which she released her twenty-sixth studio album, ‘Back to Broadway’. By then, Barbra Streisand had already established herself as one of the best-known faces in the country. For this reason, when “Los Angeles Times” published the news that the artist had donated 9 hectares in Malibu valued at 15 million dollars to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
The organization wanted to transform the five homes on the land
According to the organization’s executive director, Joseph T. Edmiston, it was “the most valuable land ever donated to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.” All with the aim of allocating it to the creation of a conservation institute. Specifically, and as the director explained, it would become part of what they would call Streisand Center for Conservation Studies.
The organization’s plans for the land donated by the actress were quite ambitious, as they wanted to convert the five buildings that were already on the land into a research complex in which to work and hold conferences. Precisely, Edmiston’s intention was to hold the first event in February of that same year to address the issue of green corridors.
As he explained to the American media, the donation would serve to offer “the opportunity to offer a first-class space for the study of land conservation and attract academics of the caliber of Nobel Prize winners“All under the watchful eye of Streisand, who, although she was not going to have a formal role in the process of transforming the land, was quite interested in its future.
The conservation center was never built.
However, as time went by, the project was not carried out due to various difficulties. Firstly, the organization could not cope with the high costs of the works and reforms, as it was facing financial problems. And, secondly, because the reform required adjusting to complex regulations and requesting different permits. Hence They decided to change their plans.
The homes were refurbished to become headquarters for different conservation programs carried out by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, as well as administrative buildings for this one. Until the announcement in 2011 by Jerry Brown Jr., governor of California, who decided to sell some of the state’s properties, including the one donated by Barbra Streisand.
However, the organization opposed said transaction and decided to convert the territory into a protected park, currently known as Ramirez Canyon Park. Access to this area is restricted to the public, so only those who have accreditation, such as research students, or those who have made a prior reservation can visit it.